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Raph Koster on Fire
This week's Escapist has a in-depth article talking with Raph Koster. Author Allen Varney and Mr. Koster go over his best-selling book, the Ultima Online days, the debacle that is Star Wars Galaxies, and what he's planning to do next. From the article: "I'll make an exception for the NGE. I don't think you can or should change a game that radically out from under a user base. You dance with the ones that brung ya, whether they are the market of your dreams or not. They have invested their passion and built expectations about where they want the game to go. Changing things out from under them isn't fair in my mind, especially given how they have been loyal to you in times of trouble. It's like dumping the girlfriend who has always been patient and loving to chase after the supermodel who probably won't love you back."
I had thought that Koster was pro-NGE initially, and was one of the guys cited whenever there was static over it.
"Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."
That's odd. A link to a story about a man set on fire, and there is nothing to see? I know, it's off topic, but the graphic imagery instilled by the summary title, with the nothing to see body... it's just ironic.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Disappointment is seeing the phrase "Raph Koster on Fire", and not even seeing a black-and-white screenshot.
Quick! Someone grab a wand of dousing...
... welcome the soon to come endless comments of SOE bashing. Seriously. I used to love SWG. Seriously on that one too.
Whose next?
I'll take egotistical game developers for $600 Alex
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
This isn't a flamebait either. This guy has a huge ego, and for what? Because he was in on Ultima Online? The funny part is, most people who look back fondly on ultima online do so because of the all-out PK'ing that went on. Kosner went out of his way to discourage it. Then, we can talk about Star Wars Galaxies...was that not a complete and total failure? The star wars franchise is much more appealing than the world of warcraft one, yet WoW managed to sell copies to people who weren't even interested in Warcraft lore (myself included).
He can write about " A Theory of Fun for Game Design." all he wants, he still doesn't 'get it'. What people want is world of warcraft from levels 1-59 and early WoW/UO PKing. The funny part is, you don't have to spend a zillion dollars making new content every 3 months if the players become the actual content and you give them meaningful ways to effect the world and each other. (ie, real pvp objectives).
One man's constant is another man's variable.
You would need to TRY to fail in making a Star Wars MMORPG fail.
Yes, I was suckered into it. The combat in the game was useless - you could solo anything in the game. The crafting system was the best I've ever seen in a game, but with the combat flaws and high rate of durability loss it didn't matter. The "Entertainer" professions were a joke.
There wasn't interesting quests. There wasn't unique enemies that required special tactics. It was one of the most poorly designed games of our generation.
What he has done to deserve an article boggles my mind.
Raph Koster is the Romero of MMO development.
Anybody else read this and thing "Blood Elf Paladins?"
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Then you should put him out.
Content: Richard Pryor
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
In reality, and UO/SWG and the net in general prove this every day, people can barely be forced to not be complete assholes at gunpoint. People just ain't nice unless there is someone standing behind them with a very big stick. Online were often there is no way for the primitive goverment of revenge, anarachy rules and most people do not like anarachy. If we did we would have more of it.
SWG had a job system and an economy, if it had played out in the idealist vision of liberatarion Raplh Koster then their would have been very few if any UBER-specced out players. You would probably have sacrificed some of your skillpoints to be part of the supply chain. Your combat character would still have had scout skills to harvest or prospecting skills to keep the economy floating. This did not work out. If you were able to solo everything in the game it meant you were one of the people who depended entirely on other more balanced players to give you the equipment to do so.
Many of the crafters I knew got utterly fed up with the constant demand by the soloers for supplies yet being unable to get any of the base ingredients of them.
other systems instead emerged, not a huge economy with everyone chipping in but a specialised one with just a handfull of people controlling most production. For a long time I played on servers were there would be only 1 or 2 chefs to keep everyone supplied, them relying on a small core off players to keep things rolling. It didn't take much to upset this. One scout leaving the game lead on one server to a situation were you could only get supplies if you first brought the ingredients.
WoW works because it is far more restricted. It just doesn't give players the freedom to go screw their own game up.
