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‘FlationJanuary 17th, 2007 |
With the launch of Burning Crusade, people are already commenting on how much the value of older items has dropped. I’ve seen folks who are new to the whole expansion thing wondering about past games, and whether the same was true, and how much the buying power of past currencies fell in the wake of expansions. They even asked for links to studies.
No links, but this is a well-studied and understood phenomenon called mudflation in the biz, and which partakes of characteristics of real-world inflation as well as some unqie game-only characteristics. Every level-based game hits it when they raise the level cap (actually, they hit it continuously, but boosts to the level cap make it worse). In WoW’s case, it’ll be ameliorated to some degree by the incredibly heavy use of binding items. Typical symptoms you can certainly expect:
- An overall rise in the “power” of users of a given level, as measured before-and-after on the expansion, generally because of increased access to abilities or items.
- Increased success manifested via mobs that used to take groups being soloed, and so on.
- Time to level to continue to decrease, and perhaps accelerate (it has almost certainly been decreasing anyway because of repeat play across intro levels, plus just overall increased competence and knowledge among the players).
- Comments like “the game doesn’t start til level ‘x’” increasing, with X moving up — one form of “hollow world syndrome.”
- A decreased worth of currency, expressed in terms of buying power overall (though the cost of many formerly desirable items will fall precipitously).
- Decreased worth of formerly high-end items, particularly within “bands” of content where hand-me-downs are practical.
- “Hollow world” syndrome, where formerly populated zones become less so, as the bulk of the users shift locales to fit the new mean level.
The classic means of controlling mudflation are
- reducing the amount of value in the economy via means such as: item decay, item deletion (either via challenges where you can lose items, or manually; yes, some games literally just go in and delete items), character purges, etc. Many games used to simply wipe the player database every few months because mudflation had gotten so bad.
- Refusing to up the level limit, and instead introducing orthogonal advancement paths. This single mechanism is probably the single biggest slowdown you can effect. Many long-running successful muds got that way by simply never upping the level cap, and instead investing their expansion in enriching the content and encouraging repeat play.
- Obsessive attention to economic stats and adjusting all economic drains to account for all the influx. This often means punishingly high costs for players, btw.
- Never introducing higher DPS mechanisms; in other words, the levels become cosmetic, because the actual power of players does not increase. This is how the systems with “infinite levels” tend to work — they asymptotically approach zero player power growth.
- Shifting player attention from power gains to cosmetic gains (e.g., instead of a new badass sword, gain the ability to redesign your sword and personalize it).
- Radically altered elder games (politics, economics, PvP, etc). This runs the risk of alienating players who liked the game they were already playing.
- Remort systems and other such mechanisms to encourage repeat play of lower levels.
- Restrictions on trade, such as soulbinding items, so they cannot be handed down and thus increase the ’standard of living” for all users.
- Level limits on equipment use, so that you are forced to abandon equipment (which in a soulbinding game, effectively means item deletion).
Fundamentally, though, it’s endemic because it’s implicit in the core assumptions a level-and-hp-increase based system with infinite inflows.
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What you just said reminds me of a thread on the original SWG boards about crafting and how SWG wasn’t going to have “filler” items that were meant just to get a person from 100 pts to 200 pts in a craft skill
[...] Bloggers January 18, 2007 06:34 Dynamic spawn system Once upon a time in a classic MMORPG there was a camp of 10 foozles. And as there was a quest to hunt them for foozle pelts, often players came to that camp and started killing them. Using a classic… Source: Tobold Categories: Bloggers 01:00 Ack, no more Harmonix Guitar Hero games? The headline says it all: GameDaily BIZ: Breaking: Guitar Hero Development Goes to Neversoft. I suppose this might be a side effect of Harmonix getting acquired by MTV while Red Octane got bought by Activision. And Neversoft is a talented shop. But either way, it’s still dismaying… Source: Raph's Koster Website Categories: Bloggers 00:32 ‘Flation With the launch of Burning Crusade, people are already commenting on how much the value of older items has dropped. I’ve seen folks who are new to the whole expansion thing wondering about past games, and whether the same was true, and how much the buying power of past currencies fell in the wake of [...] Source: Raph's Koster Website Categories: Bloggers 00:19 Be Ready to Launch MMO Development Lesson #1, more or less just said: Don’t launch before you are done, unless you have to, even though you’ll probably fail unless players can’t tell what’s a bug and what’s by design. Do things that you think are helpful, because then if your game fails, maybe you won’t feel so bad. But c’mon! That’s [...] Source: Jeff Freeman - Dundee Categories: Bloggers 00:03 One server to rule them all I’m looking for an Everquest II server to call home for a few months. End game guilds do not matter, my only request is a bustling server during evening pst times. I don’t have many readers, but it is worth a shot before taking the plunge. There has to be one reader out there who [...] Source: Pitfalls - Krones Categories: Bloggers [...]
