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My lecture proposal for the ION Game Conference (formerly OGDC) just got approved. My design-track session is titled, “Retention Mechanisms in MMORPGs.” Here’s the summary:

“A discussion of over a dozen different systems common to many MMORPGs and how they improve long-term player retention. This covers design elements that are both old and new, with discussion of how they relate to the presenter’s experiences in game design. The areas discussed include task expansion, game balance, rewarding all activities, group gameplay, sustainable content, identifying with your character and more.

Throughout the presentation , there will be examples of what worked and what problems rose to the surface during the development of an independent Multi-User Dungeon. The completed product proved to be exceptionally strong at longer-term player retention.”

 I’ll also be talking about Pirates and how it took a different approach.

We banned our first gold farmers last night.

Ten Ton Hammer posted an interview with me about Ship Combat on Jan 3. I’ve been so busy that it took me over a week to notice. I did another interview with the same guy awhile back at MMORPG.com.

We opened the servers for pre-order customers on Monday. There were a few fires, but things ran pretty smoothly overall. The real release date is coming up on Jan 22. Joe wrote a more detailed piece on the subject before the transition occurred.

Pirates of the Burning Sea pre-order boxes were supposed to be on shelves October 23. Only problem is, that didn’t happen - and we didn’t find out until October 25. God and Heroes did something that I’ve never heard of before - they got pre-order boxes on the shelves and then they canceled the game. Now, all of the problems that caused have to be cleared up before Pirates can be on the shelves, which means November 13.

Is online and you can find it here.

I posted part one of a two part devlog on tuning in Pirates of the Burning Sea today.

–Taelorn