Originally posted by rdrakken

Raph Koster is a fine example of why the MMO genre is stagnant.

Game leaders asking a man that no company wants to hire because he ruins games yet still listen to his ideas about making them. Thats right, I said it...7 years, no company wants him. Why? BECAUSE HE RUINS GAMES.

Oh he was part of UO, yeah he was wasnt he...he was part of a TEAM with THE man, Garrot. And when control was handed over to Koster the game went to crap and what did he do? Left the company and blammed others for it. The expac that killed UO was KOSTERS, he left the company a few months before release which means the entire setup was HIS because it takes 6+ months to design an expac.

SWG? sure it was a good game, not a GREAT one. Worlds made with a random generator, can shoot through the ground and walls, no 3d x/y axis allowing for no jumping and mounts that somehow hover 3ft above the ground yet will stop if you hit a pebble...databases that were so piss poorly designed the game required a reboot EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Oh and how about EQ2...the ball dropped so hard he was EXILED by Sony to make single player console games and it took TWO expansion packs to fix his mess.

So how great is Raph Koster, 7 years...7...no company wants him, he cant even get financing for his own company. The genre needs to move forward and stop listening to this man, a man they wont even hire...seriously, how STUPID are developers. Oh, we dont want you working for us, but please...do talk and we will listen to your advice!

Please disregard this post as this person is obviously suffering from RNC hangover and can not tell facts from fiction.

When I first saw UO and then SWG, I had this wonderful feeling that MMOs would bring the richest game experiences we have ever seen. I knew UO and SWG had their issues, but it was just the beginning.. we were just learning how to walk on the moon. Surely each new game would help us learn from mistakes, and MMO creativity would keep blossoming while keeping other pitfalls in check.

And then after UO and SWG I never had that feeling again.

There are plenty of talented game developers out there, and yet despite all the talent in the world, Raph Koster still rings true for many of us as the single name associated with MMOs worth playing. Raph can be as humble as he wants about it and type as many emoticon smileys as he can to redirect focus to some other talented people, but he's the only person that has proven that an MMO can be more than just the sum of its parts, and that the genre can evolve creatively. When you look at UO's features and then SWG right after, you see differences that are so unique between them, and yet both games are completely unique from every other theme park MMO on their own.

To the poster who called out Raph Koster as a "game killer", you have to remember that UO was an EA product and SWG was a Sony product. 

Originally posted by Denambren

When I first saw UO and then SWG, I had this wonderful feeling that MMOs would bring the richest game experiences we have ever seen. I knew UO and SWG had their issues, but it was just the beginning.. we were just learning how to walk on the moon. Surely each new game would help us learn from mistakes, and MMO creativity would keep blossoming while keeping other pitfalls in check.

And then after UO and SWG I never had that feeling again.

There are plenty of talented game developers out there, and yet despite all the talent in the world, Raph Koster still rings true for many of us as the single name associated with MMOs worth playing. Raph can be as humble as he wants about it and type as many emoticon smileys as he can to redirect focus to some other talented people, but he's the only person that has proven that an MMO can be more than just the sum of its parts, and that the genre can evolve creatively. When you look at UO's features and then SWG right after, you see differences that are so unique between them, and yet both games are completely unique from every other theme park MMO on their own.

To the poster who called out Raph Koster as a "game killer", you have to remember that UO was an EA product and SWG was a Sony product. 

I completely agree, pre Trammel UO felt like a world where you can do whatever you want. Even though it was the wild west of gaming, with gankers, and griefers abound, it was exciting to play. Everyone had their own community. Wherever you put down a house, you would interact with your neighbors and often protect that area as if it were you own. You had vendors at your house, giving you a personal "store" people would mark and always come back to. Great Lakes had a tower that had an auction every week that brough hundreds of players for a few years straight. the name excapes me, but it was impressive. These types of unique things just can't be found anymore.

