I couldn’t think of a clever title. Anyway, Mark Jacobs and City State Entertainment need a cool $2 million to jump start a counter-revolutionary MMO. Camelot Unchained hearkens back to those glorious days when Dark Ages of Camelot was the place to be for brutal PvP. I’ve already said this, but I have to say [...]

Camelot Unchained Kickstarter is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The lack of atrophy is a virtue of online gaming’s illusion of permanence. While enemies may respawn in a few seconds, the ratchet only goes one way on character and story advancement. You need not hit the gym to keep your points in strength from fading. Your house never gets dirty, and maintenance of everything [...]

Self-Maintaining is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The joke is that there is no joke. Perhaps the timing of the latest addition to Guild Wars 2 was done to ease the pain and let them have their “lols”, but for April, Super Adventure Box is here to stay. What is Super Adventure Box (“SAB”)? An asuran genius, Moto, created a holographic video [...]

[GW2] Super Adventure Transition is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The joke is that there is no joke. Perhaps the timing of the latest addition to Guild Wars 2 was done to ease the pain and let them have their “lols”, but for April, Super Adventure Box is here to stay. What is Super Adventure Box (“SAB”)? An asuran genius, Moto, created a holographic video [...]

[GW2] Super Adventure Transition is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Our testers can veto releases at work, but we have an allied tradition that half a loaf is better than none. We may not get everything we want from an update, but if it makes some things better and no things worse, we go live. We can add the rest in a future update. A [...]

Pareto Superior Testing is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Our testers can veto releases at work, but we have an allied tradition that half a loaf is better than none. We may not get everything we want from an update, but if it makes some things better and no things worse, we go live. We can add the rest in a future update. A [...]

Pareto Superior Testing is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

If you are on fire, stepping on a sandvich can douse the flames and save your life. A sandwich is not good enough. You need the letter V. : Zubon Lessons Learned From Team Fortress 2 is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Lessons Learned From Team Fortress 2 is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

If you are set on fire, stepping on a sandvich can douse the flames and save your life. A sandwich is not good enough. You need the letter V. : Zubon Lessons Learned From Team Fortress 2 is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Lessons Learned From Team Fortress 2 is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

I often cite smaller games because people are unaware of them or vastly underinformed. So if you like Darkfall’s prowess system, you can go play that right now in Asheron’s Call 1. Seriously, that system existed in 1999, although games did not have achievements at the time. You could even be playing the PvP version [...]

The Lessons of History is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The way I play Guild Wars 2 may not be the way everyone else does, but I always manage to entertain myself. Over the weekend, in between doing some storyline quests with my son, we decided to start jumping off the bridges in Rata Sum and see how far down we could get. Frequently we [...]

How I Fell Off Rata Sum And Landed In Jail is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The March update dropped last night in Guild Wars 2. There is so much to talk about. There are PvE instances along with a nice chunk of PvE content. WvW feels very different, for the better. There is new guild content. And of course a few gem store offerings. These monthly updates are addictive, and [...]

[GW2] Razing Ahead is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The blade itself incites to deeds of violence. — Homer, The Odyssey, although I cannot find a translation online that uses that exact phrasing. It is not a slippery slope argument to say, “Developing the capacity to X makes X much more likely.” Beyond the tautology that you cannot do X if you cannot do [...]

Supply Creates Its Own Demand is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Yesterday we discussed the tendency of a new option to expand to all potential uses. Facebook was a digital whiteboard but now you use it to share family pictures and invite people to events. I want to discuss the failure to expand in two ways. “The gimmick” is when it does not proliferate. They tried [...]

Or Sometimes It Doesn’t is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

I’ve been playing the Warframe open beta (available on Steam). Out of a weird impulse I decided to try it and I’ve been pleasantly surprised, despite these games not being my usual cup of tea. The elevator pitch: Warframe is a third-person shooter in which space ninjas in configurable, upgradeable combat armors (the ‘warframes’) battle [...]

Warframe is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

I’ve been playing the Warframe open beta (available on Steam). Out of a weird impulse I decided to try it and I’ve been pleasantly surprised, despite these games not being my usual cup of tea. The elevator pitch: Warframe is a third-person shooter in which space ninjas in configurable, upgradeable combat armors (the ‘warframes’) battle [...]

Warframe is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Yesterday we discussed the tendency of a new option to expand to all potential uses. Facebook was a digital whiteboard but now you use it to share family pictures and invite people to events. I want to discuss the failure to expand in two ways. “The gimmick” is when it does not proliferate. They tried [...]

Or Sometimes It Doesn’t is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The blade itself incites to deeds of violence. — Homer, The Odyssey, although I cannot find a translation online that uses that exact phrasing. It is not a slippery slope argument to say, “Developing the capacity to X makes X much more likely.” Beyond the tautology that you cannot do X if you cannot do [...]

Supply Creates Its Own Demand is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The March update dropped last night in Guild Wars 2. There is so much to talk about. There are PvE instances along with a nice chunk of PvE content. WvW feels very different, for the better. There is new guild content. And of course a few gem store offerings. These monthly updates are addictive, and [...]

[GW2] Razing Ahead is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The way I play Guild Wars 2 may not be the way everyone else does, but I always manage to entertain myself. Over the weekend, in between doing some storyline quests with my son, we decided to start jumping off the bridges in Rata Sum and see how far down we could get. Frequently we [...]

How I Fell Off Rata Sum And Landed In Jail is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

I often cite smaller games because people are unaware of them or vastly underinformed. So if you like Darkfall’s prowess system, you can go play that right now in Asheron’s Call 1. Seriously, that system existed in 1999, although games did not have achievements at the time. You could even be playing the PvP version [...]

The Lessons of History is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Massively has a nice article on a QA session with two ArenaNet designers at PAX East. Bhagpuss already gives a pretty good breakdown along with his thoughts. I don’t agree with everything Bhagpuss says, but I feel he is right on the mark in saying that ArenaNet develops for geological time. They expect their game [...]

[GW2] Fashion Forward Combat is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Massively has a nice article on a QA session with two ArenaNet designers at PAX East. Bhagpuss already gives a pretty good breakdown along with his thoughts. I don’t agree with everything Bhagpuss says, but I feel he is right on the mark in saying that ArenaNet develops for geological time. They expect their game [...]

[GW2] Fashion Forward Combat is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

[Warning: there are some TV Tropes links in here.] I have confessed to contributing to self-fulfilling prophecies: if you do not commit to something/one because s/he/it may not be around for long, s/he/it probably will not be around for long. So how do you invest yourself in something when the producers have a left a [...]

Chris Carter, Joss Whedon, Google, and NCsoft is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

[Warning: there are some TV Tropes links in here.] I have confessed to contributing to self-fulfilling prophecies: if you do not commit to something/one because s/he/it may not be around for long, s/he/it probably will not be around for long. So how do you invest yourself in something when the producers have a left a [...]

Chris Carter, Joss Whedon, Google, and NCsoft is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Carbine just published their newest trailer for WildStar. The announcer ping pongs in my head back and forth between epic and annoying, but for the most part I like it. The information is light, especially to fans that have been following the game. The important part, for me, is how much of the trailer is [...]

[WS] Overview Trailer is a post from: Kill Ten Rats