Most of what I’m doing is centered on code and structure so there isn’t much to show really. That being the case, I’ll leave you with some concept artwork and see what strange implications people walk away with.
Posts published during June, 2009
I mentioned recently on a post by Syncaine that I felt the people who create Wow-a-likes and the people who could resolve the issues of wasted content in the lower level areas were simply not the same people. I think it’s important for me to get to the root of that distinction. Hopefully, by the end, the flaw I’m pointing out will seem obvious enough to stand out as a good measure for future MMOs and VWs.
I’ve been in the center of the debate between worldly worlds, and game worlds, between virtual worlds and MMOs many times over and what I’m consistently impressed with is that we’re having slightly the wrong discussion. What it comes down to most specifically is that of a competition between two fundamental business concepts, that of the creation of a product, and the running of a service. What dominates the AAA North American MMO space right now is the sort of unholy union, so to speak, that publishers have reached between their concept of a product driven business and that of actually having to run a service. Since they are primarily product it isn’t entirely surprising that, by and large, the service end is treated as the red headed step child.
This creates a secondary battle between placeness and gameness. You see, the goal of a product driven business is to release the initial game with a certain amount of stickiness, hopefully full on addiction, to pay the intervening time frame until you can release another product. The goal of a service driven business is to create a ‘place’ that people want to be, and then to use that place to sell products, advertise, and/or charge admission. While a service may benefit from a more addictive style as well, it’s single most valuable asset is positive word of mouth, and putting that in danger for a little more stickiness could cost you everything.
Another difference is that a product should always end leaving you wanting more. This is how you make money on sequels and expansion packs after all. The goal of a place is to be all inclusive, to fill as many wants as possible so that people are more likely to remain loyal to you. In order to create these environments you also have to focus on very different players. For this we’ll use the Bartle types, despite their flaws, just to simplify the taxonomy somewhat.
The primary audience of any product will always be the achievers, those who want it for it’s own use and to excel within it’s use. The secondary target would be explorers, those who are interested in seeing it in it’s entirety. You may still want some socialites to build buzz for you, but they are more likely to strain your system without seeing very much content so their presence is more a marketing investment than anything. Killers are last place, to one extent catering to another audience is always a good thing, on the other, killers are more likely to drive away other players or cause harassment issues. Killers are probably only given serious representation now because they simply make up one of the largest minorities in MMOs.
For a service your audience priorities are somewhat different and the primary target will always be the socialites. Not only do they create good marketing, but they also drive retail sales and will work to improve the experience for other users. From here you have a fair amount of freedom and it depends significantly more on your team’s specialization. A focus on killers can give your socialites and achievers purpose, see EVE online for an example. If you have a team capable of constant content output or immense amounts of user created content, explorers are a very viable option for secondary focus, ala Second Life.
The simple fact of the matter is that everything in the MMO genre is a service, but are being given the treatment of products. Those who make WoW-a-likes are banking on people wanting more of the same product, which is a complete fallacy, since they are trying to create a competing service. It’s hard to blame them too much though, since it was WoW that was continuing on the mistake in the first place. I tend to believe part of the reason for WoW’s success was primarily because they improved on the fundamental experience they were giving to their players compared to most games released before it.
This dichotomy also comes up over and over again in RMT debates. When RMT is discussed surrounding a product, the great fear is that it will be used as a means of assisting people to “win the game”. I can’t entirely blame them since given a product driven design, most designers will attempt to design micro products as tools for playing the game. However, it’s important for both designers and players to understand that within a service, your most effective line of sales are things that increase the player’s enjoyment of the place, and are best targeted towards socialites. New looks, more ‘comfortable’ areas, bigger houses and better decorations are probably your best bet. These will add to the enjoyment of your service without, assuming you had even a general plan for this while designing the game, disrupting other portions of your service.
While this will automatically trend you towards “worldliness” there isn’t any reason to limit these lessons to sandbox games. Free Realms for instance is one of the best examples of this thought process when dedicated to a more gamey experience. Likewise, it also doesn’t mean that mini-games are the wave of the future, just that they are something which shouldn’t be dismissed or underestimated.
As great a divide as there seems to be between the two, our games do not need to go through incredible changes to come more in line with the reality of services. In some senses, the more difficult battle is simply in forcing both industry vets and players to unlearn certain reactions that have been conditioned in over decades of community segregation. For starters among players, it has to at least be understood that social players are as much a valid part of the game as the achievers/killers. As for designers there are more lessons than I can count, the importance of UI, world design needs to go back to the drawing board entirely, horizontal design focus, project scale being proportional to demographics, point of contact needs to be improved tremendously, and perhaps controversially I think senior community management needs to be a part of the design team. But the final play experience could change only subtly from what it is now at the end of all that, it’s just that those changes would be in the places that really mattered.
