Terra Nova

A Spoonful of Sugar

I recently started playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - the latest in a video game series that is a pacesetter in the single player Role Playing Game (RPG) genre.  I found myself wondering whether the distribution of content in virtual worlds - were it as sugar - is better lumpy or sprinkled...

Yeah, I’m the taxman,,,

Looks like games may be going the way that smoking, drinking (and in some places) gambling - it’s a thing that governments don’t really like but they don’t not like it quite enough to ban it, so they might tax it instead.

Endgame: Bandwidth

So, other than mucking about with these "laws," (pays the bills) I also spend too much time in endgame instances: BWL and AQ40 right now.   Since access to the endgame has been discussed here, and since I do it, a lot, I'd like to post some thoughts about it.  But one caveat: I don't think I'll talk about specific boss fights, or specific instances. Not only is that uncool, but I could really go on forever.

So, my first thought: end-game content is limited by the human ability to form real social bonds over limited bandwidth.  The unit of social resistance that I will use is called the "drama."

Fast Times...

An interesting new World of Warcraft add-on features an Ebay-like scheme where players can attribute and share in-game scores on other players.  Reputation management to help you choose with whom you should play...

Tipping the Scale

My guildmates and I in WoW are an unstoppable force, able to mow through furlongs full of Furbolgs crying "Strength and Honor!" all the way. Well, that's not quite true...While we have every reason to believe that we can pwn Sunken Temple (aka The Temple of Atal'Hakkar), we have been thwarted time and time again.

Are we too low level? Nah. Do we have poor leadership? Certainly not (as long as I'm not leading). Are we not geared properly? Please -- this is a guild where members know the WoW Auctioneers on a first-name basis.

No, the problem is a Blizzard of technical obstacles.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrr

[Apologies to the commenters on this thread. I managed to post under Ted's name after doing admin on the site, and so had to delete the post. I can't restore the comments. I'm very sorry. - Dan]

I happened to run across Kotaku's post about Disney's forthcoming MMO "Pirates of the Caribbean" and so naturally my thoughts turned to Keira Knightley...no, sorry, I meant: naturally my thoughts turned to the concept of "properties" and licenses.[fn1] (Actually this is fairly accurate. I'm seriously not a big fan of Keira Knightley specifically, or English posh tottie in general. I lived too long in England. But this is a story for another day...)

community outreach, or community outrage?

Sometimes I forget how much my professional and personal lives are beginning to merge. As a result, last weekend I was in "mom" mode, preparing to take my 11yo son to a Star Wars: Galaxies "Community Summit" at the Seattle Hilton. (That URL doesn't look static, btw, so I suspect that it won't be long before it features a new event.) It didn't occur to me to bring a notebook along, and it wasn't until the event was well underway that I started to realize how much of what I was seeing and hearing related to my growing interest in the social aspects of MMORPGs. My lack of note-taking apparatus makes it hard for me to provide the kind of journalistic detail that I'd like, but there's still plenty for me to say about the experience.

My son starting playing SWG just a few months ago, after the infamous "new game enhancements" (NGE) had been rolled out. When he started, I did a little reading about the game--both here on TerraNova, and elsewhere. I wasn't surprised, given his enthusiasm for the game, to see the general consensus that the NGE was targeting adolescents. Given that, what surprised me most at the Community Summit was how few adolescents were there.

But first, a little contextual framing.

Welcome to Liz Lawley

I said that we were on a buying spree, and I wasn't joking. Our the newest hire was so expensive that all the current authors had to agree to take a pay cut (it was either that or sell ourselves to Stratics). But this wasn't remotely a problem. Everyone agreed to take 50% pay cut for the privilege of hanging out with Elizabeth Lane Lawley, the incomparable author of mamamusings, the biggest of the big brains at our fave blog Many-to-Many, and one of the chosen at misbehaving.

Why Do Kids Kill?

Two Columbine-style (tm) school massacres have recently been thwarted. Media reports of near-tragedies like these usually mention a connection to violent video games. But in Teens Who Hurt: Clinical Interventions to Break the Cycle of Violence, two Family Therapy scholars, Ken Hardy and Tracy Laszloffy, warn away from blaming simple environmental factors like video games and guns. Rather, they trace the roots of teen violence to four things: devaluation, erosion of community, dehumanized loss, and rage. It seems to me that off-the-shelf video games, specifically in the MMORPG format, directly address three of these conditions in a positive and possibly therapeutically beneficial way.

Tringo TV?!

Tringo has finally shipped for the GBA. While that's cool, this article blew my mind:

Yoomedia, a quoted company that runs the Avago channel, unveiled what it hopes could be the next big thing — Tringo, a cross between bingo and Tetris, developed by an Australian software engineer. Yoomedia has the rights to develop the game as a digital-TV format.

