Austin Game Conference Report

[slog]

I think I've just been SirBruced.

Bruce

Oh lord, please don't make him start referring to himself in the third person...

Xilren

At least he got the joke.

[SirBruce]

Posted this in the wrong thread before....

Dammned Vulpine has put up a few more details of the Jacobs/Garriott exchange in his blog.

All I can add is that Mark closed by saying if Richard could prove his claim to Mark's satisfaction, he would gladly call Richard his "Daddy". :)

As for Richard's talk, it seems like it was virtually identical to the same speech he gave at the first AGC on the same topic.  And yet the description for that panel was quite different, so SOMEONE must have wrote the new text.

Bruce

PS - I did see Dammned Vulpine at the con when I caught his name tag, but at the time I couldn't remember who that was, so I didn't go up and say hello.

[daveNYC]

Dammned Vulpine has put up a few more details of the Jacobs/Garriott exchange in his blog.

All I can add is that Mark closed by saying if Richard could prove his claim to Mark's satisfaction, he would gladly call Richard his "Daddy". :.

Aw, Jesus Christ... Of all the things in the world to get worked up over.  It sounds like Jacobs could use a swift kick in his ball sack in order to teach him a lesson in perspective.

[Arcadian Del Sol]

aside: I'm 95% certain, having not even been there, that Mark was being mostly tongue-in-cheek and only partly annoyed.

PS: HRose, what Raph was trying to explain to you was "SHUT UP", but he was trying to do so in a professional manner.

so shut up.

[Sky]

Wouldn't the MUD folks, the Dark Sun/AOL folks, and the m59'ers be the grandfathers of mmogs? UO did bring the mmorpg genre to the current level of success and awareness, though EQ steals much of that thunder.

With EQ following so closely to previous iterations of online worlds, maybe you could say Raph is the father of modern online gaming :)

[Arcadian Del Sol]

Wouldn't the MUD folks, the Dark Sun/AOL folks, and the m59'ers be the grandfathers of mmogs? UO did bring the mmorpg genre to the current level of success and awareness, though EQ steals much of that thunder.

With EQ following so closely to previous iterations of online worlds, maybe you could say Raph is the father of modern online gaming :)

Then Shadow of Yserbius would be a great uncle?

[Raph]

Nuh uh, Sky, you're not dragging me into this. I try to avoid claims of taking credit ever since I discovered I am almost always wrong. :)

[Dr. Cat]

Bartle may have been Christopher Columbus, Mark Jacobs may have been Paul Revere, and Raph could very well be Benjamin Franklin....but in the minds of many Garriott is the George Washington of MMOGs. I'll give Bruce the John Hancock role.....

If Bartle is Christopher Columbus, would that make the author of the first multiplayer graphic dungeon game on Plato in 1975 or 1976 the "Amerigo Vespucci"?  The guy who actually found it first, but most people now think the next guy was first?  Works for me.

Of course Amerigo at least got the continents named after him, whereas the first dungeon game author on Plato, well, I don't even know his name and I bet nobody else here does either.  Kind of a shame.

  -- Dr. Cat

[Samwise]

I only attended a couple of the panels, as I was working a booth in the exhibition hall.  In each one, I found something to peeve me:

1) In the "Improving Communication" panel, the spoken assumption that all MMO players, particularly the ones who post ideas on forums, want an "I Win" button instead of a balanced and fun game.  Kudos to Raph for uttering the revolutionary words "players aren't stupid" as the other panelists looked at him aghast.

2) In the "Design Risks" panel, the outright dismissal of the notion that MMO combat should be anything other than push-a-button-and-walk-away.  The panelist who responded (I think it was the guy from Mythic) basically said that if any modicum of skill was involved, veteran players would be whomped by newbies and the moon would plunge from its orbit.  I wrote a rant on how wrong he is, which I won't inflict on y'all unless provoked.

