anonix - Slashdot User

ArenaNet's MMO Design Manifesto 178

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday April 28, 2010 @03:54AM from the not-the-crazy-person-kind dept.

An anonymous reader writes "ArenaNet studio head Mike O'Brien has posted his vision for a new type of MMORPG, which they used in developing Guild Wars 2. Quoting: 'MMOs are social games. So why do they sometimes seem to work so hard to punish you for playing with other players? If I'm out hunting and another player walks by, shouldn't I welcome his help, rather than worrying that he's going to steal my kills or consume all the mobs I wanted to kill? ... [In Guild Wars 2], when someone kills a monster, not just that player's party but everyone who was seriously involved in the fight gets 100% of the XP and loot for the kill. When an event is happening in the world – when the bandits are terrorizing a village – everyone in the area has the same motivation, and when the event ends, everyone gets rewarded.'"

EA Flip-Flops On Battlefield: Heroes Pricing, Fans Angry 221

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @07:50AM from the put-your-money-where-your-gun-is dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Ben Kuchera from Ars Technica is reporting that EA/DICE has substantially changed the game model of Battlefield: Heroes, increasing the cost of weapons in Valor Points (the in-game currency that you earn by playing) to levels that even hardcore players cannot afford, and making them available in BattleFunds (the in-game currency that you buy with real money). Other consumables in the game, such as bandages to heal the players, suffered the same fate, turning the game into a subscription or pay-to-play model if players want to remain competitive. This goes against the creators' earlier stated objectives of not providing combat advantage to paying customers. Ben Cousins, from EA/DICE, argued, 'We also frankly wanted to make buying Battlefunds more appealing. We have wages to pay here in the Heroes team and in order to keep a team large enough to make new free content like maps and other game features we need to increase the amount of BF that people buy. Battlefield Heroes is a business at the end of the day and for a company like EA who recently laid off 16% of their workforce, we need to keep an eye on the accounts and make sure we are doing our bit for the company.' The official forums discussion thread is full of angry responses from upset users, who feel this change is a betrayal of the original stated objectives of the game."

Comment 1 Setting Pls (Score 1) 404

by anonix on Tuesday October 13, 2009 @02:17PM (#29734721) Attached to: Should Computer Games Adapt To the Way You Play?

Lets go back to the OLD days when we used to play games that we still play today. All of nintendo had 2 settings.. 1 HARD and 2 Cheating... those games were all epic and made me want to get good at them to win. old PC games like X-com UFO defense even on easy its so hard.. but i love it cause I WANT to get good and see what happens next. Its so annoying with games today where I can sit there and play mindlessly smashing a button. As you say mario Kart does not take skill its strategy dont fly light years ahead of everyone. No matter what you pick Rubber band or an AI that learns from your moves if the game does not challenge you then why play it. If I can change it to easy then maybe I should just go play a spongebob game. This era is mass producing gamers and if you dont challenge them and give them something to hold over other gamers then its not impressive. Make an Epic game that challenges the players and gets hard and harder as you play through.. start the game on easyish and then get harder and harder until you really gotta be good.. cause after you put 20 hours into a game you will put 20 hours just trying to get to the next part.

Slashdot Top Deals