Comments on: People Talk To Cranky Old Man On The Intertubes

By: Spaz

Spaz — Wed, 28 May 2008 22:13:57 +0000

Grand Theft Auto Online would not be socially horrifying. It will be just like a Counter Strike server – if you pick a well regulated server that bans the occasional visitor who enters voice chat just to spam racial slurs, it settles down to a nice, tight knit community of friendly competition among the regulars. The conversation and the laughter is of the sort you’d hear in a locker room. It’s not that scary.

By: Phaltran

Phaltran — Tue, 27 May 2008 20:41:05 +0000

Scott, I generally agree with you about everything in the interview. Of all the things you discussed, though, the one thing that stuck in my mind is “You are going to see games like Grand Theft Auto Online.”

That truly frightens me, yet I’m fairly certain you are correct and we will see something that vile and reprehensible come to be. I’m extremely curious, though, at what general or OOC chat might be like in GTAO. I mean in fantasy games where people have chosen a side in a fictitious, fabricated war and we’re supposed to be helping each other and generally treat each other with good will because the enemy may come attack us at any moment, we see all the nastiness that humans can possibly pile upon each other verbally. So throw people into the seedy environment of GTA and how are they supposed to treat each other? Will GTAO be the social shocker where people in OOC are actually nice to each other? Will it prove to have the karmic balance that all MMOs have been missing? Will it be the Yang to WoW’s Yin – great game with rude people vs. nasty game with friendly people?

Like many MMOs have been, it’s a social experiment waiting to happen.

By: Inpor

Inpor — Sun, 25 May 2008 16:29:41 +0000

“Scott: Be more demanding. Don’t accept mediocrity. Don’t accept games that try to deliver less polish. WoW has set the standards that we have to meet, and if games don’t meet it they will fail and deserve to fail. That standard has now been set and we have to meet it.”

This is why I’m glad you’re working on an MMO, Scott.

By: Cedia

Cedia — Sat, 24 May 2008 15:07:10 +0000

Scott, just curious, have you tried Age of Conan’s PvP? I started out thinking it would be a ganefest, but I have since come around. If you just want to quest, the GM’s are actively banning spawn-campers, and if you are outnumbered, you just change the instance you’re in and go along your merry way. For me, it is the only game that has brought back even the slightest glimpse of that feeling in UO so long ago. I think their open PvP model is working, mostly because the players have choices. They are not lambs herded to the slaughter by big ganking guilds.

The best part of it for me right now is, I see a stupid name (RP-PvP server here), I kill it. I meet an asshole, I kill it. Arguably Shadowbane did the same thing, but Shadowbane wasn’t instanced, and… had some other… big… problems.

By: Mordur

Mordur — Sat, 24 May 2008 07:48:56 +0000

–
I wouldn’t fly out to Iceland for anything!
–

Pish posh!

By: Walter Yarbrough

Walter Yarbrough — Fri, 23 May 2008 20:59:03 +0000

I would just like to thank this thread for making me google Whamadoodles:

http://www.gasbanditry.com/Whamadoodles/gameprd1.html

By: wowpanda

wowpanda — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:38:55 +0000

That was a fun interview. I think large budget does make the game to be more likely to be successful, as long as the content is good. If you just make a cheap game, even with good content, no one will know it.

However I don’t think do away with leveling is a good thing. Grinding sometimes is necessary, to make the game more fun. The reason is, if the fun content is too easy to get too, it became another quake or Warcraft III. If you allow a gradual build up, that takes reasonable amount of effort to get to certain content, people will feel more value on their chars (someone will think twice before deleting a level 70 character).

By: Matthew

Matthew — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:54:32 +0000

I keep hoping for a UO2 made by people that have some clue as to how run a MMO. I don’t think it will ever happen…

By: Erkht

Erkht — Fri, 23 May 2008 14:46:00 +0000

Just don’t forget what’s important, young padawan:

- You WANT the painting on that wall, you NEED the painting on that wall, and that’s why you stack the 18 fish steaks.
- If levels must exist, walk down the hall and talk to the super geniuses that put these concepts in their game: “sidekick” & “mentor”
- Running across a desert in AO at night, an insane number of stars burning bright, and hearing the accompanying (f’ing brilliantly done) music score.
- Fishing & sea serpents, checkers & backgammon, roleplayed casinos.
- Treasure hunts.
- Gates.
- /pizza

Trivial for the truly *big* budget..

:0)

By: Sinnach

Sinnach — Fri, 23 May 2008 14:25:57 +0000

..and here I thought this was more of Lum’s political commentary.