[...] Moves! Bookmark: « ‘Playing with Fire: When Advergaming Backfires’ trackback Leave aReply [...]
[...] http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/01/17/flation/With the launch of Burning Crusade, people are already commenting on how much the value of older items has dropped. I’ve seen folks who are new to the whole expansion thing wondering about past games, and whether the same was true, and how much the buying power of past currencies fell in the wake of expansions. They even asked for links to studies. [...]
The level cap will last much longer than 28 hours for casuals and most players, especially those new players, or returning players who have not reached the level cap.Of the points brought up when discussing the effects of an expansion on the economy, Raph mentions two effects on these players that come with TBC, or any other expansion because mudflation seems omnipresent in MMO economies. 1. Formerly high-end items will decrease in worth, particularly within “bands” of content where hand-me-downs
[...] * reducing the amount of value in the economy via means such as: item decay, item deletion (either via challenges where you can lose items, or manually; yes, some games literally just go in and delete items), character purges, etc. Many games used to simply wipe the player database every few months because mudflation had gotten so bad. * Refusing to up the level limit, and instead introducing orthogonal advancement paths. This single mechanism is probably the single biggest slowdown you can effect. Many long-running successful muds got that way by simply never upping the level cap, and instead investing their expansion in enriching the content and encouraging repeat play. * Obsessive attention to economic stats and adjusting all economic drains to account for all the influx. This often means punishingly high costs for players, btw. Link (via Wonderland) [...]
[...] * reducing the amount of value in the economy via means such as: item decay, item deletion (either via challenges where you can lose items, or manually; yes, some games literally just go in and delete items), character purges, etc. Many games used to simply wipe the player database every few months because mudflation had gotten so bad. * Refusing to up the level limit, and instead introducing orthogonal advancement paths. This single mechanism is probably the single biggest slowdown you can effect. Many long-running successful muds got that way by simply never upping the level cap, and instead investing their expansion in enriching the content and encouraging repeat play. * Obsessive attention to economic stats and adjusting all economic drains to account for all the influx. This often means punishingly high costs for players, btw. Link (via Wonderland) [...]
[...] * reducing the amount of value in the economy via means such as: item decay, item deletion (either via challenges where you can lose items, or manually; yes, some games literally just go in and delete items), character purges, etc. Many games used to simply wipe the player database every few months because mudflation had gotten so bad. * Refusing to up the level limit, and instead introducing orthogonal advancement paths. This single mechanism is probably the single biggest slowdown you can effect. Many long-running successful muds got that way by simply never upping the level cap, and instead investing their expansion in enriching the content and encouraging repeat play. * Obsessive attention to economic stats and adjusting all economic drains to account for all the influx. This often means punishingly high costs for players, btw. Link (via Wonderland) [...]
[...] * reducing the amount of value in the economy via means such as: item decay, item deletion (either via challenges where you can lose items, or manually; yes, some games literally just go in and delete items), character purges, etc. Many games used to simply wipe the player database every few months because mudflation had gotten so bad. * Refusing to up the level limit, and instead introducing orthogonal advancement paths. This single mechanism is probably the single biggest slowdown you can effect. Many long-running successful muds got that way by simply never upping the level cap, and instead investing their expansion in enriching the content and encouraging repeat play. * Obsessive attention to economic stats and adjusting all economic drains to account for all the influx. This often means punishingly high costs for players, btw. Link (via Wonderland) [...]
