This post is about something that’s an unavoidable evil for most Dalayans: Money. It’s especially tough for halflings, because what little money they make, they invest in pork ribs and chocolate cake, and they invest those in their tummies. It’s a delicious business, but the returns aren’t so great. That’s why Ayba and I were [...]
Archive for the ‘Game Design’ Category
A shortcut to more platinum
Posted in Ayba, Ayba's Characters, Game Design, Oric, Ramón's Characters on October 26, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Oric is happy about (new) weapons
Posted in Game Design, Oric, Ramón's Characters on October 13, 2009 | 4 Comments »
You know halflings: peace-loving, tree-hugging individuals with manly fur on their feet and a tendency for overeating. Not so Oric; he’s happy, nay, elated when he gets to chop up animals and decapitate people. So far he’s been using two Mastercrafted Broad Swords for that, which he’d bought from one of those long women dressed [...]
The curse and blessing of group-heavy game design
Posted in Game Design on October 6, 2009 | 7 Comments »
I think that most of you expect to read proper diary entries here, about the fun places to go and fun things to do in Shards of Dalaya, but please forgive me if I feel the urge to post a blurb about (MMO) game design from time to time. Recently, we toured Kaladim, King’s Pass [...]
Place of the hover-dwarves
Posted in Ayba, Ayba's Characters, Game Design, Oric, Ramón's Characters, Uncategorized on September 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Since a long time Oric wanted to pay a visit to a place he remembered from a life before. For that reason every now and then he asked me, when we would finally travel to mighty Kaladim. Those of you who don’t have a halfling husband telling you the story will find only little information [...]
Saving spell sets – saving time later on
Posted in Ayba, Ayba's Characters, Game Design on July 19, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Oric told me in the beginning already but I only start to appreciate this feature now, because we are getting further around into all kinds of situations and places. So I’m slowly starting to create my own booklet of spell sets, which means memorising a useful combination of spells for different situations and storing them [...]
SoD Innovation No. 3: Adepts
Posted in Game Design, Game Mechanics on June 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Adepts are special. Very special. They are mobs that massively undercon and that have abilities you only know from old-world dragons in EverQuest. They can summon, they can AoE, they might be immune (or nearly) to certain types of damage. But the other special feature is that they’re available all throughout the level range! So [...]
Still alive, but groupless
Posted in Game Design, Game Mechanics, Oric on May 31, 2009 | 4 Comments »
We’re still alive, but in the last 15 – 20 days or so we never managed to find a group again. Adelah once grouped with somebody, but only for twenty minutes. I’m finding it hard to reserve the 1 – 2 hours of time it takes in one stretch to accomplish something. I can see [...]
How dual-boxing came to be?
Posted in Game Design on May 15, 2009 | 3 Comments »
It’s very slow for us game-wise right now since we are moving to a new apartment and enjoying some time in nature, away from laptops and unhealthy gaming habits. So here is a thought I wanted to write about earlier. I’m still somewhat amazed by the number of people dual-boxing in Shards of Dalaya. But [...]
SoD Innovation No. 2: Mansion of Portals
Posted in Game Design on April 24, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Travel in SoD takes quite a while, if you’re not turbocharged by a bard, sniffing wolf juice or wearing some nice travelling gear. EverQuest had the same problem, and last I hear, they solved it by giving players some clickable travel items? Anyhow. Shards of Dalaya has a different approach. A scary approach. Can be [...]
Really good writing in SoD
Posted in Game Design, Oric, Ramón's Characters on April 20, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Where EverQuest’s story doesn’t seem to offer much background for the Vah Shir beyond “we be moon cats”, SoD’s writing in the vah newbie area is really, really good. Each named vah (mostly merchants and guild leaders) has their own character traits, but they all share some catman-like habits. Despite that, the writing never gets [...]
