Fantasy Heartbreaker, by Rose Bailey
Games for people who care too much
For the last few years, alongside developing Vampire: The Requiem, I’ve been working as a content designer on White Wolf’s next generation online game, World of Darkness. Last night, World of Darkness was announced to White Wolf’s fans at The Grand Masquerade. I’m extremely proud. This actually isn’t much of a change for me; I’ve Read More …
Or, “why team-building consultants should hire game designers.” Read More …
Good morning, MMO designers. Nice day, isn’t it? Well, I hope it is where you are. I’m in Atlanta, where we have “southern charm,” a concept best summed up as “the curse the swamp-witch put on us for choosing to build here.” Or, perhaps, these summers are the ghosts of Sherman’s fires. Anyhow, it’s great Read More …
You’re in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. The enemy’s right behind you. Looks bad. But then you hear her. “I’m reading a weak wall up ahead. If you can hit it with a rocket, you might be able to get through to the generator room.” Say hi. You’ve just met our generation Read More …
Last time, in Quests: Splitting the Atom, I proposed that we start thinking of MMO gameplay and story in smaller chunks. These “scenes” would be triggered based on player resources, and players could manipulate them (deliberately or inadvertantly) by spending, trading, and gaining resources. Effectively, I suggested that we should deal out content based on Read More …
Quests serve four important purposes in MMO design: To direct players towards core gameplay. To place core gameplay within the context of the fictional world the game represents. To provide a definable duration for small-group play. To wallpaper over aspects of the world or system that don’t exist. I support the first three goals, and Read More …
I’m going to raise a bunch of issues here. Fair warning, I won’t be providing the solutions by the end of the article… or all at once. But there are a number of intertwined problems in basing next-generation MMOs on current-generation MMOs, and I need to dump those all on the table before I get Read More …
Matthew J. Finch’s A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming has been around a while, and, in certain Dungeons & Dragons circles, is held as a sort of Leviticus on how the game is supposed to be played. I, however, did not start gaming in 1974.1 I’ve gamed in a lot of different circles, and Read More …
So, my housemate, Orrin, played through the demo of Rich Dansky‘s Tom Clancy‘s Splinter Cell: Conviction. For the moment, her observations hold more water than mine, but just watching her, I could see the writing on the wall. For her, it was all stuff like “INFILTRATE THE MANSION,” but for me, it was “POST MORE Read More …
“Vatican II led to many changes in the Catholic Church, notable ones being the use of mother-tongues – instead of Latin – for parts of the mass, the empowerment of the laity, and allowing priests to use bladed weapons in combat.” — Critical Miss #8 I suppose I’d know who the cleric was, if I’d Read More …