Timothy Burke has posted two pieces on MMOs:
Rubicite Breastplate Priced to Move, Cheap: How Virtual Economies Become Real Simulations was presented at the 2001 Bristol conference (feels like it was 10 years ago). It discusses economy and players in MMOGs and I think it was the first time I saw Bartle’s player typology in action.
The newer piece is The Narrative-Nudge Model for Massively-Multiplayer Games. This one deplores current MMOGs for not being true virtual simulated worlds:
If all we want is games with no world component, no sense of world simulation, then I might suggest that developers would be wise to stick to the design philosophy of City of Heroes: a no-frills, combat-oriented design that is essentially a first-person shooter with persistent statistics. There’s nothing wrong with that: I like City of Heroes quite a lot, and play it regularly. But it’s not and will never be a virtual world. Nor will any MMOG which starts from the design foundations that all MMOGs to date have adopted.
Hi thanks for at GREAT time at the Hunterhut. You were all some pretty funny bears. I laughed my bearass off for almost a week. Also Karen’s homebake was terrific and DON’T get me started on the crullers. They were yummi. A great time indeed.