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I think that by this point in time, some fifteen years down the road from the launch of Ultima Online, having a player economy is one of the hallmarks of games I consider to be MMOs, at least when I use the term. If there is no player to player economy, then the game is […]

The year of story MMOs: 2012. The three big MMOs that year all had story as a big bulletpoint. Star Wars The Old Republic had a fully voiced monstrosity.  Guild Wars 2 parsed theirs out with the Personal Story. And The Secret World, kind of mentioned it as part of missions and things. Surprisingly, I think [...]

[TSW] Narrative Silence is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Recently I walked into a bank because I needed change for a 10-Euro bill. The bank refused to do that, because I didn't have an account with them, then asked me whether I'd be interested in opening...

I am using unique and secure passwords for my various online game accounts. So guessing my passwords or solving them with brute force should be difficult enough to make that approach too expensive...

Dear Madam Author Unknown, US Civil War I am a soldier and my speech is rough and plain I’m not much used to writing and I hate to give you pain But I promised I would do it and he thought it might be so If it came from one who loved him perhaps it […]

Dear Madam Author Unknown, US Civil War I am a soldier and my speech is rough and plain I’m not much used to writing and I hate to give you pain But I promised I would do it and he thought it might be so If it came from one who loved him perhaps it […]

Metrology is the science of measurement. Sounds somewhat dry, but in fact in the discussion of MMORPGs questions of metrology pop up all the time, for example how to measure player numbers of a game....

I’m not much one for cinematics, but this is a nice close-up view of some League of Legends champions. On the gripping hand, it does not really show off what League of Legends is about. It is mostly one-on-one fights, which shows off the champions well, but it involves neither laning nor team fights. If [...]

[LoL] A Twist of Fate is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

I would be hard pressed to say that the computer will ever be as good of company for a person as another person would.  Indeed, should the day ever come where the majority of people prefer the...

I have been playing a lot of ARAM. My win rate recently is in the 50% range, but it’s streaky: 2-4 in a row either way, rarely win-lose-win-lose. I’m not sure if I have reached my appropriate level with hidden ELO or whether ARAM is just so random that each game is more or less [...]

[LoL] Level-Setting or Randomization? is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Asymmetric, makers of Kingdom of Loathing, sent me a copy of their new game for review: Word Realms. They said it was their take on the basic formula of Bookworm Adventures, but I haven't played that...

I've been playing Cardhunter a lot this weekend. With its turn-based gameplay and not too demanding graphics I couldn't help but think that this would be a great game to play on an iPad. Only that...

Travel is always a hot button issue.  Long have been the debates between convenience and seeing, or making people see, the world.  What is a waste of time and what builds character and all that. And opinion has changed on it over time. For example, in WoW, you used to have to go and find […]

Travel is always a hot button issue.  Long have been the debates between convenience and seeing, or making people see, the world.  What is a waste of time and what builds character and all that. And opinion has changed on it over time. For example, in WoW, you used to have to go and find […]

Syp is pondering what path to pick in Wildstar. Me, I'm most definitively going for settler, which is the path for people who want to build stuff for the benefit of the community. The simple fact...

As I mentioned in previous posts this week, under loud protest, I do not consider MMORPGs to be challenging, skill-based games. Not that they don't have challenging parts requiring lots of skill, but...

There are various dates one can identify with the death of 38 Studios. You could cite the day the company failed to pay its employees. You could choose the date the company declared bankruptcy. For me, 38 Studios was about the team and the friendships we shared, so I mark May 24 as the point [...]

Every so often I get the urge to run off and start another blog, as though this one wasn’t enough. Sometimes I think I have a funny idea.  Sometimes I repeat something I have already done. And for some reason, I always feel the need to make up yet another pseudonym.  I don’t know why. […]

Every so often I get the urge to run off and start another blog, as though this one wasn’t enough. Sometimes I think I have a funny idea.  Sometimes I repeat something I have already done. And for some reason, I always feel the need to make up yet another pseudonym.  I don’t know why. […]

Also today, I went to GameStop. Me: "How do you guys feel about the Xbox One?" Store clerk: "We don't sell those anymore."— Scott Nichols (@Duckols) May 23, 2013 When it comes to the recently announced Xbox One, I am not the target audience, having no desire to get another gaming console.  That is all […]

Also today, I went to GameStop. Me: "How do you guys feel about the Xbox One?" Store clerk: "We don't sell those anymore."— Scott Nichols (@Duckols) May 23, 2013 When it comes to the recently announced Xbox One, I am not the target audience, having no desire to get another gaming console.  That is all […]

The new President of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping, this year started talking about "the China Dream", to offer an alternative to "the American Dream". Wikipedia defines the American...

