Pirates Development Diary

There's an interesting link on the Sid Meier's Pirates website to a development diary by the Co-lead artist on the project. You can read it here.

Not only is it a good indication of the overall look and feel of the game, it's also a look into what's involved in making a game from an art standpoint.

Here's an interesting quote:
"Sid's world isn't gritty, realistic, mosquito-infested, or scurvy-afflicted. Teeth are generally clean and intact, blood is rarely seen, and no one dies. In Sid's Caribbean, it's always sunny and high noon. The women (even the "plain" governor's daughters) are beautiful and the heroes are, well, heroic."

I'll probably play it anyway, although not being able to give the governor's daughter syphilis is a huge blow to my enthusiasm.

If they should bar wars, please let these Star Wars stay

I cancelled my Star Wars Galaxies account. The decision came quickly when my friends decided to cancel their accounts. The lesson is that no matter how much I like your game, if I can't play with my friends, I'm not going to play.

What it boiled down to is that there was no feeling of accomplishing things in a group in Star Wars Galaxies. We would all log in decide what we were going to do. One night we did the rebel missions on Yavin. Everyone else had already started them so I spent an hour doing delivery missions. Delivery Missions. Over and over. Go to way point, talk to dood, go back to rebel base. The monotony was broken by my friends who would occasionally message everyone and request help on a mission. We helped. Then, an hour later, we were doing the same missions. There was no feeling that we were doing things together - we were just getting though the missions, asking for help when we needed it.

When I hit that cancel account button, it got me thinking. The best times I ever had in a MMORPG was Ultima Online. Maybe it's because it was new and everything was exciting, but I don't think so. There were NO missions in Ultima Online. You just logged in and did stuff until you were done doing stuff, then you logged out. We would all log in, meet at the house, then go crawl around in dungeons together. The total unstructured environment was very conducive to group play.

I just hope upcoming games provide both sides of the coin. Structure and missions are great for games, no two ways about it. It provides you with a concrete means to develop your character and adds plot to the game. On the other hand, group play is probably more important. I want to do things with my friends and feel like I'm really doing things, not just running through some mission factory over and over again.