Psychochild's Blog

A quote I particularly like is attributed to William R. Inge: There are two kinds of fools: One says, "This is old therefore it is good." The other one says, "This is new therefore it is better."

I can't help but think about this quote often in the game industry as new fashions are introduced. There tend to be two camps: one that clings to the old ways while fearing the new, and one that rushes to the new claiming it will wipe away the old. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in between, but the game industry sure does like its extremes.

So, with this in mind, I want to take a look at social games and metrics-based game design, two more recent fashions to hit the game industry.
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They say money makes the world go 'round. It certainly makes it easier to eat and live under a roof.

My thoughts have turned to funding lately. Now that my focus is entirely on my own projects, I've been considering options on how to keep myself fed while completing a project. Most of you enjoy seeing a glimpse behind the curtain, so here are my thoughts about funding a smaller project.
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So far I have not posted about the whole RealID issue. It's one of those things that by the time I had something insightful to say about it, it had already been said in the outpouring of commentary about the issue. I was active in leaving comments on different sites, so it's not like I didn't have an opinion.

But, I think it's interesting to take another look at the issue from another point of view. RealID is all about this whole social networking thing. How does this intersect with gaming culture, a subset of geek culture? And how does this relate to introverts which traditionally make up a significant part of those cultures?
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Well, do you? If so, do I have a new site for you: http://theinternetcrashed.com/

Go read it, bookmark it and/or put it in your RSS reader. Then come back and read a bit more about why that site matters to MMO fans.
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There's been some discussion about death penalties lately, and I figured it was a good opportunity to discuss some issues with death penalties in MMOs, and penalties in games in general from a game design point of view. So, let's take a look at this topic and see how many flamewars we can fan!
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I'm upgraded my WordPress installation, but I'm still testing out the multi-site code. Report any strangeness to me in a comment or email. Thanks!

I wrote an article in two parts for the Game Design Aspect of the Month blog. This month's theme was "Multiplayer Economies", something I happen to know a thing or two about! :)

Anyway, go take a look at the article:

http://gamedesignaspect.blogspot.com/2010/06/faking-economy-part-i.html
http://gamedesignaspect.blogspot.com/2010/06/faking-economy-part-ii.html

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One of the reasons I really enjoy offline (board and card) games is because they offer a lot of great opportunities for game design. There's nothing quite like chewing over a game's mechanics while playing with friends. It's a fun exercise to think about how to turn an interesting board game mechanic into something that would work for the design of an online game.

Offline games are also a great opportunity to tweak the rules to try to make them better. Perhaps you want to make a game harder, or easier, or just want a different experience after playing the game for the hundredth time with friends. If you can find a group willing to experiment, offline games are a great opportunity to practice game design and talk it over with other interested people.

Let me talk about some of the variant rules I've been playing with in games.
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The big news the past week has been Turbine's announcement that The Lord of the Rings Online is going free-to-play. Since it's one of the MMOs I'm currently playing, and since I'm a fan of the free-to-play business model as a developer, this was of obvious interest to me.

So, what does it all mean as a developer looking at this?
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A post over at the Rampant Coyote sparked a discussion where Jay Barnson (the blog author) posted the following in a comment:

We talk about “Show, don’t tell.” An important principle in linear entertainment. But could “invite” be a more critical principle still for interactive media? Are modern games so focused on “showing” that they fail to “invite” the player to engage their imagination and contribute to the story? Are the games, effectively, treating the player like a passive audience and saying, “Sit down, shut up, watch this cool presentation and I’ll tell you when to press the buttons to make it do nifty stuff.”

A startling amount of insight about some of the problems I see in modern design. Read on for a few more thoughts.
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