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Guild Wars is going on automated life support. Any thoughts on advancing the story on the Nameless Lich, Evennia’s disappearance, or Beyond Elona are now officially quashed. It would be nice if any of these are answered, but given ArenaNet’s penchant for keeping things unanswered most of it will likely go in their internal wiki [...]

[GW] Goodnight, Sweet Prince is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

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.

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments: Fun vs. satisfaction

I stood again in Middle-earth. In was in Archet, one of the small towns around Bree, and the forces of Sauron prepared to strike. I was in Lord of the Rings Online. My new character was set to start out on the long… six years long at this point which, if we were following the […]

I have been enjoying the new mode in League of Legends. “All random all middle” is even more frantic fun than Dominion, although almost all strategy is gone in favor of tactics. You can reroll your champion every few games, so it is not fully random. This is especially a good thing for people who [...]

ARAM is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

If you are spending $0 on a game, and the economy is working great for the company and the players who are paying money, but your favored currency is not retaining value well, that means the economy is working. “Working” applies both in the sense of in-game supply and demand (there is WAY more supply [...]

The F2P In-Game Economy is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Just about two months back it was announced that Google Reader was going to be shut down. The reasons given were declining usage and the Bizarro world excuse that killing it would lead to a better user experience. I cannot speak to the former, except to say that Google pushed a lot of people off […]

Dàchéng believes I don't know the difference between toys and games. But not only am I very well aware of that difference, I also believe that he didn't consider the possibility of somebody playing...

We asked Cryptic Studios to walk us through their development process, from inception to implementation. Also, any examples on something cut rather than making it live? Lindsay Haven, System Designer, please take it away: Because we have so many creative people that work here in the studio, and each idea is different, not every feature [...]

[NW] Development at Cryptic is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Temporarily, the crazy refugees of Southsun Cove have come up with possibly the most masochistic game in Tyria. Surrounded by hostile wildlife that is attacking each and every settlement (at least the omelet-free ones), the free peoples have decided to design a game around a small Succulent Crab, which seems like one of the favorite [...]

[GW2] The Crab Grab Hustle is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Whatever happened, we need to find out why it happened. But clearly it should not have happened. -Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) We are reaching that time of the year when the sun is shining and various members of our regular Saturday night instance group are sometimes lured outside to see the world, visit relatives, or […]

As Azuriel always disagrees with me in the comment section of my blog :) , it is worth mentioning that I fully agree with his post on Instant Gratification vs Fun Investment. So much that I'd even...

Whew!  The tougher half of the work week is over.  A substitute does not know when and where work will be available.  Sometimes, I can go without a chance to work for a week or...

There are many ways to view the Secret of Southsun update. The most objective is ArenaNet has added an hour or so of content, and then you are done. This is the worst way to experience Guild Wars 2. In another view, it’s easy to see that Southsun has become the de facto hotspot for some time. [...]

[GW2] Secret of Southsun Impressions is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

A few years back, at the height of the housing boom, we decided to move.  We listed our house at the market price for our neighborhood, and the first day on the market we got an offer for roughly 60% of what we were asking.  Somebody sensed, as we all were beginning to at that […]

There has been some renewed discussions on the "evils of Free2Play" following the news that Rift is changing its business model and like so many others will abandon subscriptions. In the context of...

Over the years I have repeatedly on this blog proposed the idea of having a game that mixes MMORPG and Trading Card Game elements together. So when Cryptozoic did a Kickstarter for a MMO Trading Card...

Or so says the press release. My ambivalence towards the game continues however. I like the connection with EVE Online, the idea of continuing the struggle on the surface of planets, the possibilities of the combined in-game markets, and, most of all, the idea of bombing DUST players from orbit while in my spaceship just […]

I was wrong. Another subscription MMO caves in, unable to make a go of things on monthly fees alone.  Or they feel that the grass must surely be greener on the free to play side of the fence. Of course, my prediction was back when Scott Hartsman was still on board and before they put […]

When you read a review of a video game, almost always there are comments about the graphics: How do the characters look, how are they animated, how do their surroundings look, and how do things like...

Before the mob’s attention is diverted to Southsun, the vocal players on the Guild Wars 2 forums appear to be unhappy with the ending of Flame & Frost. It distills down to “4 months and we just get a few bonfires”. That’s a lot of distillation, and even in the final hours of Flame & [...]

[GW2] Scope of Flame & Frost is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Last week my focus was a huge game of Civilization V. Early in the week I started a few games on the largest map size (going with the Lakes option, so lots of land warfare) with a dozen competing civilizations and the usual complement of city states until I got a situation that looked good.  […]

There are certain games which would be impossible to play without randomness, for example Poker. And personally I like some degree of randomness in tactical games, because it adds to replayability if...

I'm up for a reasonably busy week at work but, if I'm going to work hard, it seems only right that I'm able to play hard as well.  Thanks to Marvel Heroes having an open beta weekend, this wish...

I'm planning on running a huge "sandbox" adventure for my D&D campaign, using Wizard of the Coast's boxed set Madness at Gardmore Abbey. Basically that is a huge abbey complex on a hill with lots...

As I mentioned yesterday, Cardhunter is a game about a group of people playing Dungeons & Dragons. At one point their usual DM Gary is replaced by his elder brother Melvin, who makes the players...

After having made sure that there is no NDA (the beta forum is even public) I want to tell you some more about Cardhunter. You could say that it is a game about a game, you are playing a group of...

