An Open Letter to Blizzard from Girly Gamer

March 11, 2009 at 2:45 pm · Filed under Game Design

Dear Blizzard,

I would like you to develop an MMO to my preference. I request this on the belief that you owe me one. I blame you Blizzard for breaking the MMO genre by introducing the “casual gamer” to our community. I would like the following.

No more level grinding
I have been levelling characters for 6 years in Final Fantasy, Lineage, Guild Wars, and World of Warcraft.
It is old and boring and no longer interests me. It’s time to try a new formula.

Exploration
I would like a game that focuses on exploration and discovery.
I do not want reward base quests, I want to complete quests just too see how it would affect my character and my environment. I played Fable 2 for months. I never actually finished the game (I did not care for the story) but I fully explored every action that my character could commit in order to see what would happen. E.g. Eat pies for hours to see how fat I could get, and then spend another countless of hours running around to see how NPCs would react to my obesity.

Interactions with Fauna
Please provide a pokemania of creatures that I can collect, raise, shoot, or cook.

Costumes
Please allow me to dress in full metal plate or a bunny outfit, depending on my mood for that day.

1 World
Please make it one expandable Universe, like Eve. No more douchebaggery with paid world transfers. Is it clear by now that I am looking for a game with unrestrained choices? Please do not limit the players I can interact with by putting us on separate server.

Character Housing
I want to build and furnish my own player housing that I can put in the busiest part of the world or the most remote. I would like to invite my friends over to my house and have to provide them with directions. E.g. It’s about 5 minutes flying distance from Ungoro, in between 2 smoking volcanoes. The best example of player housing that I have encountered comes from Star Wars: Galaxies. The scout profession, who has the ability to travel rough terrain, could build a house in the most remote and beautiful location that not all players could access.

Character Tagging
Please make my character history and stats completely transparent and allow other users to tag my character based on my actions. E.g. This character has been tagged as “naughty” by 76 other players.

No Gender biased Muscles
If I choose to play a female character, I want to be able to make her as big and muscled as my male counterpart. No more dainty female orc warriors please.

For the Boys
Just so boys will want to play too, please add a jiggle option. This will also be a good indication of which female characters are actually being played by guys.

That’s all I can think of for now. I thank you in advance,

Sincerely
Jahzel, a.k.a Girly Gamer

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The Perfect MMORPG Interface

October 2, 2008 at 10:12 pm · Filed under Game Design

I love MMO’s and being an Interface Designer, I also love MMO interfaces.  I am conducting a search for the most perfect MMO interface. From World of Warcraft I love the character panels and the ease of equipping and viewing gear. I love Final Fantasy XI’s login interface. It wasn’t particularly easy to navigate but it really helped draw me into the world before I even logged in. I haven’t tried Warhammer yet, but my friend showed me the Guild interface and it looks really exciting with it’s built in Calendar, Events and attendance functionality. Now if only I could put all those great elements together. With this project I am trying to design the perfect MMO interface, at least from a point of view of a designer who is also a gamer.

Here is what I have so far of the Login Interface:

The Gamepedia is similar to Wow’s Armory and Thottbot. However I’ve already decided that the way I designed it is no good. The purpose of the Gamepedia is that you can compare the stats and gear of any 2 characters. You can also look up the stats of any in-game item. I placed this system in the Dashboard interface so that users didn’t need to go look at a separate website to get this information. Bad idea! In order to look at this information I have to be in the dashboard. As a gamer I don’t want to log out to view this information. So the 2 better solutions would be to have this informaiton in game or on a seperate website.

I don’t like the idea of going outside of the game to retrieve this information. It takes away from the game’s immersion. However making this information too accesible in game (E.g pressing a button) will also take away from the game’s immersion. One idea I have is this:

Encyclopedia like in game information about items can be accessed by going to a library or bookstore. A bookstore/library will be available in each town.

But lazy gamers will be mad at me if I do that. I will post more as I continue to develop this project.

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