Tattered Page

Nerfbat’s posted “MMO Development Lesson #16” and while I agree with the overall message, I don’t like the way the introduction feels. “Don’t be different for the sake of being different. Be different for the sake of being better.”

It is a good cautionary message- too many new developers want to come in, challenge all conventions, assume that everything in the past was somehow flawed or lacking vision and run headlong into the same obstacles that the MMO pioneers met. Still, as I peek into the betas of more MMO’s, I wonder if perhaps some developers aren’t clinging a bit too tighly to that philosophy to avoid any substantial change. “Different” is the “better” that we’re desperately missing.

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Ok, maybe now I’ll have time to write again.

I managed to squeeze together an 8-pager for the comic book creator contest.  It’s available at hypercomics as is my original for any interested.  I had to cut short some of the ideas I wanted to meet the deadline, so I may revisit the piece in the future (once the judging’s done- I don’t want to risk a disqualification at this point).

Now that the contest’s over, I encourage everyone to go over there, pick a random comic, and post a supporting comment.  With 320 entries and 3 prizes, the vast majority will not realize any reward beyond a comment on the page, and with so many posting and so few reviewing, even that’s not likely to happen.  Only a few dozen have any comment at all.

Some of these comics are obviously kids- or adults that haven’t tried something creative since they graduated college.  That’s a bit of a leap, but something we sould all encourage.  Give them some confidence to keep creating.  Find a forgotten story, find something you like in it, and give feedback.  It can mean the world.

Well, the deadline for the City of Heroes Comic Book Creator Contest is fast approaching, and I’ve barely started mine.  I’ve got plenty of stories in queue, but nothing I can distill into an 8-page tale… well, one, but it’ll be a challenge to get done. 

I’m doing it again.  I cranked out the 36 pages in a few days and got good reviews, but the 8-pager is going to paralyze me.  With nearing 200 entries, I’m not expecting to win any of the cool prizes (my gaming PC can’t even handle the video card prizes). I’m just

I’m sure that a great many people feel anxious about sharing their creative side.  I was a bit nervous until the first feedback was posted(positive, thank goodness).  Well, second, really.  First could have been my mom. 

If you had the time to waste to swing by here, go over to the hypercomics site and give a few words of encouragement to the fledgling writers.  I’m sure they’d appreciate it.

Ok, I finally gnawed off the chain on my leg. Have a few side-projects that I’ll be writing on soon enough… and I have three trillion blogs to comment on but I wanted to get things in here again.

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Thomas Malby over at TerraNova has got a got a good writeup on ganking, or more specifically, why “ganking” isn’t just “emergent play that some folk don’t like.”  Raph managed to post a very nice and rather lengthy response quickly… (I’m beginning to think the man has access to a review copy or has a whole library in the queue for just such an occasion.)

(For those unaware of MMO terminology, ganking is essentially a very very powerful character going around and killing much weaker characters that offer no challenge and no reward.)

Two elements in Raph’s writeup that I’d like to build on:

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