mmog issue

there are more and more mmorpg coming out and winner goes to those with the best graphics, most features, or cheapest/free game. most players who play mmorpg always go for game with best graphic that their computer can support, and with alot of features, alot of things they can do in the game world. this is because they try to relate the game to the real world, the game is like their "second life", so they will try to find games that is very close to the real world, they will want to do things the game that they can do in the real world and also things that they can't do in the real world (fantasy).

therefore, mmorpg will die easily without good graphics and features. but there are exception, some gamer will play mmorpg that is free, so they don't care much about the graphics. game like "MapleStory" is a very good example. playing the game is free, but there are some items that u have to buy with real money. players can play through the whole game without paying as long as they didn't buy anything item.

its easy to get people to play the game, but its hard to keep everyone, cause people might get bored of this mmorpg and will jump to another mmorpg until they find one that they like. usually mmorpg tries to keep player by making their character stronger and stronger as they level, and allows the player to use more features of the game, and also by putting alot of quest in the game. as a character in the game is not strong and the things that they can do is very limited, players will try to play more to level up their character. keeping a player using quest is very important, as they will killing monster meaninglessly if there are no quest and players will get bored of the game. mmorpg like "Ever Quest" has so many quest that its so difficult to complete all, this will make the players keep playing the game for a very long before they get bored, and new quest will be added before anyone get bored.

if you look at someone playing mmorpg, you find that they keep doing the same thing they will find the game fun, this is because there are also other players to interact with. the game does not change everyday, but the players will keep changing everyday, you can meet alot of people make alot of friends in a mmorpg. sometimes, player went into the game but does not do anything, they only chat with friends, as mmorpg can also be treated as a chatroom. thus a mmorpg will also die if there are very few players playing.

Munchkin expansion set

My Munchkin Godly Expansion set



this is the direct link if you cant see the image
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/sixonenine/munchkin.jpg


go to the link and save the image

story vs gameplay

A game that is driven by story is most likely to be a RPG, where you are actually role-playing the characters in the story of the game. And usually, these games have great graphics, nice animation, amazing cinematics. However, comments given to these games will usually be something like "good graphics!", "NICE STORY", very rare that you will see comments like "Nice gameplay", "this game is so fun". Look at all the RPG, and if you take away the story and look at the gameplay, you will find that the gameplay of most RPG are very similiar, which are very boring as you will find that you are actually playing the same game but in a different storyline. Also, the cinematics are usually very long and there are alot of dialogs to read through, if there are no skip button, you will have to keep pressing next.

examples of such games are, Final Fantasy(which becomes the master of all these games)


For a game that is driven by gameplay, it can be a game with no story, like tetris, or it can be games with very simple story, like mario(save the princess story). For a game with no story at all, totally depending on the gameplay, so they don't need to make the gameplay suit the story. But they will need to think of a unique gameplay to make it fun, and the players might not want to complete this kind of game as they won't have the "wanna see the ending" feeling.

As for games with simple story (most likely, adventure game) like Super Mario, save the princess kind of story, player might want to complete it, but the ending are normally expected. Although player doesn't have to go through all the story thing, those dialogs, the players will need skills to complete the game, and some people may just give up because its too difficult.


My ideal game will be a game like star wars: Knight of the old republic, a RPG where you roleplay the main charater and decide what kind of character you want to be. The game has a good story that let you make decision wherever you go, and as you are making decisions, your character's path will change depend on what you choose. For example, you will gain dark side points when you kill someone, as you are gaining dark side points, you are most likely to become a dark jedi and will have advantage on using dark jedi's skill. The story will also change according to the decisions you make and whether you are a light or dark jedi. So you will not want to skip any dialogs in this game if you dont want to lose any light or dark points. It also has normal gameplay, where you kill someone, gaining experience points, leveling, getting items, learning skills; but also unique gameplay as you the battle is turn base but looks like real time.

The gameplay will not work without a story and the story will not work without the gameplay. Both the gameplay and story depend on one another. And combining both the gameplay and story, it becomes the perfect game for anyone to play.

