I started to think about politics this morning, and in particular Student Council. The reason I started to think of it was largely George Bush. Sure we all know the jokes about him, we all know that he is a horrible president, and may even become known as one of the worst presidents in US, history. But the fact remains that he got elected twice. So how exactly did he get elected twice when he is so horrible that no one in their right minds would have actually voted for him once?
I just got back from watching Get Smart, the latest movie based on a former television show. Going into the movie, I was quite excited for it because I love Steve Carell and I also loved the old television program as well. Yet I didn’t really know how this one would turn out. The commercials seemed like it would work well, but I also feared that the commercials, like usual, showed all the funny parts. I’d also say that the track record for shows turned into movies has not been good. I can think of very few TV Shows that worked well as movies in the last ten years.
Last week I got the free trial download while I waited for my real copy to come in the mail so I’ve gotten some decent chance to really play with the software. To flesh this out, today I got my real copy of the game which allowed me to take a look at those parts that the trial didn’t come with, which was most of the parts. With that I thought I’d discuss what I thought of the game so far.
I decided to give Travians a go today, the new game made by the guys who did Trvian. For those that don’t know, Travian is a web-based strategy game. It is essentially an MMO version of Civ. You build your villages, build armies, get resources, and then start fighting other players in hopes of being able to make a world wonder in the end and win the game. With this game, I think the devs were hoping to use their popularity of the other game and give RPG players a little something to do.
Mario has always been a trendsetter, it is only recently that his role in video games has largely diminished. However, Donky Kong, Super Mario, Mario 3, Mario World, and Mario 64 all created buzzes in the industry. Even Mario Galaxy is hugely innovative, though the platformer may be so dead by now that we may not see the clones like we once might have seen.
In the spirit of my recent design thoughts, I’ve started to think of what features I would put into an MMO if I were the designer. This list is far from complete, however, I thought I’d give it a go:
Thinking back on Ultima Online this last Monday (as small a thought as that was in that particular article), made me want to reminisce with the game. Many call it the first MMO, but really it wasn’t, there were many before it. Certainly it went much bigger than others before it, being the first to go to 10,000 players per server, and still remains one of only two or three to have that distinguishing accomplishment. If you consider this game to be the start of the MMO genre, it may very well be one of the only games there, sorry WoW & EQ with your 3k servers, you don’t come close.
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