Foundational Principle #1 – Be willing to take risks, even if fortune doesn’t always favor the bold
Being safe is for tourists and for most casual games. This is the wrong game, wrong genre, wrong developer and…
Foundational Principle #2 – RvR isn’t the end game, it’s the only game!
CU is a TriRealm™, RvR-focused game. It is not an RvR-centric game like Dark Age of Camelot and it is…
Foundational Principle #3 – You should always hold the hands of your little children while crossing busy intersections but…
…our players are not children and this is not an intersection crossing. Over the years many MMORPG designers, me included,…
Foundational Principle #4 – Choice Matters!
RPGs have traditionally offered players a plethora of choices for building out their characters. From the earliest P&PGs to MMORPGs,…
Foundational Principle #5 – I Still Hate Gold Sellers
If you have followed MMORPGs since 2001, you probably know how I feel about gold sellers. I took a hard…
Foundational Principle #6 – Rock, paper, scissors? ‘Natch!
One of the things that set Dark Age of Camelot apart from its competitors was the number of races and…
Foundational Principle #7 – Crafting should be fun, useful and not induce Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Folks, I would like to apologize for the two-day delay of this blog posting. On Wednesday, I focused on creating…
Foundational Principle #8 – This should be a chaotic game with epic surprises at every turn
Over the course of my long career, I have spent a lot of time (some have said far too much…
Foundational Principle #9 – Forced Socialization was good, then bad. Is it time for a comeback?
Over the decades MUDs evolved from their mostly solo-friendly roots to the first generation of MMORPGs (Meridian 59, UO, EQ,…
Foundational Principle #10 – Pride, pride, everywhere pride…
…. Slaying all the bad guys, breaking their pride. Burn this, burn that, can you break their Pride? First, thanks…
Foundational Principle #11 – Sandboxes are great fun for kids and adults as well!
I love sandbox games (SBGs) but the word sandbox has already fallen into the category of overuse by game developers…
Foundational Principle #12 – Speed Matters
We interrupt your normal Mark-a-thon for a post from Andrew. I’m the technical director and co-founder of City State Entertainment,…
Foundational Principle #13 – Chaos Goes Boing!
It’s time for another Andrew post! One of the things I remember about the earliest days of MMORPGs was that…
Foundational Principle #14 – CSE SUBSCRIBER PROMISES
CSE SUBSCRIBER PROMISES We promise that: 1) We will never lie to you, ever. We might be wrong, we might make…
Foundational Principle #15 – Stretching is good for the body but be careful not to overdo it!
In recent months the game industry has seen the power and importance of crowd funding explode as Chris Roberts’ Star…