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Massively Multiplayer Games On Consoles
Missionyrd writes: "In an interview on PlanetXbox.com Scott Herrington of Turbine Entertainment discusses the next wave of massively multiplayer games and their possible inclusion on consoles. Up until now MMPGs have been strictly created for the PC. What kind of things could we expect if they came to the consoles such as Xbox and Playstation 2 as well?" Isn't this what all the broadband-and-other network connections being built into or promised for modern console games are for? :)
For a view of what might be needed from the network to handle this sort of application, see http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/lsma-charter.htm l - this is an IETF working group that has been documenting and classifying the types of network demands (stringent QoS needs, very large multicast groups, etc) made by distributed interactive simulations (DISs).
DISs can be networked military simulators located around the world (this is how the US Army rehearsed the Gulf War and continues to train its tank crew), or massively multiplayer games.
Such simulations/games may in the future have up to 100,000 simulated objects, representing human or computer-managed players.
Until recently, I'd played MUDs for a long time (about a decade). They started out with small groups of people that were mostly tech-oriented (particularly when the internet wasn't a household word).
As the internet spread, and particularly after AOL was unleashed upon us, more and more people started hitting MUDs. I noticed that more of the immature people became noticable -- though I suspect that the proportion wasn't drastically different. The people that didn't annoy me didn't get noticed, so I didn't note an increase there.
This general trend hit a big bump once MUDs went graphical and mainstream. I played Everquest and Asheron's Call for 2-3 months each, long enough to see that it wasn't just a matter of proportion at work. Something else was making these games have a feel to them that was uncomfortably unlike the MUD communities that I had been used to. There are a lot of different elements behind it, and I haven't spent enough time on the problem to identify even a portion of them.
Some sort of societal transformation happened that is tied up in both the change to the game, and the meta-game (meaning the large number of fansites that a big game will have.... some of the forum discussions on these sites have a tangible impact on the game society itself). There are clans now that weren't there before. These clans have an impact on the game society, yet are largely organized outside of the game proper. There are lots of other things that demonstrate the impact of just the change to graphical mainstream games on the genre.
I suspect that the change to the console will cause large changes of its own -- though I won't be watching anymore.
it lowers the cost of entry for these games. Consoles are cheaper than PCs, so the initial dollar outlay to participate will be less.
I would imagine, given the huge number of consoles out there and their low cost, these online gaming companies are going to see a massive boom in participation when the console players are included.
EMUSE.NET
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
Sega (I think) is/was working on a game allows Dreamcast owners to play against people in arcades.
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Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
Imagine: we could all interact with other human beings!
Since the PS2 uses USB, keyboard availability shouldn't be a (hardware) problem. Any standard USB keyboard should work. It's interesting to note that Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, have chosen to use all parts except the connector of the USB standard for the Xbox. This means that while the machine could communicate with any keyboard, you can't connect it, since the plug won't fit. Also, in a recent interview, they stressed the point that the Xbox is a console, not a slimmed-down PC. Weird. Perhaps they don't know about Turbine? ;^)
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