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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."
Disappointment is seeing the phrase "Raph Koster on Fire", and not even seeing a black-and-white screenshot.
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.
Note: Raph Koster wasn't really involved with SWG from October 2003 on. Essentially after release, he wasn't really part of the team that screwed SWG up.
i lding/#comments is an article where he talks about such things and responds to comments.
Plenty of things went wrong with SWG. Such as, released too early, in beta there are a ton of things you can change, that you can't change after release, take combat for example. The other thing is lots of game systems were rushed or cut, just to meet the release deadline(release deadlines don't work for MMOs, you are making a game that should be used for years onwards by at least a hundred thousand users). The skill system was not the ideal one that Raph had in mind, he said the first guy that worked on the skill system left the company the second guy had no idea how to do it, and by then Raph said he would do it the way he wanted, but they ran out of time, so they it the way it was, "the onion" skill system. The way it was supposed to be, was like you take up some scout skills, and some marksmen skills, and soundly, you have a title of sniper, and with that gain some minor abilities. And the way this system worked, is players may take branches that didn't give them any title, but the devs could always add that later on quite easily, they may see players take dancing and hand to hand fighting, and they could add a special title there for those that did that, with some minor abilities and stats added.
http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/07/19/community-bu
And just a note, what he did, was made a game people love. Its been well over 9 months since the NGE, and people are still calling out for the "pre-CU" game of SWG on the SWG forums, and other forums themselves. To me, that screams that they had a loyal community and SOE abandoned them on the roadside.
The only time I remember being able to solo anything was during the buffs and comp armor debacle. One of the darkest times in SWG, essentially you needed buffs just to put on comp armor, and buffs were so strong, you could solo almost any MOB in the game and never die because you regened health too fast. Although the recent CU and NGE, I heard you could solo a ton then too even though buffs were essentially removed. This is not what SWG was meant to be, but this is the direction it was pulled into,
AI in almost all MMOs are notoriously weak, and some did require special tactics, those tactics mostly being, the MOB had high resists to some types of damage, so you had to use other types of damage to actually damage him. As a rifleman I was limited in my damage types, but when I did damage I really could pound it out.
He was also responsible for Pre-Trammel UO, and I still hear people talk about that game. So yes this man deserves an article.
If what you are reading sounds funny, or sarcastic, lame, or stupid
it is because it is supposed to be. just laugh