Nerfbat

The company I work at, 38 Studios, has a brand-spanking-new website! It’s complete with a fun, semi-interactive rendition of Munch, and some information on the company you may not have seen on our old website. You’ll get a lot more regular news out of us in the coming months so keep an eye on the site. Check it out and let us know what you think. Yes, everything is intentionally in the bottom left corner, and yes that is intentional whitespace. Live in the now!

This month’s Boston Post Mortem will take place on April 10, 2007 in Waltham at The Skellig (yay). Cardell Kerr, Design Director on Lord of the Rings Online, will discuss Turbine’s massively multiplayer development process. You can expect to see a few 38 Studios shirts running around there this time around. More information, such as the fact that it takes place from 19:00 to 22:00, can be found at the Boston Post Mortem website.

Be careful when “planning ahead” technologically. It’s no secret that epic MMOs take a long time to make–longer than all other genres, on average. So, be extremely careful when you decide to base your system requirements on your predictions of technology’s future. The reality is, technology changes at a variable pace. For example, determining that a 4.5GHz PC with 2GB of RAM and a GeForce 9 series card will be the standard in 3 years is, at best, a potential misjudgment and, at worst, completely ignorant and erroneous. If you want your game to be accessible to the widest range of people, you need the broadest range of system requirements, which leads to the lesson for next week.

It’s finally that time. I knew someday that I’d either get too tired or too busy to continue writing on Nerfbat. Or, perhaps I’d simply run out of things to say or interesting topics to talk about. I never assumed that I’d sooner decide that there’s really no point. It feels like I’m blogging for my own vanity rather than to better myself as a game developer. I came to this realization when looking at the number of pageviews of Curt Schillings blog, 38 Pitches, as compared to my own–the interest in his blog so far outweighs mine that all my effort has essentially amounted to nothing. For those who enjoyed my blog, I apologize for letting you down. For those of you who are bloggers, keep it up and I’ll probably be commenting more on your blogs now that I’m nerfing my own. Update: April Fools! err… Fools’? Maybe I should call it Abalieno Fools?

Discovery Channel’s “Planet Earth” is perhaps the best miniseries I’ve ever seen. I’ve been watching it On Demand out here with my fiancée in Colorado, and it is absolutely breathtaking. For any of you who are interested in our world or if you’re simply looking for some inspiration, watch it. In entirely unrelated news, today is my birthday, and since I’m at the old stomping grounds my mom is making delicious roast beef and cake.

Dance emotes are important. It’s important not to limit yourself to just one /dance emote as well. The more the merrier, and the more hilarious, the better. This isn’t just important for in-game fun, but it’s tremendously important for out-of-game fun, not to mention it’s a wonderful marketing tool you can empower your players with. It’s the root of some of the best grassroots marketing I’ve ever seen related to massively multiplayer games.

Continue Reading…

Technology doesn’t sell. The FPS genre is well-known for creating the most cutting edge games using the most cutting edge technologies. In fact, you might say that an FPS can do pretty well if only it is technologically superior to others. This is absolutely not the case for MMOs, particularly because of the large number of people that have to be able to be on the screen at once. If you’re relying on your cool technology to sell your MMO, get ready for failure, because any cool technology you incorporate into an MMO has more than likely already been seen in another genre. Sure, cool tech in an MMO can help sales, but not that much.

I’m still messing with the page a bit. The changes have basically been made to increase functionality, make it easier for me to work with on the back end, and improve the experience of those who read and comment on the site. Here’s a quick summary of the changes I’ve made that will actually impact you:

Continue Reading…

The Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn website has officially launched. The only new details I could find had to do with the user interface: they’re updating that baby to look more like a traditional MMO UI, which is pretty darn cool. I’m still counting myself as excited for this graphical update to come out for one of my favorite games of all time (if not my absolute favorite). Perhaps those of us interested in trying the game again should organize an Atlantic shard rebirth.

There’s a good article on the Escapist by Richard Aihoshi called The Future of Massively Multiplayer Isn’t You. That said, I’m not so much going to talk about the article as I am going to pull a quote from the article and use it the basis for my own article. It’s a subject we all hate to love to discuss. It’s a subject everyone has an opinion on, and most of it just has to do with terminology. It’s hardcore vs. casual. What’s the difference? What do they mean? Is time a factor?

