Peering into China
A sample of a report (PDF) on the Chinese market for online gaming was released a few days ago, and I just found it via the fascinating Virtual China blog.
Among the key statements in the report:
Game talk
This is the catch-all category for stuff about games and game design. It easily makes up the vast majority of the site’s content. If you are looking for something specific, I highly recommend looking into the tags used on the site instead. They can narrow down the hunt immensely.
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The Healing Game
Abalieno has a post up at the Cesspit about The “healer” role as a byproduct of the meta-game we played till today. In it, he argues that the traditional healer role that exists in the modern MMORPGs only exists to fill a need in the core combat game system; that it is, in other words, purely mechanical, and present merely as a formal system, not because it captures the spirit of healing in any way.
Which makes me think, rather of a game where healing is the core mechanic.
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Living Game Worlds 2006: Johnny Wilson’s notes
Johnny Wilson has gotten around to posting extensive notes on the Living Game Worlds symposium I attended a few weeks ago, including some notes on what I said.
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Readers respond to Sirlin
Gamasutra is posting the letters they got in response to Dave Sirlin’s Soapbox on WoW.
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What is your ideal MMO?
The discussions on the lessons make me curious.
What is it you want? Not in terms of exhaustive mechanics, specific and highly detailed setting information, and so on, but the spirit of it.
(Not that I think you’re necessarily a representative bunch…!)