Psychochild's Blog

• Game Design
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• Games

I don’t take a lot of screenshots of games. Well, not the type of screenshots meant to be shared on a blog. I’ll take reference sceenshots for game development work, but that’s not the game thing.

One of the MMOs I’m playing the most right now is Final Fantasy XVI. I have managed to take a few screenshots of the game, and as an end-of-the-year special post, I figured I’d post some of them.
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• Design Lessons
• Game Design
• Game Development
• Games
• Interesting Mechanics

As I’ve posted before, I play FFXIV as one of my primary MMOs. I’ve been playing the new “Heavensward” expansion recently, and the first major patch lands this week. With the patch comes the first of the new raids.

As I might dip my toe into some of these raids, I was thinking about how to measure raid performance. How do you identify a good raider from a poor one?
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• Game Development
• Meta
• Personal

These birthday things keep happening. Something about the linear nature of time. Well, I’m at least one year older if not necessarily one year wiser.
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• Design Lessons
• Game Design
• Game Development
• Games

As we get into fall, we start getting into the “holiday season”. The first major one is coming up: my birthday. Although, the day before is also Halloween, so maybe that takes precedence.

MMOs tend to have special events around these times to celebrate the season. Let’s take a look at the current Halloween events in the two MMOs I play and see how tone is affected by these events.
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• Design Lessons
• Game Design
• Game Development
• Meridian 59

I’ve worked on a number of competitive Player vs. Player (PvP) games. Meridian 59 is notorious as a hard-core PvP game that had passionate fans. To be honest, I found the PvE aspects of the game to be very lackluster, but the PvP fights? Intense and unforgettable. What makes a competitive game so much more interesting?
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• Meta

There were a lot of people writing a lot of posts this month on gaming. Wilhelm put together a list which I’m going to copy while giving appropriate credit..

If you’re bored and need a whole lot of other post to read, here’s a hefty list to keep you occupied.

EDIT: Wilhelm was a slacker. I copied the new, updated list from him!

1. The Ancient Gaming Noob
2. A Green Mushroom
3. A Technical Rejoinder
4. Adamantly Complacent
5. Aeternus Gaming
6. Ald Shot First
7. Alexandria Mack
8. Ash’s Adventures
9. Aywren Sojourner
10. Battle Priestess
11. Beyond Tannhauser Gate
12. Bio Break
13. Blue Kae
14. Cannot Be Tamed
15. Comics and Cookies
16. Contains Moderate Peril
17. Couture Gaming
18. Diary of a Mom Gamer
19. Endgame Viable
20. Fickle Fangirl
21. Floor Tank Gaming
22. Game Introspection
23. Gamer Girl Confessions
24. Gaming Identity
25. Goobbue Crossing
26. Hello Kitsune
27. Herding Cats
28. I Have Touched the Sky
29. In An Age
30. Intermittent Daily Posts from Howard
31. Jamie’s Blog – Daily Vlogs
32. JVT Workshop
33. Kateri Morton
34. Knifesedge
35. Lair of the Wolf Dragon
36. Leaflocker
37. LFGryph
38. Light Falls Gracefully
39. Lock and Bolt
40. Me Vs Myself and I
41. Memoirs of a Lady
42. MMO Gypsy
43. Moonshine Mansion
44. Murf Versus
45. My Epic Fail
46. My Life in Azeroth
47. Nerdy Bookahs
48. No Market Collective
49. Nomadic Gamers
50. Pizza Maid
51. Pleasant Gamer
52. Psyche Plays
53. Psychochild’s Blog
54. Sagacyte’s Digital Adventures
55. She Rides Dragons
56. Soul of the Forest
57. Soulbound Life
58. Soultamer Gaming
59. Sparks in the Horizon
60. Star-Fired Beef
61. Starshadow
62. Stars of the Spiral
63. Static Refresh
64. Stropp’s World
65. Stylish Corpse
66. Tales of the Aggronaut
67. Thalen Speaks
68. The Adventures of Xinrae
69. The Ancient Gaming Noob
70. The Driveling Dwarf
71. The Friendly Necromancer
72. The Mystical Mesmer
73. The Tankquisition
74. Through Wolfy’s Eyes
75. Trail-food for Thought
76. Tyrannodorkus
77. Why I Game

• Game Development
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• Personal

Blaugust, Day 31

With weary fingers and teary eyes, we reach the end of the Blaugust adventure. Time for a bit of thoughtful reflection about the adventure.
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• Design Lessons
• Game Design
• Game Development
• Personal

Blaugust, day 30

Technology is a funny thing. It sets humans apart from nearly every other animal on our planet. Every technology has both good impacts and bad, and sometimes its hard to see all the impacts a technology will have is even is having. Throughout history, people have been wary of technology and the changes it brings. For some people, change is always terrifying. But, without change, humanity would stagnate and wither.

Perhaps no change has been more profound in recent memory than the Internet. And, while some people fear the change, others have chosen to embrace it. I think you might know which side I’m on. :)
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• Design Lessons
• Game Business
• Game Design
• Game Development

Blaugust, day 29

So now I have my project. I’ve asked the fundamental questions and gotten my audience, platform(s), genres, and business model worked out. I understand the market and am making a game appropriate for the company I’m with. I’ve got my ideal team working on a prototype of the technology and gameplay, and I’m working hard on the setting that’s appropriate for the game. I’ve raised money to support the project, and I’m carefully budgeting the money I do have, while taking care of the people who gave me that money.

Now, it’s just some hard work and time to reap the financial rewards, right? Well, not quite.
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• Design Lessons
• Game Business
• Game Design
• Game Development

Blaugust, day 28

Okay, I’ve asked the fundamental questions and put together the team to build a prototype and work out a setting. So, now it’s time to get down to business and pay attention to the business elements of making the game.
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