February 2006 - Posts

• Use it by losing it

  Last time around, i wrote a long essay on why MMORPGs aren't. This time around, i'm going to get very explicit with you all about the design of Faith and try to show how we plan to bring RP into an MMORPG by totally excluding it. Sound counterintuitive? You betcha. So is most of physics but it works, else we'd all fall off the planet. Read More... Posted Saturday, February 25, 2006 11:43 PM by Rich Bryant | 15 Comments

• Raph Koster wins

  Just go read it. And weep for this is the truth. Read More... Posted Saturday, February 25, 2006 7:26 PM by Rich Bryant | 5 Comments Filed under: Design

• MMORPGs do not exist

  Sorry I had to be the one to break it you. It's true, though. Let's define an RPG first. The initials stand for Role Playing Game. The first big commercial RPG for public consumption that everyone recognizes as such was probably E. Gary Gygax's Dungeons Read More... Posted Friday, February 24, 2006 11:51 AM by Rich Bryant | 9 Comments

• Games i'd love to play

  Just a wishlist, really. SIN CITY Online. Imagine an MMO based on Frank Miller's amazing comic, imagine twitchy gunfighting action, bitter betrayals and hot femmes fatales as the only splashes of colour in a monochrome world. Except for the blood. Imagine Read More... Posted Thursday, February 23, 2006 10:17 AM by Rich Bryant | 8 Comments

• Fun. It's a drug, baby.

  A fairly in-depth look at the idea of fun as a drug, at games as media for that drug and at game makers as drug pushers. Also contains various jibes at Jack Thompson. Read More... Posted Saturday, February 18, 2006 9:02 PM by Rich Bryant | 8 Comments

• The Eternal Arrogance of the man

  Taking a big risk. An alternate theory of fun, inspired by conversation with Psychochild. Read More... Posted Saturday, February 18, 2006 11:08 AM by Rich Bryant | 2 Comments Filed under: Life, Design, Faith Specific

• Media whores, political whores and now just plain whores

  We've all seen the ludicrous antics of Jack Thompson , we've all heard the scare politics of various US sentators and at least one babbling nobody from the UK parliament, pundits, halfwits and dipshits alike. They all sell the same tired old lines about Read More... Posted Friday, February 17, 2006 10:36 AM by Rich Bryant | 0 Comments

• So, apparently i'm a supervillain

  According to this, anyway. Thanks to Gary at work for that one. Very funny, Gary. You won't be laughing when Beowulf Cluster of minions visits your scummy apartment this weekend, will you? Insert maniacal laughter here, please. Read More... Posted Thursday, February 16, 2006 2:54 PM by Rich Bryant | 1 Comments Filed under: Life

• But not as we know it

  I had a long chat last night with someone i don't like very much. In fact, i dislike him so much that i probably wouldn't speak with him if i didn't have to, but it counts as work. He's arrogant, convinced of his own superiority, crude, rude, lacks all Read More... Posted Thursday, February 16, 2006 7:41 AM by Rich Bryant | 7 Comments

• The Zone

  Love is two lanes of blacktop, a freshly tuned engine, a sunny afternoon and familiar music that you don't have to listen to to enjoy. Hell yeah. So, Friday i left work early. That's always enough to put me in a good mood especially as my day job at the Read More... Posted Monday, February 13, 2006 11:37 AM by Rich Bryant | 0 Comments Filed under: Life, Design, Faith Specific

• Bzzt! Rewind! I was wrong, Raph was right

  A while back, Raph Koster had an article going about Moore's Law, which he referred to as Moore's wall . In it he raised the opinion that games as a whole would not become more innovating (or rather, return to the days of innovation) until the medium Read More... Posted Monday, February 13, 2006 7:15 AM by Rich Bryant | 3 Comments

• Creativity sucks, dude.

  No, really. Players don't want it, and they're your customers. Creativity is the thinly veiled pretentious posing of the wannabe auteur , creativity is what happens when Graphical Engineers are permitted to call themselves "artists", creativity alienates Read More... Posted Friday, February 10, 2006 7:06 AM by Rich Bryant | (Comments Off) Filed under: Design

• All the world's a game

  I have a theory about what makes an MMO worldy or gamey, which i'll risk everything and tell you about. Caution - may contain mathematics. Read More... Posted Wednesday, February 08, 2006 11:49 AM by Rich Bryant | 9 Comments

• Smoke and Mirrors

  I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Game designers are almost always involved in a form of deception. It's a trick. Sometimes it's a good trick, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes you, the players, see right through the trick and sometimes you don't Read More... Posted Saturday, February 04, 2006 10:11 PM by Rich Bryant | 2 Comments Filed under: Design, Faith Specific

• Blog Update

  Anonymous comments can now be made on this blog. They're moderated though. Registered users may still comment without moderation. Enjoy! Read More... Posted Thursday, February 02, 2006 4:07 PM by Rich Bryant | 0 Comments

• We Happy Few

  Remember pen&paper games? A group of six or seven people being adventurers or vampires or cyborgs and one guy making the word work, reacting to your actions? Remember how after a few sessions, you and the rest of your group stopped being just a collection Read More... Posted Thursday, February 02, 2006 11:49 AM by Rich Bryant | 3 Comments Filed under: Design, Faith Specific

• As the spring winds down

  So does my mood. The space demo (see the Files section of this site) was really a just a muckaround, a chance to prove that framerates under managed DirectX could be more than acceptable at the client side and a chance to fool around with some physics. Read More... Posted Wednesday, February 01, 2006 9:28 AM by Rich Bryant | 1 Comments