This was my first time to a conference like this, so maybe it's par for the course.  I felt disillusioned, though, and I have to say I have new respect for Raph after seeing how firmly the majority of his peers in the industry have their heads wedged up their asses.

[SirBruce]

I think you misinterpreted his comment.  "Skill-based" doesn't mean hitting the a certain sequence of buttons in a logical sequence.  "Skill-based" is a step beyond that, where one's physical ability to manipulate the mouse or joystick or hit multiple buttons quickly at once in certain specific orders is critical to success.  I'l agree there's a grey area between auto-attack and full-blown skill-based, but many MMOGs are moving away from auto-attack to a more "interactive" experience.  Still, in most of those games, one's level and abilities which are gained over time are ultimately more important, and executing special attacks is more about paying attention and hitting the right button rather than a more complicated series of inputs.

Truly skill-based MMOGs like PlanetSide and WW2OL and Magic: the Gathering work because they are PvP, and even then, their success has been  limited in comparison.  Having a skill-based game that works against PvE is very difficult, as it requires good AI, but we've seen this in single-player games for decades now.  So I think you could do it in either a PvE or PvP MMOG, but not in a combo MMOG.

Bruce

[Samwise]

The thing I took issue with (and you're drifting in that direction) is the notion that the only type of "skill" worth considering is the physical ability to move a mouse - in other words, innate skills like reflexes and hand-eye coordination.  What about skills that are more specific to the game itself (learned skills)?  What if as you progressed through the game, you (the player) could learn tactics or information that would give you an edge over players who didn't have that knowledge (such as the guy who bought his 50th level character on eBay and has never seen the game world before)?

A retarded monkey can learn to push a button when a light flashes, and as far as I've seen, most MMOG combat doesn't get any more demanding than that, skill-wise.  Can't we find some sort of "skill contest" that doesn't rely heavily on innate pre-existing skills (e.g. reflexes), and instead builds on learned skills that players gain naturally as they play the game?  Learned skills that elevate the player past retarded monkey status?

I suspect that Puzzle Pirates is a step in the right direction, though it suffers from the problem of its skill contests being completely abstract relative to the game world.

Obviously, character stats (avatar skill) should weigh into the equation as well, but the goal that I seek is to be able to play one of these games and think to myself "hey, I'm pretty good at this game" as opposed to "hey, I have a pretty high level character".  The former gives me a sense of pride.  The latter creates an oscillation between pride and shame that is generally followed by quitting the game, once I realize how much time I've sunk into the act of incrementing a counter.

[Margalis]

2) In the "Design Risks" panel, the outright dismissal of the notion that MMO combat should be anything other than push-a-button-and-walk-away.  The panelist who responded (I think it was the guy from Mythic) basically said that if any modicum of skill was involved, veteran players would be whomped by newbies and the moon would plunge from its orbit.  I wrote a rant on how wrong he is, which I won't inflict on y'all unless provoked.

The obvious response is they wouldn't be veterans. The veterans would be the good people.

Try to make this argument for a fighting game. "If Street Fighter 2 took skill, a newbie would whomp a veteran!" Nope, quite the opposite! The newbie has no idea what they are doing, and the veteran has been winning tournaments for years.

His problem was thinking of it as a switch that gets flipped one day. One day being a vet = time spent, the next day being a vet =actual ability. If you did that in the midst of a game like DOAC....yeah that would piss a lot of people off.

I do agree that skill based games more more sense for PvP games, and I use that term (PvP) loosely. What about games like Madden? Fighting games? In those games, skill is really the MAIN draw. Racing games, Bomberman, etc etc. PvE is a different beast, but in any genre other than MMORPG, PvP games are all about skill. RTS? FPS?

And, skill can be a lot of things. It can be twitch, it can be remaining calm under pressure, it can be multitasking, it can be math, it can be plumbing...

Most of MMORPG skill these days really is to wait for some flashing light, then hit a hotkey...

