There are a couple of factors of fundamental gameplay elements that can really make or break a game, like NPC pathing, the camera, or the controls. Of these key components, one of the first things a player will notice is the graphical interface. And, seeing as it’s the primary way the player receives information regarding their character’s status, the quality of an interface can elevate a game from mediocrity to greatness or it can easily break an otherwise positive experience.

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Let’s put on our judgmental hat for a moment and complain about some MMOs. World of Warcraft? With the identical “bring me X of Y” quests and the nearly penalty-free deaths, WoW is grinding for pansies. EVE? No one has that much energy to dedicate to mothering one small frigate before anything can actually happen. Guild Wars? With the level cap at 20, it’s barely even a real MMO.

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Eskil Steenberg, programmer and artist, has a fantastic mission: the single-handed creation of an entire “first person not so massively multiplayer online procedural adventure game” with a “fully editable” environment, titled Love, or For the Love of Game Development.”

I wonder if he has any idea how many people are going to write off the whole thing because it “sounds gay,” as my manlier friends are already telling me.  Couldn’t he have misspelled the word in Elven or used its Latin counterpart or something?

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I’m a convert. I’ve seen the light, changed my religion. It started so simply — a bit of curiosity, a rumor of a new PvP system and a burning desire to see it for myself… And then it happened: I left WoW for EVE.

I was hooked. What started out as mere curiosity soon turned into a full out membership, a new obsession, and even the cancellation of my World of WarCraft account.

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