Terra Nova

We moved the lines online

 

In 2004 (yes we’ve been around a long-ass time), I wrote Bah, Humbug & Digital Distribution, talking about the tensions between getting physical and virtual gifts. I’m yet to see a break down of the stats from Star Wars The Old Republic (SWTOR) but I’m guessing the physical : virtual is going to break new ground. 

Back on ’04 I was musing about the impact of virtual gifts on xmas – I still do, how many of you bought someone a dead-tree-book rather than a kindle edition so you could give someone an object (do they sell some kind of token you can give, like a card with a code on it, if not why not?)? 

The ritual I’d either forgotten about or something that was not such an ‘event’ in ’04 was the midnight launch. As the guys (and they all seem to be guys) on pod casts such as Mos Eisley Radio were lamenting many game stores did not have a midnight release event for SWTOR, which as the people are starting to note is a gamer ritual that some of the hard-core are starting to miss. 

There are multiple reason for why midnight release was not a big thing in the case of SWTOR: Digital Download / Amazon et al pre-ordering; but possible most of all the phased early entry process that was used. There are god management reasons for having phased entry, though for those of us that sat in popcap queue for a long time last week load balancing did not go perfectly (though possibly as well as it could). But, there did seem to be a lack of an event, a communal moment for many players – though as podcasters have noted some people shifted from standing in line to waiting in server queues on vent with their buddies – we always find a way to be together I guess. 

May the force be with you^TM….

Simulating the 2012 Election: Bitter Choices

We tend to focus so much on the digital that we overlook wonderful simulation engines right under our noses. Sometimes the best simulators are also simple games. Dress up chess a little bit, and you're doing combined-arms warfare. The game does not have to be digital or massive. Rather, the key contribution of Game is that games represent systems really well. It is very hard to write a book or give a lecture about a system. (Test: Explain your city's zoning system to a friend.) It is comparatively easy to create a simulation of the system, then add objectives to create a game. It being just as important to grasp systems as much as narratives or personalities, games belong in every literate person's toolkit.

Be that as it may, we can now note that board games have grown up and now present opportunities to simulate extremely pwoerful and difficult systems. Labyrinth is a maddeningly accurate and convincing demonstration of the impossibility of rational foreign policy in the Middle East. Play the game to understand why our only choices seems to be flavors of madness.This game is also cool for being a simulation of history we are still living. Helpful, that.

Another wonderful board game is 1960: The Making of the President. This is a robust articulation of the US Presidential Election system. Just for kicks, I updated it to simulate the 2012 Election. It wasn't that hard. In 1960, Civil Rights were a big issue. Today, we have the Culture Wars. Defense then was about frosty fellows in porkpie hats. Today it is about bearded gentlemen in the hills. Is the Economy still an issue today? Yes, yes...going out on a limb here...I think so. YIKES of course it is. Speaking of permanent things, the game has an Event Card called "Late Returns from Cook County" that gives the Democrat player some mystery votes in Illinois on Election Day. As we observe yet another Illinois governor heading to jail, what can be said of this game mechanic other than - COOK COUNTY WILL NEVER CHANGE. KEEP THE CARD.

I uploaded the 2012 variant to BoardGameGeek, a great site for anyone seeking effective system simulations. Having played the 2012 election variant a couple of times, I come away with at least one recommendation: Watch Pennsylvania.

Notehall: RMT Comes to the Classroom

My colleague Mark Deuze just let us know about Notehall. The site allows students to sell their class notes. My faculty looks upon this with a negative eye. They say, You should write your own notes. The notes on the site can be stupid or outdated. Many of our faculty release the lecture notes for free anyway.

Compare:

"The site allows players to sell their gold. Designers look upon this with a negative eye. They say, You should grind your own gold. The gold on the site can be counterfeit. Much of our game releases gold practically for free anyway."

How long before we have "note farmers" - people who go to class just to take notes and sell them?

If you want to control black markets in the digital age, how do you do it? If they have a website you can shut down, shut it down (Napster). If they don't, you spam the network with bad content (Kazaa).This is an example of force projection within networks; controllers must always project force within the network where the important assets live. The Prussians projected force within the rail network, the Nazis within road networks, and digital powers must project force into things like Notehall.

Advice: If you don't like Notehall, you have no hope if you rely on admonition and warnings and ethics codes. Rather: Announce to your students that you will be releasing fakes notes on Notehall. They will contain wrong answers. The fakes are designed to ensure that students who study from Notehall will fail the class.

 

Dynamic Narrative Difficulty Adjustment

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's something missing in game designs. You may have noticed or read about dynamic difficulty adjustment systems. Basically, if the zombies eat your brains, the system spawns fewer zombies. What strikes me this morning is the degree to which these systems focus on  combat. For one thing, it does not seem that puzzles go up or down in complexity based on how well you do. On the other maybe they do - do we get hints when we're stumped? I can't recall. But I do know this: I've never seen the story of a game go up or down in complexity and nuance based on the revealed literary competence of the player. Rather, the plots seem pretty fixed, and usually not too deep at all.

It would be neat to get a choice when starting a game: Do you want the bare-bones Good v. Evil plot, or do you want Dostoyevsky? It would be even better to have the narrative sophistication change as you play. I'm sure it's impossible now, but who knows.