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GDC 2011: BioWare's Damion Schubert on designing for loners
Nothing stirs up a good MMO debate like the age-old question of whether or not the genre should cater to solo players. BioWare's Damion Schubert, lead systems designer on the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic, recently added a bit of fuel to that particular fire during a presentation at last week's GDC in San Francisco. Schubert's talk focused on loners in the massively multiplayer space, and while it's no surprise to anyone that TOR is being built with the solo player in mind, it may come as a bit of a revelation that BioWare isn't aiming to "dumb down" the MMORPG as some fans have suggested. On the contrary, Schubert states that MMOs feature "hardcore stuff. This is hardcore gameplay, and we have to figure out how to get the solo player in a position where they want to take part in this, where they feel comfortable with the social circles, where they feel like they can be contributors."
Drama Mamas: The case of the friendly hermit
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. WoW may be both massive and multiplayer, but many of us play it like a single-player game with chat channels. In fact, there are quite a few people who use guild chat and whispers as chat rooms, getting very little playing done during some sessions. And some of us like to either play or chat, but not both. Playing without an invisibility option can be troublesome for those who tend toward hermitism. Hermitness? Hermitacity! Oh, let's just get to the letter. Dear Drama Mamas, As a RL introvert, I find it very hard to make friends and feel happiest when I'm on my own. (I went through several years of high school without so much as a single friend and was very happy that way!) But online is very, very different. I find it easy to be myself in guild and general chat and so on, and as a result I attract a lot of friends. Because of this, often when I login, three to five people will whisper me at once, each expecting to carry a full-on conversation with me.
