Vague Patch Notes is a meta design column by Eliot Lefebvre. [Follow this column’s RSS feed]
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Vague Patch Notes: Why do MMOs have randomness?
If there's one concept that is nearly universally reviled among MMO players, it's randomness. Yes, pretty much everywhere. You could make a little fairy...
Vague Patch Notes: A look behind the magic at Massively Overpowered
Here we are on another Thanksgiving holiday, and as with every year, one of the big things I'm thankful for is that I've now...
Vague Patch Notes: Sub-optimal play vs. just plain bad play in MMORPGs
Something we need to start reckoning with when it comes to MMOs is the fact that it really is a problem when you're playing...
Vague Patch Notes: MMO grind is good (except when it isn’t)
Some of my fondest memories of World of Warcraft involve Adam Sandler and the Badlands.
My wife and I had a pretty steady tradition made out...
Vague Patch Notes: Ethics, PR stunts, and the BlizzCon apology
Are you all really tired of talking about ethics and Blizzard in the same sentence? I am too, but a large part of that...
Vague Patch Notes: Does BlizzCon have a future in its current form?
BlizzCon 2018 was a pretty unnecessary disaster for Blizzard. It managed to demolish any hopes people had about Battle for Azeroth rounding the bend and...
Vague Patch Notes: Scammers, grifters, and amateurs in the MMORPG market
There are two apparent truisms about scams in the MMO marketplace. The first is that players are quick to call anything that vaguely stinks...
Vague Patch Notes: Copies, blatant copies, and plagiarism in MMOs
So... this was honestly not the story that I had expected to have wound up coming out of Eternal Magic. I'd been expecting that "beauty...
Vague Patch Notes: Crime and punishment and intent in MMOs
Last week, we saw Blizzard explain its philosophy behind why some World of Warcraft bugs in which players got to get more stuff than...
Vague Patch Notes: Do video games really need trade shows anymore?
The past few years have seen some really big seismic shifts in the game industry. In the time that I've been working here alone,...
Vague Patch Notes: Timesinks, sunk time, and MMOs
Here's a fun question I asked myself a lot back in the day: Why, exactly, did leveling take so long in Final Fantasy XI?
The obvious mechanical...
Vague Patch Notes: How MMO studio communication and player confidence really work
Here's the funny thing about communication from MMO studios: It's vital to the continued feeling of a healthy game, and yet at the same...
Vague Patch Notes: How time distorted what ‘hardcore’ means for WoW Classic
There's a contingent of players looking forward to the launch of World of Warcraft: Classic next week that is vocally thrilled about one specific...
Vague Patch Notes: Lazy MMO developers don’t exist (at least not the way you’re thinking)
The other night, I was reading the Final Fantasy XIV subreddit and came across that gem of all gems for people who love badly...
Vague Patch Notes: Random thoughts on randomness in MMOs
Here's a fun little trivia fact that you probably already know: Computers can't really do randomness. A random number is usually generated by pulling...
Vague Patch Notes: Just stop pre-ordering video games
Look, you've probably heard this before, but it bears repeating now: Don't pre-order that game. Pre-ordering games is a bad idea. And this week,...
Vague Patch Notes: Keeping it simple, oversimplification, and MMO design
People who have read my work for a while know that I really like tabletop roleplaying, and I have copies of two of my...
Vague Patch Notes: Datamining, leaks, unforced errors, and messaging
So now that Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers has been released, basically everyone playing the game has completely forgotten that the expansion actually prompted some...
Vague Patch Notes: Why live MMOs struggle to onboard new players
There are, at the time I write this, two basic approaches for getting new players up to speed in existing MMOs. Both of them...
Vague Patch Notes: The curious case of the esports bubble
I've been thinking a lot about esports lately. This is not actually something IÂ like to think about, mind you; my general attitude toward esports...
