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Role Playing (Games)

How Gamers View Their MMOs 132

GamerDNA is trying out what they call their Discovery Engine, a system that uses metadata from users to classify games and identify which have similar traits. Massively describes it thus: "Once the gamerDNA community continues to contribute to something like this, it builds up an enormous database of terminology based on actual player knowledge, not just shiny PR words thrown together to promote a game. These search terms can end up being unique to a specific genre, and ultimately lead gamers to exactly the types of games they're looking for." GamerDNA tested the system out on some of the popular MMOs, and they've posted the results. They look at how MMO players identify themselves within the game, how they describe the setting, and what basic descriptive phrases they use in reference to the games.
Games

Survival-Horror Genre Going Extinct? 166

Destructoid is running an opinion piece looking at the state of the survival-horror genre in games, suggesting that the way it has developed over the past several years has been detrimental to its own future. "During the nineties, horror games were all the rage, with Resident Evil and Silent Hill using the negative aspects of other games to an advantage. While fixed camera angles, dodgy controls and clunky combat were seen as problematic in most games, the traditional survival horror took them as a positive boon. A seemingly less demanding public ate up these games with a big spoon, overlooking glaring faults in favor of videogames that could be genuinely terrifying." The Guardian's Games Blog has posted a response downplaying the decline of the genre, looking forward to Ubisoft's upcoming I Am Alive and wondering if independent game developers will pick up where major publishers have left off.
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - Runescape takes action against Real World Trading

teknikl writes: In a major update today, Jagex has modified the rules of the online Java-based fantasy MMOG Runescape to further exclude gold farmers and real world traders. Earlier this month http://news.runescape.com/newsitem.ws?id=995 , the rules for dueling were changed to restrict the maximum a player could win to 3k. In addition, the rules for drop parties were changed to announce high value drop parties http://news.runescape.com/newsitem.ws?id=998 . As of today the 'Wilderness' area of the game was modified to prevent surreptitious trades via PKing. Other rules governing the visibility of dropped items more expensive than 3k also went into place today http://news.runescape.com/newsitem.ws?id=1007 with further restrictions on 'unbalanced trades' expected in the coming year.

For their part Jagex has posted a development diary http://news.runescape.com/newsitem.ws?id=1008 detailing their deliberations on ways to combat gold farming and real world trading.

Today the RuneScape community is in the midst of a social meltdown, complete with hordes of players protesting in the streets. A concerned player asks, at what point does the pain of the cure outweigh the benefits? What are the rights of players participating in any online community? While other games tend to look the other way, Jagex has taken RWT head-on, will this cost the company its flagship game?

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