“I’m going to go out on a limb here, and assert that setting a realistic scope is one of the most difficult challenges an MMO producer will face.”

Lum understates his point. He shouldn’t.

Scope is a balancing act. When making an MMO that seeks to evolve the genre in some way (assuming you want to do that, of course), you need to figure out how much of the New & Sexy you really need. But more than that, you need to question your assumptions about The Must Haves to be sure you’re not wasting time building expensive features just because that silly Warcraft game added them four years in.

How do you do this? You have to be brutally honest with yourself about the core vision of your game. This core vision is not a 10,000 page document–I’ve seen much-vaunted 10,000 page design documents, and they’re utter jokes. You need a list of four or five bullet points that describe the foundation of what your game is, and you use those four or five things as razors to evaluate every feature you consider putting into your game.

If a feature can’t stand up to your razors, you change it or cut it. It doesn’t matter if the feature in question is your greatest stroke of genius ever, or the most perfect example of design or art or code or music anyone has ever experienced. If it doesn’t advance the core vision of your game, it needs to change or go away.

Check out the director’s commentary on deleted scenes of your favorite DVD and you’re likely to hear how a certain scene was the director’s absolute favorite thing he ever shot, but ultimately he realized that it worked against the film and had to go. It’s painful to murder your darlings, but discipline is necessary in any art form.

Scott is right about something else, too: Nobody is ever going to give a developer an award for thoughtful scoping. But if you have the force of will to trim your game down to the purest core of what it can be, and you have the resources to polish that core so that it is excellent and fun, you will succeed and become very rich in the process.

It’s also interesting how many live albums showed up on my list. I enjoy live albums when bands add something new to the performance over the studio versions, so you can assume that any live discs that made my list have that element in common.

Without further ado, please enjoy my favorites from the past year. Let me know what you think, and please suggest anything you think I might enjoy.

Like It

Adam Lambert – For Your Entertainment – This record is needlessly over-produced–Lambert’s vocals are way too strong to be so buried in the mix–but there is a core of a really strong album here. When it works, it works big, such as on the title track. But we want to hear Adam, not his producers. I look forward to follow-up efforts that feature his vocals rather than somebody behind the mixing board. Biggest surprise: Lambert often sounds more like Richard Marx than Freddie Mercury.

Muse – Resistance - This is a solid record from a great band. So why don’t I love it? Because I feel like this is about the fourth time I’ve heard this album. There has been little to no evolution across the band’s last several releases, and there is nothing here that stands out and makes me say “I haven’t heard them do that before.” Muse has a reliable formula at serious risk of going stale, so I hope they can inject a bit of freshness into their next effort.

Bad Lieutenant – Never Cry Another Tear – What was the last good New Order record you heard? Well, here’s one for you. Bernard Sumner’s new project sounds like a reinvigorated version of his last band, focusing on the beat-combo sound with just a hint of the electronic dance grooves that pioneered an entire genre. I generally hate it when bands are named after movies, but in this case the music wins out.

Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest - This extremely eclectic record is hard to categorize. With moments ranging from avant-jazz to pop to folk and many other influences in between, Grizzly Bear makes a unique concoction that stands out from the crowd. If you’re looking for something off the beaten path, check these guys out.

Crystal Method – Divided By Night – These hard-driving electronic dance numbers never fail to disappoint, though some feel more innovative than others. The band makes good use of guest appearances by Justin Warfield (She Wants Revenge) and Peter Hook (New Order), but some of the other guests don’t bring as much to the table. Still, a really good record to drive to.

Flight of the Conchords - I Told You I Was Freaky – It’s not quite as fresh or engaging as their first album, just as the second (and seemingly final) season of their TV show wasn’t as consistently strong as their first. But even so, there is plenty of brilliance to justify purchasing this record. My hope is that the band can focus on writing great songs rather than writing songs that have to fit the plot of a TV episode, and that future endeavors allow the duo’s musical brilliance to shine.

Mark Kozelek – Lost Verses Live – Played live in an intimate setting, these Sun Kil Moon and Red House Painters songs take on a new life over the studio versions. Seeing Kozelek live is one of those experiences you don’t forget, so every opportunity to capture it on record is worth the effort.

Rufus Wainwright – Milwaukee At Last – I love the way Rufus can effortlessly move from campy bombast to startling earnestness. While this live album doesn’t contain all of my Wainwright favorites, it’s still a worthy record showcasing one of our best modern troubadours.

The Bravery – Stir The Blood – Plenty of bands these days are cashing in on the sounds of New Wave and Power Pop, but few do it as consistently well as the Bravery. Even on first listen to this album, my toes were tapping. This might have made it to the Love It category if I had more time with it, but it came out fairly late in the year so I haven’t had enough listens to justify the higher ranking just yet.

