Unlovely Bones

I saw “The Lovely Bones” last night, and came out of the film with two words running through my head: “deeply unsatisfactory”.

Spoilers will follow – rather a LOT of spoilers – so be warned.  Caveat lector!

Journeys vs Destinations

Or, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Treadmill”.

Ysharros started a discussion that inspired me to ponder the nature and purpose of treadmills in MMOs.  Melmoth posted an article about how players prefer to skip to the end, which inspired me to wonder why games so often focus on the destination instead of the journey itself.  Being the efficient gamer that I am, I found a way to complete both quests discuss both issues at once.

Our story begins ages ago…

What CAN be “new” in MMOs?

During the recent discussion here about “what’s new in MMOs“, evizaer raised an interesting point that I think merits further thought: aren’t all the “innovations” in MMOs really just small iterative steps along a fairly clearly illuminated preexisting path?  That is to say, what truly new ideas could possibly exist in MMOs?

What’s “New” in MMOs?

Psychochild wrote an interesting article about innovation in MMOs that got me to wondering what features implemented in the last few years in mainstream MMOs really are new.  I’m going to throw out some ideas about things that are (relatively) new, and some other things that are merely evolutionary changes rather than revolutionary changes.  This list isn’t exhaustive but does cover some of the better ideas I’ve seen in games that are still on the market.

PC or Mac?

This is frankly hilarious.  It’s also a bit NSFW due to profanity.

Sometimes machines just want to be left alone…