There are a couple of pretty rockin’ posts over at LagORama that are basically rants about changing things in MMOs from both the player and developer perspective. Both resonated with me, because both apply to me at all times. Check out An Open Letter to MMORPG Developers and An Open Letter to MMORPG Players. I agree with both. Does that make me a paradox?

Where is the great Player-versus-Player MMORPG? It doesn’t exist… yet. There have been a few attempts at integrating PvP into a massively multiplayer game from the ground-up, and it hasn’t quite worked out just yet, at least not for an avatar-based fantasy or sci-fi game. No true PvP game has gone mainstream since MMOs hit the big time. Continue Reading »

You might think that, as a game developer, I’m all for anything that can help against piracy. Piracy is bad, and can even cause companies to shut down when it runs rampant. But, how far is too far? Well, I think we’ve found out how far is too far. Now when I go purchase a game at the local video game store, I don’t even own it. Continue Reading »

Crave has an article up entitled The 30 dumbest videogame titles ever. I’ve renamed it to something more appropriate, because these are perhaps the 30 awesomest videogame titles ever. Gems like Leisure Suit Larry 3: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals, Ninja Hamster, and Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender. Seriously, those are kickass titles for games. If you don’t like them, you are probably over 50 or have a permanent chip on your shoulder. Check ‘em out.

The short answer is, “yes.” It depends on what kind of game you’re making, really, but since I talk about traditional MMORPGs on this blog (EverQuest, World of Warcraft, etc.), I can’t think of a case in which having a great writer would be optional — whether that writer is also a game designer or is specifically a writer. The point of this post is to link to two articles: the first asserting that we don’t need game writers, and the second proving that the first article is completely wrong. Case in point: Portal was elevated from being a very good game to one of the best games of all time due to its story.

Prokofy, the reason we hate RMT isn’t because we want to keep our games pure — that’s the reason it leaves a bad taste in our mouth. The reason we hate RMT is because gold farmers dramatically harm gameplay. They grief. They train mobs on others (getting them killed), they kill everything in sight so others can’t, and they constantly spam. We hate RMT because of the gold farmers who make playing games frustrating and unfun (they’re our equivalent of vandals and sim-crashers in Second Life). Hopefully that clears up some of the misunderstanding. If you’re confused, here’s a link: Broken Toys.

This is an incoherent rant prompted by posts from Jeff Freeman via Raph Koster and Richard Bartle and by way of Joystiq via The Inquirer. Each of those has something to do with gender bending in massively multiplayer games, which is a frightening epidemic of at least the same proportions as the black plague. Because, you know, if you play an avatar of a different gender in a virtual world — whether you tell others your real gender or not — you probably abuse drugs. Read at least one of theirs before you read this. Continue Reading »

As I get older — and I know I’m not very old yet — my personal preferences, as well as my gaming capabilities, have changed. I have less time to play games now that I’m married, and even if I had the time, I’d be less likely to spend the endless hours playing them that I used to. It can be tempting to hope that games will adapt with me, or that my favorite MMO will adapt with me; unfortunately, it’s not the games that need to adapt, it’s me. Continue Reading »

Scott Jennings is being bullied by lawyers. It makes me mad, and it makes Matt Mihaly mad too. I’m going to follow his lead by mirroring Lum’s post (which will be down tonight) on Nerfbat for a short period of time. Dear lawyers, I’m going to get rid of this in a few days anyway, so there’s really no need to send me a scary ass email telling me to take it down. Continue Reading »

Watching one of my favorite modern comedies, “Office Space,” inspired me. What does “PC LOAD LETTER” mean? Well, that’s kinda the point. What DOES it mean? It’s ambiguous and uses a common acronym to mean something other than the accepted and understood meaning. How would I interpret it? “Go back to your personal computer and resend your document to the printer.” Naturally, I would be entirely wrong. Continue Reading »