This made me wonder whether Kermitt Quirk will build special versions that tie into the gameshow?

Hot Blooded Objects

Earlier this week Tony Walsh reported that Second Life servers ground to a halt as self-replicating objects ran amok for seven hours.    Furthermore, "(u)nlike previous attacks, the self-replicating objects were scripted to emit shockwaves capable of throwing avatars high into the air."  Tony also reported that virtual fire breaks (decoupling servers) were used to stem the tide.

Events such as these may point to future troubles for online virtual worlds.   Mark Walker asks how to protect future worlds from user-scripted content.  Perhaps, however, it is evolutionary...

The Epistemology of Anshe

Q&A with the "Cyber Queen"

Having read Rufa's self-described origins story, I asked the "cyber queen" some questions of my own. The following are excerpts from his answers:

"Am I really only attracted to women, i.e. straight? I've got nothing against being attracted to a guy... I've just never met a guy I've been attracted too. I've never said to myself, 'Boy! I sure could go for some cock today,' while I've spent plenty of time agonizing over the fair sex. But can anyone who has spent as much time as I have pretending to be a girl for the sexual gratification of other males really be called straight?...

Is Raid Content Accessible to the Mortal Man?

When I wrote about being "Alone Together" in WoW a while back, many TN readers responded with insightful comments about how the game's mechanics do not facilitate grouping. One repeating theme was that it is far more effective to "solo" the game (it is), in great part because assembling a good group can be prohibitively time consuming - especially in the late stages of the game, where high-end raids can require up to 40 people and up to 6 hours of continuous play time.

Out of curiosity, we tried to assess how many players actually spend time in these high-end raids (the full analysis is available at the PlayOn blog). Overall, we found that 30% of all level 60 characters in our sample spent time in high-level raid content (BWL, MC, or ZG) over the month of January 2006. On average, these characters spent 310 minutes (about 5 hours) in raid content over the same month - that is, just enough time for one run.

So it looks as if only a minority of players get to experience high-end raids and, when they do, it is probably only once a month. Is WoW's endgame reserved to a select few? If so, are there alternative and more inclusive designs for a MMO's endgame?

Dear PC Gamer: Now that you've taken care of the gold farmers...

Two months ago, PC Gamer declared that it would no longer accept advertisements from gold farmers such as IGE. In a two-page spread that appeared in the follow-up issue, Mythic Entertainment proclaimed that it would not advertise in magazines that collaborate with gold farmers.

Although these moves were largely symbolic, both companies deserve credit for taking a stand. The two press releases demonstrate that game publications and game developers can work together to influence the industry. However, as far as residents of my household are concerned, gold-farmers are some of the least offensive advertisers in gaming publications.

Let me explain. My partner is a hard-core gamer with experience across genres. Formerly a professional game reviewer, she has attended E3 several times. Every morning, she compulsively logs onto World of Warcraft to see if her recipes have been selling well in the Auction House. A geek of the highest caliber, she wants to know about new titles on the horizon. So, why is it that she can't get through more than a few pages of contemporary game magazines without tossing them on the floor in disgust?

For some reason, she is disgusted by magazine advertisements that bombard readers with chain mail bikinis, rampaging armies, pouting sluts, and desperate fantasies of masculine control.

The Life and Times of a "Cyber Queen"

The following is something of a case study: the story of one internet user and his experience presenting cross-gender online.  From harmless experimentation to hardcore solicitation, alias "Rufa Hendeiger" went through it all.

Rufa first contacted me in the comments section of a blog post.  There, using the name "X_x_Lil-Anonymous," he confessed, "under the cover anonymity," to being "a complete cyber-queen!"

"I have no illusions," says Rufa "about the true gender of the slim yet large breasted 18-25 year old Asian full time students/part time lesbians I have met on AOL instant messenger. Or about 'their' pictures. And I’m fairly sure that the guys who are contacting me when I’ve got some ridiculous cutesy-feminine screen name (see above, add more pink) and asking about sex have any illusions either."

Welcome to Aaron Delwiche

Flush with the recent influx of capital from an unnamed philanthropist-cum-power-leveling-service, we've gone on a massive buying spree for new talent. We're hoping that they'll boost our rankings in time for the eventual sale of the franchise and the announcement of a new stadium built in Second Life using the tax dollars of North Freeport residents.

Aaron Delwiche, Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Trinity University is the first of our new draft picks, and we're tickled to have him. He is the head of the New Media Studies minor at Trinity, and focuses on youth culture, gaming, and global civil society. Anyone who knows anything in this space will recognize him as the teacher behind the wonderful class on qualitative research methods to explore virtual worlds, which we have featured before. (Last year's class concentrated on World of Warcraft, this year's class is using Everquest II as a starting point). Apart from the article referenced off to the side, he also writes a bi-monthly gaming column for the San Antonio Current with material like this.