[...] gbsteve (gbsteve) wrote,@ 2007-01-19 13:32:00 Mudflation and Wuffle This is the same phenomena as level bloat in tabletop games, except worse because it affects thousands of players at once. There’s an article about it here that mentions some of the ways of dealing with it:reducing the amount of value in the economy via means such as: item decay, item deletion (either via challenges where you can lose items, or manually; yes, some games literally just go in and delete items), character purges, etc. Many games used to simply wipe the player database every few months because mudflation had gotten so bad. Refusing to up the level limit, and instead introducing orthogonal advancement paths. This single mechanism is probably the single biggest slowdown you can effect. Many long-running successful muds got that way by simply never upping the level cap, and instead investing their expansion in enriching the content and encouraging repeat play. Obsessive attention to economic stats and adjusting all economic drains to account for all the influx. This often means punishingly high costs for players, btw. Never introducing higher DPS mechanisms; in other words, the levels become cosmetic, because the actual power of players does not increase. This is how the systems with “infinite levels” tend to work — they asymptotically approach zero player power growth. Shifting player attention from power gains to cosmetic gains (e.g., instead of a new badass sword, gain the ability to redesign your sword and personalize it). Radically altered elder games (politics, economics, PvP, etc). This runs the risk of alienating players who liked the game they were already playing. Remort systems and other such mechanisms to encourage repeat play of lower levels. Restrictions on trade, such as soulbinding items, so they cannot be handed down and thus increase the ’standard of living” for all users. Level limits on equipment use, so that you are forced to abandon equipment (which in a soulbinding game, effectively means item deletion). It would help if MUD items gave fixed bonuses instead of percentage increases. A +20% sword is always good but a +1 sword is only nice at lower levels. Of course, if the rewards are other than killing things and taking there stuff then you don’t need to worry about levels much at all. How about a wuffle based system? Wuffle is Cory Doctorow’s word for social capital as defined in Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom (which is an OK read btw although the characters are annoyingly adolescent - but I guess that’s what you get in societies where no one has to work, the Culture is the same which is why the best characters are limnal in some way).I think abilities could be capped in a zero based way (Social skills + Physical prowess + Craft and Magic = c but start out at less than c). That way you can improve your character, up to a maximum but specilisation would come at the detriment of other skills. Wuffle on the other hand would give access to better interaction with NPCs, perhaps property or even titles. Wuffle could even be aspected so that you might have different Wuffle from different kingdoms.(Post a new comment) [...]
[...] * reducing the amount of value in the economy via means such as: item decay, item deletion (either via challenges where you can lose items, or manually; yes, some games literally just go in and delete items), character purges, etc. Many games used to simply wipe the player database every few months because mudflation had gotten so bad. * Refusing to up the level limit, and instead introducing orthogonal advancement paths. This single mechanism is probably the single biggest slowdown you can effect. Many long-running successful muds got that way by simply never upping the level cap, and instead investing their expansion in enriching the content and encouraging repeat play. * Obsessive attention to economic stats and adjusting all economic drains to account for all the influx. This often means punishingly high costs for players, btw. Link (via Wonderland) [...]
[...] Mudflation on Raph Koster Mudflation on Raph Koster Quote: [...]
[...] * reducing the amount of value in the economy via means such as: item decay, item deletion (either via challenges where you can lose items, or manually; yes, some games literally just go in and delete items), character purges, etc. Many games used to simply wipe the player database every few months because mudflation had gotten so bad. * Refusing to up the level limit, and instead introducing orthogonal advancement paths. This single mechanism is probably the single biggest slowdown you can effect. Many long-running successful muds got that way by simply never upping the level cap, and instead investing their expansion in enriching the content and encouraging repeat play. * Obsessive attention to economic stats and adjusting all economic drains to account for all the influx. This often means punishingly high costs for players, btw. Link (via Wonderland) [...]
[...] * reducing the amount of value in the economy via means such as: item decay, item deletion (either via challenges where you can lose items, or manually; yes, some games literally just go in and delete items), character purges, etc. Many games used to simply wipe the player database every few months because mudflation had gotten so bad. * Refusing to up the level limit, and instead introducing orthogonal advancement paths. This single mechanism is probably the single biggest slowdown you can effect. Many long-running successful muds got that way by simply never upping the level cap, and instead investing their expansion in enriching the content and encouraging repeat play. * Obsessive attention to economic stats and adjusting all economic drains to account for all the influx. This often means punishingly high costs for players, btw. Link (via Wonderland) [...]
instead investing their expansion in enriching the content and encouraging repeat play. * Obsessive attention to economic stats and adjusting all economic drains to account for all the influx. This often means punishingly high costs for players, btw. Link
investing their expansion in enriching the content and encouraging repeat play. * Obsessive attention to economic stats and adjusting all economic drains to account for all the influx. This often means punishingly high costs for players, btw. Link(via Wonderland) (Disclosure: I am a proud member of the advisory board for Areae, the company Raph founded) See also: Koster’s keynote from Game Developers Conference Koster’s amazing “What are the lessons of MMORPGs today?”>
Dealing with mudflation 4 hours ago Nelson Minar : Dealing with mudflation - Excellent game design insights from Raph Koster # copy
instead investing their expansion in enriching the content and encouraging repeat play. * Obsessive attention to economic stats and adjusting all economic drains to account for all the influx. This often means punishingly high costs for players, btw. Link (via Wonderland) (Disclosure: I am a proud member of the advisory board for Areae, the company Raph founded) See also: Koster’s keynote from Game Developers Conference Koster’s amazing “What are the lessons of MMORPGs today?
