Archive for July, 2009
GLAAD
A swift post on this issue, because I’m joining the party late and it’s pretty much all been said. Joshua Meadows summarized some of my thoughts pretty well: Making any kind of crusade against homophobia in MMOs is only ever going to result in a backlash.
I differ significantly from the many that have raised their [...]
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Recently (as covered in a previous entry) I picked up a copy of Planescape: Torment, the best game you probably never played.
I’ve probably sunk around 22–26 hours into it so far, and the deeper I get into the game the more astounded I am by how ambitious Black Isle were.
Filed under: Game Design, Personal | Leave a Comment
Tags: Game Design, Planescape Torment
Bigger Picture
A blog article by one Eric Heimburg has been floating around my circle of online amigos over the past few days, with rather mixed reactions. Some have hailed it as a realistic and well grounded take on forum communities, and naturally others disagree.
I got into a discussion with a friend about the content of the [...]
Filed under: Community Management, Industry | Leave a Comment
Tags: Asheron's Call 2, Community Management, Eric Heimburg, Forums
iPhone Games
Over the past few weeks I’ve been experimenting with the available iPhone games, getting an idea for the capabilities and constraints of the platform. Having spent some time with the best looking games on the app store I thought I’d put up some mini-reviews of my favorites so far:
Fieldrunners
Tower Defense Strategy from Subatomic Studios, LLC.
Fieldrunners [...]
Filed under: Game Design, Industry | 1 Comment
Tags: Assassin's Creed, Fieldrunners, Game Design, Hero of Sparta, iPhone, ZENONIA
The Eagle Has Landed
At last! After many years of procrastination I finally scraped together enough pennies to order myself a new copy of Planescape: Torment. (My original copy is somewhere in Australia…)
For those of you whom aren’t familiar with Planescape: Torment, I pity you deeply. It is the crown of Black Isle’s career; one of the greatest single [...]
Filed under: Personal | 2 Comments
Tags: classic, Planescape Torment
Stagnation Pt. 3 – Innovation
In my previous post I talked about the inability of some community managers to shrug off old clichés and start customizing their practice to the needs of their community.
The inability to recognize those needs runs in parallel to the inability to innovate for your community. If you can’t recognize and meet their needs in one [...]
Filed under: Community Management, Game Design, Industry | 1 Comment
Tags: Community Management, feedback, Game Design
Stagnation Pt. 2 – Old Rules
To help illustrate my issue with stagnation in community management, I’ll offer a frustrating cliché as an example:
Don’t talk about things in development, because should they change (and inevitably they will) you will only disappoint and aggravate your community.
This is a fine rule of thumb for the inexperienced, someone in the first few months of [...]
Filed under: Community Management, Industry | 2 Comments
Tags: Community Management, feedback
Stagnation Pt. 1
In my last entry I talked about an article on user feedback by Sanya Weathers.
In the article she stresses the importance of transparency and a flow of information both ways between the developer and community. As someone with experience handling online communities I could appreciate the point, but it was nothing new. I wrote the [...]
Filed under: Community Management, Industry | 1 Comment
Tags: Community Management, MMO, Sanya Weathers
Sanya Weathers on User Feedback
Seeing how ‘User Feedback’ is a drum I frequently bang, it would be remiss of me not to link a fantastic article by Sanya on the topic.
World of Warcraft didn’t get a billion people playing because of their wonderful communication, but in spite of it.
The gist of the article is ‘hey guys, communication is cool’. [...]
Filed under: Game Design | 2 Comments
Tags: Community Management, feedback, MMO, Sanya Weathers
