Posts tagged under-the-hood 
The Secret World's Øystein Eftevaag gets technical
When it comes to gameplay, we've heard about The Secret World inside and out. We know all about the Dragons, the Illuminati, and the Templars and the ongoing war against the encroaching darkness. But what about what's under the hood? The folks over at The Hydra Initiative decided to have a chat ...
Under The Hood: Factional Warfare
As sort of an addendum to the last Under The Hood on player choices and consequences, I present to you this article. I didn't have room to add my thoughts on factional warfare, unfortunately, and it's a system that really deserves an article all its own. Why is this such a major factor in most ...
Under The Hood: Choices and Consequences
Despite the persistence of most MMOs, there's one thing that the majority of them lack. I am, of course, speaking about consequences for your actions. Sure, you can kill some NPCs for experience and you yourself level up, but what about the world? The NPC just respawns and continues on his merry ...
Under The Hood: Colored Segregation
There are a lot of different game mechanics, ranging from the downright simple to the ethereal and hard-to-explain. I've talked a lot about the more subjective stuff, such as lore and paradigms and this and that, but only a few times have I hit the nitty gritty. So this week, I'm taking things to ...
Under The Hood: New Beginnings
Part of any MMO is starting from scratch. Whether you just started a new MMO, or a new character, the first few hours playing can determine whether or not you want to keep playing that game or character. So why is it that most MMOs have a lack of early game content? Countless times I have heard ...
Under The Hood: Stories and Lore
Part of any game is how the lore of the world interacts with the players although a lot of times the players don't realize it thanks to boring quest descriptions. World of Warcraft has the rich Warcraft universe behind it, Lord of the Rings Online has its own lorebook, and City of Heroes and ...
Under The Hood: Puzzling Developments
There's an interesting counterpoint to the increasing amount of games following the traditional MMO mechanics layout. No, I'm not talking about space MMOs and the mechanics they follow. We covered those last week! I'm talking about the gradual seepage of puzzlers into the genre. It's a budding ...
Under The Hood: The Depths of Space
Riding on the coattails of my last article, I realized that it would be a good idea to explore that new frontier. No, not cowboys and Indians. Outer space in MMOs is rapidly becoming the new "generic fantasy continent(s)" that almost every other MMO takes part in. It's also pushing the envelope, in ...
Under The Hood: Strategy on a Massive Scale
Ask any MMORPG player out there how much time it takes to play their game of choice, and the answers will range from the incredibly long to the delightfully short. And they will almost always be measured in how long it takes for you to level (one hour, one day, one year, etc). But real-time ...
Under The Hood: Player Economics 101
One of the more contentious points of an MMO is how it treats its economy. The average MMO runs the gamut of no real economy to speak of (besides vendors and drops), to a fully player-run economy such as the one in EVE Online, and everywhere in between (the middle point seems to be crafting and ...