[Mi_Tes]

I actually went to the Women's Conference going on at the same time/ same location.  I enjoyed it, but was disappoined in that the session times for each conference (although you could go to either) were off by 30 min, so I was either hanging out for 30 min or walking in late or leaving early.  Hopefully, the sessions will be more in sync next year.  

The two sessions I disliked most (and walked out of) were "Women in Game Journalism" since none of them seemed to game - what is the point if you don't give a shit about it.  In addition, I absolutely hated the session that others liked of "Designing Within a License."  Mark Jacobs showed up late to his presentation, with an attitude, and was unprofessional and annoying for the 30 minutes I could watch him.  Watching someone take the other side of the arguement is entertaining for maybe 5 minutes, but it got very old, very fast.  Perhaps he was late because of his hissy fit over the session description before him that Garriott was the "Father of online gaming."  

I was actually in Garriott's session before Jacobs, and it was actually one of the best sessions I heard at the conference.  Garriot was one of the very few who spoke at the entire conference who realized there were things he messed up in UO, TR, and told the audience why.  

Day 1

The Womens Conference started with a welcome from Sheri Graner Ray, conference chair, then went to the keynote by Kathy Schoback of Infinium Labs.  

The first session was, "Identifying the issues - discusses top issues facing women in the game industry".  Mia Consalvo from Ohio University, Nicky Robinson from Stunt Puppy, and Denise Fulton from Ion Storm talked, as well as Aleks Krotoski from the UK who gave a great presentation on a white paper she had done for ELSPA Chicks and Joysticks with a shitty name, but good anyway.  The round table did well at pulling out the issues and trying to answer them.  Perfect for one of the first sessions of the conference.

Next was "Getting to the top" where Laura Fryer from MS, Kathy Schoback from Infinium Labs, and Beth Doherty from Acclaim talked about building a sucessful career in the game industry.  Generally, all really enjoyed gaming, and then it seemed some logical progression.

Next was the Production Best Practices with Starr Long, Matt Firor, Rich Vogel and someone else.  Like Sir Bruce said, it was pretty basic stuff - good to rehear, but nothing really new in this session.  Although more than a little discussion about special ad hoc groups.  

Instead of going to Community Management, I went to "Building a New IP" with Richard Garriott and thought it was the best of the conference.   I skipped the "work session on topics" going on at the same time for the womens conference.  RG did talk generally about IP's, and then went into specificis of UO and TR, but it was more from the perspective of why he did what he did, what he was thinking, what was right, what was wrong, and how he continues to make changes to improve.  I prefer the blunt talk he gave with his mistakes vs. the ego and smart ass comments from Jacobs in the next session.  

Next session was "Designing within a License" with Rich Vogel, Mark Jacobs, Vijay Lakshman, and Chris McKibbin.  Everything was fine until Mark Jacobs showed up about 5 min late and began his rampage.  The others did well in addressing the issues and trying to contain Mark, but oh well.  It just got old hearing him rant and I left half way though.  I missed his comments on RG, but it was THE discussion for the rest of the night (even at the coper tank).  Although I heard just as many comment about the root of the issue being Mark's ego, temper, pissing contest, bla bla bla.  

Went to the terra nova get together, drank, ate, then to the copper tank to drink more. :)

Day 2

Again an introduction from Sheri Graner Ray, then a well done keynote by Patricia Vance, President, ESRB.  She went into why it is important that the gaming industry rate itself, so that the chance of legislative regulation or contraints.  

Next session was "A Gamer's Life" - quality of life issues, families and what the balance should be.  Sandra Powers with Turbine, Gordon Walton/SOE, Shannon Loftis with MS, Kirsten Forbes with Radical Entertainment, Kay Gilmore from Ion Storm, Hank Howie with Blue Fang, discussed the quality of life issues (outside life vs deadlines).  It kept coming back to deadlines and the work with no easy answer, but it was helpful to confront the issues.

Next session was "Design Risks We Should Be Taking" with Raph Koster, Patricia Pizer, Matt Firor, and Damion Schubert.  It was a good and rather lively brainstorming session with ideas of what to do if $ and market weren't barriers to designing games.  

