Terra Nova

Where's the catch?

Thomas and I recently bantered simulation in MMOGs (why not more of it).  Before this David Edery wondered in a fine essay whether online gaming could be the lubricant for applying "the wisdom of crowds" to real world problems using simulation.  Earlier this year I wondered aloud whether Jason Lanier's beautful rant might also be directed against crowds in virtual worlds (are they overrated). 

Fortunately, Henry Jenkins comes along and forwards a great post to prod our muddle:  should we distinguish a "collective intelligence" from the "wisdom of crowds"?

Hoping for WTF in the New Year

Not for the first time, I've tonight puzzled over the strangeness that is World of Warcraft's overall design structure.

There's the familiar problem, which I do not think is going to be alleviated entirely by the Burning Crusade expansion. Why does the game become so ruthlessly technical in its endgame? I actually appreciate the precision of the endgame instances, where every boss fight is as choreographed as the most elaborate Broadway musical. That isn't just a loose metaphor: it strikes me as being exactly what those sequences require, except that there is a game involved in the discovery of the choreography. It's as if George Balanchine once upon a time called in 20 or 40 dancers and said, "I'm thinking of a dance routine. If you don't figure out how to do it in the next hour, you're fired. Here's a few basic clues."

But there's the opposite thing in World of Warcraft, and in any other MMOG: really weird instances of structured  unpredictability, where the rollercoaster shuts off and flings players into an experience out of synch with the controlled design. WoW's designers have moved more aggressively than perhaps any other live management team to eliminate most of those moments in their design, but some still remain. The best example might be the Son of Arugal in Silverpine. It's a low-level zone, where the game is still very much holding the player's hand. It is an area that  has the same comforting movement from quest to quest which most of WoW offers. And then suddenly there's a relatively high level mob roaming randomly around a relatively wide area that tends to aggro at huge distances on unsuspecting low-level players. It's an atmospheric set-up for an instance that comes later in the zone, but you can't help but say to yourself WTF??? every time you get slaughtered by the Son of Arugal. And yet, at least for me, it's a comforting moment as well, a kind of human touch in the design. The Son of Arugal is somebody's darling, some touch of individuality, a rough-hewn seam in an immaculate embroidery. To be honest, of all the systematic conditions that the expansion could address, this is high on my list, but I suspect not so on many others, which are chock-full of more conventional requests for class improvements, endgame changes, and so on. A few more stops on the rollercoaster to complement the thrills of the ride.

cyber-sexdaq

In an effort to keep TN’s front page family friendly, the whole of this post is over the fold.

NSFW!

Meaning, Games, and Bureaucracy

A while back in a comment posted in this thread, Ren posed an excellent question that I've been pondering for some time. Wondering about the implications of my model of games as process for the question of meaning, he asked:

Do we then just have that the meaning-generative property of games is just a fact of process [i.e., no different from other social processes] and the types of meanings [in games] are consequences of the contrived contingency?

Curse you, Ren! I haven't slept since August!

Miss Norway found at U of M

I was dozing on the train this morning when someone on a podcast read the news headline “College Student Loses First & Second Life On The Same Day”. I snapped awake pretty quick at that. I knew SL could make you rich but not kill ye’ ass.

Anshe reaches $1 Million

According to a press release issued today, Anshe Chung’s net worth (achieved through profits made entirely within a virtual world) have just reached the 1 Million US Dollar mark.

Blimey!

Limbering up for the formal press conference on Tuesday, Anshe dropped into TerraNova’s multiversal-uber-plex for an exclusive interview.

Mike fright

Nate has been talking and talking about VATSIM, the Air Traffic Control simulator environment. One of my guildies in WoW is a pilot and was explaining why he hasn't got into the VATSIM environment:

One interesting thought that popped into my head -I have the vatsim software for my flight sim, I presume it would work and as I mentioned its a very good thing. I wonder why I havent tried it. My thought is that I dont want to look like an idiot in front of real (all be it virtually real) people. People get mic fright in real life, the unwillingness to talk on the radio. I wonder if thats the same in a virtual sense? In WoW and similar there isn't the requirement for real time voice communication and action, you can chat via text if you feel so inclined but you respond at your leisure. I wonder how it would be if you could only chat using your real voice and the normal rules of sound were enforced so you could be out of earshot of things if you were too far away...

This led me to wonder about the nature of voice, the problem of mike fright, and the great big hairy furball of the magic circle.

Whale watching

Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) in "The Germans" episode of Fawlty Towers fashioned "(d)on't mention the war" to really mean "yes do, incessently" and "what is the buffoon going on about," depending upon your seat on that stage.

In a virtual world, where you parked your seat might also affect the client software you are using.  For example, Eve-Online has started offering a German client for Germans to interact with the universe of Tranquility [FN1].  I have an English version.  Neither version helps when it comes to communicating with each other: in the reaches of Eve-Online areas where German seems to be the first language, I am still at a loss for words.

