Disguising the grind
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Age of Conan, EverQuest II, Culture, Game mechanics, Lore, MMO industry, Quests, PvE, Opinion, Hands-on, Virtual worlds
Believe it or not, grind is an essential part of an MMO and we might be pretty lost without it. Repetitive content is the cornerstone of the MMO genre but it’s not all just smacking monsters over the head for hours on end or completing yet another “kill ten rats” quest. The repetitive elements in an MMO give us predictable gameplay in a form we can digest. We don’t feel lost when we pick up a quest because it uses similar mechanics to previous quests we’ve done. From a development standpoint, the amount of time it takes to create new and unique gameplay for an MMO is quite large and it’s just not feasible to churn out unique gameplay with every new piece of content. Instead, developers are forced to re-use the same gameplay mechanics over and over again. So if we genuinely appreciate predictable, repetitive gameplay and it’s not feasible to do otherwise, why are we always so up-in-arms about the evils of grinding?
In this probative opinion piece, I look at why we need repetitive gameplay in MMOs and the various ways developers disguise grind to keep the game entertaining.
Update: Link to page 2 fixed. Thanks Brian!
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Disguising the grind originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Building MMO landscape scenes
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Screenshots, Age of Conan, EverQuest II, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO industry, Hands-on, Academic, Virtual worlds
Landscapes have been a staple component of almost every MMO in recent memory. With the exception of some sci-fi titles, most MMOs take place on the land of some imagined island or continent. Some use stylised fantasy landscapes that run smoothly on even low-end computers while others have managed almost photo-realistic visuals at the cost of performance. But have you ever thought about what’s going on behind the scenes in your favourite MMO? Most of us don’t think about how the computer is actually drawing the terrain we run around on. We don’t give much thought to the different ways each MMO renders the water in lakes, rivers and oceans. And just how does your computer render so many trees and plants without grinding to a halt? As part of my masters degree in computer science, I got to grips with a number of these techniques and found it a fascinating thing to learn about. Now when I play a new game or see MMO screenshots, I can’t help but think about what the computer is doing in the background and how particular visual effects could have been achieved.
In this technical article, I talk about some of the components of an MMO landscape scene and a few of the techniques used in creating the graphics behind them.
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Building MMO landscape scenes originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Digital Continuum: Expanding horizontally
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, Expansions, Opinion, The Digital Continuum
The worlds we live in are always expanding some way or another. In our real world, we get promotions or new career opportunities. In our virtual equivalents, it’s level cap raises and new classes. Yet for years and years, too many expansions have overlooked what they’re truly capable of accomplishing.
In real life, we can’t go back and make our teens, twenties and thirties better than they once were because that’s physically impossible. So why in these worlds of infinite possibilities, have countless developers scoffed at the chance to do this very thing?
Lucky for us, Funcom and Blizzard recently both asked themselves this very question. While the latter may be doing something much more grandiose than the former, both deserve our praise for finally turning around and swimming upstream in a current of same old grind goals. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that Blizzard is sitting on the Mt. Everest of money hills.
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The Digital Continuum: Expanding horizontally originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 24 Aug 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Digital Continuum: Expanding horizontally part 2
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, Expansions, Opinion, The Digital Continuum
Continue reading The Digital Continuum: Expanding horizontally part 2
The Digital Continuum: Expanding horizontally part 2 originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 24 Aug 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Digital Continuum: The people problem
Filed under: Age of Conan, News items, Opinion, The Digital Continuum
As I’ve spent time with Age of Conan this last week, something has been preventing me from finding a nice groove to settle down into. Mostly, it’s from people being jerks. Then again, that could be what I get for venturing into a PvP server. If you haven’t already guessed, this week’s The Digital Continuum strives to dig down deep into what makes a community tick, and why that can potentially matter more than any game feature on the back of the box.
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The Digital Continuum: The people problem originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Daily Grind: Does playing an MMO pique your interest about its origins?