Fri 2007-01-19 iPhone ringtone NYT WoW nerd Dealing with mudflation Unfortunate CAPTCHA IP address icons Delicious custom cake
[...] I don’t intend this thread to turn into a discussion so save the dead horse emoticons. Just linking to an article writen about MMORPG inflation. http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/01/17/flation/ I have posted the original text below but there are some comments written on the actual page worth reading. Just interesting in general imo. "With the launch of Burning Crusade, people are already commenting on how much the value of older items has dropped. I’ve seen folks who are new to the whole expansion thing wondering about past games, and whether the same was true, and how much the buying power of past currencies fell in the wake of expansions. They even asked for links to studies. No links, but this is a well-studied and understood phenomenon called mudflation in the biz, and which partakes of characteristics of real-world inflation as well as some unqie game-only characteristics. Every level-based game hits it when they raise the level cap (actually, they hit it continuously, but boosts to the level cap make it worse). In WoW’s case, it’ll be ameliorated to some degree by the incredibly heavy use of binding items. Typical symptoms you can certainly expect: An overall rise in the “power” of users of a given level, as measured before-and-after on the expansion, generally because of increased access to abilities or items. Increased success manifested via mobs that used to take groups being soloed, and so on. Time to level to continue to decrease, and perhaps accelerate (it has almost certainly been decreasing anyway because of repeat play across intro levels, plus just overall increased competence and knowledge among the players). Comments like “the game doesn’t start til level ‘x’” increasing, with X moving up — one form of “hollow world syndrome.” A decreased worth of currency, expressed in terms of buying power overall (though the cost of many formerly desirable items will fall precipitously). Decreased worth of formerly high-end items, particularly within “bands” of content where hand-me-downs are practical. “Hollow world” syndrome, where formerly populated zones become less so, as the bulk of the users shift locales to fit the new mean level. The classic means of controlling mudflation are reducing the amount of value in the economy via means such as: item decay, item deletion (either via challenges where you can lose items, or manually; yes, some games literally just go in and delete items), character purges, etc. Many games used to simply wipe the player database every few months because mudflation had gotten so bad. Refusing to up the level limit, and instead introducing orthogonal advancement paths. This single mechanism is probably the single biggest slowdown you can effect. Many long-running successful muds got that way by simply never upping the level cap, and instead investing their expansion in enriching the content and encouraging repeat play. Obsessive attention to economic stats and adjusting all economic drains to account for all the influx. This often means punishingly high costs for players, btw. Never introducing higher DPS mechanisms; in other words, the levels become cosmetic, because the actual power of players does not increase. This is how the systems with “infinite levels” tend to work — they asymptotically approach zero player power growth. Shifting player attention from power gains to cosmetic gains (e.g., instead of a new badass sword, gain the ability to redesign your sword and personalize it). Radically altered elder games (politics, economics, PvP, etc). This runs the risk of alienating players who liked the game they were already playing. Remort systems and other such mechanisms to encourage repeat play of lower levels. Restrictions on trade, such as soulbinding items, so they cannot be handed down and thus increase the ’standard of living” for all users. Level limits on equipment use, so that you are forced to abandon equipment (which in a soulbinding game, effectively means item deletion). Fundamentally, though, it’s endemic because it’s implicit in the core assumptions a level-and-hp-increase based system with infinite inflows." —————————-Escher Fairy Server 100+3 Cooking 92 Fishing Thread Index | New Subject | Reply to Thread 0 Replies [ Search Forums ] 0 Messages skipped by filter settings, 1 displayedRegistration is required to post on this forum [...]