Fear not friend, my friends and I will release you from your chains! Now let us off to find the key it should be around here somewhere.
Sir, I know where the key is! The large alpha with the black mane ate it!
So we shall need to defeat this alpha and take it from his stomache!?
No sir, he ate it quite some time past, I’m quite certain it is in his-
Then we shall return with a lock smith!
But the key-
WE SHALL RETURN WITH A LOCK SMITH!
Taking a page of what I have so far, this is Isobel’s page from the current Source Book. I’m certainly open to any criticism that may improve this piece.
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Isobel The Defender (later The Conqueror)
Role: Isobel was a duchess in the South of the Al-Hau mountain range. She had already served as captain of the Holy Guard and was well known as not only the best fighter, but the best commander in the Ecclesia. After retiring from the Holy Guard after two terms as captain, she had barely gotten resettled in the management of her fief in the foothills when the reach of the One Empire’s third crusade reached their borders. As the Ecclesia in Al-Hau lost their mountain range to the west, Tsenara arrives on Isobel’s door step. After careful negotiation with the high priestess, Tsenara devotes her greatly improved powers, aged twenty-two at this point, to the defense of Isobel’s lands which are now the front-lines of the battle, in exchange for an arranged marriage with Isobel.
After breaking the waves of the third crusade in a close battle, a distant invasion by the Tsuta Empire of the One Empire gave them a more permanent reprieve. Isobel sets out with a detachment of her most experienced troops to retake Nor for her new consort, and to keep the attention of the One Empire divided. Almost three weeks into the campaign, the couple had their first and last tryst for the next thirty years. Four months after liberating the majority of the kingdom of Nor, including the new capital city of Eory which is the coastal city in which Tsenara was born, their daughter Moia is born. Moia has the wings of an Angreal but her wings are colored blue with white tips. A mere two days after birth, Moia is kidnapped by members of the One Church clergy that had remained behind under the pretenses of tending to their congregation.
The kidnapping of Moia began a new chapter in Isobel’s life, and is the tipping point at which she changed from being known as The Defender, and became The Conqueror. In a few short months she had mobilized not only her own remaining forces, but dissidents from across the region to prepare an all out assault on the One Empire.
After almost a decade of hard campaigning, the capital of the One Empire falls. The next five years are spent routing the remainder of the imperial loyalists into Tsuta where they are accepted as refugees. Her military career ends with herself as Empress of the newly formed Nor Empire, centuries later renamed the Isobel Empire to legitimize a tenuous succession, with Tsenara as her consort.
Age at Death: 68
Reign: 35 years
Description: Isobel is a strong woman, both mind and body, heavily muscled and intense. Her hair is raven black and usually kept in either a single ponytail while prepared for battle, or in carefully arranged dreads for formal events. Her usual dress is a rather plain halter top with loose breaches, for formal matters she usually wears a burgundy version of the Angreal officer’s uniform, an open backed shirt with elaborate, but usable, sleeves and loose straight breaches gathered into leather boots. In battle, her armor is the standard Angreal heavy armor with strong forward facing plates, and leg armor mostly provided by plates hanging from the belt.
Isobel and Tsenara have a famously tempestuous relationship. Isobel is not a lesbian, however she agreed to the arranged marriage for political expediency. Tsenara on the other hand holds a very strong unrequited love for Isobel which rules her love life for the entirety of their reign. Immortalized in poetry, stage and song for the rest of their history is a famed event where Isobel supposedly slashes her own eyes, blinding herself, in penitence for her philandering with men about court. Her bastard sons inherit the empire from her, but over the coming centuries, the lost blue winged bloodline is a constant fear of those seeking unquestioned rule.
More youtube videos… code for “feeling kind of overwhelmed”.
All embeds courtesy of Parlophone. (http://www.youtube.com/user/parlophone)
I had a really good history teacher. Awesome lecturer, always made the past interesting. At one point in a particular lecture, he brought up the term TPs, Temporal Provincials. To any good historian, that is their f-word, worst thing a person can possibly be. You see, a Temporal Provincial doesn’t just live for the moment, they are completely unaware that other moments in time even exist, and completely dismissive of what could be learned from knowing they do, let alone what happened in them.