Crucifixion is soooo 30AD

RF Online, an MMO which combines hack-and-slash Tolkienesque fantasy elements with the BFG-goodness of Mechwarrior (Q: What's not to like? A: Well nothing, as long as you're cool with the fact that the servers are called "Earth", "Wind", and "Fire") recently banned around 150 accounts of those accused of gold farming/duping/botting/notsurewhatexactlytheyweredoing, and now are threatening all those who traded with them.

"In the next few days, following the 150 RMT accounts, we will be visiting YOU, at least if You bought things from RMT traders. If You had to re-read the last sentence twice you might want to contact us via PM before we reach you. If you reveal the delivery guy, the price you paid including the RMT site and the date you recieved the money we can most likely work something out."

Indebted

I started to play Animal Crossing: Wild World with my 5 y/o son the other day, and was struck by the initial game mechanic. After rolling his toon we were informed that we could go and hang out in his house, which seemed like a deeply cool thing. (Aside: one of the things that I've (oddly) missed in WoW and CoH is owning real estate, but that topic is for another day).

The Price of Serenity?

In the World of Warcraft, Serenity Now - a hardcore Player-verus-Player (PvP) guild - attacked an in-game memorial service held by another guild for a guild member who passed away in real life.  They made a video of the exploit, apparently for recruitment purposes.  In their wake they left many questions...

MASSIVE

MASSIVE: The Future of Networked Multiplayer Games

Calit2 Building, University of California, Irvine

April 20, 2006

Ambient Archeology

A quick update to a couple of earlier posts.  In Leaky Faucets Grady Booch's GDC 2006 presentation was anticipated.  His slides are now available.   In Hunt and Peck we discussed Greg Wilson's Gamasutra article on Heads-up-Displays.  Clive Thompson continues with this topic...

Shades of Collusion

Steven Davis recently forwarded a scheme of using separate (card) decks to mitigate collusion in online casino and poker games.  As he states it, "(c)ollusion comes from a partnership having superior knowledge from other players."   The problem is that it is so easy ( "phone call, VoIP, or chat connection to share information") and that it is unfair to those left out. 

Are MMOGs fair?

Say Please and Thank You

Sit up straight. Don’t play with your food. Keep your elbows off the table.

In real life, we accept certain things as common-sense good manners. When you meet someone for the first time, you shake hands, you make eye contact, you smile. Tempting as it may be, you don’t bombard your new friend with sensitive questions, or ask, point blank, whether he’d like to get kinky back at your place. We call this being polite.

In a virtual community like Second Life, however, the rules of politeness are often quite different. How could they be the same? Here, personal information is hardly ever personal, and private encounters rarely stay private. So – in a world where public nudity, open solicitations, and gropings between strangers are all run of the mill – what determines "rude"?

Question 3: Virtual Property

Instructions: this question is compulsory. It is worth 25 points. You should not spend more than 2 days on this question. Write legibly or points will be deducted. Answers including references to postmodernism will be ruthelessly penalized.

---

"Many of you students have forsaken your MMOG of choice in order (temporarily) to play Oblivion. Oblivion now allows you to buy armor kits for your horse using real world currencies, in a way that is almost exactly the same as real money trades (RMTs) which have been occuring in MMOGs for years. In 1000 words or less, discuss whether either of these types of assets are property for the purposes of any legal systems, paying particular attention to why few people would think that the Oblivion armor kits are property, but the same is not true for virtual assets."

Social Mapping SL

Friend of the show, Guardian Gamesblog blogger, academic and most of all person-that-got-me-addicted-to-Sing_Star - Aleks Krotoski - needs help.

Well, in a sense we all need help, but that’s not the point right now. Aleks is doing a survey of Second Lifers, so if you have a Second Life account, stop reading this, click this link, and go fill out the survey.

For everyone else and those returning for the survey page (wb btw, and thx) here is the lowdown on the background to the research:

September in Portugal

Below the fold: Call for papers for iDig 2006, First International Digital Games Conference, Lisbon, September 26-28 2006. Many thanks to Andrew Bucksbarg for the tip.

Feeling Optimistic?

Earlier in the year we discussed Tim Sweeney's POPL talk (Troubles with Tribbles) and the challenge posed by parallel computing to the games industry.  Leaky Faucets suggested the difficulties of managing all those software objects.  Perhaps there is another question that has a little less to do with algorithm and a litte more with how you perceive and relate to your virtual world.