instead investing their expansion in enriching the content and encouraging repeat play. * Obsessive attention to economic stats and adjusting all economic drains to account for all the influx. This often means punishingly high costs for players, btw. Link (via Wonderland) (Disclosure: I am a proud member of the advisory board for Areae, the company Raph founded) See also: Koster’s keynote from Game Developers Conference Koster’s amazing “What are the lessons of MMORPGs today?”>
[...] (Upcoming Theory-craft! The basic gist is that Blizz knows what they’re doing in terms of allowing us to level so quickly in TBC. There is a large amount of lateral content planned for level 70.) Well, if you’re like me you’re looking at the people who were saying “It takes as long to get from 60-70 as it did to get from 1-40 or from 1-60,” and you’re wondering what pharmacy they’ve been to and how did they mix the common household drugs. It looks to me, and I could be wrong, that it’s possible to get to 70 within a minimum of 28 hours played. That was a record set by a guy who had his guild killing mobs he’d tag. Even still, the ability to level so quickly instills a mild bit of fear in my heart. Will the expansion be over before Blizzard releases new content? Will we be able to have something to enjoy for a long time? Some of us may be thinking that the answer to the above questions are: Yes, the xpac will be completed by most very quickly, and we’ll be bored before Blizz gets on it. I would like to say that that may not be the case. I’ve been learning a little bit about MMOG economies today. They appear to run rather differently than real world economies because in MMO economies it’s possible to create value out of nothing (or a bit of time). Essentially it is very easy to create new wealth and so inflation can get out of control verrrrrrry quickly. In order to curb this there are a couple of tools that game devs use, as seen in the link below. http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/01/17/flation/ If the above -is- the case, then one can see why Blizz would make the level cap so low, and the levels so easy. Basically the levels are easy because gaining them proceeds on the same curve as the previous 1-60 levels did. One could postulate that Blizz did this in order to maintain a contiguous gaming experience from 1-X (where X is the current level cap). The reason the cap wasn’t raised higher, while this could be baiting the consumer, is simply so that the game won’t die out as fast. Either that or it’s the most expedient route to provide new content. Designing linear content of a similar volume to the content in TBC may actually have taken more work than designing the lateral content that appears to be in TBC right now. If that is not the case then one can still fall back on the idea that designing Linear content, in terms of a greater level cap, would create such inflation when the population hit X level that the game would quickly collapse under it’s own weight. Proceeding in a slow linear manner and a quicker lateral manner appears to be what Blizz is doing. There was a lot of lateral progression at 60 and look how long it kept us playing I’d also say that the economy isn’t as inflated as I’ve heard it can be in games like FFXI. So the plan appears to be working. If that’s the plan Blizz also appears to be using money sinks to reduce the amount of cash in circulation. I think the strongest examples would be Epic mounts and the Tier.5 armor quests. Follow that up with the Epic mounts in outland going for 5k gold one starts to see some fairly massive money sinks. Crafting, while it returns to the crafter, is also a money sink, and now that I think of it, the crafting system may actually be designed such that selling finished products is supposed to generate very little profit (as so often has seemed to be the case). So inflation goes down due to there being less free gold. The lateral content appears to come in at 70. One has two major dungeons to explore(The Caverns of Time and Karazhan), each with a couple of wings, plus a heroic difficulty mode. With all of that lateral content and a stable economy almost forced due to game mechanics it seems that TBC will have a lot more life in it than just 60-70. Your thoughts?! Other interesting links: http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/16/the-lifecycles-of-a-player/ http://crystaltips.typepad.com/wonderland/2005/03/raphs_keynote.html Link on SWG’s Economy: http://www.boingboing.net/2004/05/03/star_wars_galaxies_e.html_________________ [...]
[...] Home · About · News · Podcast · Blog · Forum · Login · Register Fallen Earth Website Revamped http://www.fallenearth.com/article.php?article=15 "On January 18th, 2007 the new Fallen Earth website was relaunched with a new look and new features: * * An RSS feed so you can keep up with the latest news. * * Information with the backstory of Fallen Earth, as well as descriptions of the various factions. * * Community features, such as Bulletin Board and listings of fan sites. * * Improved galleries for screenshots, videos and wallpapers." Submitted by brent on Jan 19, 2007 17:36:25 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 28 / comments: 0 Saga Interview - The MMORTS http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=13960 "Persistant RTS games have been released in the past but none have really taken off like the typical fantasy MMO. Developer Wahoo Studios hopes to change that with Saga, a fantasy based RTS MMO with a different kind of business model in addition to trying out some new gameplay designs. FiringSquad got a chance to chat with the game’s creator and executive producer Jason Faller to find out more about their plans for Saga." Submitted by brent on Jan 19, 2007 17:36:04 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 25 / comments: 0 Utopia to be next Guild Wars expansion? http://www.gamespot.com/news/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=25318601 "NCsoft has said it wants to put two expansion