Game Industry

World of Warcraft Success

2006-11-30T00:32:00.000-05:00

Ok its been awhile since I have written here, but I think its time to start writing again.

This little blog is about World of Warcraft or WOW.

Now, I have been playing WOW for about 9 months I would say. I did the whole pvp run up to Warlord on my rogue 'Nacdune'. I am also a class officer in my guild. Now with that being said I would like to point out why WOW has succeeded.

Wow has created community above all else. You come on meet people and eventually to become friends with them. YOu interact with each other through raids, dungeons, quests etc. The whole scope of it is you supposidly have fun with these people. Now, comes the hard part the drama. Drama comes over certain things, progression, item looting, people not helping, etc.

What WOW made easy

Blizzard made it really easy for people to get from lvl 1-60 in about 2-3 months. Now if that was all there was in the game why would you stay longer for 2 months. Therefore, WOW focuses alot on what the lvl 60s can do. The game is totallly geared for being 60 there is no point of being 55 or lower really.

What WOW has done to hook you for 3+ months

Though everyone thought it was a bad idea to make raids 40 mans this was actually a good idea in terms of getting people to stay with the game. It might create alot of drama, but do the math. A raid has 8-9 bosses each boss drops about 2-3 epic type items. There are 17 slots on your character to equip items, so 27 items drop divided by 40 people so you have a 68% chance roughly to get 1 item froma raid. So if you raid one of these large 40 man dungeons once a week it take you about 4-6 months to get all your epic gear. Now how do you progress to the next harder dungeon you need to be in full epic gear from the previous dungeon basically. Now you have to gear out at least 35 people to try the next dungeon. Thefore, this litte equation here gives you an idea of what you need to do to feel like your moving on in the game. And that is how WOW hooks you.

Building a community

Online games really need to focus on community things like throwing in game parties, events, etc. For online games you need to be able to add and replace content very quickly, so you need a game engine that is very user friendly for your level designers. Basically, the online community is growing huge with stuff like Myspace and now with more Online games you will see a larger and larger online community. For future online games I don't suggest competing with WOW but learn from what they have done you make something easy for them to achieve and then you set the hook to keep them on it. This should be a goal for any company considering developing an online game.

My first E3

2006-05-15T12:53:00.000-04:00

Ok E3 I have to say right now is F'ing amazing. The event was huge beyond belief. I met a ton of people, had a ton of dinner meetings, saw some hot booth babes, won some webzen prizes, got on G4TV, and overall I would say its a must see event. Now the only thing that I hated was I was stuck in non-stop meetings on Wednesday and Thursday and I wasn't able to get on the floor. However, I did make up for it on Friday by getting around to see as much stuff as possible. I would of loved to see the Nintendo Wii, but the lineup was way to long and I was not going to wait probably 4-5 hours just to see it. I would though like to say Howling Moon Designs is going to be growing in the next couple of months and we will be announcing more information to the public when we are able to do so. Also we might be changing our name, but www.howlingmoongames.com will still be the site to get all the information about the future of our company.

Update

2006-03-15T12:03:00.000-05:00

Sorry its been awhile since I have updated this blog. I have been focusing alot on Game Development and I hope to announce a bunch of stuff in the next 2-3 weeks on my website at www.howlingmoongames.com also I will be attending E3 this year and if you would like to setup a meeting with me you can contact me at lee.ing@howlingmoongames.com

Also I have been sick of all the stupid comments that are basically spam and thats another reason I haven't updated this blog. I will be creating a full development blog of the MMORPG project in the next 2-3 months for people to see and links for that will be on www.howlingmoongames.com stay tune more announcements will be coming very soon.

Lee

The Movies

2006-01-10T10:49:00.000-05:00

Back again!!

I am here to wish everybody a happy new year and hope everybody had a good holiday. I am going to talk about one of the games I got over the Holidays.

This year there were really not to many games out there that caught my eye, but I decided to check out the game called 'The Movies' that was developed by lionhead studios and published by Activision.

The game allows you to run your own movie studio and has you grow you can create your own movies, hire stars, upkeep your studio, and add so much more.

The game itself is similar to a simluation game like Sim City or Roller Coaster Tycoon. The fun part is where you get to make movies. You have script writers that will come up with whatever you tell them too, or you can take the chance to make your own script. Now to make your script will take a ton of time. Also, you have to be careful not to make movies too long or they will cost way to much money to shoot and could leave your studio in the dust. You also have to be careful how many 3-5 star movies your going to make because they are also very expensive and will run your studio into the ground. However, if you want to forget about all of that why not try out the Sandbox mode where you can basically create your own starting budget and just make great movies. The game also comes with a program called Star Maker that allows you basically to create your own stars, now you can customize anything and this is where it gets a bit scary because you could really make a 3d model of yourself or somebody else if you spend enough time doing it. One of the major down flaws to this game is the difficulty of controlling your stars especially when you get over 8 of them. They all want Entourages and it's almost impossible to find entourages unless you take them from another area of the game like crew members or builders. Overall, if they want entourages they should of made a different building where you can create entourages. Also, one other problem is you can never really add in characters you have to really wait for characters to come to you. THerefore, you could be short staffed for alot of the game and it will drive you insane this even happens when you are the number one studio as well. Also, I notice you lose money pretty quickly when you start to PR your films so be careful. I think this would also be a good game for people to write screenplays in for real movies. It would really allow a person to give a visual appeal to a script they wrote and they wouldn't have to hire a concept artists to sketch out parts and areas for them. I think this would be one of the greatest tools people could use to learn how screenplays and scripts could be done.

Overall the game is pretty good and it is really addicting and I haven't taken it online yet, but I will soon. I give this game a 8/10.

Go check this game out.

5-8 Hour Completion Time

2005-12-16T09:59:00.000-05:00

Hi all,

Sorry its been awhile. I wanted to talk this time about time it takes to finish a game from start to end. I rented out the new Game 'GUN' and I was able to beat it in the first 2 days of my 7 day rental. Now, to me it even came down to it feeling like I wasted my 7 day rental. The game was good and did have a storyline, but it brings up the point of why would I go out there and buy a copy when I just beat it in under a week. Overall, this shows off why I mostly play only RPG games. At least with a RPG your going to usually get about 25+ hours and the good ones usually take close to 40 hours to beat. However, over the last year there haven't been any good ones that have come out. Also, if this trend of a game with a lifespan of 8 hours continues to the next generation and you ask people to pay an extra $10 you can see less sales of the future. Now, I am not saying buying a 8 hour game is bad, but you have to look at it if its worth your time. Overall, before people go out and buy games I suggest doing research to see if its a good game especially if your going to be spending $60 on it. We all know that most gamers are 28 on average or so, but if you still want to attract young people 15-25 you need to really offer them the ability to buy games as well. Especially, people in college because they will mostly be living on fixed incomes and they might not choose video games as there entertainment if it costs them $60 each.

