Tales From the Tavern: Volume I

The Nerfbat Tavern is off to a great start, with discussions ranging from death penalties, PvP, raids, on to OpenGL vs. DirectX. Since unveiling the forums 3 days ago, members have posted nearly 100 articles and we’ve kicked off some amazing discussions. For people who like metagames, I managed to get a rank, coin and store system working on the forums just yesterday. You earn experience and coin for posting, and can spend that money on custom titles, custom name/title colors, name changes, and a few other entertaining items. Here’s the first of a hopefully ongoing series of Tales from the Tavern, in which I briefly discuss the conversations we’re having from within:

• What type of PvP do you prefer, if any?: We’re discussing what type of PvP we like in MMOGs. So far, Full PvP with Realistic Consequences is in the lead with 37% of the votes. Within, forum members are talking about karma systems, immersion in PvP games, voluntary PvP vs. free PvP, and why PvP should or should not artificially restrict players from participating. Read on…
• The Death Mechanic: A debate rages on about how harsh death penalties should be. Does overcoming adversity feel amply rewarding if you know death would do little to hinder you beyond making you run back to start over? Should we conditionally modify the penalty based on death being a player’s fault or something that occurred due to outside factors? Does removing some form of corpse recovery from the game lead some groups to disband when they would have otherwise worked together to get back? These are just a few of the questions we discuss about death penalties.
• Raid Content in MMORPGs: Morfina, Korlaf, and others discuss the intricacies of raiding in online games. Among the topics covered are what high end content and raiding are intended to accomplish, how games like EverQuest II do raiding, and what aspects of raiding need to exist in order for it to be fun. Ever been a high-end raider or are you interested in the topic? Go and participate in the conversation.
• Graphics Tech Review and Stats: Cael shares his findings about framerate advantages and ease of implementation for the following environments: “Raw” OpenGL + MS Visual C++ 2005, “Raw” DirectX 9c + MS Visual C++ 2005, Irrlicht + OpenGL + C++, Irrlicht + DirectX 9c + C++, HADDD + DirectX 9c + C#, (Managed) DirectX 9c (MDX2.0) + C#. His conclusion? You get to see for yourself by checking out the thread.

There have already been some excellent discussions in the Nerfbat Tavern, and I can’t wait for more to give their input on the topics we’ve already started to discuss as well as the many more that will arise. The Tavern is focused primarily on discussing broad concepts about massively multiplayer games, from game design to coding, from the things we like to the things we hate. I’ll be seeing you over a mug of ale.