Jan 21, 2011

[Ultimate PvP Potential or Recipe for Disaster?]

So there's an upcoming MMO, Salem, that's going to try tackling full loot free-for-all PvP, player-made building destruction, AND perma-death. Sounds like a winning combination!
"'When your character dies, he stays dead,' Johannessen said matter-of-factly. This is made even harsher by the fact that Salem will allow free-for-all PvP, which means that anyone can attack you without provocation. Player buildings can be razed and their corpses looted, but Johannessen hopes that the players will band together to protect each other and mete out justice."
I predict lots of fun times when that sucker gets released, of the 'wailing and gnashing of teeth' variety. That is, if anyone actually ends up playing it for reasons other than to indulge in sociopathic carnage.

I still say there are a lot of very confused FPS fans still trying to shoehorn their preferred gameplay style into a genre that was simply not made for it. Now, if the death system ends up being something like Mabinogi's Rebirth mechanic, where certain stats get carried over (and the game doesn't have levels or strong gear dependency) maybe it could be feasible. Otherwise, I'm sensing a pending crash and burn and a stark reality check for the devs of Salem.

Jan 11, 2011

[Gaming 'Journalism'? Not So Much...]

Today, Jef Reahard over at Massively has written a great take down of the belief that most gaming bloggers are somehow 'journalists':
"Merriam-Webster defines journalism as "the collection and editing of news for presentation through the media." So far, so good, right? Well, look deeper. A more thoughtful, thorough, and instructional definition is provided by the folks at Journalism.org. Rather than quote the entire nine-point synopsis here on my front page, I'll highlight what I consider to be the second most important principle of journalism (the first obviously being truth). Not coincidentally, this principle is one that game "journalism" utterly fails to uphold on a daily basis: "[Journalism's] practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover."

Let's cut right to the chase, shall we? The vast majority of "game journalism" isn't journalism in the traditional sense. There are many reasons "game journalism" isn't journalism at all, but in the interests of paring a few thousand words off of this piece, I'll boil it down to the three most important."
 Read the rest here. 


 Related Reading: How Broken is Game Journalism?
                          How Game Journalism is It's Own Worst Enemy