Release of XBOX 360

2005-11-20T05:33:00.000-05:00

Well the release of the XBOX 360 is just a few days away. Honestly, the system does not show off to much power. Of course, I would say give it a year or two to see what developers and publishers come up with as well. If anybody is still trying to think about buying an XBOX 360 my advice would be to wait for the PS3 and Revolution to come out before making a decision. The Revolution might not be as powerful as the 2 other systems, but it will allow the most gameplay and it will feature a line up of all the previous games ever made for all the nintendo systems in the past. The PS3 looks very pretty, but its hard to say how easy it can be developed on. The PS3 though will have developers lined up like crazy to develop. XBOX 360 is pretty easy to develop a game. Basically, you can make a PC game and just port it for the XBOX 360. This was similar with the XBOX as well. Overall, my suggestion to anybody considering about buying the XBOX 360 should wait a year to see what SONY and Nintendo can show up with. Also, there are still good games coming out on PS2 and PC that will hold you over until the next systems. Some of the games to look foward for are Final Fantasy 12 (PS2) releasing in Feburary if Square sticks with the release date. There is also the World of Warcraft Expansion pack coming out around the same time. Lastly, I wanted to put up this new information about BIOWARE and Pandemic teaming up. This really shows that these companies both want to make good games and not be controlled by large developers like an EA or other company. Therefore, I applaud both of these companies for teaming up and I hope they have huge success in the future.

Canada X05

2005-10-27T15:43:00.000-04:00

Sorry its been a long time since the last post. I have been really busy. I would like to tell everybody about Canada X05 though. Last night Microsoft held an event in the wonderful city of Toronto. The event started off with a few key speakers from Microsoft talking about new windows vista and developing for the XBOX 360. After that A key speaker from ATI talked about the Graphics card in the XBOX 360. Overall that part was mostly an introduction of the presentations. After those 2 speakers there was Dennis Dyack from Silicon Knights and David Wu from Psuedo. Dennis talked mostly about how the game industry is going to become bigger and bigger, and how teams for a game will need to be of about 100 or more people. At the end Dennis showed off a trailer for 'Too Human' a game he is working on for the XBOX 360. The last speaker of the night was David Wu. He talked about the difficulties on developing for different consoles. Then at the end he gave us all a little sales pitch telling us to go buy Full Auto. Now, Full Auto is not going to be a release title on the XBOX 360 just to let everybody now. After the presentations Microsoft was kind enough to buy everybody Dinner and then there was a VIP event across the street to get our hands on the XBOX 360. The games on display there was Full Auto, Kameo, Perfect Dark, and Project Gotham Racing. I was able to play each game. Now, honestly the XBOX 360 will only really look good on a HD TV. Therefore, if your not on HD yet don't buy an XBOX 360. The graphics I would say are not a huge improvement from current consoles. The only really difference is in the HD TV's and not the graphics. I have a HD tv for my PS2 and that does find. As for the games there: I would say they all suck, but there was only like one level to each. However, Full Auto did draw a good crowd and when I played it I did like it, but David Wu would not give an exact release date, and he was sketchy about the details of the game being released on the PS3 as well. Overall, the event was pretty good, but for the system being released next month and only showing off 4 games didn't seem very impressive and one of those games won't even be a launch title. My personal opinion would be to wait until all the next 3 generation systems are all out next year before you decide to make a decision.

Nintendo Revolution Controller

2005-09-30T12:05:00.000-04:00

By now most people have seen the controller. At first, I did not like it. However, when I saw the intro video that came along I was very impressed. The controller is something very new and has been done before. Not many people probably remember this, but on the SNES there was a one handed controller used mostly for RPG games. Now, back then it was not really interesting because nobody knew about it. About the idea of hitting stuff on the screen when you press a button. I would like to say this DUCK HUNT. This was done like 20 years ago on one of the best games in my mind. However, nobody decided to stick with this technology. Think if we stuck with it. There would be no key boards now, every thing would simply be point and click. The only downfall I see to the controller is the developing side of it. None of the developers have announced any game for the system yet, and it will not be that easy to simply just port a game over from the XBOX 360 or PS3 with this new technology. However, if developers are willing to take a chance this could be a very good area to explore. If I get a chance I would love to build a RTS for the revolution. To just think of the movement capabilities of being a commander of something like this on a big screen TV would be incredible. It really puts all the power into the palm of your hand.

I give Nintendo another look now and I hope they can get the developers to back this new idea.

Spam

2005-09-27T19:30:00.000-04:00

Ok, who on earth writes comments on Blogs just to add spam to it. That is a new low for spammers.

About the 15 revenue streams. I can obviously point out the main ones with game sales and game subscriptions. Some of the other ones are mostly confidential. I have thought of about 30-40, but some were just to much work or they would never work. As well not all of them will be at launch of the game. About 3-4 will come about 3-6 months after the game is released. I would expect about 15 at launch and then adding more on and on as the game reaches the next level. As well they are not all expansion packs or add-ons for the game I can at least tell you that much about them. The people who do know about the revenue streams have all signed a Non-disclosure agreements, and I am kind of using the 15+ as a tool to help me get investors that would be interested in this project.

Overall, closer to release I will be sure to release all the information to the public about how each area works.

2 week selling cycle

2005-09-23T07:27:00.000-04:00

This here is a little information I would like to put up.

Games take on average 2-3 years to develop and usually have a selling period of 2-3 weeks when it is released. Therefore, you spend a majority of your time hoping that your game will sell well.

This is what I say to publishers get your head out of your @ss and look for new ways to help make money. For crying out loud just spend 30 minutes and brainstorm to think of some new ways to make money. Just think its always worth it to come up with a at least a few ideas to make money. In my game I have over 15+ different areas I plan to generate revenue in. Of course, some areas will be more successful then others, but at least the option is there to make extra money. Therefore, I don't really have to hope my game sells huge at launch it will generate money as it goes on. Even if you want to look at the hollywood idea of where a movie is made and then released twice: once in threatres and again on DVD. They are still making money in other areas like adverstising or even better in Merchandise. I think this was all started with George Lucase on the merchandise area. You think why did he argue to make sure he got the merchandising rights with FOX when Star Wars was made because he knew it was an untapped market that could gain some extra money for movie makers. Well this is what video game makers need to do is look at an untapped market to help them make more money. Obviously the big push is in advertising now, but there are other areas if you know where to look you can show a game making more money in other revenue streams then just pure volume sales of a game.

Questions Part 2

2005-09-02T21:23:00.000-04:00

Thank you for going into more detail on the history. I kind of slowed down in that area. You ask if sequels and expansions are what should be added. I think this area shows that it needs to be added whether it is added in patches and stuff is up to the developers and if its a cost effective way. However, more then just content is needed. You need events that occur regularly things that involve the community. Events have to happen in the game world. Things like a party at island 'B' should be there and a GM should go to see if it can be improved or strengthen to make events bigger and better. Add-ons also add expansion in areas like player improvements and fair abilities for classes to make sure nobody is to over powered. With that being said you cannot leave your main concepts. Look at what happened to Star Wars Galaxies they started to change to much to make it more like other games and now they have lost a ton of customers. People, will adapt to the changes as long as they are reasonable, but with other products out on the market, why adapt when you could leave for another product that is superior.

