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MMORPGs, Are You There Yet?
maddugan writes "CNN recently posted a story about a company by the name There and their opening of a public beta for their 'Virtual Universe'. One of the key element is that you can buy virtual Levis and Nikes for your Avatar. " Hemos & I have been playing The Sims Online- Come visit the Slashdot Charisma Sweatshop on the absolute west edge of the Mt Fuji City and say hi. I got my real nick for once too! I love MMORPGs and 'There' looks like another wrinkle on taking Sims type games online. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.
MMORPG's are fine and they cater to a very select market. The fact the that select market is rather huge is irrellevant.
I have not started playing Everquest, Anarchy Online, There, Sims Online, EOA, or any of the others that I might have missed. I have no plans to either. I play a mud. Text. Requires reading... I know, what a pain in the ass.
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specially this kind. I hope nobody gets hooked on to this, and forget to eat/sleep and end up unconscience like that guy in Korea(i think).
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Yep, it's a dupe.
Come on CmdrTaco, that's two dupes you've posted on today's front page... go for the hat-trick!
--
Karma: Chameleon (you come and go)
This is a dupe. The original Slashdot article can be found here: "Metaverse Launched?".
From Damage Studios' site:
As far as The Game goes, we're on track for meeting our prototype deadlines, which makes everyone pretty buzzed. We had our second art review on Friday, and the concepts are really coming along. I don't want to go too far into that, because I don't want to ruin the anticipatory magic.
Apparently, you can get frequent updates by signing up for the mailing list.
Nice work so far, Chris.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
you can "travel" from sims online to there, as in a vacation, pick up some stuff for the kids, and so on.
After all, we don't all live in the same town but people do visit from time to time.
OMG, I think CmdTaco and I are neighbors in Mt. Fugi.
I hold a patent on sigs...
It's good to hear that some gamers are having a good time in the Sims Online - other user reviews have been less excited about the experience.
Here's a short piece about the fallout in reaction to this most-touted game release: Sims Online: Be a PAYtester?
Interesting thing with MUDs seems to be that more reading they require, the less there are people that you'd rather play without. Another thing I like with MUDs is that once there is no need to get as big audience as possible, there need not be such compromises on the gameplay, which generally mean better game.
Software should be free as in speech, but if we also get some free beer, all the better.
I thought this would be a fitting UF comic, considering how Slashdot is supposed to be pro-freedom/anti-corporatism. Have fun SimPeddling your SimAss to EA for SimDollars. Go to the SimMac and have a SimHeartattack or buy a SimPentium4 with SimHyperthreading!
Hate me!
Does it take you two weeks to earn enough virtual money to buy the latest Nike Jordans like in real life?
the byproduct of years of oppression by the white man
I played a MUD. The administrators were about as corrupt as an average politician and it was all being led by an unemployed welfare-supported hippie who wouldn't even recognize a "Bad Thing"(tm) if it hit him in the face at mach 2. Most of the players we're afraid to say anything and the few who did only droned out the words "I agree!" or something similiar to whatever ons of said administrators cried out in a fit of utter stupidity. That, and the basic idea of "You're not paying, so if you don't like it, go to hell." aren't very appealing to me. IF I would even want to play an online RPG every again, I'd either play one that's not massively multiplayer or one that is administrated by decent, unbiased folks.
Hate me!
I would entirely have to agree, based simply on the fact that in my last 14 years of mudding, some of the most fun I've had has been on a mud with 5-6 other people on it. I'm really not fond of the Massively Multiplayer Online Games. The only graphical online game I've ever played and liked was Medal of Honor:Allied Assault. But, it's not exactly the type of game that concentrates on interplayer relationships. Just go shoot someone. I used it to clear stress. I can't honestly think of a graphical interface that would work for most muds that I've played, for the reason that unless they're drawing the graphics from my mental images of the descriptions, it's not the same MUD.