Continue Reading…

This month’s Boston Post Mortem meeting is on Wednesday, March 21 at McFadden’s Boston. I’m not sure if I’m going to roll out because I’m afraid of downtown Boston (maybe not afraid of it, but I hate going to downtown anywhere because of traffic, parking, etc.). More information can be found at the Boston Post Mortem site. You can find directions to McFadden’s Boston if you’re interested in heading out. In completely unrelated news, a new Qdoba opened over the weekend in Harvard Square, and the Dobe is delicious.

There’s a great thread over at Quarter to Three called AI in MMORPG Games, in which the community discusses mob AI and how many players desire more intelligent encounters in MMOs. Lum made some great points on the second page, which can basically be summarized as: testing and data suggest that players don’t really want complicated artificial intelligence. Lum’s post and my thoughts after the fold…

Continue Reading…

Via Raph, Patrick Dugan has a good post on game design celebrities on his blog. I wrote a relatively long comment because it got me thinking, and any time I spend more than 30 seconds writing a comment, I hereby authorize myself to repost that comment on my own blog. Read on for my comments after you read the original post.

Continue Reading…

One of the biggest thorns in the side of the video game industry, Jack Thompson, is being sued by Take Two. Thompson seems to be one of those people who does not believe games are covered under the First Amendment rights of free expression, and has been known to file lawsuits regularly against Take Two and retailers for games like Bully, and has attempted to enact various violence in video games laws (all of which have been dismissed by courts) in the past. Another win showing that video games are, in fact, covered by the First Amendment. More at Ars Technica.

Computer Games Magazine, and its MMO-focused publication, Massive have both met a rather sudden and surprising end. I liked both of them, but both are no longer going to be published because its parent company, TheGlobe.com, was sued by MySpace resulting in them shutting their doors (and their magazines going away with it). It is very unfortunate, and I wish all those involved good luck. There’s a little more on this by former CGM writer Troy Goodfellow. Found at Broken Toys.

I’m experimenting with my theme and would like to get the thing converted to meet theme standards for WordPress 2+ and increase its functionality. You may notice some brokenness with the site while I work on it. The biggest change so far: When you go to a single post or page, the nav bar goes away because I decided it didn’t need to be there. There have been other changes, but they’re harder to see because they’ve been under the hood. More changes to come over the next few days.

Quality is paramount. In today’s market, and the market of tomorrow, quality is becoming more and more important. There is so much competition that creating a product with the assumption that quantity (of features, landmass, etc.) is greater than quality, you will almost undoubtedly fail (especially if you attempt to follow the same business model as other games). Polish the hell out of your product, and don’t make any small sacrifices or they will pile up over time. And, never say that quality is what matters most without following through.

Curt Schilling has his own blog! That’s right, the near-infamously outspoken Boston Red Sox pitcher, 38 Studios founder, philanthropist, and all-around nice guy has a blog. The blog is called 38 Pitches, and so far has a single (long) entry, but I suspect you’ll see a heck of a lot of commentary on his part given Curt’s nature to speak out. As much as it looks like I’m kissing ass with the first part, I believe all that stuff myself, plus I had to link to the blog because it was up to me to get the thing set up.

A number of people have asked me about getting cool hats and t-shirts related to 38 Studios (and Green Monster Games), so here’s your gratuitous link: 38 Studios Gear. If you want to pick up a Green Monster Games shirt, get one fast. As far as I know, there aren’t any plans on reprinting that stuff now that our name has changed. I’m thinking about asking for an extra one here so I can prove how old school I am. Which leads me to a question about apparel and Nerfbat…

Continue Reading…

The rumors were all true! Green Monster Games (the company I happen to work at) is now known as 38 Studios! I like exclamation points! Anyway, the name has officially changed, and you can find out more about it at the 38 Studios website. Don’t worry, even though we’ve changed the company name, Munch will be sticking around for the long haul. If you’re lazy and don’t want to go there to read the press release, read beyond the fold.

Continue Reading…