Also, about your questions about events happening in which you kill a key member and there is no respawn time of them. I have planned this for my game I am creating for roles like a key boss or a key monster. I still have ideas that I am keeping quiet. My game will have it where some monsters will not respawn and for the servers to be different is a great idea, but I have a whole new plan for the servers inside my game world and it will change alot of traditional ways on how servers are used inside an Online game.

Questions

2005-09-02T07:13:00.000-04:00

Why do you think people play these games?

The online game world is very interesting because you get a whole new customer. Typical games are usually release and hope you do well on sales alone. The MMO's offer a game that is always being updated. I think this offers something new to the players and offers them something else. Most people who play online games are RPG fans. Now an RPG average life lately has been only 20-30 hours, I can beat that in 3 weeks. This makes me think why did I spend that much money on something I beat in about 3 weeks, when I could of got an online account to a game world. Now inside the game world you don't play by yourself you play with friends, enemies, and netural players there. In this world you become social and interact with everybody. Plus, the game world never ends. I looked at how much I pay for games a year if I could just play one game and pay $15 a month that would be cheaper to buying the 6-7 games a year. Now with that being said a game world needs to be updated to have new features to it, so that the player gets a feel that things are changing. In short the main reason players play online games is because they have a social aspect, they cannot be beaten in 3 weeks, the world should always be changing, and in the end it works out cheaper then buying 1 game every 2 months or so.

Why do you think that most offerings suffer from *player drift* (playing for a few months then moving to another offering).?

This all depends on each game mostly. Of course the obvious reason is the player wants to see what's new and what may be better then the other one. The drifting will take place of course, but if you have a solid game people usually come back. However, another major drifting reason could be customer support. In some games you will not see this at all and if people have problems they will get pissed and leave. The other area is how is LAG handled. As a player the main thing you hate in an online game is lag. There is nothing worst then lag. If your game lags expect people to leave. Therefore, you need to make sure you do not over populate the game world, though it might seem to save you money at first, it will lead to ticked off customers and if you release a game in the future you might not have that customer. Plus, you need to have events inside the game world that happen on a weekly basis and even events on a daily basis. Now this is hard to do becauses patches usually come about once a month, but there are other things you could do. For example, if WOW they have Battle grounds, now at any time you can enter battle grounds and thats something that happens on a daily basis. Other events that should happen in games is customers being able to offer suggestions to developers this is there game world so listen to what the customer has to say, and I hope that GM are smart enough to read the general chats in areas to see what people think.

What takes the majority of the time to develop these games?

simply the amount of volume you need in this game world. You might not need the 50 minutes of movie parts, but you need so much more. You need to have an endless array of items, if you only had 3 swords in a game like this people would be pretty bored. Other areas like art work you need to have game worlds that are large enough to encompass thousands of people playing at once. All the items in a game like this need to have icons and most of them need to have models as well, you might even need to hire 3-4 people alone to do icons for the game, typically you would only need one person. You also have to look at server intergation, how many servers do you need, how will it be uploaded to the server, how will you be able to fix bugs and patch them quickly for the game are all programming issues that need to be solved. The design area as well is a key area. You need to design at least 1000 quests for a MMO, you need to have multiple spells, you need to write scripts for people to read, you need to design every NPC in the game and most of them should have some type of speech with the player either text or vocal. In the end you simply need to add so much more in a game this size and that's why they can take so long to develop.

Why are so many people interested in creating these offerings or being associated with the games industry?

The game industry is an entertainment industry. That basically means you entertain other people with your ideas, visions, goals, dreams, etc. and just like the movie industry people believe that it is there destiny to work there and it is not hard work. People dream of becoming actors/singers because they see these people that are famous and they think it's an easy life. Well it's not, but back to the game industry in comparison. People make games, now you do not really know the people behind the game industry the programmers, artists, designers, etc. You mostly hear about what they have done. For example, you hear something like the creators of Diablo made this game, but you have no idea really what there names are. The reason why people lover this industry is because everybody comes up with an idea for there own game. Only creative people can be in the game industry and be successful, now lately the business side has started to take over and creative is being hidden in the corner just waiting to be released again, but thats another discussion. Overall, people love to play games and they would love to see some type of there dream game on the market. As well the push for online games is mostly the idea of AD&D over the internet. An online game offers this to be a visual presentations of a game world like that. It just shows how strong those games really are.

What is the history of these games?

The history of these games is new. It is hard to judge where some will go and where some will fail. It seems like the ones that do well are set in a fantasy medieval style type game world, with mythical creations. The other area is the ones that do well offer PVP. Without some type of PVP you will lose quite a few customers it seems. The history mostly draws upon Everquest and Ultima these 2 mostly started it and now it has grown. Lately, a bunch of companies announced they are cancelling there plans to make these games because they don' t think there is a big enough market to compete with WOW. I think the market is growing and in about 2-3 years the trend will be about 2 million on each online game. Now with that type of trend this will create a wider margin between success and failure. for example a game with 300,000 users now would be considers pretty good, but in 3-5 years you will need 800,000 users to be considers decent. Therefore, you need to make sure you can learn and expect to live with the new trends. It is in the growing stage right now.

Just a little something

2005-09-02T07:05:00.000-04:00

Here is something I have started to notice in the game industry, but let's start with a little history.

The game industry about 8-9 years ago was made up of developers, which became publishers.

The publishers were then considered the big guns and still are. Then small developers would make small demos to try and get a publishing contract. As time goes by these developers start to create good games and they sell and sell pretty good. The publisher then starts to buy all these developers the trend started about 4-5 years ago of buying developer companies, the most notable was Microsoft buying rare. Nowadays, it seems like the trend is going back to outsourcing, but this time outsourcing companies are all over seas and cost less money. My word of advice to any company in the game industry is this. If you sold your developing company that's great. If you want to get back in the game, use that money and contract out of over sea staff and act as a contact for publishers to outsourcing companies in other countries.

10 year development Cycle

2005-08-08T13:30:00.000-04:00

I recently read a post on a forum I cannot remember where exactly, but it talked about how a perfect MMORPG would take 10 years to make. Well, I thought that was very interesting because of how much you would need to put into the game. However, it can be done if you look at it the right way.

