Raph_Koster

9 ms·

31.
by Raph_Koster 8y ago
> once EQ showed up and redefined the genre. I don't think I would frame it that way; more like it reverted the genre back to the Diku mold. See 1. https://www.raphkoster.com/2009/01/09/what-is-a-diku&
32.
by Raph_Koster 8y ago
1. Lots of lore and whatnot. More than people give credit for, actually. 1a. The prototype was actually based on U6's rendering engine, not U8. 2. Far too long a story. UO2 was a bit of a mess technologically, IMHO. EA disliked Origin
33.
by Raph_Koster 8y ago
It was bad UX because people couldn't easily tell the difference between a vorpal bunny and a weak one. The name wasn't enough. UO had a "consider" style skill but no one used it (I forget the name, "evaluate"
34.
by Raph_Koster 8y ago
That would be because of a tool called CopyBot which came out in 2006. https://www.raphkoster.com/2006/11/15/copybot/
35.
by Raph_Koster 8y ago
Of course, even those two were quite different; Xavori roleplayed a lot whereas IIRC Bubba didn't bother.
36.
by Raph_Koster 8y ago
The term I used at the time was "virtual sociopath" -- you'd think sociopathy is more common if you glance at forums today, too... but there's a huge element of disinhibition brought about by non-personal contact. It doe
37.
by Raph_Koster 8y ago
Early on, creatures learned skills just like players did. In the alpha, this led to wolves who hunted bunnies, and some bunnies the bunnies escaped and learned a little, and eventually there were both dire wolves (their name actually change
38.
by Raph_Koster 8y ago
Players hated making things that had no value. They knew full well there was no market, but they were conditioned to expect a reward for doing it anyway. I suspect players would be much more tolerant of it today.
39.
by Raph_Koster 8y ago
Trivia: Eve was originally conceived as "UO in space." :) And Runescape was "UO on the web." Even Neopets was originally inspired by UO.
40.
by Raph_Koster 8y ago
Cockroaches and neon colors are definitely after Second Age. I led the design of that first expansion, and the only new ridables were ostards. :)
41.
by Raph_Koster 8y ago
This is correct. The closed system was a massive design flaw. But it was there in order to prevent mudflation, which is a classic issue with virtual worlds of all stripes, and has severely harmed the economy and game balance of pretty much
42.
by Raph_Koster 8y ago
I led the design on both games, and SWG was of course the application of a lot of lessons learned from UO.
43.
by Raph_Koster 8y ago
I was the original lead designer on Ultima Online and the key designer of this system. A few notes, because this article has MANY inaccuracies. 1. Ultima Online wasn't even in development for three years total. An early prototype was F
44.
by Raph_Koster 8y ago
I'm tickled that my book was helpful!
45.
by Raph_Koster 8y ago
All of my talks are linked from here: https://www.raphkoster.com/games/presentations/ Most of my writings are on that site as well. I just recently put out a new book including postmortem material on Ultima Online
46.
by Raph_Koster 9y ago
Your examples miss my point, which was that some types of games are inherently more expensive to make than others. Just like some types of games inherently retain better than others, generate more hours played than others, are more competit
47.
by Raph_Koster 9y ago
Getting Over It (which is awesome) is exactly the sort of deeply systemic game that the article advocates needs to become more common.
48.
by Raph_Koster 9y ago
This is the key thing. Basically, these curves have been sustainable because of the growth of the total addressable market. But that can't grow exponentially forever.
49.
by Raph_Koster 9y ago
Contacts were far more willing to just share dev cost; I didn't get anywhere near enough figures on revenues that could be tied back to specific titles. I don't have data on number of sales at all. Public companies don't brea
50.
by Raph_Koster 9y ago
> This, and the rest of the suggestions reads as "don't build a hand-tailored experience, instead build more random permutations of generic content." There's even suggestions to find ways to monetize some of those per
51.
by Raph_Koster 9y ago
Article author here. First, let me state that this is not some sort of apologia for AAA and its business practices. I don't work for an AAA publisher. I don't derive significant annual revenue from AAA. I am currently an independe