Next session was "It's What's Inside That Counts" - content and the female audience with TL Taylor from the University of Copenhagen, Gano Haine with Stunt Puppy, Kiki Wolfkill from MS, and Raph Koster.  It was the same discussion I seem to have from time to time, about what you need to do to appeal to women gamers.  Although interesting to hear from other perspectives.  

Next session was "Women in Game Journalism".  I didn't see the passion for games and left early.

Last session was "Diamonds in the Sand - Data-Mining the Social Systems of Massively Multiplayer Games" with Michael Steele and Patricia Pizer.  Well done talk and interesting seeing the social connections of games by graphs.  

Dinner, drinks, and bats at/outside TGIFridays.  :)

[schild]

The Womens Conference started with a welcome from Sheri Graner Ray, conference chair, then went to the keynote by Kathy Schoback of Infinium Labs.

Hmmm......That's just no good at all.

Edit: If you don't mind can you run through what the keynote was about? Other than driving a company with an assload of capital straight into the ground...

[SirBruce]

The Richard Garriott IP talk WAS good... it's just, he gave it last year, so I didn't feel the need to see it again. :)  Still, it's cool how he talks about the Ultima virtues and then dovetails into the research he did to come up with background for Tabula Rasa.  It is interesting, even artistic, but I'm not sure it really tells you much about Building new IP.

Bruce

[Raph]

Schild, don't diss Kathy too much--she's got a long and stories history with the industry, including at Eidos and the IGDA. She contributes a lot.

SirBruce, don't stomp on Samwise too much, he was trying to give me a compliment. I need every one I can get. ;)

[SirBruce]

All hail Raph, the Great Peacemaker!

Bruce

[schild]

Schild, don't diss Kathy too much--she's got a long and stories history with the industry, including at Eidos and the IGDA. She contributes a lot.

I didn't mean to diss Kathy, that was a dig at Infinium Labs. Though....I'm still interested in what she had to say, even moreso now. ;)

SirBruce, don't stomp on Samwise too much, he was trying to give me a compliment. I need every one I can get. ;)

Pffffft, when you get dissed around here it's because some of us can still taste the vast emptiness of space in our mouths. Outside of attributing SW:G to you, we give you all the ego boosts you need around here, Raph. You're like the closest thing to a celebrity in the online gaming world. Well, you and Garriot.

edit: grammar++ and I can't make that sound less kiss-assy. Maybe it's just late. Or early.

[SirBruce]

Technically, it's Garriott, not Garriot, but people have been making that mistake all the way back to his father, on official NASA documents no less.

Bruce

[Sky]

Nuh uh, Sky, you're not dragging me into this. I try to avoid claims of taking credit ever since I discovered I am almost always wrong. :)

I wouldn't say you are so much wrong as not able to deliver your ideas properly because most gamers are a lesson in human nature and anonymity. But am I wrong in thinking UO was the most original and ambitious mmorpg attempt thus far? Methinks SWG tries to be a bit too safe, corporate pressures, maybe? I speculate.

[Samwise]

Methinks SWG tries to be a bit too safe, corporate pressures, maybe? I speculate.

I concur.  Only the evil forces of marketing could have taken so many good ideas and turned them on their heads so quickly.

[Shannow]

Next session was "Design Risks We Should Be Taking" with Raph Koster, Patricia Pizer, Matt Firor, and Damion Schubert.  It was a good and rather lively brainstorming session with ideas of what to do if $ and market weren't barriers to designing games.  

Anyway we can get a transcription of that session? Im immensly interested to see what actual designers of these games see as 'design risks' as compared to what us gamers would like to see.

[AOFanboi]

Magic: the Gathering ... [its] success has been  limited in comparison.

Mind you, M:tGO's biggest limiting factor is that quite a lot of potential players cannot accept the idea that you don't get a physical set of cards for your money, yet the virtual "cards" cost as much as their physical counterparts.

