Developing Online Games

peterwayner writes "If you're a bit tired of programming books, API descriptions, tables of keywords, and arguments about which data structure is buzzword compliant, super-mega-efficient and intuitively easy to grasp, turn to Developing Online Games , a book that seems to have very little interest in many of the traditional challenges for programmers. The authors spend four lines discussing the best computer language for the job (C/C++), conclude that objects give "far more flexibility in design" and then move on to fun questions like how to make a online game compelling for achievers, socializers, killers and explorers. This book is a wonderful psychoanalysis of the gamer's mind and it should be the first and last book read by game developers about to start a quest to capture the hearts, minds and subscription fees of people on the Internet." Read on for the rest of Peter's review. Developing Online Games author Jessica Mulligan and Bridgette Patrovsky pages 495 publisher New Riders rating 8 reviewer Peter Wayner ISBN 1592730000 summary The Sociology of building online games.

The book's strength lies in the deep experience of the authors and the efficient, occasionally gimlet-eyed voice they use to analyze their collective addiction. Jessica Mulligan's bio lists work on more than 50 online games like Ultima Online, while Bridgette Patrovsky's includes time building games for Electronic Arts, Sony and Interplay Online Services. If you believe that Online games are the latest thing, Mulligan would like you to know that you're wrong. She wrote a column celebrating the 30th birthday of the Online game in 1999. Rick Blomme wrote Spacewar back in 1969 and Dave Arneson started an RPG named Blackmoor in 1970 or 1971. It was so long ago, he can't be quite sure.

All of this experience weighs a bit heavily on the authors. The book is more of a core dump than a logical progression and that means we hear bitter echoes of the past. One section is entitled "Yes, it really will take 2-3 years to complete" and another is called "No, More Programmers Won't Make it Go Faster." These sections don't add much to the usual literature about herding cats, but they do offer a strong reminder that this isn't a task for slackers who never could get around to forming that garage band.

The better parts are aimed at the design of the games themselves. While game players are slaying monsters or saving Princesses, game designers are questing after a full Player Satisfaction Matrix. Good games sate the player's need for socialization, accomplishment, discovery and conflict as they journey from the state of confusion (0-1 month), on to excitement (2-4 months), glide through the state of involvement (5-48+ months) before landing in boredom (until VH1 starts making "Behind the Game" documentaries). The trick to good design is making sure that there's plenty to feed the player's involvement.

For instance, you may be driven to create a new persistent world that emphasizes socialization because you're tired of all that death. The authors gamed that scenario and decided that "killers do have a positive role to play from the point of view of the socializers." Good can't exist without evil acting as a contrast and besides, players can usually find some other passive/aggressive technique for stabbing each other in the back even if knife objects aren't instantiated.

The authors tend to view the online realms as ecosystems. If you want to "increase the number of achievers," then the authors advise that you "reduce the number of killers, but not too much" while maybe "increas[ing] the number of explorers." I suspect that these recommendations are to be taken with a grain of salt, but they do reflect the observations of people who've spent a long time managing these games. I'm even tempted to develop my own Sim Sim that lets you simulate the process of crafting a simulation.

Ultimately it's hard for the authors to offer much more than these recipes and matrices. The details about the management, the strategies for stopping cheaters, and the intricacies of player relations are essential parts of the journey, but those are only half of the battle. Making the characters sing and the world come to life is a job for the artist.

This book is like many of the simple guides for writing a screenplay. They talk about arcs, hinge points and beats, but end up counseling that the screenwriter should aim to make each of these "good," This book can't tell you how to make your characters "good," but it can give you much insight into how others have done it before.

You can purchase Developing Online Games from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

Could be an intersting read.....

[unclethursday]

But, I think the main thing any online game really needs to do is work on optimization of network code. And for both dial-up and broadband.

Sure, the majority of broadband adoptors, in the home, are online gamers, but broadband saturation is still very low; and the availability, coupled with the price will probably keep it low for a while. I know people in Canada who pay between $25-$30 US per month, and get better speeds with their broadband than I get paying $55 US a month for mine.

Online games need to be optimized, no matter what connection the programmers would prefer. There's still plenty of lag on broadband when playing games, and a lot of it has to do with unoptimized code (which normally is fixed later down the road via patches on the PC).

Uncle Thursday
---In Soviet Russia, I might have gotten the first psot.---

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[glenrm]

Stop right there mister! This kind of talk could lead to a technical disscussion that has merits! Better to talk about "design issues", EULAs, and other stuff that everybody understands, too much code or science talk will just confuse the important "design issues"!

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[johny_qst]

Network optimized code is an important element of game design, but surely you can't mean it's importance outweighs the quality of the story being told through the narrative of your actions in the game?

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[unclethursday]

No, but it should be very important in an online capable, or online only game.

Personally, I feel the most important aspect is gameplay. But, in online games, shoddy network code can ruin the gameplay.

Uncle Thursday
---Gamer. Lover. Fugitive. Not necessarily in that order.---

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[johny_qst]

I totally agree with you about gameplay being king. Especially in the current favorites of online RTS's,FPS's,and RPG's. If there is lag I won't keep playing, but if the gameplay devolves to become formulaic killing of opponents then the gamer will eventually seek out the game that allows his actions to affect the larger game world in concert with other to make a grand statement. I think I'm rambling so I'll stop after this... Gameplay is essential to any game, Solid Network code is essential to any online game, Great Stories are what will get me to trudge once more into the breach.

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[Xformer]

Easy to do... make it text-based :-)

If you need to be more bandwidth-friendly than that, compress it!

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[EastCoastSurfer]

But, I think the main thing any online game really needs to do is work on optimization of network code.

At this stage of online gaming much of this has already been done. Many people are already playing online games(specifically MMORPGs) in a lag free environment from broadband and modems alike. I'm not saying that there won't be more advances, but they will most likely be evolutionary and not revolutionary(ala what Quakeworld did for Quake).

Online gaming is no longer in the infancy stage. People expect bug free, stable, and lag free games. Games that don't provide this right out the box won't last long now anyways. The only thing in the end that will make one game different from everyone elses surviving games will be content.

The next big problem presenting itself to online games is how to bring in the largest audience(which seems to be what this book will deal with). Some people want PvP, others want PvE, and still others want a glorified chat room. The real hurdle when creating these games is how does someone design a game to satisfy as many segments of the gamer population as possible. Then there are other questions such as even if it is possible, is it the right thing to do? Should we pick a certain segment and focus or try to catch many small parts of segments?

So in summary, everyone already expects graphics, special effects, even whizbang network code in todays online games. The problem is that all these things are completely completely useless if there is no content to drive it.