.02
Just my
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10 seconds later, at the Slashdot Charisma Sweatshop...
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I applied for There's beta testing program, and have been accepted. Apparently they invite new players "on a weekly basis" -- I'm still waiting impatiently for my invite! :-)
Do we really need all these duplicate posts, telling us that the article is a dupe?
Bad enough that it's a dupe in the first place without having to read fifty posts telling us so over and over again.
I was a compuserve member way back when the internet was hard to get onto (you couldn't access the net from compuserve when I first signed up). They looked deep into my soul and gave me a number based upon the order in which I joined. About when they let me choose a screen name for myself (all_the_good_names_are_taken@compuserve.com I kid you not.) they introduced this thing called Worlds Away which seems eerily like "there."
The keyword you typed at the go prompt was AWAY, so youd type GO: AWAY and be transported to a virtual world which had all the usuall compuserve anal retentive rules to keep everyone playing nice.
I've since left compuserve due to the cost of access and the mountains of rules, but I did hear that worlds away has been replaced by a thing called Dreamscape.
Everything that is old is new again.
Is anyone developing a free to use mmorpg, maybe based on a p2p method? I pay enough monthly bills I don't want to pay a monthly fee just to play a game. I don't mind paying for the game though.
I wonder if there's a way to build a mmorpg system that doesn't require central servers, but could exist on thousands of p2p machines. As pc's log on and off, the load is moved around. Sort of a combination of p2p and a distributed.net.
Instead of servers slowing down with more people logging on, the game gets faster when more pc's log in and add their computing power.
My big thing is with how much time commitment a "Virtual World" type game requires. I have never played any type of online static VW game, just things like Battle.net.
My main reason for this is that it seems like the commitment is too great. It seems like one I play I have to keep playing everyday or else my previous effort isn't really useful, like I have to live a second life almost to make anything useful/fun out of the MMOG.
I am currently playing Animal Crossing on the GCN, and while this game is ultimately experienced best if you play a little each day or for an hour or two on the weekends, Or both in my casse, I could stop playing for a while and nothing would go wrong or bad, I would be able to pick right back up. The same goes for the non MMOG Sims. From outside of MMOG it seems like I couldn't do this with those.
Am I off base with my impressions of MMOG? Are there any that exhibit play whenever you want/can better than others without degrading the experience?
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
I was at Radio Shack last year, and the guy behind the counter was foaming at the mouth over that microsoft game. It was kind of scary.
I think anyone would foam at the mouth when ask to pay $70 for M$ Flight Simulator...
"There" seems to require Windows.
Too bad, they follow only that track.
SimsOnline seems OK, but think ahead a few years to how the medium will evolve. The 'There' virtual universe is a snapshot of the screwed up world to come.
We go from text chat where we can let down our social guard, be anything we want to be and let our imagination soar. SimsOnline moves us to cartoonish graphics, an OK bit of fun. The 'There' universe drags us backward to a social environment where we worry about our clothes, hair style, etc. Do I really want to manage two wardrobes?
Virtual universes will naturally evolve into a photo-realistic environment some years from now. Do we want a fake universe in which we have all of today's worries? Yes, you might say, because our virtual lives can be better than our real lives.
What does it mean when I enjoy my virtual life more than my real one?
I'll spend my time using technologies that are not geared toward spending as much time as possible with that technology. What's the point? I enjoy healthier recreation offline.
The Matrix missed the point as a social commentary. Machines won't need to take over the world and enslave us. We are willingly putting on the shackles and forgetting our real lives.
Yet if you were a 14 year old British girl, you might appreciate Habbo Hotel (Shock Req.)
Were you a Finnish (Suomi) teen, you might appreciate Hotelli Kultakala (Shock Req.)
I hate Grammar Nazi's
Can you kill someone for a pair?