It is probably biggest in its quite separate genre (virtual online CCGs) though; the company Genetic Anomalies tried and failed early on with Chron X, and there were a few others as well. All dead now, I think.

[Raph]

Well, I won't try to summarize the panel, but maybe YOU guys can BE the panel.

I asked the following:

- Why do risks, since the public doesn't buy them or subscribe to them anyway? First to market is a lie, it's second to market who cleans up. This strategy works wonders for Blizzard. Why be someone else's canary in a coal mine?

- OK, so if we do risks, what risks are off the table because the market simply won't let us do them? What has the the industry already settled in its head is a waste of money, and therefore will not be tried?

- What games are out there that ARE taking risks and really doing something new?

- No, NOT market risks. Design risks. Do the question over again.

- So what risky things do you want to try doing?

- No, NOT MARKET risks. DESIGN risks. Do the question over again.

- Fine, since the market figures too big in your thinking, here, have $50 million dollars and no executives. NOW what risks do you take?

(FWIW, some of the responses on the last one were "do what WoW is doing, play it safe, make it really polished, and make way more than $50 mil" and "reduce the grind." That's when I accused the panel of a failure of imagination. ;) )

[Shannow]

(FWIW, some of the responses on the last one were "do what WoW is doing, play it safe, make it really polished, and make way more than $50 mil" and "reduce the grind." That's when I accused the panel of a failure of imagination. ;) )

Oh that just makes me want to cry. Good for you for calling them out.

50 mill...Ok...

Sci fi setting, each player picks a faction/empire when they start or they can be independents (most likely pirates etc). Several branches to choose from for career advancement: Military (Navy , Army), Merchant, diplomat etc...Factions are player run, advancement is through skill and peer review (not by killing more womp rats)...Real time space simulation ...multi crewed capital ships, fighters etc.....ground based combat for the grunts again FPS style...roleplaying (!) encouraging but not enforced..Each faction get number of planets, each produces stuff for merchants to trade, diplos can arrange treaties / pacts / trade policies etc...Neutral planets between territories for factions to fight over..Pirates, occasional alien invasion etc...

Hrrm maybe like what SWG couldve been....whoops..

Sorry couldnt resist.:)

[HaemishM]

- OK, so if we do risks, what risks are off the table because the market simply won't let us do them? What has the the industry already settled in its head is a waste of money, and therefore will not be tried?

Full open PVP, without levels, with hard (and you know what I mean by hard) player accountability, player skill without twitch, classless skill system, 3d Graphics, no license, with broadband required.

I bet you not one person on that panel would touch that one, even with $50 million dollars and no executives.

[Nebu]

- Why do risks, since the public doesn't buy them or subscribe to them anyway? First to market is a lie, it's second to market who cleans up. This strategy works wonders for Blizzard. Why be someone else's canary in a coal mine?

Risks produce innovation.  The Wright Brothers, Ford, Edison all took risks and were perceived as crackpots... then geniuses.  I think it's ultimately more important to advance boundaries than it is to profit from the innovation of others... that may be why I do what I do for a living when I could be making triple in the private sector.  Risk taking also produces the liklihood of falling flat on your face.  You need thick skin and resilliance, especially with the cruelty of the public and scrutiny of today's media.

- OK, so if we do risks, what risks are off the table because the market simply won't let us do them? What has the the industry already settled in its head is a waste of money, and therefore will not be tried?

I don't have the insider expertise to attempt this one without sheer handwaving.  I'll defer to those more in tune.

- What games are out there that ARE taking risks and really doing something new?

A Tale in the Desert comes to mind.  Teppy wants to create a new type of achievement-based, socially driven, PvP_in_the_not_so_obvious_sense experience.  The game is full traditional mmog elements but presents them in a new direction.  Yes, it's niche... but I think new directions are a good thing.