As I geared up for day two in Tera (should I capitalize those letters since it's short for The Exiled Realm Of Arborea?) I touched up yesterday's blog entry... and before I could launch the game, it...

It was just a year ago that Syp kicked off his Newbie Blogger Initiative plan. The idea was to inflict blogging on as many newcomers as possible by getting a bunch of old cranks to give semi-useful and often contradictory advice about blogging.  And link whoring. As is clear from that, I went for a […]

So far this week has not bee full of good news for Blizzard. There was the 1.08 patch for Diablo III, rolled out on US servers the day before yesterday, which was touted as bringing serious improvements to the game, including changes to the surprisingly popular auction house. Unfortunately, one side effect was the introduction […]

WildStar has a column going on called “DevSpeak”. The latest clip is about movement. “Movement?” the hardened MMO veteran in you says, “what a silly thing to advertise for your game.” In a way it is silly, but like Mr. DevSpeak says “it plays a major role in every part of the game.” (I will [...]

[WS] Dat Double Jump is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

How did my first day seriously invested in playing TERA go?  Well, if you happened to have picked out the sentence from yesterday's textwall about how one may spend about 300 hours getting to...

As there are so many different genres of games it would be hard to say how the perfect game for me would look exactly. But Cardhunter is coming pretty damn close. If you have any interest in...

There is a horribly worn out old book on the book shelf in my office.  It is a soft-bound copy of The Twentieth Century – An Almanac. I used to pick up that book and read through sections all of the time, to the point that the book looks very worn out.  There wasn’t anything […]

Edward CastronovaWittingly or no, the folks over at Paradox Development are making an amazing scientific instrument. It's called the Clausewitz Engine. I know almost nothing about it, other than having been its victim over and over again. The Clausewitz Engine is apparently a gigantic autonomous agent model. Tens of thousands of agents act according to a sophisticated set of instructions. These instructions are apparently very flexible. In Hearts of Iron, they drive divisions, armies, and countries to war against one another, whereas in Crusader Kings, the instructions drive men and women to seek marriage partners. The information on which the agents...

So yesterday I downloaded the 4 GB of Neverwinter and tried it out. I checked the forums of my WoW guild and found on which server they were playing Neverwinter, so I chose that server. Created a...

In the previous session the heroes had cleared most of the ground floor of Castle Ravenloft. This evening we only played like half a session, because we started late, and then took some time to...

Up until recently, I was playing DC Universe Online and Planetside 2.  But neither of them are exactly Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) for different reasons. DC Universe...

- I am still here! - Most of the discussion is on Broken Forum over here -> http://www.brokenforum.com/   Five out of three grognards agree: Broken Forum is great! - I have (as of this week) joined the merry crew at Portalarium to work on Shroud of the Avatar. Yes, I now work for Richard [...]

First, the bad news: EA bags Star Wars games rights Still waiting for the good news -Headline over at The Register The word has gone out that EA has acquired the rights to the Star Wars franchise when it comes to video games, something garnering about as many cheers as a wicked step-mother in a […]

The Godmother is discussing a WoW Insider community blog topic of What if WoW didn't have guilds?. It mentions the problem to "exclusivity" of guilds: "Ultimately the problem is not the Guilds...

A supplement to my post yesterday about the EVE Online 10 year birthday celebration in Amarr.  If screen shots of the fireworks were not enough, here is some video of them hitting Chribba’s Revelation dreadnaught and Widow black ops battleship. (Direct link to video) The video is probably best viewed over at YouTube in a […]

Jeromai and I must be on similar wavelengths, even though I know I do not have anywhere the gumption required to solo a dungeon. He writes this morning on how in six days that was all it took for the community situated around the Molten Facility to distill down to “mostly tired, lazy or focused [...]

[GW2] The Molten Function is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Hong Kong mobile applications developer Mad Head Limited sent me an e-mail asking me to review their iOS game Tower of Saviors. I get lots of demands like that and don't always comply, but at least I...

Alright, so I'm not a film buff.  MovieBob is a film buff - a fantastic one, in my opinion.  The Nostalgia Critic is a great commentator on the state of film and television to the point...

Alright, so I'm not a film buff.  MovieBob is a film buff - a fantastic one, in my opinion.  The Nostalgia Critic is a great commentator on the state of film and television to the point...

Alright, so I'm not a film buff.  MovieBob is a film buff - a fantastic one, in my opinion.  The Nostalgia Critic is a great commentator on the state of film and television to the point...

This was the big 10 year anniversary celebration weekend for EVE Online. CCP was handing out goodies… cosmetic gear, special ships, and fireworks with launchers to mount on your ship. To see the fun, you really needed to log into one of the key trade hub systems, which are Jita, Amarr, Hek, or Dodixie. Jita, […]

Ugh, I feel terrible; not sick, just crappy.  Despite work requiring I move around quite a bit, I think I really do need to hit the gym more often.  I went ahead and bought StarDrive on...

One of the reasons I chose the current template for the blog way back in 2006 was that it had a nice little area at the top where you could put your own graphic as a banner. And so I took to this idea and have, over the last 6+ years, created any number of […]

My guild has started doing guild missions every day. Guild bounties are still the basis for things, but we have guild treks and guild rushes unlocked too. Yesterday we did a few bounties, wiping on the first bounty thanks to bear vs. 2-MULT, but I felt the main event was the Chicken Run guild rush [...]

[GW2] Speed of the Chook Run is a post from: Kill Ten Rats