First, let's define a MMORPG. A MMORPG is a game where the world never ends and always expand and you allow players to enter this world. How does a 10 year development cycle work. Well its quite simple if you look at it the right way. The average MMORPG spenda about 3 years in development then it is released this how most games take to get out on the market, some take less depending what you put into the game. However, let's look at it this way people pay for the game to be updated and expanded, so the game should have a never-ending life cycle. SO we are at 3 years out of 10 so far. The first year after release you add multiple little parts in patches, and near the end of that year you add an expansion pack. Now we are on year 4, You continue to add your monthly updates, patches, bug fixing etc. You always have to keep adding to your game. As well you try to offer the expansion packs for as little as possible. The key part is in the 3 years of development the designers should of designed a game world that is open to exploration this means that you are always able to add areas to the game without it seeming to bizzare a new area has been added. This is quite easy create a medieval world and say area X has not been explored yet. Now you keep adding add-ons and keep moving the level cap up and up with each expansion. This way the player will be able to always expand there characters as time grows. Then after year 4 you start looking at adding a whole new section i.e. another whole area to the game the same size as you spent developing in the game. Luckily it is only an area, so it should take up about 2 years of development and you add it in as pieces and pieces like part A of the area comes in at 6 month period and part B comes another 6 months later, and you have the players test it and refine it to what the players needs are. Now, we are at the 6 year period in development 3 years in production and 3 years of post production. Overall you repeat the process to make a the game world more compelling for the player at the same time you have to listen to the players and see what they want to be added and you add it as well you throw in cool ideas you might of thought of from time to time for the game. As well you have to add side games that relate to the game world and show that it is always open for expansion. Now for something like this to obviously work you need to make sure that you have designed a world open for expansion, and you need to have the money of course, but the money generated from monthly subscriptions should be more then enough if your game is popular enough. Look at WOW for example, the game does not have players stay because after 2-3 months there is nothing else to really do inside the game, They add small patches monthly, but no real big changes have been made to the game. Overall, if you plan to have a MMORPG I think it all starts in the design for creating a world that always expands, if you want to create a regular game then you make something with a conclusion and something that only takes 3 years to develop and once the player buys it thats over you might add one expansion pack but thats it really. Overall, you have to make sure you open a world that can always expand and I stress this for anybody who plans on designing a MMORPG because they are so much different from traditional games and if you don't plan for expansion it will fail.

New website

2005-08-02T11:34:00.000-04:00

Here is my new website for my game company www.howlingmoongames.com

It is still under construction, but it offers some key features on it.

I would also like to talk about a comment left on the last post. About programmers knowing what gamers want. It is true most people in the game industry are players why else would they be there. The problem with people in the industry is they know how to put games together and when they make one good game they get into a trend to make every game like that. After about the 3-4 time through the player gets bored of that style and games start to suck. Now this is not completely true, but thats how it is for the majority. Best example is look at GTA an amazing game series, but there are so many bad rip-offs of it. I hate doing this when I relate to the movie industry, but here it is again. In movies they keep screening them in front of a small group of people to get a reaction. Nobody does this for a game, now we have testers, but like I said before they mostly find bugs. Of course, this is also harder in the game industry because it can take 2-3 years to make a game. I also read an article a few days ago talking about bad games and it went along the lines saying let companies make bad games eventually after time they will run out business and will no longer be a company. If thats what it takes then I can see a ton more companies running out of business, and the remaining companies will have to learn from there mistakes.

Innovation vs. Demand Part 2

2005-07-21T05:02:00.000-04:00

The customer/player

Well all the games out there are about the player. The idea is to see what the player wants, and this has not been tested yet. Of course, main testers for game companies are there, but there job is mostly finding bugs in the game. Other industries to extensive research to find out what customers really want in return. I barely see surveys by game creators asking the player what they want, but it is starting to happen more often. Where you see surveys is mostly on fansites asking players if they will buy the new XBOX or if they will buy this game. The market basically tells the player your going to play this game no matter what. I blame this mostly on EA because they make huge games and say this is how its going to be played. There is really no choice especially in the controls of games. For example, I am old fashion and I love the up, down, left, right little pads on the PS2 controller compared to the analog joystick pad. Thus, most companies are making it that you need to play with the analog to play a game, which was a real pain in the ass on some games I wanted to play. Whatever happen to allowing me to go into the options and making a simple change. Now, for computer games you are able to customize it any way you want, so I have started to focuse more on computer games simply because of the choice they offer me. We must start to offer the player choice not linear options to success. This was one of the main things I learned in running an email rpg I tried to restrict the player by saying you could not do this quest until your this level or this much stronger, in result I lost a few players. Thankfully, it was just a hobby and something that was done for free and no major investments were made. However, I did learn that players need choices in games now and that linear paths will no longer be tolerated by players.

Cost of games
This is another problem as well games are becoming more expensive to make and in turn will cost more money to the customer. There will have to be options for the player to make money in the game simply so that they can afford them. XBOX 360 plans to do this on most of there games. However, I am not to sure on all the details, but I am pretty sure they are looking at games like Second Life and Project Entropia as examples. EA also says the price to develop a game will sky rocket to about 30 million. Well if you add in all the actors they will pay for voice over work and motion capture then it could be true. However, as motion capture becomes more of a form the price will drop just like how everything else drops in price with technology. The price of games for the next gen consoles will go up and I think this will also lead towards less games out on the market as well. The market now is flooded with clones if you ask me. Game A is the same as Game B but the name and maybe actors are different. The best example of clones is FPS they all follow the same suit, but offer different environments.

Cost of Consoles
Now, I've heard it all that XBOX and PS3 will all lose money on the hardware side when they are release. Who the hell cares about that. To develop for a console you still need the console kit for the game and those will cost quite a bit of money and to get the console kit you have to go to SONY or Microsoft directly and pay them for it. So the idea of the companies losing money is just a distraction to customers to think they are getting a deal.

As well I would like to answer Jim's comment on Part 1

The ideas are there and they are always coming in and in from designers thats for sure. The risk vs. reward is mostly corporate companies saying how do we know this will work. Well let's look at an extreme idea about 8-10 years ago. Somebody came up with the idea to have online auctions. What a stupid idea right there was no real market, nothing to based it on but auction houses that have auction every now and then. What idiot would of invested in that idea, well those idiots are all billionaires now and they control the online economy. I am talking about Ebay just to let you all know. It takes radical thinking and somebody to believe in your ideals to go with them if you think you can make the money. This has always been the way even back to Apple computers. If you want to look at entertainment industry let's look at movies. Nobody wanted to invest in Star Wars, but Lucas was able to convince FOX and now he has an Empire of his own.

For investors you must be willing to get rejected over and over again until you can find somebody on the right page as you. You need to make sure you can create a model that does show your game can make money and that means looking at existing models and re-tuning them to show profit. The easiest way to do this now is with MMORPGS if you can prove the game will sell for 'x' amount and you charge about $10 per month then you can show it working without having 10 million sales of a game, but for a offline console game you cannot really show profit until about 1 million in sales and that money usually goes straight to publishers and not the people who developed it.

