editorial

GDC Summer 2020: Better living, climate awareness, and citizen science through games

1
Way back during GDC 2018, I covered several panels relating to gaming for good. Things like citizen science projects, games as medicine or for...

GDC Summer 2020: Creating kinder digital communities outside of online games

0
I don't know about the rest of you, but I've found that being familiar with online communities and tech has really helped me survive...
I half-see.

Vague Patch Notes: Balance in MMOs is overrated

22
Earlier this week, we did a post all about balance in Crucible. It was a detailed post explaining all of the ways that the...

GDC Summer 2020: Accessibility shouldn’t be a dirty word in online gaming

1
I don't know about you readers, but one of the first things I always do when starting a game with voice acting (or movie)...
stuff

GDC Summer 2020: How Astroneer’s crafting balances cognitive load for the player

0
Long time followers of Astroneer may recall that the game's early development crafting felt cute but incomplete. Despite the game already being in the wild,...

GDC Summer 2020: Roblox, player-generated content, and the ‘metaverse’

1
Roblox VP of Product Deepak Chandrasekaran held a skill-building talk at GDC Summer 2020 this week titled Building the Metaverse through User Generated Content...

GDC Summer 2020: Gachapon reward models in (mostly) free-to-play games

1
Let's be real: Some of the panel titles at GDC Summer 2020 are unintentionally misleading. For example, the "Evolution of Gacha Systems in Mobile...
PUNCH! YOUR FRIEND! PUNCH, PUNCH YOUR FRIEND!

GDC Summer 2020: Pokemon Go’s Niantic offers augmented reality design advice

3
I was really looking forward to Niantic's AR Game Design 101 panel at GDC Summer 2020 this week because for all my criticisms of...

GDC Summer 2020: What online gaming can (and should) learn from social media’s trainwrecks

7
The circle is now complete: Social media has mastered skills MMOs and online games haven't, not that social media was paying much attention to...

GDC Summer 2020: Immersive multiplayer storytelling with Disney’s Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge

2
Prior to this whole virus thing, one thing that I was enjoying about MMOs was how they (along with ideas taken from social media)...

GDC Summer 2020: How Niantic adapted Pokemon Go gameplay in the time of COVID-19

0
GDC Summer 2020 is running all this week, and I'm, well, at home. But much like Pokemon Go, the convention adapted, and while I've...

The Soapbox: Powercreep in MMOs sucks – so how do we solve it?

27
We all love multiplayer, persistent world online games, don’t we? Players stay for the familiarity, nostalgia, and potential for years of enjoyment. Studios love...
Sky sky sky

Vague Patch Notes: No Man’s Sky is the real reboot success story

21
Whenever an MMO of any type has a launch that resembles the Nedelin catastrophe, people start talking about what the studio should do to...
I'm going to master letting this play instead of me.

The Soapbox: Where does WoW need to go beyond Shadowlands?

30
This expansion hype cycle, I've heard more about how to customize your character and less about raids than any other WoW expansion in recent memory, and I can't see that as anything other than good.
It tracks.

Vague Patch Notes: New World delays to add the game into the game

19
All right. Someone has to ask it, and it doesn't need to be me but it's still going to be me because I feel...
KITTY! AGAIN!

Vague Patch Notes: Don’t alter MMO systems for people who never liked them to begin with

28
Here's a concept that just would not leave my mind thanks to World of Warcraft, but it's not a bad thing. But in order...

Working As Intended: Decorating MMORPG houses in SWG Legends and beyond

26
I've been mulling over how to do a piece about MMO housing for a while now, spurred on by colleagues and readers who've said...
I half-see.

Vague Patch Notes: Trying to salvage MMOs from bad launches

10
So I'm glad that Crucible got a "pull back to beta" instead of a complete shutdown. I'm surprised but still happy because that's more...

Massively on the Go: Fun ideas for online play in Animal Crossing New Horizons

0
I love sandbox gameplay. I'm pretty sure a lot of you readers do too, which is probably why a good deal of us have...
I'm on an angry.

The Soapbox: PvP MMOs desperately need PvE-style feedback loops

18
As I settled into my captain's chair for my evening visit to World of Warships the other night, I had an interesting experience. In...

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