This is a story in two parts, both revolving around a simple desire: to turn my ageing MacBook Air into a simple gaming machine. Bought in late 2013, it was nearing the end of its useful life as a workhorse, and I’d been eyeing up the more modern Pro line to replace it. To eke…
Tag: development
Dauntless Founders Alpha Preview
Disclaimer: I bought into the Founders Alpha. As such, the usual caveats apply: wanting to avoid buyer’s remorse, wanting something to be good because you’ve sunk money into it, and so on. If you’re not comfortable with risking your investment in an Early Access beta that you might not enjoy, then don’t. With that out…
Path of Fire – a Delicious Demo Experience
Earlier this week, I promised that I’d be taking a look at Path of Fire, the upcoming expansion for Guild Wars 2, during the open demo weekend. I wanted to discover for myself if the sense of wonder had been rekindled, teasing me to explore mysterious new lands. I wanted to feel like I could…
Path of Fire – the Hopeful Skeptic
I am not good at Guild Wars 2. My experience began during the original beta, where I died so many times in the Ascalonian Catacombs instance that I polished the floor with my corpse. From such a promising start, I progressed to mediocre, gradually nurturing an Engineer and a Guardian to level cap. I avoided…
The Legion Dungeon Love-Affair
‘Thank you for fetching my tools, Wilkins. But, before I can teach you the secrets of Mid-Legion Tailoring, you must carry out one more task’ ‘Yes, Master?’ The scruffy young apprentice looked up, hope welling in his big eyes. ‘Indeed. You see, we have run out of Milk. I’ve heard tales of the Naga breeding…
Crowdsourcing MMO Design
Today, I’m going to look at two related topics. The first came out of a new initiative from Carbine Studios called DevConnect, where the studio asks players for input on potential changes to WildStar. The first topic is about faction barriers – a subject that had grabbed my attention following Liore’s blogpost on it earlier this…
The Changing Face of MMOs
Sometimes, MMO commentary feels cyclical. Back in 2014, we were musing how Blizzard’s cancellation of Titan signalled an end to the grand MMO genre. Now that Daybreak Games has shoved EverQuest Next out of a similar airlock, the same opinion is doing the rounds (although with a little less doom-mongering this time around). Some existing MMOs…
Replacing the Superficial Intelligence
I have an opinion on Non-Player Characters. It emerged in the days of the first escort quest I attempted, when the computer-controlled NPC I’d be chaperoning would sprint ahead to certain death at the hands of hungry skeletons. If they weren’t sprinting ahead they’d probably stopped to admire a particularly intricate pebble and forgotten all…
How SWTOR Will Make A Profit
There’s been a lot of talk recently about how Star Wars: The Old Republic was going to be BioWare’s most expensive mistake, ending up consigned in the footnotes of history as a video gaming failure. It’s easy to see where this comes from – at a $200 million price tag this is one of the…
To The Future!
What a year it’s been! There’s been a couple of major launches with both RIFT and Star Wars: The Old Republic attracting a lot of attention and enjoying success. There’s been a whole series of subscription MMOs switching to a free-to-play model and doing really well with it. And regrettably there’s also been a few…