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[Junks Jerzey]

Online games need to be optimized, no matter what connection the programmers would prefer. There's still plenty of lag on broadband when playing games, and a lot of it has to do with unoptimized code (which normally is fixed later down the road via patches on the PC).

This is largely a myth. "Optimize," in regard to network code, means "fool the user into thinking it's faster." There is nothing you can do to get rid of network lag. It's a fact of life. So what game developers do is play tricks to make you think the lag has gone away, and each of these tricks doesn't work in some cases. A classic fudge is to predict where an opponent will be in X milliseconds, based on his last known movement characteristics. If the prediction is right, then everything is grand. Hopefully it will be more right than wrong. But it can still be wrong.

Yes, there's also the issue of reducing packet size, but that's pretty mechanical. And even if you could reduce the entire state of a client to 1 bit, then there's still going to be lag time. Period.

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[Zerth]

I wish... As someone who works on a graphical(although not terribly massive) rpg, if all one had to do is optimize the network code I'd be insanely happy. Until just recently, I only had dialup so my only view of the game was through an itty-bitty 48Kbit-sec-if-I-am-lucky phonecord. When I got broadband a month ago, I expected to see something.

Zilch.

We already had our per-client bandwidth down to like 28kilobit/sec(the head honcho likes to play using his zaurus with a wireless modem) unless somebody was tossing around a few hundred arrows or somesuch. Excepting such a situations where it is the servers fault, nearly all our lag is related to whatever is between us and the client.

I've got players in australia that get less lag than me and there are only half a dozen other people in my area who're sharing the pipe with me till it hits fiber. Only difference between broadband and a phonecord is I can read /. and have bittorrent running while I play and not notice anything.

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[J0zhu]

Network optimization and other technical aspects ARE important. Playstation 2 proves that. However, think back, have the games gotten any better? Are they much more exciting then the nintendo days or bards tale? Truely I say to you that the techinical aspects are somewhat important, however these days I see the tech of a game outweighting the playablility as well as the enjoyment of the players. if you play an adventure/RPG style game. Your playing for the adventure, not the eye candy. Muds where tremendously popular (and to a degree all things considered still are) because they had a depth of play and a depth of exploration. both the world and the workings of the game itself. a game is primarily for the enjoyment of the players, who may or may not appriciate your suave use of 1's and 0's. something to consider.

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[glenrm]

Morrowind and NWN strike a good balance in this regard...

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[Anonymous Coward]

But, in online games, shoddy network code can ruin the gameplay.

The sort of sums up my opinion of the quality of the coding in MOHAA.

Graphics engine written by iD software.
Network code written by Jimmy's little brother while smoking crack.

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[robi2106]

Take a look at games like Starcraft and Tribes(1). There are still hundreds of active servers (just in north america) to join for each of those games. They each had great gameplay. But that game play would be greatly diminished if it wern't for the tight network code. You can't play either of these games if the connections are laggy. That would destroy their reputations as great multiplayer games.

robi

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[BaShildy]

I don't know about the author, but yes I do believe that. We are talking about multiplayer games here, and not a single player game. Most multiplayer games only need a small backstory, a small (if any) story for the map, and that's it! Games like Battlefield 1942, Quake3, and Counter-Strike would be not as fun if you were interrupted for storyline reasons.

Online RPGs are a different story (pun), and usually require a lot of writers for quests and dialogue. Online action and strategy games rely on gameplay, and communication for fun factor. Better netcode improves both of these, while a better story won't fix your game that isn't fun.

If you want a good story, read a book, or play a story focused game. Multiplayer games should have instant fun, and a storyline would not allow the player to jump instantly into the action. All the multiplayer games I've worked on have focused on controls, gameplay, and netcode. The better the netcode, the better the player's experience.

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[Grab]

Sure, it can ruin it. But that's just a negative attribute, saying that unless it's done reasonably well then it'll damage the experience. No-one ever bought a game bcos it had *really* *good* network code. ;-) Even with graphics, really good graphics won't actually do much to keep people playing (think of all those so-so FPSes).

What makes a game successful is the gameplay every time, not anything technical. The technical side just stops it being a failure. And in the entertainment industry with hordes of so-so films and games, wouldn't you like your game to be recognised as "good" rather simply "not totally bad"?

Grab.

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[mrobin604]

There's still plenty of lag on broadband when playing games, and a lot of it has to do with unoptimized code (which normally is fixed later down the road via patches on the PC).

A lot MORE of it has to do with dropped packets on the internet, and ping times. There isn't a whole lot you can do to improve responsiveness at 200+ msec pings, other than change your game design to be less dependent on a real-time feedback loop.

Contrary to popular belief, bandwidth is NOT the issue when it comes to network games. It's latency. I wrote the networking game logic for Interstate '76, probably one of the first games playable on the internet, and it was not a big deal to get it to run with 4 players at 14.4k modem speeds! The bitch was the ping times, every modem link adds 100ms lag, so in those days pretty much every player was 200msec+. Real time games are pretty much unplayable at 400msec or greater, especially ones with vehicle physics and speeds :P There was NO amount of optimization I could do to change that lag, it was all hardware and the speed of light.

Granted that some network code is really bloated, particularly games that use an abstracted object state synchronization model, but the real cause of the problem is the lag time.

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[Mac Degger]

Actually, I'd say everyone does buy on *really good* netcode. That's cos if it had *real sucky* netcode, they'd read about it and decide not to buy the game ;)

Sure, gameplay is important, but without the mechanics to make it enjoyable, it's just frustrating, not gameplay.

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to be a tr0ll but the best way to learn network optimization is to check out the Back Orifice 2K source code and mod it so that it is not so bulky and cumbersome.

I only say this because I was a sysadmin who messed with VB 6.0 on the side, eventually I learned the basics of ASM and c/c++, the first big project that I did was a complete mod of the BO2K code to suite my tastes and that was like the best crash course in effecient network programming that you could hope for!

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[FreekyGeek]

So, uh... are you implying that the "design issues" you're looking down your nose at are unimportant?

Without a good design, there's no reason to write one line of code. THAT is why people talk about "design issues" so much. The technical stuff is just a means to achieve the design.

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[glenrm]

No I was not looking down my nose at design issues, but I don't think they should be given more weight than the "technical stuff". I would love to have a great designer or even better a great writer to work with. What bothers me is how little technology posts or software posts have to do with technology/software.

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[johny_qst]

I understand that their network code is excellent if you are on anything better than a modem.... but they are both quickly boring games. I enjoyed playing both at one point. Include Quake and Unreal Tournament and Half-Life Counter Strike. They are interesting for a short bit. But that bit ends and I'm still looking for a good online game that will keep my interest for more than a week. That I don't see happening until the narrative of your actions is intruiging and not formulaic gameplay.

