World of Warcraft is really good.
I don’t pretend to be an expert on MMORPGs. I did the EQ thing for about 6 months when it first came out, but then I dropped it because I wasn’t having fun anymore. I tried DAoC when it came out, and dropped it after the free month.
I left EQ for several reasons, the main reason being the amount of time it took to resemble progress. Advancement felt like a grind, and I didn’t have the time to devote to it that my friends did, so I was constantly behind. Eventually they were so far ahead that it was not worth pursuing.
I’m not even a week into World of Warcraft, so I’m not really qualified to say that I will stick with it, but so far it has been much more rewarding. It has rekindled that sense of wonder I had when I first stepped into EQ’s world.
It has some of the inherent problems, but minimizes them to mere nuisance rather than show stoppers. Death isn’t a major setback, just a small trip back.
The suspension of disbelief isn’t complete. I still don’t like the idea of being able to “milk” a spawn point for experience time and time again. If I have killed a troop of furbolgs, how come they keep coming back? True, I don’t have to milk a spot, but my discipline isn’t what is in question here. 
WoW has taken the casual gamer to heart and worked out tweaks that should make it possible for myself to keep up with my friends. We’ll see if it works for me.
The title says it all . Hope you and yours are having a wonderful opening day of the Holiday Season.
You have to know who your intended audience is before writing a pedagogical book. I’ve been able to come up with some potential profiles of people who might buy this book.
- Neophyte – someone who is looking to make their own game but is new to almost everything related to game making and programming. I would like to think I’m not writing directly to this audience, but would refer them to other books on basic programming. They could still use this book, and modify the scripts to make their own game, but they wouldn’t get as much out of this book as more introductory tomes.
- Modder – someone who knows how to modify a game and can reasonably handle complex tool tasks and some script modifications. This is one of the two core audiences for this book. Rather than looking to use a commercial engine to write something, they want something of their own to tweak and modify at all levels. While this book doesn’t contain and engine per se, it does of course contain all the elements necessary for a game on the PC (and Mac too if everything goes right).
- Hobbyist Programmer – a student or professional programmer in a field other than games. Someone who likes to tinker with code in their spare time and is interested in how a game like ones they’ve enjoyed might be put together. These are the other members of the intended audience.
- Professional Game Developer – This book might be for a potential indie developer who is looking for a jump start in getting their game up and going. It provides tools and code necessary for the price of a book. This book isn’t strictly for them, but it can always help.
The interesting thing about the two intended categories is that they approach the game from a different expertise. The modder knows about making game assets and plugging them into an existing engine. The hobbyist programmer knows how to read code and modify it. Not that they are mutually exclusive though.
I think that pretty much specs out the potential audience I’m shooting for and will write the book at the appropriate level. What do you think? Do you fall into one of these categories? What other books have you read that you’ve thought were well done?
After thinking about the introduction to my book, I thought to answer the question succinctly would be “An RPG where the pacing is faster than traditional and lighter on character management.” Of course, the comparisons done in the earlier same titled post still apply, and will become part of the book itself. This is a single sentence description that I would use.
Truth be told, the book is coming along slowly. There have been many other distractions. I’m hoping to get a solid start on it during this upcoming holiday weekend.
