http://virtualfemme.today.com Exploring Gaming and Game Design Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:52:54 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Quests, as a word in the gaming community, has been dumbed down beyond belief by the churn-n-burn questing style introduced by World of Warcraft that has continued in Everquest II, Warhammer Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and just about any new MMO that has come out since then.  I ... http://virtualfemme.today.com/2009/01/15/creating-quests-in-an-online-game/ One of my favorite starting points for general research used to be Wikipedia, but by now, many of you in the gaming industry may have heard all the hooplah about the entire Threshold RPG vs. Wikipedia incident.  (That's a bit of a misnomer.  I should say the incident is really ... http://virtualfemme.today.com/2009/01/13/writing-for-wikipedia-to-do-or-not-to-do/ It probably seems like I've had writer's block, but in reality, the opposite is true.  I've started another extremely serious writing project.  That puts me at three, so I'm pretty swamped.  On the plus side, I've got more world building tips to share including character creation.  So, this is just ... http://virtualfemme.today.com/2008/12/15/not-dead-yet/ Almost all writers have experienced writer's block in some form or fashion, and we're all very used to the frustration that accompanies this phenomenon.  For those of you lucky enough to have never experienced this, writer's block is defined as a mental condition that results in a temporary loss of ... http://virtualfemme.today.com/2008/10/02/writers-block-how-do-you-beat-it/ People ask me all the time how I go about writing all the fiction and the details that I do for work.  (I develop virtual worlds for a living.  This includes the geography, the history, the races, and the culture.)  I mostly use basic tools that all writers use, but ... http://virtualfemme.today.com/2008/09/29/creating-virtual-cultures/ For most games and especially text games, writing should be done in the active voice to give players a true sense of events within the game's history and current happenings.  Many writers fall into the habit of writing in the passive voice which can often create convoluted and confusing sentences.  ... http://virtualfemme.today.com/2008/09/16/writing-in-the-active-voice/ Almost all online roleplaying games require some sort of gems system for their virtual world.  Some games opt to go with real life gem counterparts, and they skip the need to create gems particular to their own world.  The most important decision that these games have to make is which ... http://virtualfemme.today.com/2008/09/15/creating-gems-for-online-roleplaying-games/   Coral reefs make extremely exciting areas on games because they can be filled with color, variety, and all sorts of interesting creatures.  In the real world, coral reefs play a very important part of our ecosystem, and the amount of diversity in this biome rivals that of the rain ... http://virtualfemme.today.com/2008/09/14/coral-reefs-research-resource/ Maxis definitely made it quite easy to create beautiful and interesting items in Spore.  Obviously, it was in their best interest to make it easy since so many of the creatures and buildings end up on other people's games.  It would be horrid to end up with some pretty blah ... http://virtualfemme.today.com/2008/09/10/making-spores-easy-peasy/ Okay, I recently got Spore, and so I've been playing that for 2 days.  Honestly, my husband took me to Wal-Mart at 12:15 am Sunday to get it as soon as we could since I have such limited playing time.  (It's nice to have someone who understands my gaming obsessions.)  ... http://virtualfemme.today.com/2008/09/09/spore-a-game-of-evolution/