packs out each year, with Factions and Nightfall being the company’s first two releases. Given that Nightfall launched in October, the next add-on is roughly due for release in April, and it seems about time that NCsoft started talking about it." Submitted by brent on Jan 19, 2007 17:35:31 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 46 / comments: 0 Raph’s Website - ‘Flation http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/01/17/flation/ "With the launch of Burning Crusade, people are already commenting on how much the value of older items has dropped. I’ve seen folks who are new to the whole expansion thing wondering about past games, and whether the same was true, and how much the buying power of past currencies fell in the wake of expansions. They even asked for links to studies." Submitted by brent on Jan 19, 2007 17:34:24 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 22 / comments: 0 Vanguard Impressions http://www.jolt.co.uk/index.php?articleid=7947 "Vanguard is probably the last of the big non-brand name MMORPGs that really stands a chance of making a significant splash. While most games in the fantasy side of the MMO genre would get lost in comparisons to Everquest II and World of Warcraft (if they’re lucky), Vanguard had been attracting attention thanks to the team behind it. Led by Brad McQuaid and Jeff Butler, two of the men behind the juggernaut that was Everquest "“ or Evercrack as it was better known due to how addictive it was (yeah, that’s three years of this writer’s life he won’t be getting back) "“ Vanguard has one hell of a pedigree; but with competition being as tough as it is in the MMO market, it’s easy to go from a Best Of Show Pedigree Dog to a Put In A Kennel For Making A Mess On The Carpet Dog real quick." Submitted by brent on Jan 19, 2007 17:33:53 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 55 / comments: 0 2Moons Voice-Over Contest http://phpbb.acclaim.com/2moons/viewtopic.php?t=1594. "You want your voice to be heard? Show your talent and be one of the lucky winners and your voice will become immortalized in 2Moons." Submitted by brent on Jan 19, 2007 17:33:25 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 9 / comments: 0 EverQuest II: Echoes of Faydwer PC review http://www.gamesxtreme.net/pc/game/everquest-ii-echoes-of-faydwer/review.shtml "It may seem strange that as a big MMO fan I didn’t play the original Everquest. Forget about, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars and all the other modern Massively Multiplayer Role Players, Everquest was one of the key titles that introduced the MMO genre to the masses. The game had great financial success and without it online gaming would be a very different scene. Spawning several add-ons the game also had a sequel, Everquest 2 released in November 2004. Again, it may seem strange but I didn’t get round to playing the initial release, but I do now have my hands on the most recent expansion Echoes of Faydwer." Submitted by brent on Jan 19, 2007 17:32:30 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 34 / comments: 0 MTV: The post-launch with Jeff Kaplan http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1550175/20070117/index.jhtml "He’s the lead game designer of "World of Warcraft." National holiday or not, the biggest addition of new content released for the most popular massively multiplayer game in America was going on sale. An expansion pack called "The Burning Crusade" would allow players to venture across massive new plots of land and play two new races. Gamers who had spent months maxing their characters to the former Level 60 ability limit would now be able to crank things up to 70. And Kaplan had to be in the Irvine, California, office of "WoW" developer Blizzard Entertainment to make sure the "World" didn’t come crashing down." Submitted by brent on Jan 19, 2007 17:31:31 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 21 / comments: 0 City of Heroes: Issue #9 Details Revealed http://www.warcry.com/news/view/67851-City-of-Heroes-Issue-9-Details-Revealed "The folks at NCSoft and Cryptic Studios have released some details on Issue #9: "Breakthrough". The official fact sheet made the rounds earlier today. Here are the details." Submitted by brent on Jan 19, 2007 17:29:41 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 33 / comments: 0 Vanguard Beta Closing http://pc.ign.com/articles/756/756802p1.html?RSSwhen2007-01-19_103800&RSSid=756802 "Sony Online Entertainment is closing the Vanguard: Saga of Heroes beta on January 23 at 11:59 pm PST. With Vanguard hitting retail shelves on January 30 and the stress test complete, the fantasy MMO beta is no longer necessary. All beta character profiles will be saved to a test server, which will open sometime after Vanguard’s release." Submitted by brent on Jan 19, 2007 17:25:49 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 28 / comments: 0 Tobold’s MMORPG Blog: Burning Crusade Levels http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2007/01/burning-crusade-levels.html "Trick question: how many additional levels does the Burning Crusade add to World of Warcraft? Nominally the answer is 10, from 60 to 70. But looking at it a bit closer the expansion levels behave differently than the previous levels. A Burning Crusade level is a curious hybrid between one and two old levels, so in practice the expansion adds between 10 and 20 effective levels to the game. Lets have this closer look:" Submitted by brent on Jan 19, 2007 17:17:37 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 30 / comments: 0 World of Warcraft: Notes from the front http://renatawc.blogspot.com/2007/01/notes-from-front.html "So, Burning Crusade is a few days underway. There are areas in which I was pleasantly surprised, and others where the results are so typical of expansion launches, but it’s still hard not to be disappointed. Pleasantly surprised: The servers were up and the queues have not been unreasonably long. I was expecting not to be able to log on at all much