Editorials

The period on December referred to as the "holidays" has come to mean many things and in this article, Robert Cox looks at what people can expect in some of the major MMORPGs. How do these virtual worlds celebrate this time of the year when so many have the time off work to peek inside?

If there's one thing the Horde and Alliance can agree on, it's a party. All across Azeroth and Outland, festive decorations adorn towns and cities as both sides begin their annual celebration of the Feast of Winter Veil.

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No rest for the holidays, Jonathan Steinhauer keeps his MMO design column on schedule with part one of "Killing Experience". In this, he looks at the primary form of advancement in every major MMO: combat.

Why is it that the dominant method of character growth in almost every game in existence is through the killing of monsters and villains? Whether you are looking at the oldest of pen-and-paper games, your mainstream single-player RPG, or the newest MMO, character growth always seems to boil down to "I killed that goblin warlord so I get 100xp." On the other hand, if the same goblin was hacked and beaten to an inch of its life and then left alone to recover (which usually averages less than thirty seconds), the same player would get zero experience from the battle.

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In his latest Monday column, Jim Moreno gives us a snapshot of the state of roleplaying in two new MMOs and two older ones. For more of his thoughts on World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Ultima Online and Anarchy Online, click below.

World of Warcraft
Wijon'bu Zentao (Earthen Ring), known as Wichdocta, or just 'Wichy' by his friends, is a troll priest of the voodoo discipline. He shuns being called a healer, and his skills go beyond merely using the powers of shadow. He calls no place home, and can be seen walking through Shattrath City or Thunder Bluff one moment, to throwing the voodoo around Shadowmoon Valley or Silithus the next. He meditates often, either in quiet contemplation inside the Pools of Vision, walking amongst the huge mushrooms of Zangarmarsh, fishing around Nagrand, or by mixing and bottling up the mojo at the Undercity Apothecarium. He is always open to helping fight alongside his Horde brethren, especially when it comes to correcting the ways of the tribes of wayward trolls. Don't hesitate to ask this old troll for help, and may the spirits be with you.

Role on!

Today we introduce a new column to our schedule. Every other Wednesday, Sean Bulger will check in with his look at communities and design. In the first edition, Sean introduces us to his column and talks about players as a resource for development.

While it certainly does come off a bit grim to refer to players as a resource, we are. In fact, we are probably the most important resource for an MMO. When a game begins to fail and starts to lose players it tends to cause a landslide - when enough people leave a guild, they often take other guild members with them. When enough players leave a server, server merges are needed. Many people play MMOs because they are filled with other players - even testimonies from primarily solo-gamers still mention that other players filling the world is a positive thing for them. It is what separates these games from single player, or normal multiplayer games.

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In part two of his series on Gold Farming (read part one here), Jonathan Steinhauer looks further at the RMT industry and ways to realistically combat the problem.

A full barter economy won't stop gold farmers, but it will make their job more difficult, especially if the commodities can be kept diversified (something AC failed to do). Then it becomes not a matter of simply harvesting cash, but of netting resources, completing quests, and so on. Looking at this from the flip angle makes sense, too. A dishonest player who wants to get a lot of capital can't simply go to an RMT and buy loads of universally useful cash, they have to purchase resources which may or may not be useful to them and may even become obsolete. It makes sense as a genre too. Most MMOs are founded on the fantasy model with the Middle-Ages as the base point of inspiration. Only in the latter years of the medieval era was money used at all. Prior to that it was all barter, be it chicken's eggs for cow's milk or lordly protection for feudal service. A barter economy doesn't hurt game play or the trade market; instead, it makes both more interesting.

Read more after the leap.

In this last regular edition of Mitra's Method for 2007, we take a look at the "year that was..." for 'Age of Conan'.

" If this year had bumps, then bring on the dips and loop-the-loops, by Crom!"

Is there truly merit into looking to the past to determine where one is headed in the future? This fortnight, you can be the judge of that.

In the latest edition of "RoleCraft" - Jim Moreno's bi-weekly column on all things roleplaying - he delves into the idea of rolling a character and how people come to create them.

WHO is this character?
Name your character! Sometimes I do this first, sometimes I make it the final step. Depends on how deeply I have their personality set in my mind. Make use of the random name generator, it can be a great tool. You certainly don't have to use the name given, but maybe it can flash into your head a name you like and that fits.

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Jonathan Steinhauer's back with his Monday column, this week he looks at the controversy that is gold farming in the first part of a multi-part series. Gold farming is a practice where companies send employees into a game to literally farm gold. They then sell that gold to players online. Steinhauer wants to know what to do about the issue.

The purpose of this article is neither to discuss the moralities of gold farming, nor to debate whether RMT is, in fact, beneficial to ingame economies. Concerning the latter, I'm not an economist and am hardly qualified to render an informed opinion. As to the former, there is no issue. Gold Farming and RMT are in violation of the End User Legal Agreements (EULA) of just about every MMO in existence and, therefore, are illegal. Enough said.

So lets move on to a topic that is debatable: what to do about it.

Read more after the leap.

What do you really want in Age of Conan? What is your Age of Conan "Christmas wish"?

"It's simply not good enough just to meet expectations in today's market; you have to go well beyond them!"

If you've been good this year, what are you hoping "Santa Gaute" to deliver to you by the time the game is finished, polished, and ready? This fortnight, it's more than just about a "good gaming experience", but the things you want and are hoping for in Age of Conan all together for that "awesome" feel.

Jim Moreno's bi-weekly role-playing column "RoleCraft" gets going again today on a new day. Every other Monday, Moreno brings you his thoughts on role-playing and MMORPGs. This week, he looks at permanent death - specifically among NPCs - and how it is explained away by role-players in MMOGs like World of Warcraft.

How many times has Onyxia been slain? Has anyone seen and/or heard of any major Alliance or Horde leader being killed? And what do you know, a few minutes later, they return! Perhaps what our characters see of them is merely their avatar, and that their true selves in fact exist on another plane? Heck, stranger things have happened in WoW, right? Didn't we just have a spaceship crash not too long ago? With that, I reserve the right to RP any wild & crazy idea that my rampant imagination can create!

Read more after the leap.