A rather frightening thought passed though my mind this evening: was I past Gaming Middle Age? A quick working definition– Gaming Middle Age is the age at which, assuming average life expectancy, one has spent as many years gaming as one has left in which to game. Parse that to your hearts content. I’m primarily […]

Some decisions are best slept on.  For example, the decision to borrow some money in order to give Cryptic Studios $60 for a Neverwinter founder's pack under the understanding that it's a...

An Epic Drop™ of information has just been launched in to space by Carbine Studios. They cover Paths for WildStar with a humorous “in-game” video, a DevSpeak, and a comprehensive web page on the subject. Paths, simply put, are a sub-class to the character. The class, such as Warrior or Spellslinger, defines internal playstyle. A [...]

[WS] A Risky Path is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

At launch the problem was  Error 37 and other related “always online” issues. Then it was how the gold auction house was killing the game, something I first brought up in May of last year but which Blizzard, in the form of  Jay Wilson, was still professing amazement about 10 months later.  And then there […]

At launch the problem was  Error 37 and other related “always online” issues. Then it was how the gold auction house was killing the game, something I first brought up in May of last year but which Blizzard, in the form of  Jay Wilson, was still professing amazement about 10 months later.  And then there […]

There are a handful of console games I really loved. But the majority of the games I played were always on the PC, and thus I was always annoyed by the ongoing "PC gaming is dying" discussion and the...

There has been some heated discussion on win conditions and Pay2Win business models here and elsewhere. The core issue is that if you play a game competitively and believe yourself to be winning over...

Whoops, the new launcher than came out today had… issues. Which I think makes it an official EVE Online feature! It even got Winterblink to make a Warp Drive Active comic about it. CCP took their old launcher, which just used to show some news and ads along with checking to see if you game […]

Whoops, the new launcher than came out today had… issues. Which I think makes it an official EVE Online feature! It even got Winterblink to make a Warp Drive Active comic about it. CCP took their old launcher, which just used to show some news and ads along with checking to see if you game […]

Edward CastronovaDiablo III's real-money auction house had some potential to be a major innovation in virtual economies. Instead, it looks like the designers failed to grasp lessons of virtual money management that are now more than a decade old. Namely, make sure you have enough sinks. There's a wonderful, well-informed, economically expert write-up over at Mises.Org, by Peter C. Earle. Mr. Earle knows his econ and he knows the game as well. It's some of the best virtual economy analysis I ahve seen in a long while. Thanks to Waiyen Tang for the heads-up!

While Middle-earth has been calling again of late… my relationship with that game has become as complicated as my relationship with EverQuest at this point… I have still found a bit of time to expand my reach in Storm Legion. Previously I had made my way through Cape Jule and Pelladane, finishing up what are […]

While Middle-earth has been calling again of late… my relationship with that game has become as complicated as my relationship with EverQuest at this point… I have still found a bit of time to expand my reach in Storm Legion. Previously I had made my way through Cape Jule and Pelladane, finishing up what are […]

The guy playing Fiddlesticks was frequently taunting the enemy and shouting at them to fear him. On the one hand, that is kind of being the jerk. On the other hand, his character is an evil scarecrow with a fear attack. : Zubon Previously [LoL] Crazy, RPer, or Troll? is a post from: Kill Ten [...]

[LoL] Crazy, RPer, or Troll? is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Our heroes had ended the previous session by killing the vampires in the dining hall of Castle Ravenloft. As they had used up a lot of resources like healing surges and daily powers in the last two...

Well, my Marvel Heroes infatuation was short lived.  I had a ball playing Iron Man back in the last open beta weekend, but since the last wipe I had been playing Hawkeye.  Hawkeye is a lot...

Well, my Marvel Heroes infatuation was short lived.  I had a ball playing Iron Man back in the last open beta weekend, but since the last wipe I had been playing Hawkeye.  Hawkeye is a lot...

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 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 [...]

[LoL] 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...