Overall, the corporate ideals need to be willing to take risks on projects. Now I am not saying that taking every idea that comes there way, but at least be willing to explore the option. Do some research and see if the player would enjoy that type of experience. I praise SONY Online's President for reaching out to consumers to see what they would like more of in a MMORPG. To me that really showed that he wants to do whats best for the customer and not the bottom line. From past corporations those who take care of the customer first are usually the ones with the biggest bottom line. Except maybe for OIL companies, but I won't get into that.

Heat Wave

2005-07-15T05:10:00.000-04:00

I hate living without A/C. There has been one of the biggest heat waves ever in Southern Ontario and it has been driving me nuts. I haven't sat in front of my computer, for such a long time now.

However, I have compiled notes and here is my review of World of Warcraft.

Just to let you know I am a level 26, Orc Rogue on a Normal Server.

The game is pretty addicting. However, there are some major down sides to the game. First, is the job areas. The jobs are just watching bars scroll across the screen there is no real talent to have a job, besides choosing the one that suits your character the best. As well, if its your first time playing through do not pick a rogue or a character that will die often because you will end up hating the game. The best choice is a warrior for starters. Each side though does have there power class. The alliance has the cheap Paladins, which will never die if you heal at the right times. The power side for the Horde is the Shaman, but I have not played one yet.

The game itself breaks down into 2. You either join the Horde: Orcs, Taurens, Trolls, undead or the Alliance: Humans, Gnomes, Dwarves, Night Elves. The choice is up to the player. The classes are completely different and offer the different gameplay features. You must choose your class wisely because you will be stuck with it forever. Therefore, if you want to experiment the only problem is you cannot really get a feel of your class until level 20 or above. So expect to spend some time playing before you find what your looking for.

There are quests and quests, but there all pretty straight foward go kill bob return bob's head for a reward. Or kill 'X' amount of monsters and return for your reward. After time these quest tend to get boring, but you need to do them to level. They also added in instant dungeons that allow the player to play through a level with a group and you need a group unless your like 20 levels higher then what your suppose to be when you go in there. These dungeons offer the best items you can find in the game.

Length and time wise. The game takes some time to gain levels. But you could be level 40-60 in about a month if you play enough and find some friends. The good thing is you usually find people that are willing to help each other out. Raids are ok, but they really mean nothing because the NPC's just re-spawn after a certain time. As well the cap being at level 60 is just pure stupid if you ask me. In my mind the game offers no real ownership as well, like you can own a pet, or a mount at level 40, but thats nothing really new. You will need a mount when your high enough because running around can become really boring. However, I cannot see myself playing the game longer then 3 months. This is the same reason why a ton of people left. Blizzard just keeps getting more people to come on when other people leave thats all they are doing. They have to offer some type of ownership for the hardcore players to stay. They have already attracted the average player to at least try the game, but after you play for a bit you do get bored of repeating the same things over and over and over again.

Overall I suggest trying the game out for no longer then 3 months. And blizzard will have to figure a way to keep players. As well I know the common way to keep players is with an expansion pack. Well they made so much money already they should offer an expansion pack for free, and those who say Battle Grounds is an expansion pack are liars. It offers only 2-3 areas to play.

The game gets a 7.5/10 for me. There are some things they need to do to make it better and the first will be giving the player more freedom in classes and races and to get rid of the cap on the levels.

Innovation vs. Demand part 1 of 2

2005-07-02T17:33:00.000-04:00

Everybody out in the world believes the video game industry needs innovation, but why is the main question?

Let's first talk about Sports Games
Sports games are the most important games in North America. That's why EA is such a Giant. Honestly, though I haven't played a good sports game since the late 90's and that was Gameday 97 on Playstation. The best hockey game I played was like NHL 94 or 95, cannot remember what year it was. These games have not showed much innovations besides adding in some RPG and character development areas. However, the demand for these games is so high that nobody will ever really make huge changes. Of course, graphics will always improve, but not really that much in gameplay.

My idea of a great sport game is Crash 'n' Boys on the Nintendo system. If you find it on a emulator play it. If not wait for the Nintendo Revolution and get it ASAP. I think this is where the market can be expanded into the sports game area. EA tried to do this with all the STREET type games, but they are all quick fixes.

Racing games
These games are all exciting and they are finally getting away from the race around in a circle. For example, Burnout is the one that shows off the best. However, I would never buy the game because it gets boring fast and way to many load screens.

Also quick note, what is up with so many load screens in a game they can really throw off a game.

RPGs
Well these games mostly focus on story telling. In order for these to be good you need a good story. The last time I saw a good story was Final Fantasy 6. I think people forget what they need for a story. You need a good intro, great heroes and enemies, death, love, a good climax, some conquest, and a good ending. Now Final Fantasy 7 had all of this except for the ending if they would of actually had an ending then I would of given that the nod for one of the best RPGS. I did like Xenosaga episode 1, Episode 2 sucked (read previous review)

How can these be innovative add interaction with the environment. Also look for good storylines.

MMORPGS
These games seem to be the new trend and offer the most area of innovation right now. This market is still small even considering the success of WOW. WOW still never sold close to as many copies as other games.
This area offers the most room for expansion.

The thing I go back to is designers. I get so many ideas from designers, I hate to not put them all into a game. The game industry has become to corporate, just like movies. I think the true talent really lies in indie developers because they think on new ideas. Look at Katamari the main lead on the project never even owned a PS2 and that game was probably the most innovative in years.

I will right more about this in about 3-4 days for part 2.

New computer and WOW

2005-06-27T10:13:00.000-04:00

Finally got the new computer in. It looks pretty cool. I threw in one pic here as well. The cool thing is I have a black monitor (not in pic) to go with the new computer. I also got my hands on World of Warcraft as well. If your ever on I am a level 12 Orc Rogue named Nacdune on server Draenor. The game so far seems to be pretty good. However, playing a low level rogue is not really a good choice for trying to play through your first time. I think if you want to start you should be a tauren. For the Alliance I would have no clue what to pick yet. I am going to play the game for another week and then give it a full review of what I like. Some good things I like right now are the assortment of quests, but I don't like how they do the jobs or it might just be my jobs of skinning and leather making. You really just watch a bar and nothing happens. The same thing happens with fishing as well. Also note that I named by character Nacdune to relate to my Nacdune blog. Luckily as well I have entered a cool Guild right off the bat.

Computers

2005-06-16T20:25:00.000-04:00

I haven't been able to update this blog cause of stupid computer problems. I think I have a virus. So I am now ordering a new computer and should be getting it in the next 2-3 days and plus I have to throw all my crap on it as well. This blog may be put on hold for a bit cause of this. Also I thought I throw this out there as well to see if it actually works I heard if you put Texas Hold'em on your blog you will get more views, thus in turn making some more cash from google ads. Also just so it doesn't seem to weird I do play texas hold'em from time to time. The local bar here had some tournaments. I never won because I cannot sit there for that long. I always make it to the final table but its hard to keep playing after 8 hours it really does turn a hobby into a job. I have played for upto 9 hours once at tournaments and I eventually lose near the end because I just start making stupid decisions because I want to just go home. So if you want any help with Texas Hold'em let me know. I also play online as well at party poker, but not for money. My party poker name is shadow499. If you ask how this relates to the game industry? I will tell you gambling or tournaments is becoming a new trend for video game players because you can actually enter tournamenents now and have a chance to make real money. The perfect example is XBOX and what they are doing with Advent Rising. Plus, I bet with the new systems you will be able to play texas hold'em online and maybe with the new eye-toy from sony you will actually be able to see how each player reacts to see if they are bluffing. If SONY reads this blog which I highly doubt this might be an idea to pick up.