during the first couple of days with server crashes and monster queues perhaps reaching into four digits." Submitted by brent on Jan 19, 2007 17:17:23 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 34 / comments: 0 Tobold’s MMORPG Blog: I want to be a lone hero http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2007/01/i-want-to-be-lone-hero.html "Fantasy MMORPGs cast the player in the role of a hero. They work by making the player believe that he, either alone or in a group, braves great dangers, for which he is rewarded not only with treasure, but also with a sense of accomplishment. For this it is necessary for us to "forget" that when we kill the evil sorcerer, we aren’t the first to do so, and once we are gone the evil sorcerer pops back into existence to be killed by the next hero." Submitted by brent on Jan 19, 2007 17:15:26 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 22 / comments: 0 Raph Koster talks Areae http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2007/01/19/raph_koster_talks_areae.html "Raph Koster’s pre-Christmas announcement about his new project Areae kicked off digital mountains of speculation about what the celebrated game and virtual world designer (and prolific blogger) had up his sleeve. The details out there are sketchy, often scraped together through a combination of information fragments, rare snippits of insider knowledge and raftloads of speculation, so I contacted Raph to find out just what this new MMOG-meets-Web 2.0 project is all about." Submitted by brent on Jan 19, 2007 17:15:14 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 18 / comments: 0 Great Blogs and the Important of Reciprocity http://taurenshaman.wordpress.com/2006/06/07/great-blogs-and-the-important-of-reciprocity/ "For some time now I have been reading Tobold’s excellent blog on World of Warcraft. In theory it is a blog about multiplayer online games in general, with specific attention to whatever game Tobold is currently playing. In actuality, he isn’t playing other games and the focus has become almost exclusively about Warcraft, referenced with his MOG experience. If you are not familar with the blog, by all means check it out. His insights are usually keen and it helps that I often agree with his thinking." Submitted by brent on Jan 19, 2007 17:14:25 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 21 / comments: 0 MMO Expansions - What Is Appropriate Timing? http://tagn.wordpress.com/2007/01/18/mmo-expansions-what-is-appropriate-timing/ "With the release of The Burning Crusade and the commentary that has surrounded it, there are a couple of questions I want to dredge up. The first, and perhaps the easiest to discuss, is the timing of expansions. How often should an MMO offer expansions?" Submitted by brent on Jan 19, 2007 13:22:31 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 36 / comments: 0 WoW Player Housing http://www.mmognation.com/2007/01/18/wow-player-housing/ "Have I ever mentioned how much I like MTV’s games coverage? Stephen Totilo is doing a bangup job over there. Now if only it weren’t trapped in that awful flash thing. Anyway, Totilo has a sit-down with Jeff Kaplan up on the site right now, and it’s good stuff. The part that made me jump up and down in my seat is, specifically, this:" Submitted by brent on Jan 18, 2007 16:47:06 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 168 / comments: 0 [Audio] EQ2-Daily Podcast - Show 34 http://www.eq2-daily.com/podcast.aspx "This show we are revist EQ2 Resources we use, discuss Frostfell, the ingame browser, EQ2 maps fix, PvP 40% Rule, Unrest, and Olivia Newton-John." Submitted by brent on Jan 18, 2007 16:45:28 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 22 / comments: 0 How to avoid online scams in World of Warcraft http://wow.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=617 "There are several very simple things to do that can almost completely eliminate your risk of getting scammed in wow. I say almost as there is always the possibility that someone sniffs network traffic to get your account info or happens to crack it by brute force, however these are not the normal methods used to get it due to the time and effort involved. So, how do you avoid being scammed? Follow these simple guidelines:" Submitted by brent on Jan 18, 2007 16:44:24 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 40 / comments: 0 URU Live Launching New Content Tomorrow http://www.warcry.com/news/view/67809-URU-Live-Launching-New-Content-Tomorrow "In preparation of the highly anticipated early 2007 release of "Myst Online: Uru Live", two major developments are being announced. Currently in beta release, a new area of the city and an all-new, never-before-seen Age are being released tomorrow, January 19." Submitted by brent on Jan 18, 2007 16:42:25 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 16 / comments: 0 Mythic Entertainment - Warhammer Online http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/media/screenshots/ Seventeen new Warhammer Online screenshots. Submitted by brent on Jan 18, 2007 16:29:07 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 58 / comments: 1 China’s Online Games Industry Grows 74 Percent http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=12450 "ccording to a new report, the online games industry in China has recorded massive growth in 2006, with revenues up 73.5 percent over 2005 to a total of 6.54 billion Yuan ($839 million), 65 percent of which came from domestically developed games. " Submitted by brent on Jan 18, 2007 16:27:54 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 17 / comments: 0 Vanguard beta patch notes http://vs.warcry.com/scripts/news/view_news.phtml?site=64&id=67789 "A new patch has been issued for the beta servers. There’s a whole ton of changes in this latest patch across the board in multiple adventuring classes, crafting, diplomacy and more. Be sure to click ‘read more’ to view the notes." Submitted by brent on Jan 18, 2007 16:26:17 