Following Raph on twitter means I already knew this was coming, but I had no reason to say anything about it until I saw this:
Combat in SWG never really clicked, IMHO. Today's little excerpt from my new book POSTMORTEMS is from a section where I talk about reasons why. The book covers 30 yrs of online worlds, with tons of design info on SWG, #UltimaOnline, and lots more. https://t.co/xa92c86Fqn pic.twitter.com/oqS4FnXOLx
— Raph Koster (@raphkoster) June 4, 2018
This is my corner of the internet and I can say what I want without consequences, negative or positive.
Look at that.
Science fiction adds a particular challenge to combat design. I spent quite a while reading up on military tactics
For Star Wars Galaxies? That great game with exceptional ranged combat design?
You mean the one where you deliberately didn’t model terrain collision so that you could shoot and being shot through entire hills?
Oh yes, you definitely have to be a military expert to know that ground cover and terrain in general should matter in ranged combat…
Raph continues to be one of the most brilliant minds and at the same time completely inept at “getting” game design. I’m sure this book is just a further proof of that. And one of the things he does the worst is figuring out what he did wrong, “postmortem.”
That excerpt cannot make it more obvious.