http://muckbeast.today.com Mon, 18 May 2009 03:21:28 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Threshold RPG has received a lot of press and publicity lately. Keep an eye on the Threshold RPG press page . Go beyond the fold for some of the more recent additions: http://muckbeast.today.com/2009/05/17/recent-press-for-threshold-rpg/ Confused by some MMO gaming terms? Check out this three part MMO Gaming Dictionary: MMO Gaming Dictionary - Combat Terminology MMO Gaming Dictionary - Character Terminology MMO Gaming Dictionary - General Terminology http://muckbeast.today.com/2009/05/17/mmo-gaming-dictionary/ Check out this review of Threshold RPG that was recently published!  Threshold RPG: Text-Based MMORPG Review http://muckbeast.today.com/2009/05/17/threshold-rpg-review/ These are definitely must read articles. First, two articles about Tabula Rasa: History, Timeline and Post Mortem of Tabula Rasa The End of Tabula Rasa - Server Shutdown Event Second, a very entertaining list of some great WOW Videos: Best World of Warcraft Videos on YouTube: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Finally, ... http://muckbeast.today.com/2009/03/09/some-good-articles-to-read/ The Threshold RPG forums currently have a serious debate over the in game ethos system. It is a system that has evolved over the years and changed along with many changes to the religion system. You can read the discussion here: Threshold RPG ethos and religion discussion. Aristotle, the head admin and ... http://muckbeast.today.com/2009/03/03/threshold-rpg-the-debate-on-ethos/ 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 ... http://muckbeast.today.com/2009/02/16/muckbeast-a-blog-about-game-design/ If you'd like to read and discuss a review of Campaign Cartographer 3, click on over to Muckbeast now and enjoy! Campaign Cartographer 3 review Remember to update your subscriptions and bookmarks to the new Muckbeast: http://muckbeast.today.com/2009/02/15/campaign-cartographer-3/ 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 ... http://muckbeast.today.com/2009/02/13/amazing-new-game-design-gaming-industry-blog/ In the past few months, Threshold RPG has enjoyed a significant increase in new characters joining the world. We would like to welcome all of these new people, and encourage more to join the fun! New characters bring new ideas, stories, and character concepts that further enhance the rich ... http://muckbeast.today.com/2009/02/09/threshold-rpg-welcomes-new-and-old/ This is a concept I have always believed strongly in, and Raph Koster just wrote an excellent blog article about it: Ways to make your virtual space more social. He makes a lot of great points, but I am going to focus specifically on the concept that game developers must ... http://muckbeast.today.com/2009/01/30/downtime-is-necessary-for-socialization/ Netbooks are the new hot product in the computer hardware industry. Over 14 million of them sold in 2008, and they are the fastest growing product in computer hardware. They tend to be cheap, they are ultra-portable, and they cannot run high end games. Does this mean they are not ... http://muckbeast.today.com/2009/01/28/netbooks-a-new-gaming-platform/ I have no idea why this feature is being ignored by the current crop of MMORPGs, but I am going to talk about it anyway because I think it is an important and extremely fun feature. Housing presents one of the best opportunities for players to express their own imagination ... http://muckbeast.today.com/2009/01/27/little-house-on-the-internet-what-you-want-from-mmo-housing/ I am really getting sick and tired of every MMO turning healers into pseudo-DPS classes. I don't know who started this trend, but whoever it was needs to be chained up with the guy who invented bind on pickup crafted items, thrown into a pit, and have lotion lowered ... http://muckbeast.today.com/2009/01/23/some-people-actually-like-healing/ The so-called "holy trinity" of class design has been around since the early MUDs. Yes, that means it pre-dates all the shiny, glowy graphical MMORPGs. It was a dominant feature of DIKU MUDs, whose original classes were fighter, healer, wizard, thief. That gave you tank, healer, and two dps ... http://muckbeast.today.com/2009/01/22/tank-healer-dps-still-happy-with-the-holy-trinity/ No wonder developers don't invest serious time into mini-games. I can barely get people to talk about them! It would be easy to misinterpret this as a lack of interest, but in 17 years of making online games I have rarely been disappointed with the results of a good ... http://muckbeast.today.com/2009/01/21/i-said-mini-games-are-awesome/ On June 11, 1996, I brought Threshold RPG fully online for the first time. I generated my first couple characters to make sure everything I had created was working. The game was playable, though it did not have a tremendous amount of content. It had a handful of ... http://muckbeast.today.com/2009/01/19/mini-games-are-awesome/ I imagine some of you have read a few of the articles from the last year or so where writers try to draw comparisons between raid leading in a game like WoW, and management in the business world. I seem to recall the Wall Street Journal even wrote about it. ... http://muckbeast.today.com/2009/01/17/the-ongoing-pr-scam-about-raid-leading/ I don't want to distract too much from the Designing a Religious Pantheon article, so instead of moving on to another game desgin topic I am going to direct you to three (non-game design) tech articles I wrote recently. Since most people reading this blog use the internet (hah!) and ... http://muckbeast.today.com/2009/01/15/alienware-firefox-and-motherboards-oh-my/ As promised, I am leaving the Wikipedia topic and moving on to another issue of Threshold's game design. The religion system is probably one of the most robust and popular role playing features on Threshold. In this post, I am going to talk specifically about how the deities were ... http://muckbeast.today.com/2009/01/14/desining-a-religious-pantheon/ 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 ... http://muckbeast.today.com/2009/01/13/wikipedia-takes-on-threshold-rpg-part-3/