DarkAgeofCamelot
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Really obvious study alert: MMOs make you lose sleep
*cue cheesy infomercial music*Hey, YOU! Tired of using common sense and personal experience to confirm really obvious assertions? Then you should try science. Yes, through use of our patented scientific method, science will have your theories looking less questionable and more sound in no time.Just look at this study from Syracuse University Psychology Professor Joshua Smyth. At first all four groups of gamers look exactly the same. But just apply the magic of science and you'll see that the group playing MMO Dark Age of Camelot spent on average twice as long with the game on a weekly basis, resulting in "significantly lower overall health and poorer sleep." Once again, science improves our lives by confirming something that every gamer already knows.Remember, that's science: Confirming observations since ancient Egypt.
The downfalls of player-created housing
We unfortunately don't know much about what's coming next, but we do know one thing that's scheduled to show up, at least before the next expansion: some sort of housing. All the Blue hints point to guild housing, but player housing is an idea that's been tossed around as well. There's just one problem to MMO housing, however. As Hardcore Casual points out, it often becomes a ghost town.Back when I played Dark Age of Camelot, I remember visiting the guild housing area only once (the guild I joined was mostly lowbies, and we never had enough cash to buy property of our own), and it was a strange experience-- acres upon acres of customized buildings, all completely and totally empty as far as I could see. There were a few NPCs around (DAoC had a feature where you could have NPCs stand outside your house to sell your crafts while you were gone), but otherwise it was more like an abandoned trailer park than anything else. As HC says, the "IDEA" of housing is great-- you can have your own place to hang out, show off, and build to your heart's content. But in practice, most players would rather be exploring the world Blizzard designed then stuck in a small room that they made themselves.Now, the obvious solution for this is instancing, and in fact, Blizzard has already foreseen this-- there are currently instance portals in a few cities that have been rumored to serve as either player or guild housing. If instances were used as housing, we'd just all own the same apartment in Stormwind. But you have to balance that against the other feature of housing-- actually showing it off. Wandering around the houses in DAoC was a kind of (lonely) fun, if only to see what other people had created, and with just an instance, all you'd get to see is the inside. It'll be interesting to see how Blizzard balances player-created content (which can sometimes be boring or ugly), with their own interesting design.
Taking the production out of itemcrafting
Here's an interesting suggestion from Mystic Worlds: take the production process out of crafting.When I used to play Dark Age of Camelot, the crafting setup was my least favorite part of the game-- it seemed like crafting materials were expensive, the crafting process took way too much time (I having long conversations with others standing around the crafting area), and the stuff you made (at the early levels anyway) just wasn't that great. So WoW's system may not be perfect, but it seemed like a breath of fresh air after that-- materials come from actually playing the game, and putting things together is something you can generally do as an afterthought rather than as, well, a profession. The gathering is the important part.So Mystic Worlds says, why not make the gathering the whole thing? You still go out and get mats from the world, crafters turn those raw mats into usable mats, and then you'd actually take the bolts and gems and tanned leather that crafters made to NPC crafters, who would turn them into items. That way, if you want a Robe of the Void but you aren't a tailor, you just take the mats to an NPC tailor who can hammer one out for you.
WoW Future-Vision: Express train to the level cap
The year is 2012. WoW fans are excitedly awaiting the game's 5th expansion, Revenge of the Gnomes, which brings two new races to the game (Sporeggar and Goblins, at last!), as well as a new class (the Tinker), and a slew of other features. As everyone knows, this is the expansion where the gnomes finally take back Gnomeregan from the troggs, pushing them back all the way into the "Undergloom," a vast and ancient network of caverns beneath Azeroth. Of course, the gnomes also accidentally stumble upon the long-buried prison of the Old Gods and unleash unbridled havoc on the World of Warcraft, but that's where the fun is, right?I could go on and on about the new features included in Revenge of the Gnomes, but I'm sure you've heard about most of them already (like the subterranean hovercraft group-mounts and blue-pill, red-pill potions for alchemy). Suffice it to say that the feature everyone is most excited about is that the level cap is once again being raised another 10 levels, to a grand total of 110. Like everyone else, you're probably wondering how in the world (of Warcraft) are you going to level your new Goblin Tinker character all the way through those tedious levels of 1 to 100? Everyone wants to try out the new content, but no one wants to slave away through Stranglethorn Vale for the 48th time. To complicate things further, Blizzard still doesn't want to add any more 1-60 quests in the lower-level zones (not to mention any of the Outland, Northrend, Emerald Dream, or Great Sea Expansion zones)! Fortunately, though, Blizzard's got what you need! Are you prepared for the "/level" command?
Joystiq interviews Rand Miller of Cyan Worlds [update 1]
Myst Online: Uru Live will let thousands of players convene in Myst ages to solve puzzles. Touting the persistence of the world as a major feature -- light switches and doors stay how you leave them -- Cyan Worlds thinks the collaborative nature of Myst will make a unique Massively Multiplayer Online game. Two years ago, Uru Live was canceled just before its initial launch under Ubisoft. Now, after developing it for a total of six years, Cyan Worlds is working with its new publisher, GameTap, to prepare the game for a "holiday" release. Uru Live will be offered as part of the monthly $10 GameTap subscription for the U.S. audience, but GameTap will release Uru Live as a stand-alone subscription in other parts of the world. (GameTap is not yet offered outside of the U.S.) We recently spoke with Myst co-creator Rand Miller, while Producer, Mark "Moke" Dobratz demonstrated the game. They talked about how Uru Live supports the collaborative sensibility of Myst players, how the game will let you have individual experiences within its MMO structure, and plans to let users build their own ages.[Update 1: Fixed ship-date error.]