Re:Could be an intersting read.....

[Ex-MislTech]

I think a sliding window of updates that follow each character is more practical than the old way
that sent the twitch of every living thing down the UDP data pipe .

Dungeon Siege uses the sliding window of updates .

It is still not going to work that well for dial up, but that has more to do with Trace Routes and lag .

Asynchronous delivery of packets causes real time apps to be jumpy, high error rates due to retransmission too .

Analog is error inherent, broadband/baseband that is digital has MUCH lower error rates .

The POTS network for internet acccess was in my "opinion", just a work around .

Fiber to the neighborhood, and 802.11g to end user would provide every minor/major city good net access .

If this was 2 hops off the back bone, it would have blistering trace routes , and be good for gaming .

A purely optical core would assure this .

Cell phone providers use water towers a great deal in the mid west, this is workable for 802.11g too .

Ppl's post on here have talked about how US networks suck compared to the canadian counterparts .

Here is why ...

Do a trace route to a friend in another city that is near you .

You will find the cable modem companies have routed all their data through just a few points of presence
and it may be 20 hops added to the route, and have latency that is ridiculous for a network that is "supposed" to be fast .

If they had a honest point of presence in each city to the backbone I would not have to route all the way to kansas city like the rest of the midwest .

That was true even when I was on dallas, its pathetic .

This is all due to greed and cost cutting measures to "maximize profits" , and what they get is a piss poor product that is ridiculed online .

Ppl end up looking for a better product, one will arrive eventually.

I think communities need start their own network coop's , and
bypass the cash cow corporates .

If you want something done right, do it yourself .

Ppl with network knowledge far beyond my own will be required,
but it CAN be done, and some US cities are already looking
into this and setting up as a local utility .

For good gaming, you need a good trace route, you need as
few errored packets as possible as most games use UDP protocol
for their transmission method .

Thus why modem users tend to see ppl "teleport" in online
games when moving about .

Use a network monitoring tool like neo-trace to track your
trace route over time similar to a chart recorder .

There are better monitor tools to be had to be sure ,
but neo trace is decent for the poor folks .

This is particular useful during spike periods .

Peace...Out...
Ex-MislTech

Such a good review

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I don't need to buy the book.

Game players and the Game players Mind

[Anonymous Coward]

I never actually played Everquest. I just read the Cliffs Notes, and talked about it in chatrooms.

Already done..

[Anonvmous Coward]

"...and then move on to fun questions like how to make a online game compelling for achievers, socializers, killers and explorers."

It's called Grand Theft Auto 3. Now if they'd only make it massively multiplayer on-line, then the holy grail will have been achieved!

Re:Already done..

[Anonymous Coward]

ohhh, a game whose commercials show people beating each other up with a baseball bat or something... sounds real compelling. not really.

senseless violence glorifying immoral crime. grow up.

Re:Already done..

[Anonvmous Coward]

"ohhh, a game whose commercials show people beating each other up with a baseball bat or something... sounds real compelling. not really.

senseless violence glorifying immoral crime. grow up."

"I don't know what it is that you're talking about, but I heard about it on TV. It's that .. uh.. stupid game. I hate it and the people who play it are immature and are easily entertained. I'm not going to do any research about my harsh stand because I don't want to find out that I'm wrong. I'm glad I can post anonymously here so that I can spread my weak message!"

Re:Already done..

[mikeboone]

I wouldn't want to play GTA online. Can you imagine an online world where 1% of the city's inhabitants drove normally and the other 99% were maniacs with guns? That makes it more like Quake, and takes the fun out of GTA, IMHO.

Re:Already done..

[GigsVT]

And besides, GTA3's engine was pitifully underpowered and slow.

You turn around for a second, and that car you just jacked dissapears. Apparently they couldn't even keep track of more than the tiny bit of the world you were currently in without making it even more slow.

Re:Already done..

[Zathrus]

You turn around for a second, and that car you just jacked dissapears. Apparently they couldn't even keep track of more than the tiny bit of the world you were currently in without making it even more slow.

No... it's just that someone else just jacked the car you'd previously jacked.

Remember - if it's not bolted down, it's mine. If I can pry it off, then it's not bolted down.

Re:Already done..

[Anonymous Coward]

senseless violence glorifying immoral crime. grow up.

Yea, because we all know adults only commit crimes allowed by the codes of 17th century morality. Or was there some other moral code you expect your crimes to be consistent with?

Re:Already done..

[Anonvmous Coward]

"You turn around for a second, and that car you just jacked dissapears."

That's because it's a port of a Playstation 2 game. That machine's not big on RAM.

Re:Already done..

[PyroX_Pro]

Grand Theft Auto is fun. It lets you just blow off whatever you think is wrong with the world and spend a few minutes causing total chaos and destruction.

I agree, can you imagine pulling another player out of his car and driving over them as you make your escape! That game HAS to be made muliplayer online. PLEASE ROCKSTAR GAMES, DO IT FOR PS2!

Re:Already done..

[Anonvmous Coward]

"That game HAS to be made muliplayer online. PLEASE ROCKSTAR GAMES, DO IT FOR PS2!"

Screw that, do it for PC so it can be modded.

Re:Already done..

[NanoGator]

"ohhh, a game whose commercials show people beating each other up with a baseball bat or something... "

No, that's not what this game is about. Though I'm curious how you could mistake a game called "Grand Theft Auto" for a game where the point is to beat people. *eyeroll*

"senseless violence glorifying immoral crime. grow up."

One should know what they're talking about before telling people to grow up. If you had actually played the game, you'd know that senseless violence is the fastest way to lose in that game. Run over a pedestrian, the police chase you. Fight the police, more chase you. Etc.

I find it hard to accuse it of glorifying violence when playing it trains my reflexes to avoid hitting people.

The reason that GTA3 is controversial is because a lot of parents (mothers mostly) have no clue what their kids find in video games. So when some jackass politician *cough*Joe Liberman*cough* comes along and says "the style of entertainment you're uneducated about harms your children", suddenly their fears get voiced. They say stuff like "GTA3 makes prostution a good thing! Just watch, the woman gets in the car, and his health goes up when they have sex! That's immoral!!" And the mothers are like "My babies would never have sex! That's wrong!"

The reality of that aspect of GTA3 is a little bit different. The prostitute does get in the car. The car does shake around. The health of the player goes up. None of that is in dispute. However, they are not actually depicting sex. If you turn the camera a bit, you'll see that both the driver and the prostitute are sitting in their seats staring out the window. They're not touching in any way, that's unmistakable. The car's just shaking around, it's not clear why. The point? If the player doesn't know what a prostitute is when they play this game, they're not going to find out by playing this game. For somebody to understand what's happening here, they'd also have to be educated on the dangers of sex with prostitutes. It's called innuendo. Nothing new here that a child isn't exposed to by watching a little TV, even the news. (ZipperGate comes to mind...)