History of games

History of video games, the game that comes into our mind is Pong. the ancestor of video games. It starts the whole video game industry and make people stay at home playing their game console and computers. Then many games came out and we can find them now under "classic games", they are (my favorite game) Tetris, Pac-man, Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros etc.

better and better game console came out and change the history of video games by games like sonic, castlevania, legend of zelda, metroid, doom etc.
then, games like final fantasy and halo came out and make people stick to certain game console.

but the old games never die, legend of zelda, metroid, super mario, castlevania, even Tetris are still living, and more people are playing them in the latest console, WII, Xbox 360, PS3, which has many more features than what we have in the past. PS3, compared with those old console, it has more buttons, better graphics. Xbox360, pressure sensitive buttons and triggers. WII, motion sensor controller. with better and better game system, games become more and more fun.

From the history of video games, we can see that more and more people stay at home playing games whole day, and finally reach the end of the world as everyone is playing games and not working...

My Favorite Game

My favorite game is Tetris, a puzzle game that uses 7 different blocks called Tetriminos. This page shows more details, www.tetris.com . This is a very amazing game; I will never get bored of this game. As there are 7 different Tetriminos, which comes in different shapes, you will have to decide where you want to place them and in what position you want to place them. As you clear lines to get points, your scores get higher and higher as you play, but you will also level up when you clear certain number of line, and the speed of the Tetriminos will increase when your level increase, so you need to think faster and faster. As your skill improve, you may want to get as many points you want before leveling, so you will have to clear more lines using one Tetriminos, the most points you can get is by making a Tetris (clearing 4 lines at once), you get more points compare to clearing 4 lines one by one due to the bonuses you get from Tetris. Then your skills improve again and you may want to look at the next Tetriminos you will get, to plan ahead of what you want to do. However, the speed of the game gets faster and faster that you will need to think really fast if you want your next Tetriminos to land nicely.

The objective of this game is to break the high score; I will keep playing even if my name is at the first of the list, because I want to break my own score, to challenge myself. The game requires me to focus and concentrate, it allows me to forget all my homework, forget all my troubles, forget how bad the day is, forget how stress I am, I really love this game. Tetris is a very simple game, it does not need amazing graphics to make you stick to this game, it does not need anything new in the levels, and it got a nice repeating music that I will never get bored of, it’s an amazing classic game that will always fun in every generation.

Tetris is my all time favorite, so it can explain my theory of fun. Why did I say Tetris is fun? Because of the level design, as the level get higher, it gets more difficult. And able to compete with other people in high score, can even compete with myself. Also, it allows me to forget everything and enjoy the game, any game that can do that will be fun enough. However, some people may say Tetris is not fun, but to me Tetris is fun, Why? For a game to be fun, it’s not decided by the game, it’s decided by the player. If you enjoy the game, it will be fun, if you do not enjoy it, it will not be fun. So games developer will need to aim for the right audience to make their game fun.

To say my definition of a fun game in simplest form, it will be an addictive game that make you forget your homework and sleeptime.

Munchkins

It is a great game, as it involves more than 2 players, so the game will not end fast and players will not need to wait very long for their turns as maximum players are 6. There are lots of things the players can do and they need to make a lot of decisions during the games. Things like what class, race or item to use, whether to help or sabotage another player, to trade, sell or keep your items, you can summon a monster to fight so you can level up if u haven fight any monster in your turn, and you can also use abilities you got from your class during the game. There is so many things to do, but limited number of cards you can hold in your hand, and you can’t really get what you want, so you have to think carefully if you going to use a card. You have to choose the right person you want to sabotage, as it will be a waste if you use a card to make one player, who is not going to win the game, lose a battle, and let the next player win the game since you won’t be able to make him lose. This is the difficulty of the game, and it increases as you get to higher level, because other player will start to use all their curse card, item and monster enhancer to prevent you from winning the game, and high level monster which will not fight low level player will start to fight you. However, you can kill high level monster and get more treasures and become stronger by equipping the items you got, and more cards to play; the fun increases as your level increases. Luck is very important in this game, not much skill is really needed in this game, and so anyone can play and enjoy it.

Jin's POGD

this blog will be about my Principle Of Games Design, one of my module in poly.
this is my first post... to be continue...