This is a short list of links to my main blog, covering various MMO mechanics that I've written about. The topics range from Player Offered Quests, to the overall pacing of combat, or implementing a more interesting approach to tradeskills. I try to never just dismiss anything out of hand without offering up what I feel would be a good replacement, and feel that this is a useful skill that I have. Many people will cry and complain that something isn't fun or is too hard, etc, but few will sit down and think about how to retackle the situation to make it more appraochable or fun.
The reader comments further refine some ideas, but for the most part this is all just my take on a few key aspects. Many of these articles are taken with a WoW slant on things, but the basic concepts can apply to any game.
Questing in General and Player Offered Quests - I explore the concept of player generated quests as a compliment to the Auction House, while being fully aware of people's desire to exploit such a system for easy XP/gold.
Group/World Quests - Making Quests more Quest-y, and less Chore-y
Mages and Platemail - An exploration of the 'standardized system' where clothies can't wear plate. To me, it seems silly that my head would magically reject a certain armor class, so I go into other reasons why, while you technically COULD wear plate, you wouldn't WANT to. It's a much more elegant solution than a big bold red NO.
Combat - I can live with the fact that each mob can't have it's own distinct personality due to scripting constraints, but I can't understand why every single mob in Scarlet Monastery turns and runs at 17% HP. It's predictable, and boring. I propose a system where each fight lasts longer than 4 seconds, and mobs have a pool of moves to pull from, rather than 2 hard coded moves only.
Expansion Tuning - This seems like a basic concept to me, and I'm not sure why nobody has figured it out yet. When the first expansion for WoW was released, the entire 'old game' was rendered obsolete in a day. You still need to level alts through the old content, but you skip straight to outlands before you even reach the old vanilla WoW level cap (at 58). Expansions should realize this ahead of time, and stagger the content accordingly to bridge the gap between the old and the new, not cut the old off short.
Fixing Fishing - If you've ever fished in WoW, this needs no explanation.