Open ended games wether that is The Sims or Oblivion often require of the player to limit himselfe. To not give yourselve an uber character but rather to limit yourselve in the spirit of gameplay. Yes the best furniture will give you the best stats in the Sims but go ahead and limit yourselve to cheapo stuff to play a game off a students live. Do not just give yourselve some cheat cash so you can finally buy that toilet that actually allows your sim not to spend half of each day on the can.
Same with Oblivion, you know you don't actually have to wear the armour with the best stats, you could actually just choose the one that looks good. The one that best fits your character.
In the old grand prix games you could try regular overtaking and not the slam them up the tailpipe to get them out of the way style of racing.
But people don't do that. In real life people put on godmode and then complain nothing is a challenge.
SWG was ruined by a combination of incomplete design and players not "getting it". Yes that players didn't get it was part of the incomplete design error.
By allowing people to "stack" multiple combat proffesions they allowed players to become too powerfull for the game, helped by errors in armors and buffs, and then made sure to only add content for those uber-specced players like the corvette and the death watch bunker, wich were not doable by non-template stackers.
But nobody forced the playing originally to stack their templates. They just gave you the gun, you used it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Out of all the articles that get linked here from the escapist, I never see the good ones. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/55/20 Titled :The Short, Happy Life of Infocom
by Lara Crigger
News for nerds indeed. Actually most of the articles in this issue are better, 20Million Sims Online Failure, CyberSex
Thanks for the text editions http://www.escapistmagazine.com/print/55/18 Sims
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Mr. Koster is out of a Job. He's looking for a new one, preferably a big name IP which he can use to make another virtual world, without actually caring for the IP.
There was no Ultima in UO, just a virtual playingfield
There was no Star Wars in SWG, just virtual dancers and crafters.
So now the Escapist (which I usually like) publishes a 'look, the guy is so cool, he needs another project to sink' article in which the close knit community of outdated MMO Developers gives virtual fellatio to the guy to support his hunt for a new job.
It is important to note that the one really successful MMO these days, WoW was created by people who are not part of this cabal of 'outdated' MMO developers and as a result they managed to create a game that's actually fun for the players, not for the developers with a god complex.
His main line is "it's a service, not a game". Services, like SWG, are not fun. Games, like WoW however, are.
Mr. Koster is out of a Job. He's looking for a new one, preferably a big name IP which he can use to make another virtual world, without actually caring for the IP.
Yeah, The IP-Mythos of a MMORPG seems to be more of a pretext than actual content
I tried and tried, but the VG industry still died
Everything he does, he does for you.
*ducks*
Granted that MMO's are a subset of society in general: those with computers and skills to use them, those with internet connections and those who like to play games. From that subset you then have the anti-socials who are already excluded from real society who seek to extend that anti-social behavior into the game world. These seek payback to their miserable lives by providing grief to anyone and everyone they meet. It's these few that can ruin the experience for everyone, and it's these few that cause the most issues for game developers to fix. In the end the anti-socials get what they want: attention.
Raph describes and lays out these ideal utopias of people working together, being dependent upon each other and getting along for the greater good. This only occurs if you provide the mechanisms to protect the good society from the grief of the anti-socials. Regardless of Raph's opinion of WoW, I think Blizzard has done a very good job of setting up a consensual PvP environment. The only grief I've encountered is rude talk or spamming (both filtered by an ignore list, removal from channels or a separate channel window) and e-mails from gold sellers (submitted to GMs). I thought Asheron Call's system of quest activated PvP switch was a novel solution, too. What intrigues me about WoW is that the PvP system is so "painless," that I, a devout anti-PvPer, am considering participating in the PvP battles. That's a testimonial to Blizzard's design.
After having met Raph multiple times at UO luncheons and listening to him talk at length about his ideals of gaming, I'm fairly certain he's as deluded as I am about the nature of humans. When they implement a system that screens players before they can join a game, the system keeps a tally of their in-game transgressions and prevents them from playing if they break the rules, THEN perhaps we'll see the utopias Raph describes.