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The Soapbox: The Uncle Owen paradox
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. This week, the venerable Star Wars Galaxies celebrates its eighth year of existence. I was there in the beginning -- before the beginning, in fact. I did what a lot of you early SWG players probably did: I had a guild and a guild city, multiple accounts, a booming business as a chef, and a character who could entertain and fight. Even then, we realized how different SWG was from its immediate predecessors like EverQuest and Dark Age of Camelot. We'd returned to the earlier age of Ultima Online, of persistent worlds (as the term was used back then). It was more a world than a game, and in it we could roleplay whatever we liked, to a point. Nowadays, we'd call it a sandbox. Old-school MMO gamers know well that the sandbox is under attack. Some will blame it on EverQuest, some on World of Warcraft, some on the free-to-play phenomenon. Among the Massively commenters, there's a large contingent of gamers who consider SWG's own NGE to be the beginning of the end of the classic sandbox. I can't say they're wrong when it comes to the philosophy governing new MMOs, but the sandbox isn't dead yet.
The Anvil of Crom: Time to move on?
Welcome back to The Anvil of Crom, Conan fans. This week I'm going to tackle something a bit off the beaten path. I've been messing around with the Refuge of the Apostate on various toons, and our Choose My Adventure Bear Shaman is holding in his late 30s as I attempt (so far in vain) to get some dungeon time in before moving on to the Field of the Dead. Something's been on my mind lately, though, something that's not entirely unique to Age of Conan but is nonetheless a significant part of the overall fan experience. In a nutshell, I'd like to discuss AoC's community, and at the risk of offending (or more likely, inciting) portions of it, why it's so unfortunate.
Jerks, brats, and griefers can be curbed with good design
According to Bill Fulton, some of the most over-looked aspects of online game development today are design mechanisms to discourage players from acting like jerks. Rather than merely acquiescing to the reality that in any large game communities, there are just going to be a given number of dickwads, Fulton suggests that this accepted reality is nothing more than the result of faulty design. Developers can figure out ways to discourage or circumvent this kind of behavior, Fulton says, if they just put some thought into it.Why does this even matter? According to Fulton, when immaturity and asshattery is allowed to rein supreme, it discourages large swaths of a potential player base from continuing to play, or even from signing up in the first place. Certain demographics, like women or older gamers who get enough childish antics from their kids, are especially resistant to this kind of behavior. If you look at a game like World of Warcraft, which is so eminently successful in these demographics, they've implemented a number of elements (like profanity filters, graveyard rez's, and reactive city guards) to keep the idiots at bay. When you're trying to emulate WoW's success, it's an feature set you'd be remiss not to include.
Sprint lambasted for disconnecting whiners, notorious roamers
Recently, Sprint decided to cut its losses and give a number of CSRs a break from the nagging when it pulled the plug on nearly 1,200 of its mobile customers. Apparently, these whiners were dialing in "40 to 50 times as often" as the "average customer," and after failing to appease them, the firm chose to "terminate the relationship with those customers to allow them to pursue other options." As you'd imagine, some of these bicker-prone individuals are less than pleased with the outcome, and to make matters worse, the firm has also cut the cord with habitual roamers -- including some that are actually enlisted in our military. Can't a soldier (or sniveller) catch a break?[Thanks, John F.]Read - Sprint cancels 1,200 contracts over excessive complainingRead - Sprint cancels traveling soldiers' cellphone