Love It

Sting – If on a Winter’s Night… – Sting is protesting loudly that this is a winter album, not a Christmas album, and certainly it is more somber than traditional holiday fair. What makes it work is that Sting is savvy enough to inject just the right amount of pop flair and sing-along melodies to keep it grounded. But for the record, I wish he had gone into the studio with the Police instead.

Leonard Cohen - Live in London – Leonard Cohen has spent the last 40 years teaching a master class on how to write kick-ass songs, and he doesn’t look to be letting up in his golden years. With a typically amazing band backing him up, Cohen’s sardonic brilliance shines through. You’d swear he doesn’t sound a day over 74.

Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix – You’ve probably heard some of this band’s catchy-but-quirky power anthems on various TV commercials and found it impossible to resist humming along. This was definitely one of the best rock records of the year, though I hope for a more consistent brilliance on their follow-up.

David Sylvian – Manafon - Sylvian is my favorite solo artist, and I love the experimental direction his work has taken as of late. That said, this record is definitely not for everyone. The minimalist music is often discordant and challenging, often more of a noisescape than a melody. Still, there is something about the lyrics that recalls Secrets of the Beehive for me, and I find the new record to be immensely personal and introspective. Those willing to make the journey away from the mascara-laden days of Japan may find the experience of Manafon as rewarding as I do.

Placebo – Battle For The Sun – These glam rockers have been putting out solid records since they started, and their latest is no less a sonic feast. Their sexually ambiguous hedonism is a blueprint for the kind of albums Adam Lambert should be making, laden with biting irony and irresistible hooks. The band has never sounded sharper.

Lisa Germano – Magic Neighbor – Best known for her violin duties alongside more rock icons than you can name, Lisa Germano has made a career out of releasing haunting solo albums that showcase her diverse musical skills. From breathy vocals to echoing dance beats, Germano once again reminds us how compelling her understated style can be. Magic Neighbor is the soundtrack to a cabaret for lost souls, the audience serving as ghostly observers to an otherworldly dance.

Andrew Bird – Noble Beast – Bird has released a number of records across several labels, all of which are worth the trouble of tracking down (or, I guess, downloading). On his latest, Bird once again explores a number of styles and is as likely to remind you of early Talking Heads as he is to recall Radiohead. Something of a chameleon, the real Andrew Bird is in there for those willing to look–and you’ll be rewarded for doing so.

Lily Allen – It’s Not Me, It’s You – What’s not to love about Lily Allen? She’s got the cutest British accent you could ever imagine and croons lilting 60s-esque pop full of frank lyrics about sex and relationships. The music is instantly catchy, but it’s Allen’s frank ballsiness that sells the experience. A naughty delight.

Iron & Wine – Around the Wall – This two-disc collection of rarities from I&W is a fan’s wet dream. While comprised of many solid songs that measure up well to the band’s album tracks, the styles have enough range that I find this set lacking cohesion. On paper, the notion of Iron & Wine covering New Order’s classic “Love Vigilantes” seems brilliant, yet I found the effort a bit forced. Still, these are minor quibbles and anyone who enjoys this excellent band shouldn’t think twice about picking up this collection. Perhaps I find Around the Wall to be overshadowed by the brilliant…

Gotta Have It

Iron & Wine – Norfolk 06-20-05 – This live set, quietly released in an unassuming sleeve on Record Store Day (if you don’t know about Record Store Day, shame on you!), showcases the band at its most engaging. While the recording itself is not technically the best quality, the warmth of the performance shines through like a beacon. The eighteen songs crammed onto this CD distill the charm of Sam Beam’s work down to a single memorable experience that is not to be missed.

Bat for Lashes – Two Suns – Cute girl singing catchy songs about knights and sword fights? Awesome! I can’t tell you what’s going on in the mind of songwriter Natasha Khan, but I love the unexpected twists and turns of this record. Part Kate Bush, part Cure, all amazing. A deluxe edition was released later in the year, featuring a second disc of live and bonus tracks. Highly recommended, especially for the standout track “Daniel.”

St. Vincent – Actor - Even more of an artsy experiment than the Bat for Lashes album, this disc by the luminescent St. Vincent (singer/songwriter Annie Clark) is evocative and, at the risk of repeating myself, unexpected. But while the Bat for Lashes record stays largely in the realm of the pop song format, Actor constantly keeps you guessing as to what turn will be thrown at you next. This is a close runner-up for my album of the year.