I'd also have to give a little credit to CoH.  The superhero "thing" seems to use old gaming paradigms and apply them to a new texture.  As this type of thing has already been done in PnP games, it's not really a great innovation, but the combat pacing and use of 3D space did improve the way we look at mmog combat.

- So what risky things do you want to try doing?

Well, I have a million ideas on what I'd like to see in an mmog, but I must admit that I'm not well grounded in what could be feasibly implemented.  A few things I'd love to attempt to answer better:

1) Is there a better way to maintain player accountability without it negatively impacting the fun of core gameplay?  

2) Can an enjoyable crafting system be created that is directly tied into the player economy?

3) Can skill become more of a factor in core gameplay without the game becoming a modified FPS?

4) Can the current skill system become more linearized for better groupability and faster incorporation into a pvp aspect?

5) Can a balance be struck between fast and active combat while maintaining a core social structure?

6) What has to be done to limit runaway inflation in mmog's without producing obvious money sinks?

Many more thoughts... I'll quit there.

[Nebu]

Full open PVP, without levels, with hard (and you know what I mean by hard) player accountability, player skill without twitch, classless skill system, 3d Graphics, no license, with broadband required.

You wrote this as I was typing my answers... This is a game I'd pay to play.

[SirBruce]

If I had $50 million and I wanted to take a risk, I would spend most of that trying to "solve" the content problem with a truly dynamic, random mission/story/dungeon/quest/loot system that didn't suck.  It would also be a PvE game that spent a lot of time on tools for player characters to add limited content in some fashion.  And the rest of the deisgn would be pretty standard PvE fantasy MMOG stuff, because you can't take too many risks at once.

Bruce

[Shannow]

If I had $50 million and I wanted to take a risk, I would spend most of that trying to "solve" the content problem with a truly dynamic, random mission/story/dungeon/quest/loot system that didn't suck.  It would also be a PvE game that spent a lot of time on tools for player characters to add limited content in some fashion.  And the rest of the deisgn would be pretty standard PvE fantasy MMOG stuff, because you can't take too many risks at once.

Bruce

ugh you are not going to 'solve' it without having a ridicolously large live team continually adding content at a breakneck speed.

The ONLY way ,without making the game essentially a single player expierence , to provide real dynamic content is to have the game be completely player driven. Player interaction makes the best content.
Any other 'random dynamic instanced quest loot mission etc system is just sticking more thumbs in the damn...eventually your players will play through it and get bored of it. So either you spend 50 million dollars designing really really smart AI so the player thinks they are in a multiplayer environment when in fact they are the only player and therefore will be the hero. OR you give the players a chance to change the world around them and that can ONLY be done in a framework of PvP.

Now the hard part is delivering PvP that is not 100% combat that is also fun and engaging for the player.

[Shannow]

- OK, so if we do risks, what risks are off the table because the market simply won't let us do them? What has the the industry already settled in its head is a waste of money, and therefore will not be tried?

Full open PVP, without levels, with hard (and you know what I mean by hard) player accountability, player skill without twitch, classless skill system, 3d Graphics, no license, with broadband required.

I bet you not one person on that panel would touch that one, even with $50 million dollars and no executives.

Serious question, what do you consider player skill without twitch?

[schild]

Serious question, what do you consider player skill without twitch?

Guild Wars has invented a system. In each PVP Battle you can only bring 8 spells from a full book of them. Say you pick 8 spells that are completely defended against. I believe the word 'pwned' would be in order.

Other than that? Card Games. I'd love to travel around in an MMO world with crafting and whatnot, but PVP was Magic: The Gathering.

...? Mini Real Time Strategy games.

...? Real Games. Go, Chess, Chinese Checkers. I don't care, point is, games are fun, mmmmk.

Non Twitchy sports. Golf and Pool come to mind. MMOIP. Massively Multiplayer Online Irish Pub. Sign me up!

[Resvrgam]

Great read. :)

I wish I either lived closer to these functions or had a larger income to be able to fly about the country to these events.

