Working towards a M.S. in Computer Science at the University of Missouri, I'm and independent developer who works primarily on the PC/Mac. I've done work with DS homebrew and iPhone development as well. I've been a hobbyist game developer/designer for the past seven years, starting with scripting various useless things for a 2D adventure MMO. My blog here will be a mirror to my development blog which can be found at http://dev.chadgodsey.com
this You nailed it. Violence in games is fun because it isn't real. As the violence becomes more real, it becomes more of a tedium until it finally just stops being fun and becomes disconcerting. Thank you for the awesome write up.
Yet people like myself play consistently and enjoy it for the same reasons we enjoyed it three years ago. Sure there are new items, sure there are plenty of new options in gameplay, but most of them are minor side grades to the regular weapons. The others contribute interesting new ...
the players' game skills were attributable to practice hell, I could have told you that after playing for five minutes Though I do find the math races useful for staying in practice with simple arithmetic.
