[MUD-Dev] Phantasy Star online article

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu 
> [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> the_logos at www.achaea.com
> Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2001 10:20 PM
> To: MUD-DEV (E-mail)
> Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Phantasy Star online article
> 
> 
> On Thu, 22 Feb 2001, Koster, Raph wrote:
> 
> > http://gamespy.com/articles/february01/pso/
> 
> You've got to hand it to the Japanese. When it comes to innovation,
> they deliver like no Western company even hopes to. Up with
> Dreamcast, the greatest console ever! (It's recently overtaken the
> SNES in my personal list of the most fun I've had on a console).

Must say, the software library on the DC is stunningly good. Even the
freebie puzzle game on the web browser CD is good.

I think a lot of the innovation in the Japanese marketplace comes from
the sheer volume of titles, though, and the size of the market. More
room for experiments.

> I was chatting with Christopher Allen the other day and generally
> putting down PSO, and I must say that this articles doe partially
> change my mind.

I was surprised by the tenor of the article, frankly, because it
praises to the skies a clump of fairly banal things.

  1) online/offline. The author suggests that we need to take that up
  on the PC. It only works on the console because it's a lot harder to
  hack a console. :P

  2) macro text that is localized. Well, sure. Not exactly rocket
  science, and given the gestures some games have made towards having
  full machine translation, seems sort of obvious.

  3) good graphics, sure. And they are really great.

  4) A whole nine possible roles to play, all combat-based.

  5) no PKing, largely because there's hardly any interaction between
  players at all

  6) no fee, because there's no persistence to speak of (it doesn't
  qualify as a mud under my definition, which requires persistence of
  the space even if the space is static) and no customer service to
  speak of

  7) "better gameplay" than the PC counterparts--far shallower, to be
  sure, but well-executed.

> The combination of on-line and off-line is fantastic, and if they
> can provide decent service without a monthly charge, well, power to
> them. Can anyone comment on what, say, Verant's management thinks of
> this?

Well, I know several of them are addicted to it. :)

> On the other hand, it also sounds like it's about as sophisticated
> as a caveman with a lobotomy in terms of its gameplay and social
> structure.

In a nutshell, PSO sounds to me like a really really well done version
of Diablo with a 3d chase cam. Which is great,a nd I wish them all the
success in the world. But as a template for the future of massively
multiplayer games or muds--eep, no.

-Raph
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