In any case, the point of this post is not to defend GTA3 specifically, it's to point out that just because you've heard a compelling side of an argument that does not mean you really know what you're talking about. There's always other points of view. If you're going to run around calling people immoral without understanding the other side of an issue, then you shouldn't be telling people to grow up. Finding information supporting your point of view is easy. Complete understanding of an issue, that's a grown up method of debate.

Re:Already done..

[thatguywhoiam]

In any case, the point of this post is not to defend GTA3 specifically, it's to point out that just because you've heard a compelling side of an argument that does not mean you really know what you're talking about. There's always other points of view. If you're going to run around calling people immoral without understanding the other side of an issue, then you shouldn't be telling people to grow up. Finding information supporting your point of view is easy. Complete understanding of an issue, that's a grown up method of debate.

You reminded me of something I saw on tv a little while ago, when some guy on Donahue (I think it was) had GTA3 up on the screen. He was going through the paces, showing all the psychopathic stuff you can do in the game... beating up old ladies, killing hookers, etc. "Games are corrupting kids" was the argument.

There was a panelist who was on the pro-game side who had a fantastic rejoinder that went something like this (paraphrasing loosely here):

GAMES-ARE-EVIL DUDE
See? I can kill a prostitute, then drive over her with my car. The game rewards this. It's totally immoral.

GAMES-ARE-ART DUDE
You know, there's nothing in that game that tells you to do those things.

GAMES-ARE-EVIL DUDE
What do you mean?

GAMES-ARE-ART DUDE
I mean, Grand Theft Auto is a simulated city. They've tried to fill it with as much (exterior) realism as possible, to make it look like Miami. But the game is not about killing old ladies and prostitutes, it just allows for that. It is a crime-based gangster game, but those old ladies and prostitutes you just killed... that's you doing that. You're choice. The game does not say 'kill old ladies to win'.

It's an interesting point, and one that's lost on a lot of the game haters.

Re:Already done..

[pyrrho]

hey, all your fellow GTA players say the game is not about that, get with the program!

Re:Already done..

[NanoGator]

"See? I can kill a prostitute, then drive over her with my car. The game rewards this. It's totally immoral."

"...It is a crime-based gangster game, but those old ladies and prostitutes you just killed... that's you doing that. You're choice. The game does not say 'kill old ladies to win'."

I just had this discussion with a coworker this morning. My point was a little different. Here's the gist of what I said:

"Yes, you do get a few bucks for running over pedestrians. Unfortunately, we're not talking huge sums of money here. You would have to run over a LOT of people to buy the most basic weapon in this game.

Does that mean you're encouraged to kill people in this game. No! You're really being rewarded for the risk you're taking by getting the cops attention. You see, running over people (and killing/assaulting them in other various ways) gets the attention of the cops. When they start chasing you, you have to run like hell. This counters the point of the game. It's a good deal harder to complete a mission (the actual point of the game...) when you have numbers of cops trying to run you off the road.

You do not advance in the game by beating up old ladies. Believe it or not, you win by saving the girl. Heh."

I think my coworker understood my point. I'm a little sick of accusations based on assumptions.

The point you quoted is a lot more interesting than mine on a fundamental level. The reality is you can do bad things in this world. A lot of the time, you think you can get away with it. If this game teaches you anything, it's that you can't get away with hurting people. As I said before, you reflexively learn NOT to hurt people in it.

I appreciate you quoting that person. Something new to think about. :)

Re:Already done..

[invenustus]

Ever play the original Grand Theft Auto in multiplayer mode? It's the best kept secret in PC gaming!

It had serious technical issues - it could barely handle lag at all, and the interplayer messaging was utterly broken. And of course the whole engine was inferior to that of GTA3. But god damn it, it was fun! You just drove around following the arrow to your friend. Once you found her, you had three options: ram her car with yours until one of them exploded, get out of your car and try to shoot her with the rocket launcher (giving her the opportunity to run your ass over), or wait for her to get out of HER car and try to run her over - giving her the opportunity to fry YOUR ass with a rocket launcher!

My favorite trick - there was a broken bridge in Liberty City that most cars could jump easily. I liked to take a fire engine or bus and leave along at the edge of the gap, so that as my friend was flying over the gap, he'd hit the fire engine and fall into the river.

Re:Already done..

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Actually, I would think that makes it more like Richmond, VA than it makes it like Quake. But what do I know?

Re:Already done..

[iion_tichy]

"The prostitute does get in the car. The car does shake around. The health of the player goes up." You forgot to mention that instead of paying the prostitute, you can club her to death afterwards.

Re:Already done..

[NanoGator]

" You forgot to mention that instead of paying the prostitute, you can club her to death afterwards."

You haveta choose to do that the same way you would have to in real life.

Re:Already done..

[Anonymous Coward]

The game *ISN'T* about that.

But that doesn't mean you can't do it. What one person finds entertaining, others may not.

Re:Already done..

[pyrrho]

the game IS about ALL the things you can do in the game.

This argument that there are so many degrees of freedom in GTA that you can do anything you want to is ludicrous.

I mean, I can see the degrees of freedom, great! A simulation.

It's a simulation of violence, killing, destruction and mayhem, period. It IS about that.

You think the developers just woke up to find out "wow, you can kill the prostitute and take her money, who knew!" They made a world, and the art, etc, to do exactly that. Don't give me that emergent feature crap!

Re:Already done..

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's NOT.

The GAME is about completing missions.

Yes, it's about violence - it's a violent story. But the programmers didn't sit down and say "Hey, we need to add animations in case someone clubs a hooker, or an old lady" - they added code to deal with a 3D model of a person being clubbed, and used it for every skin in the game. Everyone (bad guys, hookers, pedestrians, old ladies) falls down in exactly the same manner when you club them with a bat. NOT doing so would detract from the 'simulation' aspect ("Hey, why can I beat up this guy with a baseball bat, and not that one?").

I say 'simulation' because they had to cut a lot of corners to fit it into the PS2 (like not really tracking where cars and people are when they're far enough behind you)

Re:Already done..

[pyrrho]

I don't really differ too much with what your saying... I don't think the Sims was designed to torture people by locking them in rooms with no food or water, sooooo OK.

But! You post drips with irony.

"Hey, why can I beat up this guy with a bat, but not this other?" This is the problem they were addressing.

