The Mechanical Bull

There's a lot of guys that say things like "I know what it takes to make a MMO."

And I can't really argue with that 'cause shit man my gramma knows what it takes to make a MMO.

I think the whole trick is that its just really hard to know what it takes to make a good MMO heh.

This isn't a "but how can there not be any Aliens?" kinda game man I need to see me some evidence before you start using that as an argument.

And then there's the way that what you are probably really (really? probably? really? actually? ahaha) saying is something like "I know what it takes to make a game like EQ or WoW," which is kinda funny and sad all by itself heh.

'Cause I have serious doubts that you actually know how to do that.

Dude, turns out the Brad Himself didn't even know how to do that I mean c'mon seriously ahaha.

And you definitely can't do it all by yourself, it don't matter what the hell you think you know how to do, y'know, its not all game design or project management or whatever the shit, there's all sorts of different geniuses involved, and they're all super important, 'cause if even one little thing is f'd up, it totally messes everything else up, no matter how awesome all the other stuff was.

You need to attract the good players too, you know that right?

Well to make something really great, y'know?

Old EQ and UO and Asheron's Call owe no small part of their Total Awesomeness to all the cool people that actually used to play those games, the players that taught us all how to play better and made the game fun for everybody else (whether you were a roleplayer or an "avatar guy" or a PK or all three or whatever heh).

That's actually what Lum and Dundee are, y'know, they were famous players that actually helped people out and stuff.

There was a bunch of 'em in EQ too but I only know about the ones from the good ole smelly Bert server and we weren't all into being famous (and we were way the hell too lazy to go outside the game and make websites and stuff) so that wouldn't be as meaningful to everybody heh.

And there was a ton of 'em in Asheron's Call too man, I still call all templates type systems OG Templates in honor a dude that was actually called OG in Asheron's Call (plus its got the multiple meaning thing going on that's all good every which way ahaha).

The funniest thing to me is that its the guys that really did do something awesome that don't seem all that sure of what the hell it was exactly that they did that was so awesome.

Well, I guess that ain't so funny, 'cause I think that's probably how you get to be a genius, y'know.

Of course, thinking you know what you are doing and wasting millions of dollars to learn one lesson after another would prolly get you there too eventually but holy shit man that's an expensive (and slow) way to do it when you coulda just talked to folks and made friends and had fun along the way while y'all learned shit from each other.

Y'know like this thing does it.

Dude, that is the way to do it.

And this thing too man.

Not that I'm totally against feigning ignorance and trying to bluster and badger and bludgeon people into learning me something, just ask Raph ahaha.

But the folks that I do it to are either all wise and peaceful and sad that I'm such a dumb animal and they take pity on me or they know its okay to roughhouse and that I'm always gonna help 'em bury the hookers in the end so it all works out and it doesn't really matter either way ahaha.

Anyways everybody always thinks they know what would be really great, y'know?

Like, in my case, its all comes down to the helicopters.

You ever play Longbow 2 on the network?

Where your buddy was your gunman and you were the pilot sitting behind him, and your other two pals were in the other helicopter (that game only supported four players and two helicopters) that was always smashing into farms and killing cows with its hellfire tank killer missiles and making us laugh?

Holy shit that was some fun, man, watching your gunman's helmet move wherever he looked with the mouse, having him throw up tactical stuff on your HUD so you could swing the guns around to where he wanted to be and he's all screaming and yelling the whole time and you got the sound of the helicopter blades in your ears ahaha.

Do you know how to make a game like that?

'Cause like, I think that's the only time I ever saw a game like that, it was one of the goddam awesomest things ever, but it was only fun for like, a couple of hours, y'know?

But I don't mean to rain on anybody's parade and kill their enthusiasm or anything, I just wanna get to the good stuff quicker, and I just don't think that all this energy devoted to thick-headed know-it-all chest-puffing and crap is helping heh.

You guys gotta work together man.

Which is not to say that I don't like Abalieno, but he's so awesome at his Ahab-like tenacious evil supergenius thing that you just gotta put up with it and make some room for him, 'cause if there was ever anything that was obvious its pretty damn obvious that he really loves that shit and he'll just keep digging and digging (and digging and digging and digging) until he finds gold no matter where he digs and who he's gotta kill along the way, he's got the power to do things, and he ain't got any reason to be afraid to show you, 'cause he ain't bluffing at all man ahaha.

So he's got a special exemption and that's the only one of those that I'm gonna give out 'cause I don't think I can handle more than one of those heh.

Well, besides the one I gave to Fraxas for pretty much the exact same thing, but I think that both of us know that I deserve all the shit that Fraxas does to me.

Although Fraxas isn't really a game-centric kinda guy, he's more macrocosmic in scope.

Anyways I dunno how I ended up talking about players 'cause I meant to yell at the dev guys that go around thumping their chests.

Dev guys that didn't have nothing to do with anything I ever heard of, not as dev guys or as players.

Y'know, 'cause when a guy shows up out of the blue and they're all like, "I know what it takes to do this right *karate chop* hoo-hah!" the first thing that goes through my head is a list of all my favorite games that they didn't have nothing to do with.

"Did you work on Tomb Raider?"

"No."

"Dungeon Keeper 2?"

"No."

"Fallout?"

"No."

"Descent?"

"No."

"Syndicate?"

"No."

"Okay I'm gonna start to get tired of this game we're playing soon, so I'm going to have to conclude that you obviously don't know a goddam thing about making games that are fun to play heh."