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As some of you no doubt already know, I’m a stickler for proper immersion. It’s the difference between feeling thrown into a living world and a game that starts the same way 2D side scrollers did in the 80’s *cough* Hellgate.

Age of Conan is doing something different. Heck, I think it’s flat-out fascinating.

The game is single player until you’ve hit a few levels. It’s so simple, yet I can’t think of a better way to grant the storytellers 100% control over a brand new player’s environment for those first few all-so-crucial levels. Read the rest of this entry »

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Alright, lets lay some cards on the table. What’s going to happen with WoW? Not WoW2 as we tend to discuss, but WoW.

Will we run out of characters? How many expansions will there be? How long will it go for?

The answers are, No, Five, and 2013.

Here’s the time-line with a history thrown in as well.

11/2004 - World of Warcraft released. End boss, Kel’Thuzad.

01/2007 - Burning Crusade Released. End boss, Illidan/Shade of Kil’Jaeden.

Okay, here’s where we start to speculate…

11/2008 - Wrath of the Lich King. End boss, Arthas. We also know from Metzen that there’s an Old God in the spider kingdom. You’re probably wondering how I came up with that release date. Here’s how. Read the rest of this entry »

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You might remember awhile back when I suggested Chris Avellone needs to do a “Post Nuclear Apocalypse” MMORPG.  Videogamer.com today announced that Interplay is looking to raise funding for a Fallout MMO as part of its two pronged growth strategy.

Personally, I of course think they should license the project to Obsidian Entertainment.  When you need the game to be good and you already have a chunk of the developers who made it great still together under one roof, how could you not give it to them to run with?

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Games could learn a lot from Web 2.0.

Ars Technica had an interesting story today about Grand Theft Auto 4 you can check out here.

To summarize, here’s how it works. In GTA3 and the upcoming GTA4, when you’re in your car you can listen to the radio. Here’s what’s awesome though, it’s not muzak. It’s not elevator music. It’s actually music you’ve heard before, enjoy, and might actually own. If you play GTA3 or GTA4 on your PC then it gets even better, as one of the radio stations becomes your MP3 directory. So yes, you can steal cars and cause havoc to your own soundtrack. I personally prefer the Benny Hill theme song. The big news is this. In GTA4, if you hear a song you like, you can hit a button and it’ll link you to a site hosted by Amazon.com where you can buy a DRM free MP3 of the song. This kind of feature is amazing, and it made me think of how you could apply this to game lore.

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Popularity: 24% [?]

I recently finished the book Cycle of Hatred by Keith R. A. DeCandido. It’s decent, and if you’re into books set in the Warcraft universe I’d definitely say give it a look. There’s one reason though in particular that I bring it up here. It pushes the Thrall/Jaina lore that has been lacking.

As some of the more regular readers of this site will remember, I’ve gone off in the past about Metzen hinting he’d toss out years of story-set up for some gimmicky, “Teehee, lets hook up the coolest male orc with the coolest female orc!” *Snore*

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The second episode of Blizzard’s official podcast was released and has a great interview with the head of all their lore (Vice President of Creative Development), Chris Metzen.

You can check it out here:

Linky McLink

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While a lore master may almost always be a storyteller as well. A storyteller is not necessarily always a lore master.

So what is the difference? What makes a lore master a lore master and a storyteller just a storyteller?

The answer lies in what they’re creating.

Where as a storyteller creates a story with characters and dialog, a lore master takes one further step back. A lore master first creates a world, then a story in that world, then characters for that story, and dialog for those characters.

“How can a story have no world?”, you might ask. Well, it’s not a matter of the story not having world, as much as its just that storyteller didn’t have to create one. Take a romantic comedy for instance (not that I have anything against romantic comedies). The story takes place in our own world. We already know all the rules and quirks. For the storyteller, the world has already been pre-made.

Here’s an example I like to use; think of a story-based amusement park ride. The ride goes along the tracks. The audience only sees what the ride’s creator wants them to. If you could take one step off the beaten path, you’d see that it’s all just a facade, there really is no lore, no depth. A lore master, on the other hand, creates a world where the people are able to get off the ride and look around. The audience can explore.

That word is important, “explore”. That is what differentiates an audience’s experience with a lore master versus a storyteller. With a lore master, the audience can explore. The more they dig, the more they find.
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Yes, I know. This is a flat, unadulterated, undeniable, shameless plug.

But hey, it’s also what I’ve been working on recently, so you might as well hear about it.

On February 27th, the first issue of the comic book Urban Monsters will be released through Image Comics. It’s a three issue mini-series with the other installments coming out at the end of March and April.

The story entails four guys living in New York who decide to make the big plunge and drive to Los Angeles to be movie stars. The catch is they’re monsters and they want to be in monster movies.

I’ve been working on the project, as its creator, with Vin DiBona and the head of his motion picture division, Joanne Moore. The four lead characters are based on three good friends of mine from college as well as yours truly, me.
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Last night, I finished playing through the single player campaign of Call of Duty 4 and was amazed by the storytelling. Perhaps I’m out of the loop on FPS’s and should give them a closer look.

Here’s the best way to put it… Look, regardless of what genre of games you’re into, you should try a First Person Shooter at least once. And if you’ll only ever play one, play Call of Duty 4. I’m serious. It’s that good.
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Yes, as a player you can be defined, and with surprising accuracy too.

In 1978 a man by the name of Richard Bartle, along with Roy Trubshaw, would create the world’s very first MUD (multi user dungeon). For those of you newer to computer games, imagine an all text based, no graphics, MMO, and you have a MUD. Now imagine how cutting edge that would be in 1978. MUD’s were popular up through the mid 90’s even making the transition from BBS’s to the internet.

Bartle, who has a PhD in Artificial Intelligence, would go on to write a study on what he defined as the four player archetypes found in MUD’s (and later MMO’s). These archetypes were achievers (diamonds), explorers (spades), socializers (hearts), and killers (clubs).

In the mid 90’s a named named Erwin Andreasen would create an electronic version of the Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology. And yes, you can take this test. It only requires a couple minutes of your time and you may find it uncannily accurate.
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