...game a lot, which makes it the butt of my attacks. But I prefer itover WoW or Lotro, so my griping is not intended to dissuade people from trying it In fact, since most MMO players have never tried EQ2, they have no idea what they might be missing. And far too often, I find that MMO designers havent played any MMO too seriously except the one...

...games like EverQuest or Dark Age of Camelot show this most clearly: they have tightly-controlled classes with an extremely limited range of effective verbs. Most classes have a right way to build the character and myriad wrong ways to do it. The systems designer makes sure that the classes right ways are all reasonably in sync, at leastat...

...game were reading its forums,they would come away thinking just about any game in existence is terrible. Not just terrible a blight upon the world, a source of misery and death, the reason video games should be banned. The gamescrime? Bad balance, down time, not delivering features on time, bugs you know, life or death stuff Its a frustrating...

...game where the world suddenly feelsbarren and empty. And then suddenly people start disappearing evenmore rapidly, and then thegame boils down to the most dedicated of fans only and then youre stuck with just those people forever Its often very sudden. Your game is just cruising along, losing a few hundredpeopleper month, and then suddenly...

...games. I dont really believe that slow travel makes the world seem bigger. But I put up with travel in MMO games because, however much it annoys me, it rarely rises into my list of top ten concerns But Im finished reading all the new blog posts in Google Reader , Im all caught up with both Salon and Sinfest , and Im considering starting on...

...gamehas finished pre-production and Yourcompany has hired a half-dozen level designers already, but the level-design tools arent finished being coded yet. So those level designers areworking on paper or making mock ups in 3D Max. And playing lots of games on the clock You still dont have a playable demo version of your game that supports...

...game Who is your game for If you answered the internet! Its free!, you lose As game developers we tend to think of people as hardcore gamers and casual gamers, as if people magically fit into these two buckets. So if subscriptions are for hardcore gamers, then your free game should targetcasual gamers, right? And theres a whole lot more of...

...game companies do. If a character is worth $10,000, shouldwe be allowed to sell it regardless of what the game companies want? The courts should rule on this Well, actually, thats a terrible idea given the level of knowledge the courts have, they couldnt possibly make an informed and nuanced decision. Hell, we as an industry cant do it...

...game. My target: Noblegarden, a small holiday event in World of Warcraft. First we will look at how the event is designed, then reverse engineer its probable goals and look at how it meets those goals. Finally, well take a look at how some modifications to the event might improve it or not! Basic Design Noblegarden is the in-game...

...game, but how useful or common or popular are those items? Thats not something you can find out as easily Because of this,many designers are unaware of whats happened in past games.The typical MMO developer Ive met has only played two or three MMOs for any lengthy period of time. So when they sit down to create, say, the potion system for...