It is great sadnessitude that I must report my own incapacity to write my customarily long column this week. While I do not suffer the iniquities of bad food that Glorious Leader has so recently overcome, mostly because I prepare my food properly, with fire and smoke, as Glorithax the Blood-hungry demands, I am as of yet still “under the weather” due to a bit of fatigue and having to work on a rather difficult, in terms of subject matter, appeal at work this week.
So it is with uncharacteristic brevity that I shall discuss this week’s topic, which is a rather excellent article I read on the Innartubes this week.
Just in case others wanted to throw up too.
Yes, that was correctly parsed. Lane liked something besides World of Warcraft and the tears of weeabii!
This article is rather lengthy, which is part of the reason for my own lack of verbiage. In fact, it rivals anything that I could ever hope to write, but it is exceedingly intelligent. It deals with what can go right and wrong with a sequel, and offers developers practical, intelligent advice.
I will, however, offer one small emendation to an otherwise flawless list, which is that developers should not keep something in a game simply because it was popular. The ATB system of early Final Fantasies comes to mind. Yes, it was a damn sight better than the original system, but can we really say that it still works in a day and age where even menu-based, command-style combat can be done in real time? A popular feature for its time should not be maintained simply because it was once popular, but should be incrementally improved on with each iteration, keeping the best of the familiar while introducing the new.
Posted by Lane 