None of this will help me make the fly-in from (e-)Boston to (e-)Keflavik this Sunday (see here) -  my "Virtual Air Traffic Simulation Network" (VATSIM) simming skills are not up to it yet.  Yet, the Germans I've encountered in Eve-Online might explain the odd sensation I had the other day looking into Microsoft Flight Simulator X...

Korean National Assembly to Outlaw RMT

From correspondent Unggi Yoon and our friends at VERN, we hear that the Korean National Assembly is considering a bill that will impose fines on companies that engage in RMT for business purposes.  Jun-Sok Huhh has the report. Apparently the idea is that individuals can freely buy and sell informally, but if you take it to the business level and set up a gold farm or a business that makes money by reselling, you pay a fine.

In the United States, today is Thanksgiving. We're often asked what we are thankful for. Today, I am thankful for the Korean National Assembly.

There’s nothing ‘just’ about Monopoly money

TN readers must hear the phrase ‘But it’s just monopoly money’ all the time. This seems to pre-suppose that Monopoly money is not worth anything, but it is.  1 Monopoly Dollar is worth about US$ 0.000231176 (if my sums are correct).

Phaa! You say.

But hold on just a moment. That’s about the same as the cost of C&C Plat right now, half as much as a There Buck and a heck of a lot more than EvE Isk.

Oh, I wish he had a table comparing the cost of Monopoly money with a basket of Virtual currencies I hear you shout. Well dear reader over the fold at least one of your wishes shall come true.

Endgames and Expansions

I have a few questions that perhaps you can help me with. They're about the nature of raiding and the "endgame", and what happens when MMOGs introduce expansions. Everyone in WoW-land is twitterpated about teh Burning Sensation which apparently goes live on Jan 16, when all of Azeroth is to be given over to Blood Elf paladins and Draenei shaman. I'm interested to know what happens to the raiding situation when the expansion takes place, especially since the level cap gets bumped 10 levels. The official line is that there will be new raid instances (of course) but that the endgame raid content will be found in 25-toon raid instances, not the 40-toon versions that we've come to know and love.

My interest was piqued when talking[fn1] with some raiders who couldn't quite believe that Blizzard would only provide 25-toon instances. To them that wasn't really raiding at all; that was more like the 20-toon instances Zul'Gurub and the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj which they all have on farm status. I literally heard someone say: "But the 25-man instances must just be the beginning. Blizz must be planning on introducing real instances later."

I have all sorts of questions about this.

"Every Time You Vote against Net Neutrality, Your ISP Kills a Night Elf"

Ok, so I am totally in love with this report. It's written by Tony Greenberg and Alex Veytsel from a firm called RampRate that provides IT-related market and strategic analysis. I stole the subject line for this post from their report, and while I love cutsey titles more than life itself, the actual analysis in the report is even better than the title. They talk about the effect of the probable demise of net neutrality--the principle that your ISP and backbone net providers should not be allowed to discriminate between packets--on two industries, VOIP and MMOGs. I can't believe I didn't think of this myself, but net neutrality is all about jitter and latency and guess who cares a lot about these issues:

Companies like Blizzard Entertainment, Electronic Arts, Sony Online Entertainment, and countless others, have built a business on the fundamental assumption of relatively low latency bandwidth being available to large numbers of consumers. Furthermore, a large — even overwhelming — portion of the value of these offerings comes from their “network effects” — the tendency for the game to become more enjoyable and valuable as larger number of players joins the gaming network. With the permanent barriers that the removal of net neutrality will erect for these uses, the worst-case scenario includes three waves of change:

Lights will guide you home

The Virtual Air Traffic Simulation Network (VATSIM) is a virtual world that I feel has something to say to the rest of us.  I'm having a hard time putting my finger on what exactly, but it is a feeling.  A little while ago, the Oakland ARTCC on VATSIM posted a fine (and first official) video...

Is CopyBot Bad for V-Business?

It's been an exciting week in Second Life! Dell opened a new store in-world, IBM's CEO, Sam Palmisano, made an in-world appearance, and so did the dreaded CopyBot. The presence of companies like IBM, Dell, Reuters and many others in Second Life shows that there is growing interest in using virtual worlds for more than killing orcs and avatar-based flirting. Sure, these companies are just beginning to experiment with business applications of virtual worlds, or "v-business," but things are moving fast. It seems like every week there is an announcement that another new company or institution is trying to go virtual by buying an island in Second Life.

But also this week, the now infamous CopyBot reared its ugly head in Second Life. Here's a brief recap: CopyBot is a tool that enables the unauthorized copying of virtual objects by a player (see Raph for more detail). Since virtual objects in Second Life are created by other players, rather than by Linden Lab, there was an outcry from many players to stop the use of CopyBot. Players protested and closed their in-world stores in fear that their creations would be stolen, resulting in the loss of real U.S. dollars.

The MMO Brand Goes Bad?

It’s easy to look at the graphs of MMO growth over the last few years and think that it’s a game category that will continue to grow exponentially.  In fact, I have often said that since games have always been largely social (and single player gaming an anomaly that resulted largely from technological limitations), that once people have a taste of gaming with others few will choose to go back to solo play.  And I do believe that.  Other players represent that sort of super sophisticated AI that no NPC can begin to approach.  And for me, the only thing that makes the average MMO grind at all fun, for instance, is the chaos and uncertainty brought forth by other random players.  Social structures make games more complex and interesting, to be sure.  But is that always a good thing?

