1: Thesis – Game Design is Function

Isn’t it obvious to all that the primary point of game design is crafting the modes and methods which govern the unfurling of a game experience?  And having done this, in placing the objects of the world to promote that experience?  Then we have to say game design concerns itself with the pieces and their [...]

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Magic: the Gathering

I’ve been playing Magic: the Gathering recently (currently sticking to the m11 block), which has a lot of interesting design examples.  I’m learning an awful lot about the relative strength of skill combinations and the worth of timing.  In a game, the standard goal is a health race: theirs to 0 before yours.  The same [...]

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Game Design Schools/Courses

So I went through the Master Thesis of an SMU graduate, and I think I finally see a reasonable point to a college-level education in Game Design: learning to apply critical thinking to the various problems confronting a game designer.  Now, I admit the level of critical thinking displayed wasn’t top-notch, but at least someone [...]

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Some Comments on WoW’s Economy

Gevlon went ahead and did a rundown on the basics of the WoW economy.  For the most part, it’s pretty straightforward (to the point of obviousness), but I do want to make a few observations. Gevlon points out two apparently unique features of the WoW economy compared to our real-world economy.  The first is the [...]

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Some Interesting Tidbits About Fable 3

Peter Molyneux has a reputation for delivering games that don’t live up to what he says about them – a reputation he fully deserves.  Case in point: the dog in Fable 2.  I liked my dog, but he did not set a new standard in emotional impact in video games.  That said, his company actually [...]

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Heroic Lich King and Difficulty in Raiding in WoW

The race continues among the hardcore guilds, with Paragon having cleared every boss but the Lich King in Heroic 25 ICC.  Given the time it took to do that, and the limited attempts, I have a sneaking suspicion Paragon is running a bit low for actually beating Arthas this go round.  I’m also not sure [...]

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Halls of Reflection Nerfs, or How Sucking Pays Off

I mentioned briefly that Halls of Reflection is a PUG Grinder.  It’s actually a simple instance, with absolutely no complicated mechanics.  Essentially every fight in the instance is a gauntlet run, depending on high DPS and healing output and solid tanking.  There are next to no positional requirements, few environmental effects to watch; it’s basically [...]

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Quick Tangent on the Warrior Q&A

The Warrior Q&A saw Ghostcrawler demonstrating his consistent lack of a coherent vision for the future of WoW gameplay, thinking instead in an ad-hoc manner about specific problems.  There’s the possibility that his thoughts are crystallizing into a broader realization that perhaps they have gone TOO FAR in insuring the efficacy of each class in [...]

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Tobold wins award for most overly broad genre definition of 2009

Tobold has decided to attempt to define the broad class of games which copy World of Warcraft.  To do this sort of thing, one needs a term and a definition for the term, both of which he has provided: [WoW-a-like (n): A game in which] 1) Combat is done by targeting the enemy, and then [...]

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I am a cynical old bastard.

With Metaplace entering open beta, I went to go take a look.  This is probably more a function of my slavish tendency to click on any link Scott feels like posting, which has already landed – and will continue to land – me in trouble.  I’ve known vaguely about Metaplace for sometime.  It is, in [...]

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