You know that Beethoven was deaf when he wrote a lot of his music? And yet here we are several hundred hears later and people, even now, can enjoy his music (even though he couldn’t hear it himself).

It seems you do not need to hear to write good music, can’t it then follow that if you know enough about your subject (MMO’s in this case) you do not need to be a “listener/player” to write a good score/game?

Okay, it’s unfair to imply that it wasn’t in the design because I obviously don’t have the design in front of me, and I know that space combat was at least included in an accessible way (eventually).

However, whether you had it in the design or not, it wasn’t in the game. I played for three months and never saw a Jedi, never flew in a spaceship, and never got the sense that the Rebellion represented hope or the Empire represented oppression. Maybe a less ambitious design would have allowed some of that in the game at launch.

I will say this to your credit: SWG, minus the bugs, minus the Star Wars name (and whatever restrictions came with that), PLUS deliberately designed content (by which I mean raiding and/or meaningful PvP), would have been a classic game, in my opinion.

It really makes me sad that THAT game was replaced by the NGE, because I’d love to take a second look at that game with years of bug fixes, added content, and class balance. THAT game, or its iterated, evolved successors, would be great. Whatever evil I might say about SWG, simply thinking back on it made me nostalgic enough to want to reopen my account. I’d surely be back to playing my Master TKA/Fencer as we speak, if that option hadn’t been taken away.

I have to point out that it did in fact include all of these things in the design, and after launch gained every single one of them.

No. SP and the Beatles are both rock n’ roll, so compared to the entire media of music they are more similar than different. Ergo, SP or any other modern rock n roll band is just the same as some earlier band, and therefore not worthy of being judged on their own merits. This is the argument (in another form) that says WAR = WOW, therefore I don’t need to play one to judge it, as long as I’ve played the other.

Unless you are really of the opinion that all Rock is just low, derivative art, it should be obvious how stupid it is to dismiss more modern artists. Ergo, you should also realize how stupid it is to simply dismiss a newer MMO because it is similar to other successful games.

” Where do Mozart and Stevie Wonder jump in? It’s been stressed over and over again, yet you (not Iconic specifically) are still missing the big picture. Read what has been written, then think about it from a global point of view.”

Where do they fit in? That’s easy. Mozart = WOW. Yea, that’s right, Mozart was just refining what he’d learned from the artists of his time. He didn’t invent the orchestra, nor add any instruments to it, he just executed the basic premise to a degree that no one before him had done. Maybe people told Mozart “Young man, your music isn’t revolutionary. Your fantastic success is keeping people from discovering the hidden gems of music” but history doesn’t record that conversation, because Mozart’s music is not measured against the entire universe of music, it is measured against the corner of that universe that he chose to inhabit. Mozart dominated that coner of the universe. He refined the formula to the point that no one since has been able to do it better.

If you want to make art for your self, then you make whatever you want. If you want to make art that is timeless and classic, then you make art that other people want with a degree of excellence that no one else can match. You establish your greatness by playing the same game as every one else, and beating them at it.

[quote]And no, as a good designer, you do not build your creations by a known formula. You can learn from the previous designs, but in order to create something revolutionary successful, you have to start building from ground up.
[/quote]

What’s a “good” designer? How do you know? If you create a work of art and no one cares, how do you know that you are any good at all? I think a “good” designer is some one who understands that form follows function, and designs to please the audience of which he is a part. This is one of the problems I think with Dr Bartle’s “I can’t enjoy games as a player, only a designer” outlook. How can you design games that will delight people who don’t design when that’s the only way you can enjoy? If you can’t, or you don’t care to, then why should you care about the market as a whole? Design for yourself and shut up. If want to design for the market, and you aren’t a part of the market, then you can only listen to the voices of other people, and then your only hope is to do exactly what you claim a good designer doesn’t: execute a formula that has been handed to you by some one else.

