Moo Tang Clan: December 2010

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

A telling assumption

By its very multiplayer nature, a MMORPG can not allow a player to really change the world, because other players need to have the opportunity to play through the same story.
~ Tobold, on story

Players need the opportunity to enjoy the game, that is all.

They can play through different stories, even make their own.

Monday, December 13, 2010

QOTD - Danc on building systems for stories

Don't build games in order to tell a single story. Build meaningful systems that create an explosion of culture, spread by the players who are absolutely thrilled to share what they've learned.
~ Danc, on story as evolutionary success or failure lessons

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Quote of the day

They simply forgot to balance their game around gameplay and hence jumped to the conclusion that it was the quest structure itself that was the issue and NOT the structure of the game. So instead they create quests that have nothing to do with the MMO or RPG aspects of the genre (a.k.a. meaningless mini-games that don’t involve ANYTHING you have done with your character AND don’t involve other people).
~ from a comment over at Keen & Graev's blog

Designing systems, vs designing levels

There's a fascinating post over at Lost Gardens, one which gets me thinking whether that approach could also be applied to MMOs. If it could, then it could well be the trick to overcoming the 900 lb gorilla in the room.

For contrast, there's this over at Hardcore Casual.

... what are your thoughts?

Monday, December 6, 2010