The articles of WarCry columnist Jonathan Steinhaur.
Morale is a very real aspect of warfare. Historical battles are as often won through moral superiority as physical strength. Rules that account for morale loss (and less frequently, morale gain) are very common in military computer, miniature, and board games yet have been largely neglected for games where a player controls a single avatar.
As long as player action sequences are the driving force behind special maneuvers, MMOs will be nothing but a numbers game. The key to break this cycle is to focus on responses to the enemy's actions.
How much of an MMO is button smashing and how much involves actual skill? This installment is an investigation of how armor choices and shield employment can yield more combat decisions.
I like stats as much as the next person (probably more), but when warfare is boiled down to raw probabilities, battlefield skill disappears. The building of the best stat base becomes much more important than any sort of tactical competency. Instead of seeking a skill based work-around, games come up with new statistical probabilities.
In this installment, Jonathan Steinhauer looks at the last MMO class archetypes, the Healer, and why this role at least is solidly developed.
The archetypal concept of the tank assumes that PvE opponents have the mental capacity of cattle. Instead of a monster intelligently attacking what would make his enemy most vulnerable (the Healer) or what is the greatest actual threat (the DPS), it attacks the one opponent that isthe smallest real threat and the hardest to kill: the Rodeo Clown... er Tank.
Starting a new series on the archetypal MMO classes, Jonathan Steinhauer begins by looking at DPS and the issue of hitting versus damaging.
In this installment, Jonathan Steinhauer takes a look at the weapons of fantasy MMOs and how they have all become identical.
Jonathan Steinhauer takes a look at roleplaying and why he has such a hard time fitting it into the MMO genre.
Game designers face many challenges, and one of the largest of these is balance. Yet curiously, one facet that seems to garner a much smaller degree is the economy. That isn't to say MMO economics don't get a great deal of attention but as they stand the balance is more reminiscent of a band-aid than any real resolution.
In many of my recent articles, I've proceeded from the assumption that real life comparisons with games are a logical and natural concept. Apparently, I am mistaken. I have been told that the game is fantasy or sci-fi and that means it's not supposed to be real. Yet one of the great strengths of the genres is their link with the human experience.
Everything that exists, both in fiction and in reality, has links to what has come before so nothing is truly original. The adage "there is nothing new under the sun" holds true. In order to achieve something that is measurable, I will investigate originality in the sense of what is commonly called new IP.
With the release of WOTLK, Blizzard proved once again that they understand business far better than the American automobile industry. Regardless of whatever storm of skill and circumstance thrust WoW to the top of the MMO heap, the newest expansion shows that Blizzard isn't content simply to rest on its laurels.
Crafting remains one of the most tedious aspects of MMOs. For most players, trade skills are a nice addition to the gaming experience but we'd rather not quit our adventuring "day job" for long hours at a time to keep up on crafting. Trade skills are generally time consuming, tedious, and devoid of player skill when they should be enjoyable, not just for the rewards they offer at the end of the hard work, but because the hard work is fun in and of itself.
When Tolkien, the father of modern fantasy, wrote "The road goes ever ever on," MMOs took him at his word. A large part of online gaming consists of traveling from one point to another, but when it takes so much time to get anywhere, frustration mounts. If I'm picking up a book or alt-tabbing to web surf or check e-mail instead of playing the game, there is something wrong with the dynamics.
