Weekend Blog Round Up

Game designers and pundits don't yield to anything as silly as weekends! No, their soapbox activity knows no rest. Let's take a look at what pontification happened over the weekend, shall we?

Dave Rickey stirred up some debate between he and Brian Green. His Examining the Elephant presents a list of attributes an MMO should contain:

[li]Games[li]Communities[li]Worlds[li]Escapism Vehicles[li]Story-Containing Dramas[li]Treadmills[li]Multiplayer Puzzles[li]Conflict Generators[li]Time Fillers

He focuses mainly on the "game" portion, claiming it's the core of any MMO, and the remaining attributes he listed are ancillary to what ultimately boils down to a game.

Green counters the argument by saying communities are what separates MMOs from regular games, but also goes on to say there might be money to be made by focusing on any of the attributes, provided you boil yourself down to a niche game.

I really can't say the game or the community is the core of an MMO, if only because there haven't been enough MMOs to fully define the genre. Looking at WoW, which is the killer app for this generation, it's mostly a conflict generator with some treadmills thrown in, and a damn interesting world. Looking at the question Rickey poses, I'd argue everything he lists is equally important, and a chunk of what makes up the core of an MMO. It can't just be one of those. The nucleus of a cell contains DNA with a variety of messages and instructions. It doesn't just do one thing.

In other areas, Aggro Me has some pointers for EQ2 fans regarding the upcoming combat changes. Namely, don't freak out in the first week, because immediate reactionaries are dumb. Speaking as a reactionary pain in the ass, I can agree with his assertion.