Joe Henry – Blood from Stars – If we’re fortunate, Heaven will turn out to be a shadowy club where the house band plays a steady, thumping groove that encompasses the best of jazz, blues, folk, and pop craftsmanship without falling into any one style. This band will be led by the creaky wail of Joe Henry’s plaintive vocals, making even the loneliest of souls feel a bond of kinship. Blood from Stars is another brilliant addition to Henry’s esteemed catalogue, a gem from one of the greatest songwriters of our time. My album of the year.

In Memoriam

On Christmas Day the great Vic Chesnutt passed away in an Athens hospital. Left partially paralyzed by a car accident at age 18, Vic found he could still strum a guitar and released over a dozen albums, two of which were produced by R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe. A fixture on the Athens scene, Chesnutt’s heartfelt songs spoke of hope in an era of pessimism. He will be greatly missed.

I learned of this scam because Curt called me in the morning and asked “Are you at the hotel now?” To which I replied, “Huh?” And after a good laugh and a chat with our IT gurus (shout outs to Brandon, Jeff, and Dave), we discovered the source of the problem and I had the account frozen.

So, if you got an email from me yesterday asking for money, you can ignore it. If I ever do find myself in such a predicament, you can rest assured that the plea for help will have much better grammar than the fake did. Even in the most dire of need, one should make time for proper spelling and punctuation.

I must say it was heartwarming to see how many people contacted me to make sure I was okay. I even got calls from some fansite folks I got to know in the EQ2 days, which was really cool. Some days I think I will end up despised and alone like old Mr. Scrooge, but it’s nice to know that I haven’t reached that point yet.

Hope you all had a great Christmas and avoided getting mugged overseas!

When World of Warcraft sprang wholecloth from the minds of Blizzard back in 2004, there simply had been nothing like the game at any point in history. Anyone daring to trod down this same path is doomed to failure!

Okay, I get the point that some companies are indeed specifically trying to make knock-offs of WoW, and agree that such a strategy in and of itself is flawed. However, to imply that WoW represents originality is ludicrous. The game launched as an evolution on an existing title–the main innovation being a dedication to polished and fun gameplay. It has certainly moved in its own direction over the ensuing five years, but let’s not forget that it started as an upgrade to the EverQuest experience.

Despite what some naysayers claim, the achievement-based Diku MMO is a popular style of game with many directions it can grow. While games that don’t venture far from the established core are likely doomed to mediocrity, those that innovate key aspects of the experience have huge potential for success. As ever, it comes down to execution.

Soon I’ll be posting my year-end music roundup, and may even have a thing or two to say about game design sometime. Have a happy holiday, everyone.

A few of my favorite bits were the Saturday afternoon keynote by Chris Foster of Harmonix, a post mortem on cinematics work by Coray Seifert of Kaos Studios, and a talk on the motivations behind acquiring virtual goods by Bernard Yee of CaféMom.com.

Needless to say, the best talk was the panel I was on, moderated by Alexander Macris of  Themis Group and featuring Damon Alberts of  Burst Online Entertainment and Lee Hammock of Fallen Earth. In all seriousness, our varied backgrounds made for a very diverse panel. The similarities in our answers were as interesting as the different perspectives each of us brought to the table. Alexander did a great job moderating and taking input from the audience. The crowd was really engaged and asking some great questions.

I enjoy shows that include a mix of industry and fans, and this summit had a nice balance. I got to meet some cool industry types but also got to hang out with some students and others who’d like to get into the industry. Hopefully I had some worthwhile advice for a few of them.

I was also surprised by how much activity there was on the expo floor. There were some honest-to-goodness game show booths there for titles like Dante’s Inferno, as well as online celebrities such as several members of the Guild. There were a lot of people who came just to hang out and play games, which is always neat to see.

The facility and surrounding area were a bit on the dismal side (no places that sold a real cheesesteak close by), so hopefully if the show is a success they can move to a better spot next year. But even as if it stays in the same location, I recommend the event highly. With PAX East debuting next year, the east coast is gaining ground as a major center of gaming.

What will I be talking about? How to build a WoW killer, of course!

Okay, not really. Here is the panel description:

The MMO is here to stay! Having said that, there is an industry push to introduce new paradigms that take the genre beyond the status quo. In what ways can we create MMOs that innovate within the genre, create new player experiences, and develop deeper, more impacting stories, narrations, and character development? This panel brings together developers working on three new MMOs that are pushing boundaries and innovating beyond established concepts. The panelists will discuss the strengths of the MMO format and then break into how they view the MMO developing, through player experiences, new “success” metrics, hybridization of genres, targeted gameplay approaches and developments in story and character.

Dang. Hopefully they invited me along to lighten things up with my razor-sharp wit.