It's a world where you are expected to beat people up with bats... REALISM dictates the rest! well of course it does, but you are a bit more than just started down that road at that point.

code to deal with a 3D model of a person being clubbed. Exactly! The game is about clubbing people. The game is about realism.

The game is about fantasizing this life of crime, and that life of crime includes lots of gross and base possibility... they made that world. It has to be defended for what it is. It can't be defended by saying, hey, it's just an urban simulator... who knew you could steal cars and kill people? wow were we suprised!

It's blood fantasy, when we talk about GTA we are talking about blood fantasy.

Frankly I'm fine with a world where blood fantasy is legal to make and buy... but only if it's also a world where people face facts, don't live in denial about what it is they are playing or phantasizing.

When someone plays a computer game, they are pretending to do what the game presents.

At least in my opinion.

They missed the point!

[petronivs]

What we really need to know is how to make a decent game without doing any programming, merely posting a bunch of unrealistic demands to a web forum that lets us make cool icons and signatures!

I hate

[geekoid]

when reviews give away the plot...

From what I've seen, they way to capture an audience is to make them wait for hours before spawning a monster, let high level characters be able to farm, and have little to no support.

Re:I hate

[t0ny]

when reviews give away the plot...

From what I've seen, they way to capture an audience is to make them wait for hours before spawning a monster, let high level characters be able to farm, and have little to no support.

Pff, dream on. We can only WISH they would make a game like that. Throw in getting killed by bored 12-year-olds every ten minutes, and its the perfect game.

But we could only be so lucky.

Great place to learn game programming

[0x00000dcc]

I learned most of what I know from a web site. Of course this gets back to the whole learn via book versus learn via google searches saga, but I think there's a wealth of info on this site.

I know, I know you can't learn everything from there and you should pick up a book after a while, but nonetheless a great place to start.

Re:Great place to learn game programming

[Rubbersoul]

I learned most of what I know from a web site

I learned most of my karate skills from karate Kid.
I learned most of my doctoring skills from watching ER. :)

Re:Great place to learn game programming

[0x00000dcc]

Hey,

I didn't actually say I knew very much ;-) I just dabble.

Re:Great place to learn game programming

[Xformer]

"Are you a game developer?"

"No, but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night."

Re:Great place to learn game programming

[BillyJoJimBob]

"Are you an actor?" No, but I play one on TV.

Re:Great place to learn game programming

[kin_korn_karn]

"You're hot! Are you a model?"
"No, I'm the actual size!"

Re:Great place to learn game programming

[BillyJoJimBob]

Caution - Objects in mirror are closer than they appear

You're right.....

[unclethursday]

Please, forgive me.

I forgot what really is important when desinging games.

Thank you for bringing me back into the light.

;-

Uncle Thursday
---Who wouldn't ever dream of talking about issues with merits...The EULA is obviously the most important thing.---

Women Programmers

[L7_]

No matter what they say, womem programmers will never get the mentality of 'killers': those teenage (and older!) young men that find the most fun in online games griefing, killing, and exploiting the games.

There will never again be a game world where 'Trammelites' and 'Pkers' can co-exist in the world like they did in Ultima Online. Things have just progressed to a point where the user base knows what they want out of games, and specialized games are coming out to grab up a specific type of player group, instead of mashing everyone together like the early UO (and NVN on AOL) did. Never again.

Re:Women Programmers

[0x00000dcc]

I don't know, I'm sure that while it's more "natural" for dudes to feel that way, I'm also certain there are a few outlier dudettes that'd take my ass home and spank it in a few games of Quake from sheer kill-adrenaline alone.

Re:Women Programmers

[Zathrus]

No matter what they say, womem [sic] programmers will never get the mentality of 'killers': those teenage (and older!) young men that find the most fun in online games griefing, killing, and exploiting the games.

You realize, of course, that Jessica Mulligan was previously Richard Mulligan and male?

Frankly, the mentality of those players isn't worth it. Goody - it gives them their jollies. You're better off without their revenue, because they cause more people to be disgusted with the game and quit it, or be annoyed and require additional customer service. Either way you've lost far more money due to that one customer than they'll give you back. Especially since support will eventually catch up to them, discipline them, and they'll quit (and remove your revenue source).

Oh... and it's not all young men that enjoy that kind of crap either. I was a guild officer in EQ and while our guild was mostly older (18+), we had a large number of younger members, none of whom were griefers. And yes, we were the top guild on the server (and still are, but I haven't played in over a year) and one of the top guilds in the entire game. Members who started pulling grief crap were kicked, and they would invariably fade away from the game afterwards.

Re:Women Programmers

[2short]

"No matter what they say, womem programmers will never get the mentality of 'killers'"

Bull. And it doesn't matter.
In the successful game producing teams I've had (perifferal) contact with, Programmers != Designers. It is the designers who must get the mentality of the gamers. The programmers must get the polygons to render at an aceptable speed or whatever.

Besides, by far the best Quake player I've personally seen was, you guessed it, a female game programmer.

Re:Women Programmers

[DarkLordHelmut]

"No matter what they say, womem programmers will never get the mentality of 'killers'" Oh come on, that is just sexist crap! The concept of women and men thinking fundamentally different is just stupid, and - unless your name is John Gray - probably not very beneficial to your life either.

Re:Women Programmers

[Jessica M.]

I don't necessarily agree it won't happen again, though it will take some real effort and clever design. Oh... my co-author, Bridgette Patrovsky, is a past winner of the Goat Cup in the original MUD. That's a PK competition, last (wo)man standing wins.

Re:Women Programmers

[Kyriani]

I disagree.
I happen to be a woman programmer, and a fledgling game programmer, AND a PVPer.
I spent my youth in arcades and in front of the computer, and know quite a few female gamers who are grief players and PKers and excellent FPSers. In fact chose the PvP server in EQ because it was more challenging to play against both players and mobs, and I love a challenge... Some of the best PKers I knew on RZ (Rallos Zek) were female, same with DAoC when I moved there (played on Mordred). My brother's wife is a wicked PKer, and a better FPSer than I. Our current hot game is PlanetSide. ;)
The game I am working on is one with PvP and I know I will be out there with my female friends PKing the hell out of people with this attitude. I do agree that people have started wanting more specialized games catering to their type of player, but I also think that games like Star Wars Galaxies try to cater to a broader range like Ultima Online did... Guess we will have to wait and see how well it turns out. ;)

Re:Women Programmers

[danWeasel]

Am I the only one who noticed that the author of the book is posting on here? (See Parent ;)) Nice to see you on slashdot Jessica, hope things work out with AC2. I just might have to go pick up your book so I can understand some more of where you're coming from while working on AC2. And as far as women programmers/gamers go, I think that while they are a small percentage of the whole, I've often found them to be all the more dedicated to gaming than the general gaming population. I agree that it Could happen again that a game develops the perfect mishmash of all kinds of players living in a world peaceably together, but I think in general developers would rather take the lazy way out and cater to whatever select group they think is the current "flavor of the month."

