You think you are reading the Muckbeast game design blog right now, but you aren’t! The one you really want to be reading is now hosted elsewhere. I am posting these periodic reminders for the few people who might be receiving new post updates via RSS or some other method and need to switch over their bookmarks and/or subscriptions

I like to believe my thoughts on game design are interesting and worthwhile, but I’m not sure if they measure up to the quality of the design below (as always, click to be sent to the new and improved Muckbeast):

If you enjoy Muckbeast, then check this blog out right away . Click over there, read, subscribe, and make sure you visit it often. It is one of the best blogs on the internet addressing game design and the gaming industry.

You definitely do not want to miss out. Check it out, read, and post lots of comments.

And just to reward Longasc and others for making the effort to click on over:

Who Reads Muckbeast?

By “you all”, I mean the few folks reading here regularly. I know I lost a lot of readers during October and November when I wrote maybe 1 or 2 articles tops. Sorry about that. Muckbeast gets about 150 unique hits per day, and I have no idea if that is utterly horrible or decent considering how new it is and how specialized it is. Regardless, I really appreciate those of you who read and especially those of you who comment. I find your feedback (mostly as players) very, very valuable in my own game design.

Tell Me Some of Your Preferences

I will fire off a few questions in rapid fire format:

1) What do you think of the new site theme? I think it is a lot more readable, even though it now lacks a fancy graphic at the top. It is wider, and the content is in the middle rather than left justified.

2) CAPTCHA: I hate that I had to enable this for the comments, but we were getting tons of spam. I’m considering turning it off again soon to see what happens. How much of a pain is it when entering comments to have to use the captcha field thing.

3) The “READ MORE” prompt. This is a tough one. I have heard that RSS readers do not get the whole article if you have a “click here to keep reading” link. I use it on longer articles so the front page of the blog is a little more readable (so you can see more topics on the front). I also wonder if it is a good idea to encourage people to actually come to the site and click on internal pages in order to keep my host happy (maybe he gets more ad hits that way, I don’t know). I don’t get paid anything for the ads here, but I do get paid by Today.com to write posts so I try to be sensitive to their needs.

4) Rate of Topics: Is averaging 1 per day enough to make you enjoy reading the blog? Is more topics too much? So far, we don’t have much discussion, so it is hard to tell if more topics would generate more discussion or if it might make it harder to discuss a topic.

5) Suggestions for improvement?

Are You Out There?

If you read this blog, please take a moment to at least reply to this post with a quick “I’m here!” I would like to know who is reading so I have some idea who my audience is. If you want to include any additional information about yourself in the response, feel free.

Thanks for reading!

I finally had to change the theme. The old one handled white space (empty blank lines, to help set off paragraphs) poorly, and it did not give enough room to the middle content column. I have less options for actual look now (and no custom header), but that is life. I think the site is more readable now in general which is better.

Also, you will see a lot more posts from me this month. So please check back often and post your thoughts!

Finally, I had to enable captcha for a bit because the spammers were totally out of control. I hope that is a temporary measure. Thank you for your patience. I know it makes posting a little more annoying.

Ril asked this question in a comment: “Writer’s Block?”

That is a good question, but it is not the problem. I have been super busy with work MAKING games lately, and haven’t had time to write about them. I also haven’t played any new games since Spore, so I haven’t had reviews to post for you either. Tsk tsk on me.

I have also been hoping that if I gave Today.com a little time, they’d release a few new style setups that would make post and comment formatting a little prettier. I am going to take a look at that today and see if they added anything.

So, are any of my readers still checking here? If so, drop me a comment. Feel free to suggest a topic you’d like me to address from a game developer’s perspective.

I probably will not be able to post as many anti-WoW raiding posts, since I have no plans to buy their expansion. As a result, my knowledge of the game is going to fall way behind, and it will be very easy for the die hard supporters to rightly say “You don’t know how the game is now.” Of course, they always say such things even when the game is not fundamentally different. I mean the first expansion did not make fundamental changes, and from what I have read the second one will not either. And why should it? They have millions of customers who like the game the way it is. Fundamentally changing it would be unfair to all those customers. Let someone else make a different style of MMO and let people who want something different play that. That is why I don’t understand Blizzard’s recent habit of unleashing their PR blitzkrieg to slam any new MMO that comes out. It is good for Blizzard if customers have choice - even their customers.

The purpose of this post is to discuss a few functional things with my readers here to try and make Muckbeast a more enjoyable blog.

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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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