Idea of Police in a MMORPG

2005-06-05T11:51:00.000-04:00

Here is an idea for a MMORPG

What about the idea of creating a police force of maybe some high level players and some Non-player characters (NPCS). The police force would then help the weak players and make sure there is peace in certain areas like towns and roads, paths, etc., but when a player adventures off into like a cave there will be no police there. The police would do things like make sure new players don't get there ass kicked in the beginning. Police would mostly just protect players from players in certain areas, but then in other areas it would be open.

I already see the problem of peace areas, and then chaotic areas outside of towns and stuff. But, thats how it is in the real world as well you have your safe zones and your crime zones. I think you should also maybe have like a 911 button or something that you could press and the police in the game will then show up to your area as fast as they can. Right now this is just a preliminary thought I have researched it to much yet, I thought I throw it out there to see if people would hate it or love it.

PVP or no PVP

2005-05-31T23:34:00.000-04:00

Player vs. Player (PVP) stands for mostly players against other players in an online game.

This section will detail if PVP should or shouldn't be added to a game.
For the simple reason to make money on a game PVP should be added. Games with PVP have shown to be more successful then games without it. The true example is WOW vs. Everquest 2. WOW sold into the millions because it had, so many features and a PVP system. Now a notable title like Everquest 2 sold a lot less and had no PVP.

PVP is good for players cause it gives an idea on how powerful they really are. However, it can upset people because they might get there butt kicked by some 10 year kid with a big mouth. But, then if you whoop the 10 year olds ass they complain and you get in trouble by customer support. There have been many ideas for PVP the most common is to restrict it to certain areas like field A you can have PVP, but in field B it is forbidden. However, this has problems as well because you can see people sitting on the border just waiting for somebody to cross to kick there ass. This section will be more open to see what people think is a good idea to help solve PVP issues.

Some idea I came up with was like having a coliseum ring to allow one on one battles, or having it restricted to certain areas, or having level restrictions like a level 60 character cannot fight a new guy at level 10. I hope people can give an insight to what there experience have been with PVP systems in past MMORPGs

Evolution of Online games additions

2005-05-27T13:58:00.000-04:00

I have more ideas to help the game. I did think of the how the product is deliver, and in most games its release the game and hope it does well. IN a MMORPG it is kind of the same idea but after release you just update it all the time. Downloadable games are a great idea, but people still feel they need some type of product in there hands. Now you can say well how is a virtual item a product. Well you might now get it in your hands but you still own it. I have many idea how to help this area expand but they are all in my design document. I praise Microsoft for the idea of virtual items on the new XBOX. IT will either save them or destroy them, but since Microsoft is so big they can take the chance of failure if it happens. Reports have been written about Ebay sales of virtual online items and reports about running an e-business in an online game. These show that the market right now is very small but there is a big area to grow. I think in the next 5 years or so there will be more online games both offering real money economics systems and play money economics. I also think games will start to sell more in this area upwards of 5 million especially if it can be ported to the consoles in an easy fashion. Online Auction sites are the easiest way to introduce a virtual economic system, but you need more then just the auction site something like taxes, services, assortment of jobs, tournaments, an online stock market is an idea as well but problems arise with insider trading.

what the game industry needs

2005-05-25T18:40:00.000-04:00

This article is about things the game industry needs

Affordable software
The industry needs more affordable software in the terms of engine like the unreal engine and other engines.
The engines also have to suit for better games. For example, the unreal engine is only be for FPS. There should be an engine that can be used for RPG and an engine for RTS games.

3d Programs
The 3d programs are all great, but I heard something that it takes somebody 6 weeks to make one character. Well this is incredibly long. They need to be more main stream and not take up so much power of a computer. Though it takes 6 weeks to complete some of the time can be blamed on slow computers. Therefore, these companies should look at ways to make these programs more accessible on main computers.

Employees
The industry needs to make sure that employees don't work 60-80 hours a week. People need to have a life. Some companies can get rid of this, but it still seems to be the main trend. I know in most companies if you want to make the big bucks you have to work at least 60 hours. I think it would be better to hire an extra person to help these people to work less time. Studies have shown if people work over 50 hours a week they get less and less productive and there is really no point on them working anymore because they start to make to many mistakes. Therefore, better management should be set in place. I see this happening more in more with companies starting to hire producers to sit on the development team to help determine the key elements for the game. That is one of the reasons as why I got a degree in business management to make sure that employees don't work 60 hours a week. Plus vacation time is another thing employees need in the game industry. This happens to be pretty good for regular games cause you make it and release it before your next project starts, but a mmorpg you have to have a development staff to keep working on the game.

Young people
The industry needs young people mostly on design areas to come up with creative stuff. If you look at the movie industry when George Lucas was young he made some of his best stuff and you look at the young actors, directors of that time they are all know key figures in that industry. These big companies need to take a chance on young people. Creative ideas is what the industry needs and the area open to the most creativitiy is the design team. People who want to be designer and if they are young they will never get a job, so I tell them to write something creative or get some type of MOD made to show off. I would love to hire a young designer, but my company right now is still in search for funding and when the time is right I will make sure I have some young employees working on the team.

I could go on and on but I will stop it there before this gets to long

It's Over

2005-05-21T21:26:00.000-04:00

Sad to say E3 is over

here are some nice highlights though

The announcement of all the 3 next gen systems
Killzone looks amazing
Cool games like Unreal 3, Unreal 2007, Zelda, Nintendogs, EA also showed off the Godfather and the New BOND game

Big disapointments

XBOX 360 games looked like crap compared to PS3
The Revolution never really had much on display
The announcement of Final Fantasy 12 being delayed again in 2006

Overall it seems the show was a good one. I was not there, but I bet there was a ton of great things. To get more information I suggest looking at ign.com or e3insider.com they are probably the best sites to help you more with what happened at E3

E3 Buzz

2005-05-19T21:18:00.000-04:00

Ok I am sad to say I am not at E3. However, I have been watching G4 like crazy and making sure I see as much as possible.

What I like so far

PS3 all I can say is WOW, if Killzone is playable like that then everyone will cry on how good it looks.