Tetris

Tetris the movie is out (again).

Concept: Virtual Worlds For Economic Development

Norman Maynard of the Economics Department at University of Oklahoma sends us his paper, which proposes to use virtual worlds to test different approaches to economic development. The paper is available here.

It's so easy

What do Julian Kucklich, T.E. Lawrence, The Alphaville Herald, and Linda Rondstadt have in common?

State of Play / Terra Nova Symposium, Dec 1-2, NYC

Yes, the lunatic has finally taken over the asylum.

I'm organizing an academically-oriented virtual worlds workshop under the aegis of both State of Play and Terra Nova. It's running at New York Law School on Dec 1-2, down in bee-you-ti-ful Tribeca. Attendance is very small and exclusive. The people speaking are very smart, and the audience is going to be even smarter and involved in all the panel discussions. The conference registration is cheap. The food will be good.

Details are here and registrations are now open.

Project Horseshoe

This past weekend I was privileged to attend the first Project Horseshoe, a small, intense, focused gathering with the stated mission of “Solving Game Design's Toughest Problems.”  That’s aiming high, sure, but if we didn’t solve these problems we at least made a good – and most importantly, action-oriented – run at them.  This three-day event was organized by The Fatman, George Sanger, and his band of game ninja cowboys.  It was filled with vibrant, eclectic, accomplished, opinionated, talented people from across the game industry – mostly but not all game developers, but all with incisive views on where games are now and where they could be going in a year or two or five.

This gathering wasn’t focused on doing game design as much as identifying and offering workable solutions for what stops effective game design from happening.  It also wasn’t specifically aimed at online games or virtual worlds, though that subject was laced throughout the discussions I heard and participated in.  When it wasn’t directly present, the subject was never far away; everyone is keenly aware of the importance of the online experience, even for those focused on single-player experiences.  Virtual worlds have, as we all know, changed the landscape of games and entertainment irrevocably. 

Multiverse > SL > WoW?

At the heart of my cheesy bet with Cory is the tension between virtual worlds created by savvy, experienced developers and virtual worlds created by some schmo in his/her garage. I was betting on Hollywood and he was betting on the people (no matter that I would prefer to lose).

Which is the future of virtual worlds? Experts or the masses? Multiverse appears to be hedging its bets by allowing its tool set to be used by either.  And it's no longer vaporware, as their open beta is now out.

Pointless Killing

Here's a design discussion for a change.

The default mechanism in game-like virtual worlds is that characters kill things to get points to go up levels so they can kill bigger things to get more points and go up more levels. There are other ways to get points - quests and exploration, for example - but the bulk comes from killing things. If there's no reason to kill things other than to get points, this is called grinding, which people don't like but do it anyway.

What if you got no points for killing things?

Calling All Alts

Listening to some discussions of the uses of alts in complicated financial scams and strategies in various MMOGs, I wonder at whether available information about other players (through mouse-over, clicking, /whois, etcetera) shouldn't include a list of all their alts on a given server. I assume this would not be a technically difficult thing to do.

What legitimate social or ludic purposes would be spoiled by including this feature?

State of Play Book

Jack Balkin and Beth Noveck have just published The State of Play: Law, Games, and Virtual Worlds.  There are some extremely encouraging cover blurbs by Jon Zittrain ("spectacular"), Richard Garriott ("extremely comprehensive"), and Henry Jenkins ("the best thinkers in their fields").    In addition to articles by Jack and Beth, the book has pieces by: Richard Bartle, Yochai Benkler, Caroline Bradley, Edward Castronova, Susan Crawford, Julian Dibbell, Michael Froomkin, James Grimmelmann, David Johnson, Dan Hunter, Raph Koster, Greg Lastowka (that's me), Cory Ondrejka, Tracy Spaight and  Tal Zarsky.

If you've got to have one book on virtual worlds and law (plus), this is it.  The most important essays that made State of Play such a vibrant conference are now under one pretty roof.  And even if you have most of these in some other form, like I do, this is a just nice book for your shelf and reference: a pleasant weight, a firm binding, and a nice readable typeface.

Smack talking to your base

Those of us  in the US have a midterm election coming up this week.  In the short period of time before the polls open is when it seems that political advertising is at its most negative.  Do the dynamics of negative advertising have parallels with the role of "smack talking" in online games?

Anecdotally, it seems that people frequently complain about negative advertising.  So too it seems that many players complain about 'smack talking'.  I wonder though whether the offended are missing the point: they are not the target audience.  Is smack talking really about rallying the base in your game?

Source Identification and Soulbinding

From the Department of Non-Wow studies:  I've begun looking at D&D Online - Stormreach.  It's a great game, despite their recent server troubles.  But the game's more robust trade system does cost me something: knowledge about the people I'm adventuring with.