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 39 / comments: 0 WoW - Always look on the bright side of server crashes http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/01/18/always-look-on-the-bright-side-of-server-crashes/ "Like Chris’s server, my server has been a pit of instability and crashes that make the game nearly impossible to play. Tuesday night, Magtheridon was crashing literally every minute, and half the time no mobs would spawn when the server was up. This is pretty annoying for people trying to quest or do instances, but it led to a couple of fun little side games. Among these were:" Submitted by brent on Jan 18, 2007 16:25:40 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 35 / comments: 0 Vista Not So Beautiful, say Casual Devs http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=14952 "Microsoft has trumpeted the benefits of its upcoming Windows Vista release (combined with DirectX 10) to the gaming community, but in the casual games space some developers remain wary of the new Windows. Wild Tangent, PopCap and others chime in." Submitted by brent on Jan 18, 2007 16:25:15 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 46 / comments: 0 Windows Vista screws indy-game developers http://gigagamez.com/2007/01/17/windows-vista-indy-game-killer/ "What you’re looking at on the right is, in the opinion of some of its most reputed developers, an interface that will throttle their branch of the game industry. It’s the game menu for Microsoft Vista, and it allows parents to block access to select games, based on their ESRB rating. Which is not a bad feature, really, but as with many Microsoft products, new features created with the best intentions often lead to unforeseen woes." Submitted by brent on Jan 18, 2007 16:05:27 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 32 / comments: 0 8000 Vanguard Beta Keys http://vs.warcry.com/scripts/news/view_news.phtml?site=64&id=67816 (Well, at least I now know where VirginWorlds rates with the 5 that were granted.)"VSOH.Gamona, a German Affiliate site for Vanguard, is giving away 8,000 beta keys to the next couple thousand people that register to their site. However, this site is indeed in German, so it may be a bit confusing to navigate if you aren’t familiar with the language. I believe the register link is right next to the login field near the top of the page." Submitted by brent on Jan 18, 2007 16:04:28 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 27 / comments: 0 WoW TBC: first official gameplay trailer http://mmorpg.qj.net/WoW-TBC-first-official-gameplay-trailer/pg/49/aid/79797 "To follow up on the very recent and very successful launch of the WoW expansion, The Burning Crusade, Blizzard has released the first of what may be a series of official gameplay trailers. We’re guessing that it may be to convert those who still haven’t bought TBC and those who adamantly believe that they can continue without the expansion when their entire guild has already upgraded. Either that, or it’s to make players of other MMOs green with envy (and it may actually be working). So, sit back and bask in the one minute and ten seconds of glory, which is this video." Submitted by brent on Jan 18, 2007 16:03:20 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 20 / comments: 0 Article - Eye on ‘07: MMOGs http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=71817 "Expect this year’s MMOG landscape to continue to be dominated by, and to some extent defined by, World of Warcraft - whose first expansion will also probably be the biggest game of the year in this genre. However, there are plenty of other very promising games on the horizon, and with millions of new players switched on to MMOG play by WoW’s success, the floor is open for rivals to Blizzard’s dominance to emerge in 2007…" Submitted by brent on Jan 18, 2007 15:58:12 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 22 / comments: 0 What would you do if you woke up one day and the internet was dead? http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=Temporaryboard&message.id=243&view=by_date_ascendin … Funny thread. My favorite response echoes my own feelings: "I’d get the shakes. After that, I don’t know." Submitted by brent on Jan 18, 2007 15:43:03 CST (more) (comments) karma: 0 / clicks: 25 / comments: 0 << See More Recent News · · See Older News >> [...]
[...] CommentTime7 days ago permalink In the theory department, Raph Koster has an excellent article about dealing with mudflation. He’s got a long history with MMOG design, interesting to see the various approaches and how WoW fits in. [...]
[...] possible the game designers did this in an attempt to fight the single-player equivalent of Mudflation. A system like this can make sure the player is paced correctly and doesn’t outgrow smaller [...]
[...] of Musdflation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudflation MMO designer Raph Koster (UO/SWG) http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/01/17/flation/ /moo WoW Resource: http://www.wowhead.com WoW Policies: [...]
[...] http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/01/17/flation/ an interesting read for those interested in the economies of mmos… y release of new patches will [...]
[...] is not just a problem in the real world. Apparently MMOGs like World of Witchcraft experience a type of inflation as [...]
[...] the game at a rapid rate without ruining it. Raph Koster has a nice summary of mudflation on his website, both the symptoms of it and traditional ways of trying to address [...]
[...] drains to account for all the influx. This often means punishingly high costs for players, btw. Link (via [...]
[...] designing Dungeon Escape, a friend pointed me in the direction of an article by Raph Koster on mudflation. The article talks about the age old problem of persistent games. To briefly summarise, a [...]
[...] Koster has some interesting thoughts about inflation in MMORPGs, With the launch of Burning Crusade, people are already commenting on how much the value of older [...]