Posts tagged zen-of-design 
Gaming blog Imaginary Cogs focuses on MMO operations and server technology
There's a fair number of people out there blogging about their preferred massively multiplayer online games as well as the industry itself, and more all the time it seems. One area that isn't covered very often, however, is MMO operations, largely because it's something many bloggers have little ...
Age of Conan: mostly armless
Damion Schubert, a long-time game developer, runs a personal website called Zen of Design, where he tackles any number of issues in MMO design. Sometimes, though, he just throws out random bits of goodness like this Age of Conan experience: Tonight in Age of Conan, someone jumped me while i was ...
Using permadeath as a character reset
Damion over at Zen of Design combined (or saw his readers combine) two things that are rarely done in MMOs, and draw a lot of attention when they are done. Recently, permadeath has been brought up a few times (and implemented a few as well), and other games (most notably Shadowbane) have reset all ...
The Digital Continuum: Evolving past fantasy Pt.1
Over the past couple of weeks the MMO blogosphere has once again been discussing the ever-pertinent question of "Why fantasy?" in regards to the MMO and its heritage; MUDs and tabletop gaming. The subject has been covered quite well from many different points of view and opinions, none of which ...
Damion Schubert seeks a different kind of grind
MMO developers and publishers try to provide game-play that keeps you coming back again and again so you won't stop their money flow by canceling your subscription. The easiest way for them to do this is to make their games an addictive grind. You feel compelled to level up. You can't help yourself. ...
Making fun be worth it
Zen of Design has a great post up about how MMO game mechanics should "incentivize fun" in the gameplay. The main example Damion uses is the "daily quests" recently introduced to World of Warcraft-- Blizzard originally gave all players a goal of 5000g for their epic mounts, but then realized that ...
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Some Assembly Required: TUG interview reveals the true nature of Soylent Green
Posted on May 24th 2013 12:00PM
