EDIT: I promise this is the LAST POST ABOUT THE WIKIPEDIA incident for a while. The next post will be much different!

This is the last part, and for a while I hope the last time I’ll blog or post on this issue. There are role playing games that need my developer attention, and I loathe having my real work interrupted by this sort of thing. In this last section, I will focus on the bigger question that has arisen from the whole sordid mess:

What should fans and developers of MUDs/MMOs do now?

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The article (and discussion) continues. For the full story, with all the details, read my article here: Wikipedia’s War on Gaming History and Threshold RPG .

So, what is wrong with Wikipedia and how can it be fixed?

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This is an abbreviated version of the story designed to get some discussion going. For the full story, with all the details, read my article here: Wikipedia’s War on Gaming History and Threshold RPG .

1) Wikipedia is full of people gunning for an administrator promotion. In the current climate, the easiest path is getting articles deleted and getting players banned. These acts somehow show you understand what is best for Wikipedia.

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That headline is a grabber, isn’t it? I did not purchase Wrath of the Lich King so I have no practical knowledge regarding the current state of WoW raiding. I suspect it is not significantly different and still has the same problems that always annoyed me. I created this topic so those of you playing WotLK can educate me. I will start the discussion off by recapping a few things I hate(d) about WoW raiding, and the readers can tell me if WotLK is more of the same, or a major improvement.

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Content creation is widely considered the most time consuming and costly area of MMO/MUD development. I agree with this. In graphical MUDs, you have animations, mob AI, scripting, zone design, and all the additional graphics and visual effects that go along with zones, powers, items, etc. These are very expensive. In text MUDs, you have to craft a story, you have tons of writing to do, and all of it has to weave together in a legible, clear, enjoyable way. The creative aspects of all that writing take a lot of time. Then on top of that, you have the minutiae of making all the rooms, linking them, describing the tiny details so they don’t seem ignored or drab, and all that.

So bearing this in mind, why do so many developers deliberately make their own content obsolete? And why do they often do it at such a rapid clip? The trend these days is for games to encourage you to race to the cap and then sit. Then they want you to make alts, or farm gear. Soon enough, the population is top heavy at the level cap, and nobody visits 90% of the game. If someone makes a “real newbie” character, everywhere they go is vacant.

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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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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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