Category Archives: MMO design

Darkfall: Meditation thoughts + next patch

Posted on December 15, 2010 by SynCaine

It would seem that I picked a great time to get back into Darkfall, as this update mentions a lot of rather exciting things, chief among them fixes to clan warfare and the expanding of the meditation (offline skilling) system. … Continue reading →

Posted in Combat Systems, Darkfall Online, MMO design, Patch Notes, PvP | 5 Comments

Collision Detection revisited

Posted on December 14, 2010 by SynCaine

Different games require different things, and something vital to one might be completely trivial to another. The goal of this post is to consider how important spot-on collision detection is to Darkfall, and to also touch on some other games … Continue reading →

Posted in Combat Systems, Darkfall Online, MMO design, PvP, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 7 Comments

Kingdom Conquest: The surprising iPhone MMO that works

Posted on December 6, 2010 by SynCaine

Kingdom Conquest, a MMO of sorts for the iPhone, has been a very pleasant surprise. Its part resource sim (build a city, city produces resources, spend resources to improve city + army), part card game-style combat, and part beat-em-up mini-game. … Continue reading →

Posted in iPhone, MMO design | 15 Comments

Rift: Define ‘dynamic’

Posted on December 2, 2010 by SynCaine

I’ve yet to really look into Rift because, well, it’s an MMO in pre-beta, so right now the devs are telling you it’s gods gift to gaming, and they have the feature-list and staged videos to prove it! I did … Continue reading →

Posted in beta, Combat Systems, Mass Media, MMO design, Random | 17 Comments

“It seems much easier to make interesting, sandbox PvP content then it is to maintain and create PvE treadmill content”

Posted on November 30, 2010 by SynCaine

Every now and then you come across something shocking it’s just too hard to ignore. Today is one of those days. This is a comment from a post Keen made, waiting for WoW to embrace its PvP nature (pro-tip: HKO … Continue reading →

Posted in Age of Conan, Aion, Combat Systems, Dark Age of Camelot, Darkfall Online, DDO, EQ2, EVE Online, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, PvP, Rant, Ultima Online, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 39 Comments

More thoughts on Perpetuum

Posted on November 22, 2010 by SynCaine

I spent a solid amount of time playing Perpetuum over the weekend, wrapping up the introductory assignment (quests) line and a few Corp assignments after. I feel that I’m at the point now where I ‘get’ a good portion of … Continue reading →

Posted in beta, EVE Online, MMO design, Random | 2 Comments

Perpetuum Review (EG style)

Posted on November 19, 2010 by SynCaine

EVE – spaceships + robots = Perpetuum. Normally people write the above as a joke because something within the game is sorta like something from another game. Not the case here. At all. The above is fact. I’m 100% serious. … Continue reading →

Posted in beta, EVE Online, MMO design, Random | 15 Comments

Character grind

Posted on November 16, 2010 by SynCaine

Darkfall has come a long way since launch in almost all areas. The PvE is much better (and in sync!), PvP balance is at a good level (it’s never going to be perfect, but can always improve), server and client … Continue reading →

Posted in Combat Systems, Darkfall Online, EVE Online, MMO design, PvP, Rant | 9 Comments

MMOs being niche, the non-issue?

Posted on November 12, 2010 by SynCaine

What hasn’t been conquered, still, is making alternate worlds accessible enough to broad audiences. Raph Koster over at his blog. I’d ask if this is really a problem that needs solving. I think this is one of the unfortunate side … Continue reading →

Posted in Asheron's Call, Darkfall Online, EQ2, EVE Online, Guild Wars, MMO design, SW:TOR, Ultima Online, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 19 Comments

Darkfall, Blood Bowl, and UO vs WoW (sorta)

Posted on November 11, 2010 by SynCaine

Blood Bowl League Update: So it turns out if you set your league to 16 teams, you have to have 16 teams before you can start it, who knew? And since we only had 14 teams sign up, well, we … Continue reading →

Posted in Blood Bowl, Darkfall Online, MMO design, Ultima Online, World of Warcraft | 1 Comment