Re:Women Programmers

[Jessica M.]

Thanks for the welcome! I agree with much of what you wrote. Most of these games tend to try to cater to either everyone or one select group. While you can't be all things to all people, you do need to take into account more than one segment of the niche. And by the way, the promo text for the book has a mistake in it. I'm not an 'online programming guru;' the technical person on the team is Bridgette, who taught herself UNIX back in the late 1980s so she'd know what the coders on her team were really doing with their time, . She's also a seasoned executive.

Re:1st post

[Anonymous Coward]

This exact comment has already been posted. Try to be more original...

COCK!

The Big Problem

[InfinityWpi]

My question is, does this book tackle the big problem of most MMORPGs, namely, that there's very little in the way of plotline? Sure, they're great of killers, socializers, achievers, explorers... but what about people who want to be entertained by a good story? If I'm paying you twenty bucks a month for this thing, and it's not giving me 15-20 hours of involving story/gameplay, I'm better off buying 'classic' games like Deus Ex or Jedi Knight 2 or Real War. Give us something other than levelling via meaninless repeated tasks to look forward to. Give us a storyline that we actually run into! Not just something that'll unfold as news updates every month.

Re:The Big Problem

[L7_]

until MMORPGs actually have an advanced enough engine where real-time world updates are possible, then you won't get the storylines that you want.

The game engines that are avaliable don't seem to have too much a cause-effect relationship to provide the in-depth immersion that is neccesary for good storytelling.

I mean, you can kill a monster 100 times in a row... and nothing happens.

Re:The Big Problem

[Telastyn]

I don't see how you not being their target audience is their problem... Getting a good storyline for $10/20 per month is already being done, and being done much better by hollywood.

Re:The Big Problem

[0x00000dcc]

Well, I agree to a certain extent. I think these MMORPGS should dichotomize (word?) into those with a plot ands those without (shootem-ups) for marketability. And it's not that there is a certain group out there who only likes one and not the other, personally I like both. Lineage started to piss me off after while because the learning curve was a bit big for becoming an elf. Then again, I was only playing for 8 hours a day, not 10 or 12 like most who are insanly addicted.

Re:The Big Problem

[syle]

I think, if it's done right, a storyline isn't necessary. I'm assuming you're experiences are something like EverQuest, where the endgame basically involves raiding the same sets of supermobs over and over until your whole guild has the best stuff, then moving on to harder supermobs.

That's one way to do it. I don't think it's very fun, but a lot of people obviously do. Even though there are a lot of lore-based quests in EQ, it's fair to say the story is missing because the player doesn't encounter it in day-to-day play. It's there if you want to search for it, but you're certainly not immersed in it.

Take a look at other games like SimCity or Civilization. There's no storyline, but that doesn't make it exactly meaningless. You're given a task to accomplish: Take over the world, build your city, destroy the orc hordes, etc. Any storyline made to support it is obviously artificial, and rather irrelevant. The fun is in accomplishing your task.

I've played Shadowbane a little bit, and it feels like a strange combination of the two genres, but it works pretty well. You're given a task: Take over the world. Expand your nation diplomatically, or by war, or economically, or however you like so that you control everything. There's a little story behind it, sure, but it's mostly irrelevant. The leveling treadmill is there, but it's vastly shorter, because the real point is the far-sighted goal of world domination. You could say they strategically opted out of storylines (though they do exist).

Anyway, this isn't an advertisement. Things can be fun without the traditional storytelling approach the works so well in single-player though. I think EverQuest is a good example of why it usually doesn't make a lot of sense to try to extend that to MMORPGs.

Re:The Big Problem

[syle]

Oh god, I reread it and noticed "you're experiences." Please don't hurt me, crazy grammar people.

Re:The Big Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The big problem with this post is that you confuse an element of fiction with gameplay. Slapping a plot on your game will not solve the problem of boring gameplay. Improving the game mechanics will.

Re:The Big Problem

[Gutboy]

Give us a storyline that we actually run into! Not just something that'll unfold as news updates every month.

EverQuest tried a small sample of letting the players change the world. Ok, so those 40-60 people went and changed the world. The 20,000+ other people then bitched that the world has been changed, and they didn't get to do it.

Re:The Big Problem

[Lightwarrior]

Play Shadowbane, and make your own plot.
Stop laughing, I'm serious. What more do you want from a MMORPG than to influence the rise and fall of nations? Leveling isn't a chore, it serves as an introduction to the game. Once you join a guild, you're taking part in your nation's saga.

Let me give you an example:
A guild of which I was briefly a part was at war with a bigger, more powerful guild. There were many nights where our armies met on the rolling plains and sparse woodlands around our city. We were routed, time and time again, until we were forced to become allied with a different rival nation. Together, we turned the tides of battle - now we take the battle to them.

It's not about levels, money, war, or diplomacy - it's about all of them. Being skilled at some of those four will make up for deficiencies in others.

And take the reviews you read with a grain of salt. The review I read at Gamespot made me wonder if he was playing a different game.

-lw

Re:The Big Problem

[secolactico]

I seriously doubt you can get a decent storyline in a multiplayer game. At least, one that's involving.

Sure you are paying $10 - $20 each month, but so is everybody else. When every one gets to be a super powerful mage that gets to save the world from evil "forces from the north", it kind of loses its appeal.

Instead, everything is reduced to competition: who can level faster so they can kill more monster so they can level even more!

And who cares about a quest where you have to slay the dragon that's ravaging the countryside? It will re-spawn a couple of minutes later so someone else can do it!

You want storylines? Buy an solo game. The last game with a good storyline I played was "The Longest Journey". I'm partial to adveture games more than FPS and RTS, so YMMV.

Re:The Big Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The MU* community solved this one a long time ago. There used to be plenty (and still are a few) MU*s which could boast rich, involving storylines.

The problem is that the MMORPG developers think of their job as developing a fancy virtual world engine for people to go ape in. This is like a MU* administrator thinking that their job is to write LPMUD or TinyMUSH, rather than work on their actual game content.

Which leads to an interesting point: this is a book about game design, written by programmers/designers. Maybe the kind of people who are best at doing the story thing are the artists, whom the review noted are the content people. So this gripe against storylines in MMORPGs may be misdirected.

