Azaroth

Today, Raph Koster, original Lead Designer of Ultima Online, made a post on his blog called “How Metaplace was born.”

This is particularly interesting because in the process of describing how the concept of Metaplace, his new project, he goes into some detail regarding his days working on UO and one idea in particular that he pitched.

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Consider that you were hired to design a MMO. Or, since we don’t want to worry about technicalities or 250-page design documents - consider you were friends with the Lead Designer of someone making a new MMO.

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Okay, so, Lum, being a moving part of the NCSoft machine, enjoys polish. In fact, commands his minions to go forth and demand polish!

All well and good!

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Raph made a post about Call of Duty 4, its integration of many MMO-like features, and the reason for those integrations. Specifically, this quote:

Player retention and the science of addiction is being expanded upon in innovative, groundbreaking ways

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I can’t honestly tell you that I play World of Warcraft anymore, and at this point I’m quite happy about that.

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Well, this certainly isn’t a cutting edge gaming review site. Or a movie site, really in any fashion. So that’s probably why I “reviewed” Spiderman 2 (2004) in 2006, and I’m “reviewing” KOTOR 2 (2005) now in 2008.

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This is probably a sentence that should cross the mind of every customer service manager in the world when one of their employees starts treating customers like they don’t matter.

This applies to every situation in every business. Except maybe if you’re a dominatrix (hi call me).

The problem is that it all too often doesn’t seem to.

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Brian “Psychochild” Green, currently one of my FAVOURITE online game development bloggers because I’m sure he’ll link my blog ANY DAY NOW, recently made a post in defense of Dr. Bartle.

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That is, seemingly, into the Star Trek Online debate.

Fear the wit.

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Well, maybe not you, in particular. But, me. As, yes, I’ve been playing World of Warcraft again.

Read on, sister.

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A short post by a MMO player on a forum caught my eye today. It read, in part:

As for me, I think it’s a relatively moot point. Whether or not there are official forums, MMORPG developers have almost universally demonstrated that they’re unable to interpret what the players really want, especially if they’re listening to the vocal minority on the forum rant.

What IS so difficult about JUST doing what the players really want?

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Or “It’s Not Your Fucking Job To Be A Jerk”

Now, I’ve seen the bad, and I’ve seen the good.

Problem is, you don’t notice the good. That’s sort of the point. Your CMs are not superstars, and they should get that the hell out of their heads from day one.

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This new blog has actually become my favourite to read as of late. I can’t expand on that a whole lot except to say that if you’re interested MMO development, it might become yours too.

Congrats on actually keeping my interest, Eric and Sandra. This is something not easily accomplished. Now I just need to find time to read the two latest posts.

Identifying your potential audience and appealing to them successfully with your design can actually be a little trickier than one might assume.

Having a design based around giving 30 different types of people one little feature each is going to net you a lot of trouble. And more important, not a lot of profit.

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In light of a recent article, Matt Mihaly has this to say about Second Life losing steam:

“It’s a niche product and it’s captured about as much of its niche as it looks likely to capture.”

That, and the fact that it’s painful to play.

I did, at one point, log on (admittedly, this was probably a few years ago) to see what it was all about. I felt like stabbing someone in the face while I attempted to maneuver my seemingly unwilling character around a landscape that’d make a blind man’s eyes bleed.

Just sayin’.

Plus, what is all of this press coverage really about? Virtual kiddy diddling, gay prostitution, extreme furry bondage, and Flying Cock Ships?

Come on. I don’t think the media coverage is doing them a whole world of good all of the time. Mainly because what’s going on in Second Life ISN’T good a whole lot of the time.

It boggles my mind a little bit that they let some of that stuff go on, really. I realize the concept of the world is freedom in general, and total freedom of expression is a great thing to strive toward. Utopia this, Government that, freedom is great. We can all agree on this.

However, when EVERY place you can go puts restrictions on your actions in various manners, the ONE place that doesn’t is just going to be inevitably flooded by a bunch of old guys diddling young boys played by other old guys while flying around in big red cockships named The Balls of Saint Mary. It’s like anything else. Restrict PvP in every game on the market. Open one with full PvP. Allez Shitfest! Secret ingredient: CSR Tears.

Hint: Bobby Flay will make ribs and corn bread, Mario Batali will make pasta and some meat sauces, Morimoto will make sushi and noodles, and Cat Cora will make something really bad. All from CSR Tears and gelatin. CSR Tears and gelatin.

Look. It’s a nice concept and worlds that fashion themselves, in some ways, after it down the road could end up being very interesting. Second Life itself has just become a trainwreck at this point, though. As much as I do respect the idea - People are broken, and that’s not about to change any time soon.