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.

Comments

Yay, more dupes!

[deepstephen]

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!

The Sims Online: Not There Yet

[Fusty]

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?

Re:The Sims Online: Not There Yet

[kien]

I beta-tested TSO. Took me about one hour to decide that it was fundamentally flawed. I'm glad they held the open beta because it convinced me that this was NOT a game I would enjoy.

I think it's great when MMOG game developers offer open public beta-tests. It puts lots of eyeballs on their game (better chance that bugs will be found) and as the release of EQ taught us, it's never a bad idea to load-test your servers in beta. Also, if their game is good on a fundamental level (even if a few bugs still have to be found)...word of mouth will do all the pre-selling they'll need.

Hopefully, There will get it right.

--K.

Re:No. Flat out.

[mystran]

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.

Nikes

[Angry Black Man]

Does it take you two weeks to earn enough virtual money to buy the latest Nike Jordans like in real life?

Re:No. Flat out.

[Dark Lord Seth]

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.

What a bad idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Come visit the Slashdot Charisma Sweatshop on the absolute west edge of the Mt Fuji City and say hi."

10 seconds later, at the Slashdot Charisma Sweatshop...

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WorldsAway from compuserve

[nounderscores]

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.

Open source mmorpg?

[HeyBob!]

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.

Time Commitment?

[Flamesplash]

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?

Re:Time Commitment?

[cmacb]

On-line gaming can indeed be an addictive passtime. But then so many other things can be too. If you don't change any other behavior and simply add several hours a day of on-line gaming you will probably at least suffer from sleep deprivation.

What most people do however is give up some other activity. When I really got involved in this stuff a few years ago I stopped watching TV. First I simply watched less, then at some point I realized what a great waste of time my remaining TV watching was. Anyone who stops watching TV completely for a few months will be shocked at how awful most of it is when you tune back in.

Both TV and movies of today are creations of other people. As you watch you are consuming, nothing more. At least with virtual reality there is usually some element of creativity involved.

As far as being outspoken... if you communicate at all with people in real life as well as online (for example e-mail between you and people you actually meet in person) you will notice that the nature of the communication is different. Almost *everyone* is more outspoken online, whether it is e-mail, newsgroups, or SlashDot. People often express things in their personal web pages that they would be embarrassed to say to someone in person.

You can in fact develop what might be called an alternate personality online. I'm not sure there is any evidence however that this second personality is any less "real" than your in-person one. In fact I think it might be a good bit *more* real (for better or worse).

When it comes to work, as opposed to play, I'd *much* rather interact with people online than in person. The key element of this other than the liberating aspect of the interaction is that fact that everything is recorded. The worst managers I have ever had are the ones that go down the hall and pop into people's office or cubes for friendly little one-on-ones. These 5-minute-managers send their whole staff in different directions without knowing it.

Real life meetings usually end up being chaotic unless they are planned in advance. Again, the key is to get things in writing, to produce meeting minutes, and when it comes design, make sure that everyone is on the same "page".

I think that in the future online VR type interaction will replace many work interaction not because it is more fun, but because it works better.

They totally miss the point

[fleener]

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.

Re:They totally miss the point

[praedor]

YOU miss the point. With a bunch of idiots living out their "lives" online in virtual worlds, that means fewer people to dick things up in the REAL world. Parks will become less crowded and polluted because a lot of the slobs will be pretending to me svelt hotties in a virtual world getting the babes, etc. They can even "enjoy" a virtual visit to a virtual park whilst you, me, and the few other sane people go to the REAL parks and see them as they used to be.

This could be great. The more addictive the better, I say, wrt these "games". I WANT to be able to go camping again and not run into a family of fatsos 10 meters away in their trailer (with TV and VCR). To hear the breeze again, hear birds chirping, water tinkling instead of boom boxes and loud drunken gatherings around the campfire in the next door campsite.

Re:They totally miss the point

[fleener]

Your point raises more problems. All these virtual geeks will spend so much time online, they'll have no jobs. We'll pay while they're on welfare, including their monthly Internet access and gaming fees.

Yes.

[An Onerous Coward]

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.