Psychochild's Blog

I hit a major milestone in with my main characters: I true reincarnated one of my characters. To those of you who haven't played the game before, that might seem like an odd idea, but I think it's actually a rather interesting and old idea.

Let's take a closer look at it, shall we?
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As you might have heard, there was a little announcement last weekend about a game called EverQuest Next. They're doing some particularly exciting things, and one of those things is emergent AI. There's a little company called Storybricks who is working on that emergent AI. You might have heard of the company. (Protip: I work at Storybricks.)

On the bright side, it's very exciting to be working on a groundbreaking title. On the other hand, I know from experience that I'm going to be watched a lot more closely and people will try to read into my words. An offhand phrase is interpreted as a solemn vow. (You old-school MMO people will remember the hilarity around Necromancy in Ultima Online.) So, let me post this disclaimer:

The opinions and points of view expressed in the posts on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer or any company I am working with.

Further, unless I explicitly state so, nothing I post should be construed as a hint about EverQuest Next's design or content. (I don't get the privilege of saying "just kidding" after making a controversial statement.) So, if I write an article supporting permadeath in Storybricks development, you should already know that EQN won't have permadeath in it.

I know most of you are reasonable people, but I'm just trying to avoid any uncomfortable situations involving my words and a very talented team trying to blaze new territory. They already have a hard job, so I don't want someone taking my words and making that job even harder.

Just stay tuned for something that will continue to amaze you.
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It's been a busy few weeks. I'm chugging along on a project I'm not quite ready to talk about yet. During my free time, I've been indulging in Borderlands 2. Of course, I'll try to pretend that playing the game is an important reason for doing a blog post. ;) As I've been playing, two things have stuck out: how unreliable memory is and what makes a good loot system.

Let's take a look at these two elements in more detail.
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I've been super-busy with work, but I was putting together a more design-focused blog post. However,recent news has cried out for a response. It's a tale of woe in the business of game development, when a company ignores the business realities in the tumultuous reality of game development.

Let's see what happens when a developer used to working with publishers instead tries goes indie.
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I've written a lot about the importance of in-game community lately. But, allow me to write a bit about the type of community that isn't in a game or owned by a particular company. Maybe we can get draw some lessons that might come back around to game design.

So, let's talk about blogging, and the community around that. As the title asks: where did the bloggers go?
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Games are supposed to be fun, duh. It seems to be a regular comment that if something isn't fun, it should be removed from a game. Why are game developers so stupid to leave in systems that nobody finds fun? Or, just look at those EEEEEVIL free-to-play games with their "pay to win" strategies, forcing people to pay money to avoid the parts that aren't fun, amirite?

Except, there's a good reason why games have parts that don't seem fun on the surface, but that build a long-term feeling of satisfaction. Let's take a look at satisfaction and why it matters in games.
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So, Camelot Unchained is on the cusp of meeting its goal. As I write this, it needs just over $150,000 in 23 hours right now.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained

The success of this campaign will have tremendous ramifications on future MMO projects. I encourage you to support it.
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I'm probably not going to shock anyone here by saying that MMOs aren't living up to their potential. I've said before that there's something missing our games. I think that while games are offering a little more of that spirit of adventure I mentioned in the previous blog topic, we developers still have a ways to go to realize the full potential of MMOs.

One of the biggest problems is how we design the game to allow interaction with other people.
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Are you a game programmer? Do you love games? Do you especially love MMOs? Are you tired of the same old thing in every MMO? Want to push the industry forward and have a hand in developing entirely new forms of online gameplay? If you know AI, this will be a tremendous opportunity for you.

Unfortunately, the contract information is still under NDA so I can't be explicit here, but we'll share the details with qualified applicants. I hope you understand that I'm not prone to hyperbole, but let me say this is an incredibly exciting in terms of professional opportunity and personal satisfaction of doing something highly original.

Job title: AI programmer
Location: San Diego, CA
Salary: $70k + share options + relocation incentives
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Over the weekend I got to chat with Adam "Ferrel" Trzonkowski and Chris “Syeric” Coke. We chatted about Storybricks, the tabletop RPGs I've supported on Kickstarter, and you'll hear me totally geek out about the cosmology of the old World of Darkness from White Wolf.

You can listen to the podcast at: http://epicslantpress.com/blog/2013/04/08/game-on-esp-edition-02-brian-green/

A few more thoughts after the jump.
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