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings Online, Culture, Lore, MMO industry, Star Trek Online, The Daily Grind
MMOs are rarely stand-alone entities; there are exceptions of course but most are created thanks to a fan base from some other medium. Some, like WoW, are based on older games (often completely different types of games like an RTS or RPG) with a rich mythology that lends themselves perfectly to transcend its original form and become an MMO. Others, like Age of Conan and Star Trek, have their origins in novels, film franchises or even a TV series. I know, I know, I’m still waiting and living in hope of that Firefly MMO just like the rest of you.
So my question for you is this: Do you play an MMO because of where it came from? Are you a Trekkie who is dying to captain your own ship? Did you play Warcraft back in the days of The Frozen Throne and gravitate naturally to the MMO? On the flipside, did the lore of LotRO make you want to read Tolkien’s books? For you, what came first, the origins or the game?
The Daily Grind: Does playing an MMO pique your interest about its origins? originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Daily Grind: What part of MMOs do you not like?
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Age of Conan, Aion, EVE Online, Game mechanics, The Daily Grind
MMOs are well known for variety, in fact they’re famous for it. The world (whichever you might choose) is quite literally your oyster, You can mine, you can craft, you can kill and you can quest. Part of the charm of these virtual worlds is the freedom to do or not do whatever you want. Some people, for example, live for PvP, while others spend their time making things, digging up plants or drifting in the depths of space mining asteroids and other celestial bodies.
However most people have one thing that they hate doing. No MMO out there is perfect, there’s always going to be some aspect of them which drives people bonkers. This could be a nitpick with game mechanics, or perhaps a boring quest. What about long flight times to get from A to B or a raid lock out period? Perhaps you hate fishing or squinting looking for herb nodes. Maybe it’s PUGs or running a specific instance. Mine is PvP, waiting for an hour for raids to get started and rescuing scantily-clad maidens tied to trees (AoC I’m looking at you). What’s yours?
The Daily Grind: What part of MMOs do you not like? originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Daily Grind: How did you discover MMOs?
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Age of Conan, EverQuest, Lord of the Rings Online, Culture, MMO industry, The Daily Grind
So, constant readers, how did you discover the strange new world of the MMO? Do you just play one or do you now find yourself torn between many different words and cultures. Were you initially sceptical about this MMO lark, or did you embrace online gaming with enthusiasm and have not looked back since?
The Daily Grind: How did you discover MMOs? originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Daily Grind: Is lore important to you?
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings Online, Lore, The Daily Grind
Lore is the keystone of every good MMO, it crafts the raid instances and pushes the game to new heights in the form of expansions and patches. For many it is the lure of the lore — and by extension the playable races — which pulls them into the game. When I was a little younger than I am now, I studied classics and religious studies and theology at a uni in London for almost four years. I dig religion, I adore translations of ancient texts and I really, really like mythology. As a result fantasy games are especially fascinating for me to me. When everyone else sees Titans, I see a mishmash of the actual Titans and the Olympians given new life, where you see Anubisath I see the ancient Egyptian protector of the dead. Where you see Val’kyr, I see Odin’s barmaidens.
So come on readers, how important is lore to you? Do you dig finding all the references in game? Does the lore make a game more rich and appealing? Does it make it feel more real? Do you not give a fig? Are you more interested in just killing things? Do you play titles like AoC or LotRO just because of the books they were inspired by?
The Daily Grind: Is lore important to you? originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The importance of good audio in an MMO
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Age of Conan, EVE Online, EverQuest II, Culture, MMO industry, Academic, Education, Virtual worlds, Black Prophecy
In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the development budgets of new MMOs. To stay ahead of the technological curve, a large portion of the budget invariably goes toward the graphics department. Studios produce impressive graphics engines and mountains of art assets in an effort to make their game one of the most visually impressive out there. Amidst all the fuss over graphics and gameplay, audio is often overlooked and underfunded. It’s been shown that good music and sound effects can have a significant impact on the perceived quality of a game. This is something that some development studios recognise and support but many continue to neglect this vital part of the gaming experience.
In this article, I examine the importance of good audio in an MMO and explain the underlying psychology involved.
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The importance of good audio in an MMO originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
