MMO and Game Industry Related blogging
Posted On Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 By Jay
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Are you good enough to complete? Think you have the skillz? Think you can take the punishment? Join My Brute and test your mettle.
Only a password and a name are required. Everything is stored without the link above.
Posted On Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 By Jay
Update: Fancy that! My main issue is that the keep system being implemented has no design hook into other sections of the game.
Having reflected on Warhammer Online state of open world pvp, it dawned on me that very little in that game has to do with holding a keep. In fact, the few rewards that exist that involve keeps have to do with attacking and taking over a keep not holding out against a siege. so I put my thinking cap on and designed a content centric system that borrows ideas from other mmos and leverages existing tech.
Goal:
Players want to own keep
More players want to adventure/pvp in RvR lakes than in other systems
Creates a critical mass of defending players
Players want to prevent the opposing faction from owning keeps
Constant tension and pressure for keep defenders
Create denser content for player consumption
Players want to own keep as they level
Problems this system is not meant to resolve:
Class balance issues
Trade Skill mechanism and value
Partial integration
Population balance within a server
We can encourage players and they must manage this themselves
Opposing factions will fight over ownership of a keep. Once a keep is owned, an ownership timer begins. Initially only the renown vendors and general item merchants spawn Continue Reading
Posted On Thursday, March 26th, 2009 By Jay
A curious event transpired today. A semi regular partly cloudy day in Upper New York state, regular work conversations, some loud, some hushed. All work related as we approach a green light build.
At work we use scrum. Its not news since many IT companies use scrum in some form or another. What is important is that lately more and more producers are carrying around net books. I recently purchased a net book as well, I love it. For many moons I’ve been requesting the Johnny Lee Setup in each room. I regularly hold conversations with my co workers about the wonders of a touch screen monitor as a white board.
Need to hold a brain storming session? Use the “white board” then email yourself the image or text. Need to organize scrum tasks in a way that doesn’t use a bazillion stacks of paper? Use a touch screen.
The above isn’t necessarily about persistence directly.
Today, a new path was taken. A new branch in the virtual white board space also known as virtual reality was championed. Today, my lead engineer brought up Minority Report. He brought up creating, not using, the virtual 3d interface used by Tom Cruise. I fire off a Continue Reading
Posted On Monday, March 9th, 2009 By Jay
When I think about the rewards that a game like World of Warcraft offer its long term subscribers, often the methods are overlooked by its players. Rewards from World of Warcraft come in the form of items. Always tangible, always taking up inventory space. In fact, the only rewards given by WoW that are not items, are in fact titles! Displayed with pride by the wearers. Such a sight!
It comes as no surprise then that with the introduction of heirloom items that indeed, they are items. Blizzard never disappoints! They scale and allow for a low level character that can’t find a regular instance group to gather necessary equipment. Since the leveling speed has been increased, the lower level areas are almost completely devoid of life. It’s nothing like it was 4 years ago. I would suggest anyone that began WoW post Vanilla, IE BC or Wrath to try an mmo they find interesting when it launches. I wonder if the denizens of Shattrath or even Hillsbrad ever get lonely? Remember those times when you spent countless hours at those locations? I certainly do. Those two locations were densely populated for roughly 2 real world years! I bet they do Continue Reading
Posted On Thursday, January 15th, 2009 By Jay
First, I made it through crunch.
Second, I hit 80 on my priest.
Third, I’ve raided as both discipline (very enjoyable) and holy (powerful but boring).
Fourth, I got my Valorous Shoulders. They’re hawt!
There are several topics that I’d like to discuss. 1 I’ll actually discuss, 1 I’ll mention and 1 that deserves its own post. The topic deserving its own post is a discussion on existing and possible future priest healing mechanics. As a note, I REALLY like the way discipline plays and I would like to see some major mechanical breakdown of the CoH tree… oops, I meant holy tree.
I’m going to mention the addition of the 6 second CoH cooldown and discuss briefly my feelings on it. I feel if a player rolled a priest to mash 1 button 50% of the time then they should have rolled either a paladin or shaman for healing. The largest distinguisher between the priest class and other healing classes is the sheer volume of tools available to you.
Flash heal, quick cast
Greater heal, long cast
Power word: Shield, instant
Power word: Fort, buff
Shadow Protection, buff
Renew, instant
Prayer of Healing, long cast, multiple targets
Prayer of Mending, instant, multiple targets
Hymn, mana regen, channeled
Fear Ward, instant buff
and the list continues
Green Text On Black