I started off this morning having a fight with my husband about sex. Unlike arguments about money or kids, arguments about sex are deeply and unavoidably personal, which makes them just about the worst kind of argument to have. And then my dad called to tell me that my grandmother died this morning. She was very old and had been in poor health for a long time, but it is still a sad thing. And I am worried about my dad.
Happy 4th of July.
I think I'll distract myself from my misery with a few random bits of Net news.
Auto Assault is shutting down, as you've undoubtedly read on this very site. I tried Auto Assault briefly in beta and decided it wasn't for me. Nonetheless, I always feel a little sad when a game gets shut down. I feel bad for the people who enjoyed it and for the lost potential that might have been in that game.
I thought that Asheron's Call 2 had potential right up until they shut the servers down. Potential that is unreached and unrealized is nothing more than wishful thinking, though, so there's probably little point in mourning what might have been.
I think Asheron's Call 2 pretty much made it clear for future games that NPCs are not expendable in a large scale, mass market release. Empty towns full of buildings you couldn't change or even enter didn't work so well without the illusion of life provided by townspeople NPCs.
Underlight didn't have those sort of NPCs, but it was a different animal. It was relatively small, RP enforced, and didn't have towns sitting around looking like they should have had people in them. The Underlight approach had its own unique problems, but it was worlds away from the model that's become the standard.
I've been wanting to write a blog entry here about mass-market MMORPGs vs. small niche games, but I haven't yet written it. Someone should kick me sometime later in the week to get on it. There is room on the Net for smaller community RP games in addition to big games like WoW, EQ2, LoTRO, and other new titles coming out in the near future. Small games don't have to suck; a game that emphasized the RP part of RPG would naturally draw a smaller crowd, but there may be room on the food chain for games that aren't aiming for even 100,000 subscribers. In fact, those games may already be out there.
On an Internet note, but having nothing whatsoever to do with MMORPGs, David Peterson gave Teonaht the 2007 Smiley Award. It was well-deserved. Grats to Sally Caves! I realize that conlanging (er... constructing languages) is offtopic for this blog and this site, but it is my OTHER obsession, so I thought it was worth a mention. It's a happier topic than the death of my grandmother, anyway.
LOL @ yo LOTRO coment, WORST GAME EVA YO
Wed Jul 04 2007 6:45PMI am sorry for your loss. As for arguing with your husband... after knowing my wife for more than half my life and being married 14 years, I am still sometimes surprised that men and women actually manage to maintain long-standing relationships :) Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day.
Thu Jul 05 2007 9:04AMdid you ever write the blog about mass market vs niche games?
i could guesss it will be like movie book or comix discussions of same - but maybe not... sounds ike you've played just about everything.
Wed Aug 29 2007 6:43PMMMORPG.com writes:
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