Which brings me to what’s on my mind today, Gaming Provincials. In a neophilia fueled industry like gaming it’s almost impossible to find someone who has only ever played only one game, but still provincials continue to exist. In this case it isn’t so much that they only play one game, it’s that they don’t have any awareness at all of where the games they played come from, or where they could go. Obviously there are levels to this, but what I want to focus on are the ones where GP could be the f-word, since those people give me a fucking headache.
This would be the FPS player who can’t imagine anyone enjoying any game besides counterstrike, or thinks that all games must have kill boards… since all games must have teams trying to kill each other. Or people whose first online game was EQ, and simply cannot fathom that anyone would want to play an MMO sans elves, xp, and loot. More lately, people who feel that anybody that doesn’t rip 99% of their game play and interface from WoW are just terrible developers who could never understand their pain at not having thirty clones with mildly different paint to choose from.
I’m not naming any names in this post, but I think I’ll start using the terms in comments when I think someone applies.
Welcome to the first ever edition of the EVE Blog Challenge! The monthly EVE blogging extravaganza inspired by the “Blog Banter” and created by AnMiTh. The EVE Blog Challenge is about story telling, and relaying our experiences in EVE in new and exciting ways. The stories/posts that are created are both, long and short, detailed and not so detailed, but it is always fun to see everyone’s interpretation of the source materials. Questions or comments should be directed here, and if you are interested in signing up to participate go here. Anyone can submit source materials, to do so email them to us here.
And don’t forget to read the other EVE Blog Challenge posts that will be listed at the bottom of this post.
This months source materials were submitted up by AnMiTh from EVE Guru.
The sun glistens off the side of the H.N.S. Dutiful as she slowly glides through space towards the station orbiting Amarr. This has been the end of a long journey, you had to go through the fire and brimstone of hell, but yet you made it in one piece. Those bastards were right when they said it would be tough, they were also right when they said you would be rich.
The ship glides to a stop as the station’s docking computer takes over control of the massive Bestower. Before you are even ready to exit your pod the request is sent to your computer… “They” are ready for you in the meeting hall, they are anxious to hear about the journey and the status of the mission that you are on. Unfortunately, “They” will have to wait, Sara Cognita thinks to herself as the artificial amniotic fluid of the pod’s metal womb drains out. It was several interminably long seconds before the pod had opened enough for her to slide out into the cold air of the docking port. A few members of the dock’s hospitality staff hurried out and began toweling her off, while one found the pod’s personal effects chamber and removed her uniform. As she was dressing a member of her management staff approached to discuss the sales figures for their shuttle production. Mere moments later and they were walking down the stark, yet elegant corridors of the Amarr station towards the suite that she had rented for the evening. A pretty, young assistant hired from one of the local temp agencies greeted her at the door, showing her in and giving a quick overview of the main rooms extensive computer and communications system. “Be a dear and pass on a message to the Ishukone delegation that the package is on it’s way. Also that their to meet me in this suite in an hour.” Some part of the Khanid woman’s mind delighted in making the stuffy Caldari businessmen rearrange what were probably very carefully laid out plans. Unfortunately a more honest part was sizing up the luxurious couch for it’s napping potential. Even after being a pod pilot for over a year, it still wore her to the bone to make long journeys. Especially ones with cargo that were something of a mystery in themselves. There wasn’t any mystery why Ishukone would be interested in Sleeper parts, but these had been laid out very specifically. None of the parts made particular sense either, no targeting computers, weapons, advanced tech. Instead it was a couple of coolant regulators and an acceleration overlord. While advantages in those parts may open a market for them, it was hardly worth the price they’d placed on them. A cursory scan or two taken for her own personal blueprint collection hadn’t shown significant improvement either, and entire sections that didn’t seem to have any correlation to the workings of the rest of their respective units at all. Taking a mental note to recover more Sleeper parts for themselves later, she switched on one of the communications terminals. With practiced ease she dropped a few encoded mails to corporate headquarters to be processed to their proper recipients. Half an hour left, she mused, enough time for a short nap. In a few moments she had drifted into a light sleep, hovering on the edge of some unfathomable dream. **** Other Great “EVE Blog Challenge” Posts - 1. A Mule In EvE, Been a long way back home Want to join in the fun? Sign up for the next EBC here.
