Flagship Studios is in its final death throes, and the post mortems and blame games are in full force. Recently some major players in the utter failure that is Hellgate: London finally spoke out. Of course, the interviews and statements were full of the usual weak excuses: players were not patient enough with us, evil internet people unfairly slammed the game, we were misunderstood, blah blah blah. The Electronic Arts mouthpiece was specially bad since he completely ignored the main reason the game failed: its completely idiotic subscription model.

First we have the words of EA’s David Demartini:

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As I noted in one of the comments, I have also taken a few writing jobs elsewhere. Occasionally I will link to the articles here and then open things up for discussion. I recently had a 4 part review of Age of Conan published , and I am not spoiling much to tell you the review is far from positive. In fact, I’d say my review is downright savage, but that’s hardly my fault. Age of Conan is a disaster of almost epic proportions. Bloated, inefficient code (32 gig install, and it runs poorly even at recommended specs), terrible design choices (the much hyped combo system is a wreck), bugs, and missing features are just a few of the problems. In my review, I did not even have time to address the weak PvP or the rampant sexism.

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A very disturbing trend in the MUD, MMORPG, Virtual World marketplace is the steady dumbing down of gameplay that doesn’t show signs of stopping. With each new generation of games, they get easier and easier and are more about pure time investment than skill.

Meaningless Death, Excessive Quest driven advancement, Rapid Advancement Speed, and Hyper Specialization are all areas where the dumbing down of online games has really gotten out of control. I’ll talk about each of those things in this article.

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I had so much fun trashing raiding as it exists in current graphical MUDs over here, I might as well take another hack at it. I will explain how raiding as it is generally implemented in graphical MMOs provides a false, deceptive, and personally damaging sense of accomplishment.

False Sense of Accomplishment from Raiding

One of the very serious, negative effects of the current design of “raid content” is the false sense of accomplishment it gives people. I was checking a couple of WoW blogs recently, and many of them have gigantic, gushing stories about the enormous sense of glory and accomplishment they felt when they finally downed some boss that had been wiping them for weeks or months on end. The way posters glowingly patted themselves on the back you’d think they had just earned a huge promotion at work or won the Nobel Prize.

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A small game developer (Cliff Harris of Positech Games) recently made a serious effort to talk to pirates and find out why they steal games (and specifically, why they steal his games). A full recounting of his findings can be read right here.

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I am really glad to see another developer actually trying to look at piracy in a calm, rational manner. I am getting pretty fed up with PC developers and PC Media (I’m lookin’ at you, PC Gamer) crying over and over that piracy is killing PC Gaming.

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One of my new mantras as a game developer is the belief that players are content. Developers who ignore this do so not only at their own peril, but to the disappointment of their own customers. What do I mean by saying players are content? I mean they provide at least as much (and probably more) entertainment for your customers than any actual content you create as a developer. In a fashion, the game you design attracts a certain type of player, and those players take it from there to keep each other amused and entertained.

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I love MUDs, MMOs, virtual worlds, (insert your favorite term). I love making them. I love playing them. I love talking about them. I hate raiding. I hate the current obsessive focus on a MUD’s “end game.” There shouldn’t be an end game. The draw of open ended, online multiplayer worlds is that they don’t end. But the constant dumbing down of MMOs is such that people expect to be able to race to level cap and then participate in the “real game.” I’m going to put aside the fact that I find this absurd, and focus on the current popular form of “end game”: raiding. Oh, and I intend to utterly savage the concept of raiding as currently implemented in MMOs.-

Ok… I lied a little.

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It is a commonly held belief that usage drops for MUDs, MMOs, Online Games, and Virtual Worlds in summer time. The reasons are somewhat obvious - people want to go outside, college kids go home and have less internet access, younger people take on summer jobs, families go on vacation, etc. With all of those things taking up people’s free time, they just don’t login to their favorite MUD, MMO, or Virtual World as often. I think all of these reasons are real and significant. In over 12 years of running online MUDs/MMOs/Virtual Worlds commercially, I have noticed drops in usage over the summer.

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But what about the ancillary effects of this phenomenon? Other than simple usage drops, how does this affect the gameplay on MUDs, MMOs, and other online games? I have been reading more gaming blogs than usual lately, and one of the more interesting negative effects of summer appears to be GUILD HOPPING.

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This well known saying is true for many situations, but it is especially true (in most cases) for people who make or run MMOs. Sadly, this doesn’t stop developers from frequently tinkering with aspects of their game that people already like the way it is. This kind of nervous, pointless, busy-body meddling is rarely a good thing. Some developers should be forced to take a dose of ritalin before they sit down to work in hopes of preventing this sort of misbehavior.

So why exactly is this kind of tinkering a bad thing? Before I list some reasons, let me define “tinkering” for the sake of this post. Tinkering is when a developer makes minor or major changes to a system, zone, ability, class or other content that is already well liked, popular, balanced, and functioning properly. So, why is tinkering bad?

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The Illinois House and Senate have passed a law requiring that online games give users a clear, safe way to cancel their subscriptions. The impetus for this bill was an Illinois alderman that had a tough time canceling his son’s Final Fantasy XI account. Full text of the bill can be read here, but the main crux of the bill is:

An Internet gaming service rovider must give a consumer who is an Illinois resident the following: (1) a secure method at the Internet gaming service provider’s web site that the consumer may use to cancel the service, which method shall not require the consumer to make a telephone call or send U.S. Postal Service mail to effectuate the cancellation; and (2) instructions that the consumer may follow to cancel the service at the Internet gaming service provider’s web site.

(Warning: Prepare for Rant)

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A major research paper has just been released that is making a log of noise in the online gaming/virtual world blogosphere. Richard Heeks of University of Manchester has done extensive on just about every aspect of gold farming that is popular in current MMOs.

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My name is Michael Hartman, and I own and run Frogdice, Inc. - a game design company founded in 1996 that makes online role playing games. For many years I have wanted to start a blog about game design and the gaming industry. At the urging of my wife and some friends I am finally doing it.

Why the name Muck Beast? It sounds like a gritty, online gaming type monster (we have them on Threshold!), and names like that tend to stick in people’s memory better. Also, discussing complex issues like game design require that you roll up your sleeves and dig into the muck.

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