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The Deepest, Weirdest, Hugest Megadungeons Ever Created. How To Write a Game Story (INFOGRAPHIC) Writing game stories can be tough work, obviously. Why else would so many stories repeat the exact same tropes, like gaining magical powers and fighting off orcs with the help of dwarves and/or elves? Because coming up with reasons to justify shooting, stabbing and magicking things is hard, that’s why. Fortunately, we’ve gone and done game developers a favor, removing all guesswork from writing game stories.

Just follow our handy chart to go step-by-step through fashioning a fully functional video game story, providing plenty of reasons to shoot things and blow up other things — just like in every other game! Click the image for the full-size version. Using science to reform toxic player behavior in League of Legends. Riot Games founders and League of Legends creators Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill have encountered bad behavior in massively multiplayer online games since the days of Ultima Online and EverQuest. In all that time, the typical moderator response to the all-too-common racial epithets, homophobic remarks, and bullying that borders on psychological abuse in MMOs has been to simply ban the players and move on.

League of Legends definitely could have afforded to go the same route, bleeding off a few bad apples from its 12 million daily players and 32 million active monthly players (as of late 2012) without really affecting the bottom line. But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn’t an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. Molyneux On Curiosity, GODUS, And Forgotten Promises. Most cubes contain air, sugar, or tiny men named Rubik. Not Peter Molyneux’s, though. Instead, Molyneux himself emerged from the cuboid cocoon with promises of virtual immortality.

Bryan Henderson from Edinburgh, Scotland will soon be godding at an eons-old level even though he’s just 18. For some, though, that prize rang hollow. “All that tapping,” many cried, “for the sole purpose of advertising 22Cans’ next game?” RPS: So Curiosity ended, and it contained virtual godhood. Molyneux: Yeah. The center of the cube came way before the cube. That led me to the thought that, well, all sorts of god systems, all religious systems, have a god of gods. That led to the idea about, wouldn’t this be an amazing thing for someone to get? Fortunately, I’m in a position now that the center of the cube is not only the ability to influence and change aspects of the game – I’ll talk about how that works in a second – but also it is to receive a share of every penny that 22Cans gets from Curiosity. Top Ten Tips for Game Designers. FTL: Faster Than Light.

► The Mailbox - May 7th, 2012.