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The Chauvinistic Virtual World
Daedren outsourced this article for 15 cents on July 1st, 2008
In Dev
It's hard to try and delve into a subject as controversial as chauvinism or sexism without pissing a lot of people off almost immediately. I guess a good place to start is why I would pick a subject like this as a topic. Well, I suppose the idea came from an astounding and almost laughably unbelievable issue in Age of Conan that basically makes female characters roughly 25% more ineffective than their male counterparts. Woops! While I'll side with ...

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Gandalf Tanked a Balrog
Daedren outsourced this article for 15 cents on June 5th, 2008
In Dev
While in the recent months I've expressed my dissatisfaction with the possibility of yet another Medieval/Fantasy sort of MMO, I'm also a believer if you do something, you should do it right. Today's discussion is about archetypes - more specifically, the Mage archetype - how Funcom and Age of Conan implemented it, and what they could have done better. Of course any opening paragraph such as that carries a bit of weight with it. Here I am, Joe Gamer, playing ...

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Your Ideal MMO: Classes & Characters
Daedren outsourced this article for 15 cents on May 13th, 2008
In Dev
Designing a game, much less a MMO, is no easy task. Developing a game of such magnitude is not a small endeavor. So, while I continue to mull over the other complications of designing such a game, I'd like to ask my readers for their input on the subject. This will be an ongoing series, of sorts - in which, at the end, a good idea of information will have been gathered and put to good use. I've always thought that ...

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The Morality of MMO Development
Daedren was suffering from a bad hangover while writing this on April 28th, 2008
In Dev
It's easy to get caught up in our passion for escapism and complex massive virtual worlds. Our denizens whisper things like "dynamic content" and "balanced combat systems" with fervor in an attempt to maximize our time spent immersed. Our passion for our genre is almost unmatched in the entertainment industry, as we delve ourself into the latest and greatest that our corporate overlords give us. To us a relaxing day is one spent unbothered and unhindered in our pursuit of ...

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A Letter to Curt Schilling and 38 Studios
Daedren could have wrote something better on April 24th, 2008
In Dev, Feature
38 Studios holds a special place in the hearts of many gamers, including myself, as being a faint ray of hope in an otherwise darkening genre of gaming that has slowly been taken over by idea-barren realm of the corporate machina. While we might not all have been Phillies fans, we can still appreciate someone with a real passion for gaming - enough to try their ...

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I Blog! Hire me to make a MMO!
Daedren got slapped with a large trout and then wrote this on March 28th, 2008
In Dev
With the recent influx of writers and bloggers (are those the same thing?) talking about upcoming games such as Warhammer Online and Age of Conan, I've seen quite a few comments regarding people having "good ideas" and wanting to work in the gaming business. I'm going to try to take a constructive and productive approach here instead of pointing out that most people that do ...

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Queer I for the AI
Daedren outsourced this article for 15 cents on March 4th, 2008
In Dev
Artificial Intelligence. In MMO's, it refers to the behavior of NPC's/MOBS - basically, the stuff you'll be fighting. Current implementations of this behavior, or AI, is almost embarrassing to reference. While gaming AI in general has improved over the past decade, MMO AI has remained stagnant. Compare the mob behavior in a ten year old MMO, like Everquest, with one that's just been released, like Vanguard or LOTRO. It's the same old song, just slightly tweaked. Developers give all sorts of ...

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Making static spawns more dynamic
Daedren mixed bicarbonate and polyethylene and came up with this on March 4th, 2008
In Dev
Static spawn points can be summarized as "Locations in a virtual world where an object or entity is born." The dynamic behind this is vital for a persistent world to provide constant things to gather, kill, or otherwise harass and interact with. While it might not be the most realistic thing, it's a necessary evil that will need be implemented, at least in some way, shape or form. Past MMORPG's use pretty much the same system: Static or somewhat randomized (in ...

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The Fragile Hero/Heroine
Daedren outsourced this article for 15 cents on March 4th, 2008
In Dev
It constantly amazes me how easily a character can die in most, if not all, current MMORPG's. Whoever originally thought up the system "Player gets to 0 hit points, dies instantly" system really must have worked hard on that one. Can't an industry that cherishes creative thinking as it's key attribute do a bit better than that? I think so. I'll use the Fallout series as an example here. Fallout implemented a system where a character was knocked unconscious, then bled ...

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