Anyway, it should be a fun time and I look forward to meeting my fellow panelists. I won’t know many folks there, so if you happen to be attending please flag me down and say hello. I’m usually in a much better mood than I appear, so don’t be afraid!

Certainly there is room for entirely new styles of massively multiplayer online games to be developed. We need this kind of development to happen. But the fact is that the Diku MMO is here to stay, if for no other reason that it’s a popular style of game that millions of people around the world have proven willing to pay money for. So look, just stop whining that the genre is exhausted and out of ideas, because it doesn’t matter–even if there are jaded gamers who have had enough of the format and should just move on already, there are millions of new players waiting to take their places.

Rather than abandoning hope for the Diku MMO–which is about as likely to disappear from the gaming landscape as the FPS–we should look for ways to address its shortcomings.

The problem isn’t that there are a lot of quests in these games; it’s that the quests are often boring, non-heroic, and the only legitimate path of advancement. Worse still, quests in some current titles actually penalize socialization because updates don’t apply to the whole group. And nobody enjoys ganking a named creature in the wild only to reach a quest hub and receive a mission to kill that very same beastie.

These are solvable problems. Let’s not do away with the game content Achievers love; let’s stop penalizing Explorers and Socializers instead. By being thoughtful about our methods of delivering achievement, we should actually feed exploration and socialization. Reward people for encountering mysteries in the wild. Create settings that foster a variety of adventuring outside the linear quest line.

Another topic that comes up a lot is how current MMOs have removed all sense of danger and risk. Again, this is a problem we can solve without going in a completely ridiculous and reckless direction. Simply walking outside the borders of your home town needn’t mean that everything your character has ever earned is on the line (don’t worry–those of you who enjoy that sort of thing will always have niche PvP games to play for however many months of lifespan those titles have). Punitive death penalties may please the hardcore, but they are one of the primary reasons players leave a game.

Instead, find other stakes with real consequences that players can fight for. Make them overcome huge obstacles with a real chance of loss–but loss that makes them feel like they really tried and want to do better next time, not a loss that makes them feel stupid or unskilled.

Look, a lot of this comes down to content, and making content is expensive–believe me, I know. But MMO makers are just going to have to bite the bullet on this one. If you read between the lines and pay attention to what the developers of tomorrow’s MMOs are telling you, several companies are working on addressing these challenges in their own ways (such as BioWare, Trion, and, yes, 38 Studios). There is no universal solution, but developers are trying new things.

While some teams will focus on taking the MMO into bold new directions, others will try to build upon what has proven to work and make it even better. This genre has room for both revolution and evolution, and in fact needs both paths to thrive. Pushing boundaries is healthy, but throwing out the baby with the bathwater would ultimately undermine the considerable progress MMOs have made since the late 1990s.

I think both arguments are missing a key element, though.

Especially for those of us who have been playing MMOs for ten years now, we tend to think of the audience as being fairly static. As with most forms of entertainment, it isn’t.

If the success of the second Star Wars movie trilogy had been predicated on the response to those of us who grew up with the original three films, the newer movies would have been failures or modest successes (after all, many original fans were disappointed in them). On the contrary, the films were huge hits. Why? Because there was a whole new audience that embraced them–yes, even Jar Jar.

My friend and colleague Bob Salvatore has written a lot of books about dark elves. If his sales were confined to the same people buying every single one of them, he wouldn’t keep ending up on the New York Times best-seller list. He does. Why? Because new generations of readers are buying his books. While he also retains many readers, his audience is constantly renewed.

Blizzard’s next MMO project will be a huge success. Why? Because (unless something completely uncharacteristic happens) they will release a very polished game that is a lot of fun to play. Will the 11 million players of WoW buy it? It won’t matter–there will be a whole new generation of MMO players who will. Whether it’s future gamers who are kids now but won’t be in a few years, or those who feel WoW is too old and entrenched to be appealing, or those who just don’t care for the Warcraft franchise– there are a ton of people who will be ready to try something fresh and new.

This is the same reason why the fantasy Diku MMO still works. Jaded gamers on message boards may tire of them, but the genre’s proven appeal will continue to resonate with new gamers coming into the space.

It’s fashionable to complain about Hollywood or the games industry revisiting the same ideas time and again. But the truth is, there are new audience members entering the marketplace of ideas all the time, and what is well-tread ground to you is an open road to them.

Our AGDC presentation is at 1:30pm Tuesday. Owlchick and I spent the afternoon polishing the slides (yeah yeah, we were supposed to have the final version done a couple weeks ago) so I think it will go well.

I’m looking forward to lunch with Hartsman and hope to see other old friends from SOE. Should be a good time.

If the presentation tanks, at least there will be BBQ. Oh yes, there will be BBQ.