2. Declarations of War, Internal Unrest
3. Into the unknown with a gun and camera, Evie
4. EVE Druid, An Emancipated Return
5. Symptom of a greater cure, Sleeping with Sleepers
6. Into the Unknown – Sisters of EVE
7. Kyle Langdons Journey in EVE – EVE Blog Challenge
8. Melted Capacitor – Welcome Back
9. Thats it for this EBC, Check us out next month for another round of fun!
The player is briefed on an assassination mission their band of Elvish mercenaries will be carrying out. Your target is a duke of one of the major human kingdoms. The city is a laid out as a spiral with four major roads acting as arms to protect against invaders, and four walls that extend between the four arms are to prevent cutting through the back roads to avoid the spiral.
Th op is laid out in two teams, your team will be infiltrating from the East, while the other team is infiltrating from the West. The Western team will be setting fire to a major store house to draw as many guards as possible away from the keep at the center of the town. Your team is to carry out the actual assassination.
The level begins with the player and their team, all dressed in dark clothes with hoods on top of a cliff face overlooking the walls which are some thirty yards away. The player has a bow, and dual long knives as their starting equipment. The player is tasked with sniping one of the guards, who is holding a torch against the coming dark of twilight. Once the guard is dead, another team member shoots an arrow with rope attached over the wall. The team begins to shimmy across the rope, leaving one behind to keep watch. As the players are most of the way across a patrol of three guards walks into the dead guard’s post. They notice the dead guard and spread out. The player can try and watch all three guards and notice the guards at the back getting picked off, or can just watch the one directly approaching the rope’s attachment point who takes an arrow in the throat just as he’s about to raise the alarm.
Once across, the team waits for it’s final member before dropping a rope to repel down into an alley below. This time two are left behind to secure their position on the wall. The other six proceed down the alleyways, assassinating guards from the shadows and avoiding busy taverns until they reach the main road. There the player looses control as they move to the edge of the alleyway and wait a few seconds. Off to the west, the sky lights up as a major fire is obviously underway, a loud cry is off down the other end of the street and the majority of the guards run off towards the keep. Someone mentions that from now on, the guards can no longer call for back up, making it safe to take the road. The player regains control with the main road in front of them, the wrong direction is blocked by wagons, and the side streets on the other side of the road provide an area where the player can continue stealth game play while working in the correct direction.
When the players exit in front of the keep, the portcullis is down, and a few troops are exiting the doors on either side. Once the player has handled the troops, they will be tasked with going up through one of the doors, both lead to the same place, and finding a way into the gate room. Once at the top, the player finds an area where the ceiling has caved in somewhat, allowing them to climb up, and out, then drop onto the guard walk and enter the gate house. Once the guards in the gate house are dead, the player will turn the wheel in the center to raise the portcullis and allow their team in. The team infiltrates from the servants entrance, giving the player the moral choice of killing the civilian help or not. No civilians will raise an alarm unless actively attacked, instead they’ll cower and hide, making it purely a player choice.
The player can approach the halls as a stealth segment, and will get an XP bonus for not raising the alarm and an additional bonus for not killing over half the guards. Once in front of the feast hall, the Duke will burst out of the door in front of the player, giving a small group of soldiers messages to take to his commanders. The team has a small skirmish, killing the Duke and his aids and the objective is changed to safely exiting the mission. The players can hear guards calling that the town is under attack as they head for the gate. Once outside the keep, in the main square of the city, chaos has broken out down the three major roads they can see down, as the humans are fighting an unknown second faction. A large boulder strikes the keep, causing one of the towers to fall blocking off the two main streets. Players proceed down the third street until it dead ends in flaming debris, one of your team recommends taking to the rooftops. You do so, and back track to the keep, where you cross using the debris from the tower to the next set of rooftops and take those back to where your team is holding the walls. When you arrive at the wall, you can see your team members outnumbered with two groups of six approaching them from either side.
You’re team members begin supporting them with arrows from the street. Once it’s safe on the wall, your team climbs back up. The two that were left behind quickly update you on what they’ve been seeing while someone lowers a rope down the other side of the wall. You are the second to take the rope, and as soon as you begin repelling the level ends.
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Hmm, I’m not entirely sure what toolset I could even do this in.
Living as a trans person, it’s always in the back of my mind that there are certain organized groups within my country who feel that they not only have the right to, but frankly the desire to kill me. Now it’s not the most widespread problem in the world, and I know I ‘probably’ won’t closely encounter one of those groups in my usual life. But the possibility is always there.
I know that this case is exactly the same for gay people, and black people as well as a large number of other minorities. But I’ve heard all of these minorities accused of being “too loud” or “too in your face” about the difficulties they face living with racism and that constant knowledge of being in danger.
Recently, a group managed to target white, straight, Americans in exactly the same manner. The result was the invasion of two countries…
So why do I still have to hear crap about the minorities being too “in your face” with their issues?