After having come back from Oslo, Norway, and settled back into "life, the norm", I'm as enthusiastic as I ever was about 'Age of Conan':
"Now we are on the final stretch, with the goal plain in sight."
This fortnight, we learn that the "Rome wasn't built in a day" philosophy also applies to game development.
This week's "Community Column" from Sean Bulger looks at the concept of pre-made player factions in games and how they enhance or effect community.
In light of the current 'political season', so to speak, I would like to take a look at one area of gameplay in MMOs that truly does have a strong impact on player communities: Player factions. Now, when I speak of something like factions, I do not specifically refer to guilds. Rather, factions are groups of players within a game that are, generally speaking, opposed to each other, and/or have some sort of conflict or even more political relations with each other. They are also often encouraged by gameplay.
Many games see aspects of factions such as these within them. Dark Age of Camlot, World of WarCraft, EverQuest 2, Final Fantasy XI, PlanetSide, and even games such as EVE Online and ShadowBane have various types of factions that players can join and/or create.
Read more after the jump.
Jonathan Steinhauer looks more deeply into the phenomenon of level based games in "Breaking the Level Barrier, Part 2". This follows his piece two weeks ago where he first examined this topic.
That's not to say that step learning doesn't exist. But it is generally found in activities were you either can or can't do a thing. For example, in the quest to fly, the Wright Brothers didn't gradually fly. The first time occurred in a single instant and once that was achieved, they could repeat the feat (although I would argue that the gaining of knowledge that enabled flight was still slope-learning). Some growth in life tends to be a blend, such as studying mathematics. The gaining of knowledge and skill in math occurs on a learning curve, but there are "steps" along the way, such as basic addition and subtraction, Trigonometry, and Calculus.
Read more after the leap.
Sean Bulger's community management driven column this week is called "Emergent Gaming". He looks at the upcoming trends in gaming and how that relates back to the community.
This could appear in several different forms, one of which is known as emergent gameplay. Emergent gameplay has been a popular phrase lately. Effectively, it is players doing something with a game that the game wasn't actually designed for. Races in MMOs, creating pictures with gold in Lineage 2, or using grenades to launch vehicles or players in the air in spectacular ways in FPSs, are all prime examples of this.
In fact, there are some games out there, and in the works, that are built entirely upon the principle of emergent gaming. They aim to give players tools, as opposed to game systems, with which they can create their own gameplay.
Read more after the jump.
Jim Moreno gets back into the groove in 2008 with his latest column: Roleplayers Set S.A.I.L.! This is an acronym for "speech, actions, interactions and look", which are to him four main traits roleplayers focus on. Every other Monday, Moreno brings us a new column where he focuses in on issues that are important to roleplayers.
Taking a good look at my fellow roleplayers in the four MMORPGs I play, and across many other RPGs I've played, I see a vast number of ways we display our RP talents, way too many to count. Yet, I think these methods may all be categorized under four main traits that we focus on - speech, actions, interactions, and look - and are very easily remembered with the acronym SAIL.
Read more after the leap.
I had the opportunity to give dungeon raiding and CTF PvP a go while over in the Funcom offices last week, and today I present my my hands-on report of my experience:
"If the 'Age of Conan' dungeon designers were going for a dark, hellish, dank, and misty look for the Sanctum of Burning Souls, then they well and truly pulled it off."
Whether your game's dungeon raiding or PvP, 'Age of Conan' will be a game to sate your gameplay desires.
In his latest article, community columnist Sean Bulger looks at "The Site Beyond the Game". This community management focused column looks at official sites, how different games do it and what else is out there.
Every game has an official site for various reasons. The official site of a game is either an important hub of information and activity or it is simply a marketing page trying to draw players in. Or sometimes it is both, like how Sony Online Entertainment sets up their websites - the main page being a flash page used to draw players in, while also retaining forums and the Players websites.
Read it all after the leap.
I'll bet that you, the Mitra's Method faithful, are dying to read on and find out what I have learned about 'Age of Conan' and its progress through the beta stage.
"...This was an opportunity to see the groundwork of this game; the developers hard at work making this game what it is set out to be on May 20, 2008."
Today, it's information about the game itself with a plethora of information to come over the next coming days also.
Sam Kennedy, an editor at 1Up.com has written an opinion piece trying to make sense out of the recent problems at Gamespot and the reliability of game reviews from major news organizations.
And how about GameSpot? Will it be able to rebound from Gerstmann-gate? As a business, it'll be just fine (the dirty little secret of sites like GameSpot is that traffic is largely made up of stuff like cheat codes and forum posts anyway). In fact, the controversy surrounding Gerstmann was said to have actually boosted traffic to the site. But the question is, for those people who used to rely on GameSpot for its reviews -- and there were a great many people out there who did -- will they still, knowing that they might not be getting the same honesty as they used to? Whether or not GameSpot management realizes this, but every single review for the foreseeable future is going to be viewed with a certain air of caution. It could take years for Gerstmann-gate to leave peoples' minds (GameSpot of all publications should know this -- it took years for Sega fans to forgive the site for its 6.8 score of Shenmue). Potentially toned down reviews? I don't think gamers are going to stand for that. Not when they're shelling out $60 a pop for these things. And going forward, believe me, every advertisement in proximity of editorial will be closely scrutinized (did a publisher pay for this review?).
It's a very long and provocative article. Be sure to read it. It's an eye opener into the "biz" of game reviews.
Jonathan Steinhauer's bi-weekly Monday column looks at the "level barrier" in its latest edition. Within, he examines the very concept of levels that most MMOs embrace and what's wrong with them.
Looking more into levels within games, we find that their use a broad statement of experience demands a certain rigidness of focus. Only a few rare exceptions (such as Neverwinter Nights where an adventurer can have more than one character class) allow for greater flexibility of experience. But if you were to twist character levels and actually measure real life experience, would it be absurd to find a man that is a Level 25 computer programmer, a Level 30 husband, a Level 10 bowler, and a Level 42 chef? Not at all.
Read more after the leap.