XBOX 360 Good and BAD. The good is the new XBOX live service which will be free. I also cannot say I hate the velocity girl because that is some what of the trend that I plan to start in my MMORPG. The BAD is the graphics do not look nowhere as good as the PS3

Nintendo Revolutions seems to be a no show with the no controller and no demos of the games. However, I think the true backwards capability if done right will work so well. I would love to get my hands on a few old school games. However, I fear that they will only do it with Nintendo titles and we may miss out on the Final Fantasys, the Contras, Street Fighter and so many more. Also they should look at maybe the idea for in experience gamers to develop older games on Game Maker then port them into a system like Nintendo Revolution this will help show players if they want to really be game developers.

Now onto the games

Killzone looks amazing
The graphics seem are to good to be true, but everybody saids that with the new systems

Link has become a man finally

Nintendogs looks like a fun game that might sell more of the DS in North America

EA seems to not really have anything truly new, just working on movie games and the typical sports games

VU seems to show off FEAR and looks like there will be expansions to World of Warcraft

Overall E3 looks pretty good, but I think next year will be better because the new system got over the hype and they will all be closer to release and we will see the new games on the NEXT GEN systems. The only systems that seems may be ready before the next E3 is XBOX 360

Review of XENOSAGA 2

2005-05-17T12:16:00.000-04:00

Though I beat the game in the first week it came out I figure I would write a review about it when I was more relaxed over the hatred I felt for the game.

Let's start by saying I was a huge fan of Xenosaga 1 and I was hoping they wouldn't F*** up this one. First, I will tell the good parts of the game and that would only be the new art style and the bonus DVD that came out with it. Now this post will be very similar to the complaint I sent to NAMCO about the game.

Art style
The art style was good and they fixed a lot of the anime art ideals from the first one. The world was a bit more colorful then the first one for sure. Besides that I would say the game had an art style at the same level as Final Fantasy games

Bonus DVD
Now if your new to the XENOSAGA series this was the perfect item to get, so that you didn't have to play the first game to see every thing.

Now on to the Bad stuff

No Money
How on earth can you make an RPG with out money. That is one of the main focuses in the RPG world. I saw somebody post something about how they wanted to make it more realistic and compared it to how soldiers don't get money on the battlefield. Well that is pure Bull sh** soldiers still get a pay check whether its when there on a battlefield or at home training there is still some type of pay. In this game the only thing to do was to gain items. Now I know there was issues about transferring over money from the first game because people abuses the slot machines in the first episode. However, the easiest thing to do would of been to have the player start from '0' again. What would be the big deal about that.

Lack of Mini-games
There were mini-games here but they all sucked. The mini-games in the first one were the best. I must of spent at least 30 hours on the first one just playing the card game itself. This is what drove me insane that they took out this game in the second one. I felt like flying to Japan and going nuts at Namco for getting rid of it.

Bad Voice overs and changes of characters voices
This was my biggest fear was them changing and getting rid of some of the voice over actors. You could tell the differences in all the voice over people that changed. What they should do is I know the series is like 5-6 episodes they should of wrote all the scripts for all the games now and then get the voice over work all done in about 6 months or just reading instead of doing it game by game. This way you are guaranteed that everybody is set in place for all the episodes and if things need to be changed or deleted that could be done at a later date.

Lack of gameplay
This is the easiest example to compare to the first one. The first game took me at least 40 hours to beat even when I played it the 2nd time through and skipped most of the movie sequences. This game I beat in 22 hours about half the time it took me to beat the first one.
AS well the battle system was way to long in this game. You had to wait at least 2 minutes or more before you could pull off a good attack. They should of stuck with the battle system in the first game or just made minor changes.

Overall I am very sad that this game sucked so bad. I urge Namco to get the Next game out before the PS3 because I feel if they don't come out with the next game in the next year or so they will lose a ton of fans to the series. This game only felt like half a game as well with such a short story and lack of gameplay. So the next game should encompass so much more.

Lastly, I give the game a 6/10 mostly because I am a fan of the series if I wasn't a fan of the first one so much this game would be lucky to get a 3 from me. The first, Xenosaga game I would give a 10/10 for sure, but this one needs to be fixed up and re-released when the next one comes out or something to make it better.

Why the PSP will fail

2005-05-14T13:09:00.000-04:00

I am a huge SONY fan, so I don't mean any disrespect in this post.

The PSP from what I have seen is a very good device, but there are problems.
1. The price of the system and games. The system itself has a pretty large price tag. The games are very close to the price of a PS2 game. Therefore, I bring to peoples attention why would you pay the same price for a PS2 game as you would for a PSP game. PSP games are played on such a small screen its not even worth it. I understand that SONY is trying to target people who are always on the go and live in the city area with this system.

2. The movie idea. I think this is bad right now with the UMD idea. For example, I just went to an electronic store in CANADA and saw a portable Toshiba DVD player for only $299 about $50 cheaper then the PSP. As well that DVD player will play all the DVDs I own. SONY tried to do something like this years and years ago the BETA machines. In turn, SONY should of just made the PSP play DVDS and made it a bit bigger.

3. The battery life is very weak. Know SONY will try to do everything possible to fix this by offering add-ons and devices to combat this problem, but it should of never been an issue in start.

Where do I see the PSP going?

I think when the price starts to drop of the system it will sell a lot more. The price will probably drop within the next year or so. What I want to see next is how I-pod comes out with there portable and downloadable movie player. I think if the PSP can find some way to add movies like that to a PSP then it might be a good idea. I also think that if the UMD stays around the PSP will have to license that out to other movie companies to make a them. The key thing I want to see is having the ability to have a hard drive on a PSP, and I mean a good hard drive like 5 GB or something. Of course, these are wishlist items that should be with the PSP. I personally will not buy a PSP until I see where they are planning on going with it. They are new to this area, so be warned. At least with the Nintendo DS you can kind of see where they are going. If you look at the past there have always been better looking handhelds, but they could never beat the gameboy which tells me that honestly how well can you make a handheld system look unless you have like ultra zoom in glasses or something. In conclusion, I advise people to wait a year and see what SONY plans on doing with the PSP. Also it might be a good idea to save your money and spend it on the NEXT GEN system like the PS3 instead.

Evolution of Online games

2005-05-11T23:53:00.000-04:00

Well since I am working on one I could write a million things here. However, I will stick to some key areas that I think will lead to the future.

Online sales

This is already happening. No company can stop it, so why not embrace the idea and profit from it. I read a report saying that in the last 6 months of 2003 Ebay had about $8,000,000 in sales of online items. Now the only company profiting from that would be Ebay for selling those items.

Is it time for people to quit there day jobs and to start playing online games. Well not yet, but it won't be far away. I plan to have elements in my game that will basically, allow people to play the game to make enough money for a living.

Now what will happen when people start playing online games and making real money. The game world will change greatly. People will both hate and love the idea. Of course, there will be arguments as well saying that the game is not a game. The main idea is you might lose a few players when you start to open the idea of real money entering a game world. However, you will see more people enter the world through other avenues because they want to take the chance to earn some type of real cash.