At least from my own experience designing the occasional RP MU*, I find the best approach isn't to design a story, but to create situations where the players can tell the story themselves. The medium is multiplayer, and you can't dictate that people follow your carefully-crafted, meticulously-written script, no matter how good it is. I could see disaster looming for Earth & Beyond when I figured out what approach they were taking.

If you're interested in having a story told to you, then I agree that a single player game is probably a better bargain. And that isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you're interested in telling a group story with thousands of other people, then hopefully there'll be a MMORPG for you, eventually.

Don't get me wrong, the game administrators have a part to play in pushing a particular story branch along, to keep a sense of direction to the game events. But if you're asking that they provide you with single player-like plot development in a massively multiplayer game... well, keep dreaming.

Re:The Big Problem

[llefler]

My question is, does this book tackle the big problem of most MMORPGs, namely, that there's very little in the way of plotline? The holy grail of persistent worlds is for the game designers to provide a launching point and then let the players develop the story line. The current generation of MMORPG is still a bit limited on the 'persistent' part of the equation. The players need more control over thier environment.

Re:The Big Problem

[realdpk]

Of course they bitched about that. However, was it a success otherwise? If so, maybe a larger subset of the population could be allowed to change the world?

Re:The Big Problem

[cscibri]

Try playing DnD instead.

Re:The Big Problem

[GebsBeard]

You bring up a good point. These kinds of games are closer to vanity platforms than roleplaying vehicles. Why waste precious time with plot when the whole point is oneupmanship.

Re:The Big Problem

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

You miss the point. A "super-powerful world-changing Mage" does not a decent story make.

First off, the MMORPG can't be as massive, maybe 100-200 players tops. Second, they have to give up some things, to get the story.

#1 They apply, as in submit an application, to become a player.

#2 Their character is mostly chosen for them. Perhaps they're given 3-5 different characters to choose from.

#3 They're given a detailed history of their character, and must know it by heart, before playing. Playing out of character is a subscription cancellation offense.

#4 Their character might be more along the line of Geoffrey, the newly hired 16 yr old town guardsmen. He's not very skilled, kinda awkward, doesn't fit in. Late one night, he notices 2 other guards beating up a shopkeeper... does he do anything? Does he play the hero, saving the guy, or the villain by extorting the other 2 guards (or helping them). Hardly the invincible barbarian most idiots want to play... but so much story there.

#5 There have to be people (non-subscribers) who can play multiple characters, and "cheat". Say I set up this game, and for $30 a month you get the best MMORPG experience ever. My brother is hired to play a DM... basically he knows things only a god can know, he can assume the part of any NPC, and affect the game when you can't observe it. He plays both the evil guards, but in such a way that he lets you decide how the story goes. Giving you the chance (and he has to be slick at this, so it doesn't seem contrived) to approach the guards without being attacked immediately "Hey Joe, look at this, it's the new guy! You, Geof! Go stand at the front of the alley, and make sure no one sees anything!". And so he lets you slide down that dark path... finding an ever growing conspiracy that goes as high, higher than the King himself. Nice huh? But would it ruin it if you knew my brother could also "have your money stolen" simply by using his DM powers, nothing you could do about it? (as part of a storyline, not for use himself) My point being, that he can do "bad things" to you, beyond your control (which aren't necessarily bad as far as storylines go).

I've made some assertions. Let me back them up.

Applications are necessary, because this is a persistent world, and some things have to be known about the player. For instance, when will you usually play? 6PM-9PM EST corresponds to midday in the game world, so that most east coast US players get to play during the interesting stuff. People who play at other times have to have characters that would be up at odd hours. If you work night shift, you get to play a thief, etc. When you aren't playing, you're character goes into bot mode. You can play whenever you want, but playing at 7am might mean that "you wake up in the middle of the night, in your bed". In bot mode, the character can't be killed either, though anything up to that (if someone tries to kill the character, a DM takes over, resolves the mess... even if not quick enough, the character is secretly ressurected and it was a "really bad, but healable wound"). When you're playing the character, he can die, and can't come back. Get him killed, and the operator sends you a list of 3-5 more characters to choose from.

Do anything to ruin the experience of others, and you get 1 warning. Then you get a refund for the current month, and some other anxious player gets an opportunity to play a game that only 200 people in the world get to play...

Even the boring characters could be fun. Playing the shop-keeper for instance... one day walking back from the market, an old hag is in your way, played by a DM. No matter how you handle it, she's insulted casts a curse. You though, are hardly superstitious (besides, supernatural events are extremely rare in this medeival fantasy world). But from that point on, all sorts of bad luck things happen. How do you handle it? It could play as slightly comical to deadly serious, depending on how the player would enjoy it the most.

Wish I had the balls to try something like this, I think it could work.

Re:The Big Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, you can kill a monster 100 times in a row... and nothing happens.

You're wrong.

You...

gain a level! :-)

Re:The Big Problem

[secolactico]

Yes, interesting concept. But you get the "Truman Show" problem. You need too many people (compared to how many can play) to keep the story moving.

Say, you get 200 people signed up and even if no more than 5 play at the same time, you's probably need one or two DM constantly online. And if the DM is not a very good multitasker, some storylines will get on hold while he sees to another player.

Example, if the Geoff char is playing and the shopkeeper is also playing at the same time, unless it's the same shopkeeper that's getting beat up, you would need to DMs.

And since the DM is a full time job you'd need three shifts of DM. And they'd better be great storytellers if you intend to charge $30.00.

(for the record, I know you're speculating and none of the examples given are written in stone. Just my 2 cents.)

Re:The Big Problem

[Mac Degger]

"Ok, so those 40-60 people went and changed the world."

Could you elaborate on this for a non-MMORPG-er? Maybe a short explanantion or a link? Thanks!

Re:The Big Problem

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

You would need 3 shifts of DMs, agreed. But how many per players? I'm thinking with proper interface/tracking software, a DM could multi-task efficiently enough.

200 people, and they wouldn't be spread throughout the 24 hours evenly. Peak times, maybe 60-80 online at once. They're encouraged to do things that keep the story moving by themselves... maybe only 3 DMs are necessary? Hard to say. And stories don't have to be completely adlib, you've have major storylines/plots planned just enough to take into account players taking a different direction.

I think once you got the ball rolling, DM involvement could be kept to a minimum. The question is, how big could it scale, per world? Keep in mind, that even if its only 200 players, adding another world/server would be an easy way to scale up revenue. Would allow for much more variation too... personally, I'd like the Wild West genre.

I pulled the $30/month price out of my ass... but if people will pay $10-20 per month for Evercrack's "lets go whack the dragon again" game, is it so farfetched?

Re:The Big Problem

[Iffy Bonzoolie]

If only 200 people in the world could play, I'm sure you could charge a LOT more than $30 a month, and people would pay it. I would say the price (if you were interested in making a profit) would probably have to be prohibitive unless you had a significant amount of disposable income, because the customer volume is so low.