I can't think of another game where I would just spend hours raising my Tailor skill, and having 25 sheep in my house that I would skin, and consider that fun.

Raph was a big part of this, and I have yet to see another game offwr this kind if interaction with the worlds. SWG and UO was/is a true sandbox. Trammel and NGE killed them both for me. Trammel took away the excitement of wondering what red lie ahead, and NGE, well tht just plain sucked.

I am going to plug a website here with stories from SWG.  I am not affiliated with this site, I just stumbled upon it a while back and thought it was brilliant.

http://gemtrix.com/2011/10/swg-from-beta-to-blunder-1-2/

Stories like that in the link above are what made the game so great.  Players like to talk about immersion and story in these newer themepark games, I don't believe any story can be as great and satisfying as the one you the player create in a game that has the complexity and depth that SWG and games like it had. 

SWG had bugs, quite a few of them.  There were also balance issues as well.  The decision to tell players how to unlock Jedi and later on take out permadeath was probably the 1 thing that really got to me.  The thing is, the bugs and technical issues really didn't bother me at all because the in game world, and design was so incredibly deep.  Those 2 aspects of the game is what created such a great community....a community that will always be chasing a game that is designed to allow players to be as addicted, have great depth and complexity, and have a great time with other players again.

I wish we had him when Star Wars The Old Republic was around. He would of never let the game flop on its knees like it has. The industry needs him, and I'd like to see him on further mmorpg projects.

My first post.

Raph thanks for all the great games you created for us, well deserved award.

Congratulations!

Originally posted by Gamefun

I wish we had him when Star Wars The Old Republic was around. He would of never let the game flop on its knees like it has.

He had his shot with SWG.  And how did that turn out?

Had a few fights with Raph, as we disagreed on the need to have player "grind" to keep them hooked.

But Raph got all the rest right especially wrapping everying so one player need another and imposing time sinks to create social hubs. ;)

Originally posted by Deewe

Had a few fights with Raph, as we disagreed on the need to have player "grind" to keep them hooked.

 

But Raph got all the rest right especially wrapping everying so one player need another and imposing time sinks to create social hubs. ;)

Yeah, I have a thing against "the grind" too. It's not the grind itself, it's the power gaps that separate players into sub-sections of the game. UO had grind, plenty of it. And players were separated in direct comparison. Yet, they could still play together in anything. SWG, seemed to me from a very limited time in it that there was a separation. I based this on seeing a typical looking (grindy) set of weapons to craft, with some guns of the same type doing far more damage than others as you went up the ladder.

What really intrigued me in SWG was 2 things. First was the set of special play in both the Cantina thing and the Camp set up. Those, to me, can be built on into really great things for a great Sandbox game. Imagine here a campsite where players can not only rest, but have an option to a "warehouse" sort of thing also built by players, with a caravan running into a nearby town. Imagine risk of bandits, guarding the caravan as well as the campsite (with NPC hirelings help, magical glyphs, etc.), making for an expanded game play in the mere aspect of dungeon crawling.

The other thing was the perma-death, the entire ideal, of the Jedi player. I strongly believe that not everything should be easy, that there needs to be special things that are hard to get into, and come with greater risks. This was like the Dragon player of the original Horizon's game design (which was dropped and changed before release), where the Dragon character could grow up to be quite powerful, but had to survive perma-death while it's organs and blood would be highly prized by other players for reagents.

I'm just tired of the boredom of games where every player can be anything, and are, and you have no rarities. No "gods". Or everyone's a "god", if you want to look at it that way. Because that rarity adds a load of interest to the game as a whole.

And lets not forget "rares" too, as a collectors thing of great value. In the real world we have such things, like the Hope Diamond, Crown Jewels, famous works of art, ancient sculptures. This adds a whole new layer to the economics and game play.

And that's just barely touching on what Sandbox games can offer.

will be interesting to see which mmo gets honored next year

1st year - UO

2nd year - EQ

3rd year - WOW

4rth year - ?