From my perspective, the designers of WoW are “good” designers, because they made the game that they would want to play, and they did so with a great awareness of what came before them and how it could have been better. If WoW is meant to be the closest thing to a perfect version of EQ and it’s the closest thing to a perfect version of EQ, then they got it right. Whether you think that’s a worthwhile design goal is irrelevant, because the designers and the consumers got the closest thing currently possible to what they want. WOW is a theme park and not a world? So what?

“What you, Iconic, are talking about, in your last paragraph, is overall correct and is precisely the way the management thinks the way virtual worlds should be like. What you fail to understand is that it’s NOT A GOOD THING.”

Management doesn’t think that’s the way it ought to be. They look at the real world and they see that’s how it IS. You, the “revolutionary” designer are the one who has decided how it “ought to be” and now it is your responsibility to bring people with you. Raph Koster believes in virtual worlds, and he screwed it up twice even with a big budget. First he created a virtual world in which society broke down to a Lord of the Flies level, and then he created a virtual star wars that contained NONE of the essence of star wars (you know, space ships, Good vs Evil, the Force and Jedi?).

Because he refused to take incremental steps and refine his vision a few steps at a time, the entire thing fell apart (twice). That’s why designers build theme parks instead of virtual worlds, because a working theme park kicks the crap out of a crumbling world.

Will Wright had some a revolutionary idea, and that did pretty well. It did even better when it became formulaic and EA could just later on the iterations. Expansions, SIms 2, etc. How much money did they make on that? How much money did they piss away on the “revolutionary” Sims Online?

[quote] It’s neither a good thing for designers, nor is it good for the consumers, nor for the virtual worlds as a medium on its own. It is good for the guys, who own the company’s shares, but believe me, as long as you pay, they don’t care about you anyway. This is the sad reality of virtual worlds today.
[/quote]

Yea, but the thing is, as a consumer, I don’t care about them either. That’s not exclusive to MMO companies, that applies to food companies and car companies and any other company you can imagine. A company is an entity that exists to make money. People who fund art for the sake of art are called PATRONS and I’m afraid you must be a bit confused if you think that EA, or Activision, or Sony is going to patronize revolutionary design for the sake of design. THe reason they have hundreds of millions to invest is because they didn’t blow all their money on revolutionary ideas that don’t sell. What you need to find is some sucker, er, appreciative observer, who made billions of dollars making something other than games, and then convince them that your virtual world is a work of art, and get them to foot the bill.

And maybe if your idea is as good as you think, people will even choose to inhabit it.

WoW is a leveled, three talent tree, loot-driven game where characters are almost completely defined by their gear. AoC is a leveled, three talent tree system with more realistic graphics, with an (as yet dubiously successful) emphasis on PvP, and the joy of load screens, where players are largely defined by their gear. And Warhammer Online will be a leveled, three talent tree system where players are again defined chiefly by their loot and (we’re told) more of an emphasis on PvP and public quests. All three are theme parks as opposed to sandboxes.

Saying these are essentially the exact same game under the hood is like observing the earth moves around the sun. Self-evident, but hey it got a few guys burned at the stake as I recall. The truth is that the differences between these games are trivial.

Revolutionary, as opposed to evolutionary changes would revolve around freeing players from a defining dependence on loot, and making the choices the players make in terms of their own design and actions in the world more meaningful.

this old guy made a game….

and then a bunch’o folks made some other games…

but all the new games where the same as the old game…..

this pissed him off, and he said “MAKE A NEW GAME”

this pissed off the new folks……and they said”ZOMG..IT IZZ A KNEW GAME, DWARVES ARE CALLED @#5#!@, and we have elves called ^%$@$, and we TOTTALY made up “lore” for them….”

but in the end, it was just WOW, and their “lore” was written by bloggers.. “yay bloggers”……..a great collective “yawn” was uttered, and, in the end, no one cared…..

magical medieval kingdoms ftw….really……
don’t bother with creativity…

regurgitation is AWESOME!!!

roger zelazny would so piss on modern “MMO” story telling…..

(and tolkien’s characters where one dimensional, to put it nicely….)

my point…TRY HARDER