Playing With, Not Next To

Yesterday, I mentioned that one of the biggest issues in the modern MMO is that we are playing next to, not with, each other. In short, we're engaged in parallel play. Well, technically, it is associative play, since we're all playing together in the same activity, but that's not as well known a phrase. But, for the sake of accuracy, let's call it associative play. MMOs biggest hiccup is that, for the most part, in the grand scheme of things, we do not have a way for players to engage in meaningful cooperative play frequently enough.

Have We Out Grown MMOs?

That's a question that came up last week or so. Johnson makes some good points and arguments, and I don't want to piggy back too much off of what he says. So, go read it, come back, then go below the fold. Underneath is one of my rambling "thoughts on game design" posts. So, keep that in mind. It is rambling and not proofed.

Oh, before you go read it though. Remember, June 27 is a GW2 stress test. Some of us will be at work, or something close to work, so we won't be able to play it. You could say that we've out grown mid-day stress tests.

Fiction Update: Zombie Story Rough Draft

The biggest note for today is that the first rough draft of the current story is complete. Here's the link for the story if you want it. If you don't want it, reading on will be kind of silly, since I'm going to talk about the experience of writing it.

Do You Play The Secret World?

Do you play The Secret World, and do you want to play with us? My main will be Escutcheon. Send me a message if you join, and we can play games together. He'll be easy to find. He likes guns and books (though in the live game, he'll go shotguns and pistols.)

The shotgun is for shooting. The book is for reading.

More screenshots below the fold.

Measuring Success for Games

Since we're talking about MMOs lately, Guild Wars 2 has a good read. Now, I understand Johanson's point at making the grind of subscription based MMOs sound as terrible as they are. But, realistically, people are not going to plug away at their dailies and progression if they do not find it fun. Some people may choose to suffer a certain amount of indignity, provided the rest of the game is fun.

But, it does ask a really good question: "If we chose fun as our main metric for tracking success, can we flip the core paradigm and make design decisions based on what we’d like to play as game players?"

Play It Your Way Ethos

One of the big selling point of a lot of upcoming MMOs (and most past MMOs) is that you can play your character your way. Look at Guild Wars (1 and 2!), The Secret World, The Matrix Online, Champions, etc., etc. Even games with fairly strict character progression and talenting structure, like Star Wars, insist you can play it your way. But, I'm curious what you would need to do, from a design stand point, to really let players play it their way.

Matt Makes a Runesmith!

Today, I realized, that we needed a Rune Smith.

We now have a Rune Smith.

He has a book. It is filled with grudges.

Instead of a great weapon, he has a shield.

That is all. I have a headache from adjusting to new glasses. So, no real content today. Go to yesterday and read about The Secret World or check out the Veritech. Or, read about a little girl in a futuristic Western. Or, you know, things I haven't written.