An auction site for a MMORPG is the path that seems to be the trend. However, I think this is a very narrow vision. Companies have to look at other ways for players to have a chance to make some money. Things like in game stores, in-game jobs can help players earn some cash just beside your typical auction site. I have more ideas that could be listed here, but I don't want to give everything away to early.

Though the idea of money alone is a very unique idea. Money will get some people into a game, but if you have no competition and gameplay the game will suck. Everquest 2 decided to have no PVP (player vs. player combat), this lead to them losing a few people for sure. You need to still offer very good gameplay and futures for players. Also with the idea of money you have to create a game universe that is always open for exploration and expansion. Some people might plan on entering this world to have a living, so you have to make sure this type of business will survive.

Also a look at games like Second Life and Project Entropia show that have no competition really leads to a lack of gameplay and less people playing. As well you have to make a game available for store purchase because people still feel that need to own something not some file they just downloaded.

Idea of user created content. This has been opened up to a few online games. For example, everything in Second Life is created by the user, Sims online allowed you to create a family and building. However, players want the ability of creating items and ownership. Though these games did this they didn't do it right. The key to ownership is you want something unique that somebody else doesn't have. Also there has to be the fear of losing it or at least the ability to get rid of it if it no longer has a value to you. Lesson one in marketing is to see a life line of a product. Virtual products are new and a lifeline is very short because there will always be better products that can be added. Therefore, players and develops especially will have to know when a product in a game is dead and they need to get rid of it.

In the end, I say the trend of online games will mostly focus on offering some type of real money into the game world. This will lead to more jobs being created throughout the world. As well it could be a venture for large corporations to look at creating virtual products to be sold in an online universe. This post covers a ton of different areas about how the future will be in an online game world. I plan to have an answer for all these areas. I also plan to open more doors for players. This is the problem with most of the big companies they get kicked for no innovation because all they care about now is making the next big hit game. Well why not make a game totally innovative and make it a hit at the same time.

For more information you can email me at any time at sales@howlingdesigns.com

Lee Ing

Howling Moon Designs

Debate

2005-05-01T13:57:00.000-04:00

Hi there,
I open this up to all my readers. If anybody here would like to talk or offer a subject I would gladly like to write about it. Please send in some comments or emails to sales@howlingdesigns.com
As well I will put up a few ideas here for some ideas I would be interested in writing about.

Why XBOX sucks

WHy I think the PSP will fail

The next step of online games

Why xenosaga 2 failed

Any game on the PS2 (review if i played it)

Why people say the game industry isn't innovative

Why it takes 2 years at least for a good game

Whats going to be new

These are some articles I am interested in writing, but I want to hear from readers first what they would like to hear. Also if you have an idea of your own I would gladly consider writing about it.
Lee Ing
sales@howlingdesigns.com

Everquest 2 Auctions

2005-04-28T22:05:00.000-04:00

This article is about the changes being made with Everquest 2 and there new auction site.
Here it comes the change is starting to go into effect. Online games will now become a source of revenue for experienced players, and a spending joint for rookies of the game.
The overall idea is good, but the way SONY plans to make it a reality is stupid. I praise SONY for doing this, but the problems will come. The first major issue will be inflation and law suits. What SONY should of did was made this an option right for the beginning of Everquest 2 or waited for there next big game like Everquest 3.
Inflation issues will come in huge amounts. Overall players who tried to sell items and characters on EBAY will see there price go down. However, players worried about selling on third party sites will now sell off like crazy. This also poses the question of what if a player decides to sell something on a third party site like ebay instead of SONY's Station site. This could create a ton of lawsuit that might come. Also, you have to think about players who played previous SONY titles that might of been banned for this.
Luckily, Blizzard cannot flow suit with this idea. If Blizzard did the same thing with World of Warcraft there would be a ton of unhappy players. The reason for this is because Blizzard was very social when they decided to cancel peoples accounts for trying to sell in-games for a set a dollar figure.
Sony and Blizzard are 2 very different stories. The problem is SONY should of took into consideration a wide amount of ideas. One of the major people they should of talked to should of been me because I am planning on offering a similar economic system into the game I am planning on making. I have considered the inflation issues and how to make the world safe for all players. SONY's main problem is legal issues because players will now argue that you cannot change the legal disclaimer of a game when you simply want to change something in hopes of making more money.
At this point I don't think it is good for me to discuss my ideas on Economics in games. However, the time will come when the public will learn more about the game that Howling Moon Designs will create. My game will focus more on the chance for every players to live in a world where they can all decide the path they want to follow.

Review of GOD OF WAR for the PS2

2005-04-27T19:34:00.000-04:00

hi there,
Ok I just rented GOD OF WAR for the PS2 on the weekend. There where some pretty big problems that make the gameplay pretty bad. Some of the fights are cool, but thats only when you reach a boss.
The bosses in the game all looked good and they all had some good features. However, they did have problems they did mostly the same things for each boss. You just have to smash the right buttons when it shows up.
I never got far enough to learn the whole story, but it did seem to be a bit interesting. Of course, a story means nothing if the gameplay sucks.
Ok here come the really bad comments now
Invisible walls: how can a video game develop a game with invisible walls. This is a big issue in most games. The funny thing is if you talk to any designer or read a game design book you will see one of the main features is to make sure a game does not have invisible walls. Let's say in about 10 minutes I ran into about 10 invisible walls.
Puzzles: Puzzles are good to have in a game for sure. This game has some of the most unique puzzles you will see in a video game. However, puzzles need clues. For example, you cannot put a regular puzzle together without having a picture. Well think of the puzzles in this game they gave you about 25% of the picture you had to think of the rest on your own. I say this to all game developers if you are going to have puzzles in a game make sure your clues make sense and that they are easy to find and read. Also there should be some way a player can record a clue in some type of journal, so they don't have to have a piece of paper or a pen beside them. When I get to a puzzle in a game I mostly say screw it and go off to gamefaqs.com if I cannot solve the puzzle in my first 5 times.
Lastly, the main issue here is repetitive game play. This comes in both the regular monsters and the button smashing combos. For example, I must of killed a million flying bat things. It just got so annoying see another set of them. Another main issue is the button smashing combos mostly did the same things unless you where on a new boss. All the spells in the game are stupid as well, and you need to use them over and over again in certain areas.
Overall I rate my games out of 10
I would say since I could not keep my interest this game gets a 4/10. The main goal would be to rent this game first and then if you like it maybe take a chance at buying it when the price is lowered. This is sad to see a game that got so much hype be such a waste. A game like this proves that the game industry is only following one type of trend and it is to try and sell AAA titles with out thinking of the consequences. The consequences will be shown in the future for sure. I will write an article about consequences in the game industry.

Information

2005-04-27T19:32:00.000-04:00

Information
This blog will be about information on the video game industry. I will review games, talk about industry trends, my overall ideas for where the game industry should go, and mostly any ideas I think should be shown to the public about the video game industry. Also from time to time there might be some information released about the game I am working on.