I sunk a lot of cash into this year's GDC and had a blast...despite the cold shoulder from some companies (and humiliation from others).

[Xilren's Twin]

Well, I won't try to summarize the panel, but maybe YOU guys can BE the panel.

- So what risky things do you want to try doing?

I like some of the answers seen so i'll throw my 2 cents in.

1. Minor risk - a modular, skill based magic system which allows people to design their own spells.  I know some games have attempted minor versions of this, but making magic unique per character would be interesting. If not, at least a helluva lot more magic abilties that aren;t purely about combat i.e. designing a magic school that fully supports exploring: animals forms (for accessing areas normal people can't get to like mountain tops, underwater caves, jungle treetops), movement spells (flight, levitations, water breathing, gaseous forms), spells that can help give area knowledge (speaking with plants, animals, reading scents), finding hidden passes/caves/ruins, herblores, tracking thats more than just find next mob to fight.  Of course, this presupposes a game where you can actually DO more than just fight or craft.  CoH planning to allow players to modify their powers with say different color and particle effects and such sound like it will be much more magical than most fantasy magic systems and that just pure asthetics.

2. Moderate risk - allow for true sever divergence in major ways as the world responds to player driven GM overseen plot changes.  Unique Player cities and housing dont truly make for shards that are different and interesting in terms of story, though they are better than nothing.  Have a world where the players successfully did release the big evil demon, one other players stopped his realease, one the managed to kill him by completing god given artifact quest A, one that let him loose and half the player base joined his service for demonic weapons, another that let free an imprisoned good angel and started a holy war, etc etc.

3. Major risk - A NWN type game done "right" (and by that i mean not tied to a restrictive class based D&D game system that the core rules cannot be modified, and a combat model that slower paced to provide much more tactical options than NWN's).  Design not a game, but a game system and allow players to build there own modules/worldlets/content they can submit and get incorporated into the actual central gameworld or allow players to hook these adventure segments directly off their own machines (back to broadband required) for a huge series of interconnected "dimensions".  By using a generic system like Gurps or a skill based D20, you could allow for all sort of thematic flavors with the same base game systems so you could travel from a high magic typical fantasy realm to a low magic realm where the rules are quite different, to steampunk, historical no-magic, modern day, futuristic and sci-fi even.  By linking everything to a centrally stored character database, you get your control and structure even if the adventure portions take place on individual players machines.

Or, a game world where almost everything is player submitted and the live teams main job is to support the system and basically QA and implement the player submitted quests, monsters, areas, dungeons, npcs, items, spells, etc etc.

From my personal viewpoint, I would much rather focus on how to bring about more story driven and unique small group/guild (max ~200 say) experiences.  I've long believed the "massive" part of mmorpg's is really their achilles heel.  Designing continuing new content for the masses is just doomed to failure b/c there is no way a small team can possible keep up with the rate of consumption.  Yet at the same time, we also know allowing everyone to affect the gameworld as they see fit is also a recipie for chaos and fucktardary not to mention telling people catass king MaStErKiLlUr over there your end game content just hasn;t show it works well.

So, design a method to allow a lot of user created content to be implemented into a gamewold, but has to be vetted by the dev shop somehow.

So, where's my 50 million; I assume you put the check in the mail?

Xilren

[Resvrgam]

Well, I won't try to summarize the panel, but maybe YOU guys can BE the panel.

- So what risky things do you want to try doing?

There's several ideas of mine I'd like to see the light of PC day...unfortunately, if I just blurted them all out, they may in fact make it to reality (without my name attached to them).

I even have an idea to abolish the stat-based level treadmills of today's shallow and rather dismal MMOGs that lack any semblance to "Fun" gameplay by bypassing the Slot-Machine principle in favour of a continually stimulating game design akin to a SP title but cost effective enough to be widely utilized in an MMOG environment.

Who am I kidding? Us nobodies get the shaft when it comes to "good" ideas anyways.