Raph has a great post about making massively multiplayer games (and other virtual spaces) more social. This is one of the great failures in the age of World of Warcraft, and it’s one of the main things I dislike about WoW. If you played older games like Ultima Online and EverQuest, you know that both were significantly more social environments. Recent games have failed players in their social aspects more than anything else, and Raph has some good thoughts about how to make virtual spaces more social.

I’m going to be playing in the Novice League at Navin Skating Rink in Marlborough, MA starting next month. The games start at 10:00PM on Fridays from February 13th on. You can sign up for the season or per game. I’ll also be at the Advanced Intro Clinics on Tuesdays. They’re trying to expand from 4 to 6 teams, which is why I’m fishing for more people. Would like to see someone sign up!

How much do gold farmers bother you? Game designers sometimes have to make decisions because we know gold farmers will be present in a game. Usually these decisions don’t negatively impact normal gameplay, but often it’s a choice between two possible designs, and one is chosen over the other because part of its merit is that it either negatively impacts gold farmers or encourages them to stay out of the way of normal players. How much do you care if you notice bots or players farming gold? Do you only care if it interrupts your gameplay?

This month’s Boston Post Mortem game development meeting will be at 7:00 PM on Wednesday, January 21st at The Skellig in Waltham. The speaker will be Looking Glass alumnus Randy Smith, most recently of EA LA. Randy was one of the people who shaped the design of the entire Thief series (my favorite series ever). He also writes a game design column in Edge Magazine. I’ll definitely be trying to make this one. More can be found on the Boston Post Mortem website.

You’d think someone like me with a background in community would have signed up for Twitter a long time ago. Alas, I withheld until I could stay away no longer. I still don’t quite get it. It seems like a blog without the expectation that there will be substance in a post. Anyway, QforQ’s post finally prompted me to sign up. My name on Twitter is rshwayder.