FRA: STFU GTFO
In the virtual world, eating McDonalds hamburgers COULD be good for you! Just imagine - If McDonalds paid the GMs for the priviledge, eating at a virtual McD's would increase all your stats 10% for a few hours after ever meal. Using Colgate toothpaste really would make you better looking. And if your sim drinks Bud Light, your sim really would become irresistable to the opposite sex for a few hours!
This has potential even in games like Ultma Online, where wearing Levis under your armour might convey you some mild form of magical protection. Wearing Nike's lets your character run 10% faster. Just think of the possibilities...
My rights don't need management.
--Joe, "Joe v.s. the Volcano"
Except this way, people are actually paying. But that's the way, isn't it? Corporate evil is nothing if not efficient, (in all the 'right' places, at any rate). Render them impotent, trick them into living in bullshit misery and debt-ridden servitude, then sell them a subscription to some lame version of 'escape'.
"Oh, and Smithers, tell our engineers to make it highly addictive."
"Yes sir. The people will know what hit them, but they won't care."
-Fantastic Lad
Well, the whole thing is largely stupid/looney/ridiculous to begin with. Escape from your life for several hours a day (or more if you're a true major-league wacko) to...play at life again with the same crap you're "escaping" from: doing dishes, taking out trash, mowing your lawn, going to work, etc, etc. Sheesh.
If I could enter one of these silly worlds as a terrorist or mad scientist and unleash virtual plagues "blow up" virtual diners or other "gatherings" then it becomes interesting - but the virtual people have to "die", that is, the characters don't get to come back to virtual life and the "owners" of the characters have to start anew with a new/different character. It becomes interesting then. It would be amusing in its effects on those people who get overly attached to a non-real avatar/persona.
Basically, I would be interested in it if the users could turn the virtual world into some dystopian hell-hole by simply NOT being restricted in any way (by software rules/game rules). See what comes of it. Cool experiment and fun to play...and it IS only playing, and thus not worth the emotional investment too many people put into it.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Sounds like fun. Have you tried Ultima Online?
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Except in my vision, instead of there being a complete free-for-all where the strongest gang of players has their random way with anyone and everyone else, there could be a virtual police force, virtual militaries, etc, for in game policing. You do your thing but may pay the consequences ingame from virtual authorities, preferably made up of other people (no AI cheating).
Of course, in standard RPGs it is possible to collect "magical" items or superweapons/armor, and character points such that your character becomes virtually invincible. Not so in my vision. Your persona is just as vulnerable as anyone else's. You never get to a point where you have some forms of magical superpowers or protections so that you are invulnerable. A lone sniper could take you out on his/her first day in the virtual world if they got lucky and knew what they were doing. Real-lifelike vulnerability is a must.
As a leader of a group/band, you could also get offed by a treacherous member of your own group.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
One of the key element is that you can buy virtual Levis and Nikes for your Avatar.
Are these items made in virtual sweatshops by virtual children for virtually nothing just like in real life?
...on whether you're playing the rich white American or the 3rd world shoemaker ;)
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
There's a project called Worldforge that has some interesting things going on. You may want to check it out.
I've heard rumors that they want to implement P2P for the game media, but not for the game itself.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
and why exactly did you bother playing this MUD to begin with??
cpeterso
I know of 'hang-out' virtual places, which to some extent don't have objectives, but in every case you have two additional factors:
(1) personas you can't have in real life. In one place, I'm an anthropomorphic cat, just to be one. If you're offering a persona a person can't be in real life that's a kind of objective.
(2) sex. (mreeeow!) *G* now that's an objective.
No freaking way will this fly, if you can't have sex, or transform into strange creative personas, or do anything besides the boring consumerism you're already expected to do in real life. It's gonna fail unless it learns this.
PlaneShift
:-) ;-)
:-/
Check out the screenshots.
And it's FREE, too.
Let's hope it turns out to be as fun to play as it looks, and that it becomes well-known enough.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Not to nitpick, because I agree with most of your post, but I don't think I'd be able to recognize *anything* that hit me in the face at Mach 2...
--trb