To continue on my line of game design laws for MMOs, I decided to make it easy on myself and just head straight into it and look at Raph’s first law of game design. This rule is actually four in one. I think the point of it was to get under your belt the four…Continue readingThe Online Games of Wide Appeal Law
It has been years since Raph Koster first collected the wisdom of various MMORPG enthusiasts and developers and wrote down a list of Laws of Online World Design. I don’t even think he has touched it for many years, I bet the last edit happened sometime after Dark Age of Camelot was released, given that…Continue readingNew Laws for MMO Design
Sony Online Entertainment announced their new micro-transaction model for both Everquest and Everquest 2 recently, deciding to take American MMORPGs in an entirely new direction. I can’t say that anyone in particular was surprised by the move. Sony has long been on the forefront at finding new ways to charge MMO players more money than they already were paying.Continue reading$OE Strikes Again
I have long been a proponent of death penalties in MMORPGs. Yeah they can sometimes be a harsh penalty that is rather off putting, but there are many reasons why the game design requires the death penalty to be there. Heck I still like the idea of permadeath although I think the time for that…Continue readingDeath Penalties
In one of my previous posts this last week I started delving into MMO design issues that have been changing for the worst in my opinion. In that particular article, I talked about how having instant messaging and global channels have potentially changed how the world of players interacts with each other. Continue readingTravel Times of Yore
I recently found out that Tabula Rasa was going to be shutting its doors after just one year on the market. In addition to this, Richard Garriott, whom largely is thought of as one of the major pioneers in MMORPG design, is leaving NCSoft as well. While this isn’t entirely surprising, the move is still rather amazing to me and quite sad to see it come to this.Continue readingGoodbye Tabula Rasa