Category Archives: Design

Project Gorgon’s Death Penalty

I’ve talked about death penalties before — let me bring back an infographic from one of those blog posts. This correlates an MMO’s death penalty with other aspects of the MMO. My death penalty is lenient. My game is first … Continue reading

Posted in Design, Project Gorgon | 19 Comments

Easy Player-Made Content

[I'm still working on bugs, polish, and a bit more content for the next playable pre-alpha. I just got the camera controls fixed! I also added sliders and settings so people can tweak the camera behavior. Next up: redoing the … Continue reading

Posted in Design, Project Gorgon | 11 Comments

WoW Removed Talent Trees

Today’s Blizzcon announced many exciting things, including the removal of one of vanilla WoW’s crown jewels, the talent tree system. Completely gone. You now pick a “spec” and then get to pick one talent every 15 levels. No more points, … Continue reading

Posted in Design | 64 Comments

Minimizing Tedium: Not Always Straightforward

A couple weeks back I talked about how you can pick two combat roles at once in my MMO, and switch them out in town. A comment from David Grundy: Interesting on the role switching. But, why only “whenever they’re in … Continue reading

Posted in Design, Project Gorgon | 18 Comments

The Stamina Bar

[I'm not working on the game this week, instead I'm doubling up on my other work so I can spend a full week on the game next week. But I've had one little anecdote bubbling around in my head. Indulge me, … Continue reading

Posted in Design, Project Gorgon | 15 Comments

NPCs as Systems Nexus

My plans for NPCs have been refined a bit. At first, what I envisioned sounds similar to the “Storybricks system” recently announced by Namaste. I’ve abandoned that, now, though, because it’s too convoluted given my time/resource constraints. But there’s a … Continue reading

Posted in Design, Project Gorgon | 13 Comments

Go Big or Go Home

“Go Big or Go Home.” I hate this phrase. But this comic made me realize it’s less intimidating than it sounds.  Of course you can just go home! You don’t have to fight every battle. Sometimes it’s smarter not to … Continue reading

Posted in Design, Production, Project Gorgon | 11 Comments

Item Decay Redux

There’s been some great replies to my last post, and I want to thank you for the ideas. I’m still sifting through them and figuring out what I can realistically make work, but I particularly liked these tidbits: The “rune” … Continue reading

Posted in Design, Project Gorgon | 4 Comments

We Can’t Have Nice Things (They Keep Decaying)

[This article is about my upcoming 3D fantasy MMO code-named "Project Gorgon."] One of the many design elements I haven’t fully figured out yet is item decay. This is a tough one. Item decay is when your weapons and armor … Continue reading

Posted in Design, Project Gorgon | 47 Comments

Alpha Art Woes: Sex-Crazed Elves

[I didn't finish the blog post that was supposed to go up today, so here's some gripes about temporary art problems in the MMO I'm developing.] A lot of the art in my game needs to be cheap prefabricated stuff. … Continue reading

Posted in Design, Project Gorgon | 11 Comments