But, this might be viable as communal non-profit kind of thing... I know, big surprise that someone would suggest that on slashdot. I mean, people get together and play pencil and paper RPGs... much larger groups of people get together and play live action RPGs - this is just the next level. Someone would have to develop the software, but say that was done, you would just get 100-200 of your closest friends together, the cost of the co-located server is split among everyone... and you could have dedicated DMs or rotating DMs, however you wanted to work it.

Of course, I have a hard time getting 5 people together regularly for D&D, so maybe it would be trickier than it appears...

-If

Re:The Big Problem

[Gutboy]

There was a dragon, who was very powerful, and insane. It took the might of all the other dragons to stop him, and put him to 'sleep' in a tomb. This tomb was guarded by 4 dragons, called warders. As long as 1 of the warders was alive, the sleeper (as he was called) would not awake.

In come the merry band of adventurers, 40-60 players, who kill all 4 of the warders. The sleeper awakes, kills everyone (yeah sleeper!), has revenge on a few dragons, then goes off to challenge the 'God Dragon'.

---

Ok, there's the story. Now, in a MMORPG like EverQuest, when you kill something, after a period of time, it will respawn, or return to life. Also, things you kill have treasures on them, in the form of weapons or equipment. The 4 warders had nice equipment on them. For a long time, people would kill 3 of the warders, but not the 4th, so that others (and they themselves) could continue to get the treasures from the warders.

Eventually, some group killed all the warders, freeing the sleeper. After the sleeper was freed, the warders never 'respawned'. They had made a change to the world, making it a world in which the sleeper was awake. But now those treasures that the warders had are no longer available to anyone else (along with some other changes). Now, the people who had already received the items from the warders were not upset, those that had not (the overwelming majority of players) will never have the chance to get them.

Re:The Big Problem

[Gutboy]

I'd say it wasn't a success. It removed stuff (creatures, items) from the game, making the world a duller place. Another indication that it wasn't a success is that it's been 2 years since this happened, and there hasn't been anything like it again.

Now, the EQ world has been changing, and the players can take roles in the change, but don't really determine the outcome (Evil Overlord will get powerfull magic item and enslave population). While it can be fun to be involved in these events, you still have the knowledge that succeed or fail, predetermined things will happen.

Of course, there are better ways to handle these things, and maybe the people at SOE need to reconsider what they are doing. But they have the most successful MMORPG, so they must be doing something right.

MUDs

[FortKnox]

If you really wanna make an online RPG, its best to start with a mud. MUDs take a lot less time, and you can tell right away if the game ITSELF will be interesting enough. Once this 'prototype' is done, use the same engine as a guide to making your 'product online game' engine, and add your wizbangs and graphics.

Re:MUDs

[syle]

I was right with you until you suggested using the MUD engine to drive the real thing. Forget it; write the real thing from scratch. MUDs just aren't designed to provide the scalability that real MMORPGs require. 2,000 people on one server sending only text? Sure. But in the real world, you'd want 2,000 people spread over 30 servers sending a lot more, and the players moving dynamically between servers. No freely available and well tested MUD base today (Circle, LP, etc) allows anything like that. You'll spend more time converting the prototype into a real engine than you would writing a real engine from scratch.

Re:MUDs

[FortKnox]

I said to make the mud a guide when you build the real thing. The fact that MUDs use only TCP/IP alone would make a MMORPG engine halt to a grind (not even looking at the size of the packets muds send). I was suggesting that you use the ideas of the mud as the heart of how things should look once you've completed your MMORPG, not as how to code the engine. Sorry it wasn't clear in my original post.

Re:MUDs

[Anonymous Coward]

2,000 people on one server sending only text?

What do you think people on MMOGs are sending? JPEGs? It's still text. The graphics that get rendered based on that text are all client-side. You're still sending text-only from client to server and server to client. It just happens more frequently due to it being real-time location data.

Re:MUDs

[adri]

Whoa there, cowboy. What, you think a single machine can't handle 2000 concurrent TCP connections without dying?

The Slashdot Game

[burgburgburg]

how to make a online game compelling for achievers, socializers, killers and explorers

What about geeks, malcontents, trolls, and the "hot grits/first post/Natalie Portman/In Soviet Russia/ogg vorbis/petrified" obsessed? Don't they deserve any effort? Just because they'd be subscribing with stolen/forged credit information doesn't mean they aren't customers too!

Re:The Slashdot Game

[Drey]

I realize you're joking but....

Many people redefine "killers" to be any person who engages in grief play. In MUDs and other MUD-like games, these are usually people who indulge in player-killing for the sheer sport of being annoying. Other ways to grief play include destroying or hording items needed to complete quests, spamming communication channels with gibberish or swearing, etc. It's pretty clear that the /. trolls you mention are grief players who can mostly be lumped into the killer category.

For the individual who truly wants to see Natalie Portman petrified and covered with hot grits, they're a "dark socializer" as they want to talk about their obsession and no one around them wants to hear it.

Re:The Slashdot Game

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're onto something.

1. Make a game called "Slashdot: All Your Base are Belong to Us", that somehow involves hot grits, Natalie Portman, Soviet Russia, ogg vorbis, goatse.cx, Gentoo, dying BSD daemons, hobbits, anime, Micro$oft, Richard Stallman, Taco's wife, that huggywuggysnookiewookum girl who was obsessed with Taco (or someone who was obsessed with her being obsessed with taco anyway), Wil Wheaton, Cowboyneal (clad only in a hand towel), Linus, Troll Tuesdays, a sentient ATM, first posts, karma caps, karma whores, non-numerical karma, mathematical models of why karma/moderation sucks and how to build alternatives using trust metrics, the turd report, GNU/Whatever, and insensitive Americans not catering to the needs of non-Americans.
2. ???
3. Profit.

Re:The Slashdot Game

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Stephen King dead at 55 and the Penis Bird?

But does it run linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

But can I play a gay male prostitute?

Re:But does it run linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

But can I play a gay male prostitute?

i'm sure there's a NWN mod for that

Re:But does it run linux?

[NanoGator]

"But can I play a gay male prostitute? "

No, but you can play Morpheus dressing up as Cowboy Neal.

Jessica Mulligan at Themis Group

[Allen Varney]

Jessica Mulligan does indeed have one of the longest and most respected resumes in online games. I was distantly acquainted with her back in 1989-91 when (as Richard Mulligan) s/he was product manager for GEnie's online games, and even then her knowledge of the field was extremely comprehensive.

Now she's involved in The Themis Group, an interesting venture that basically lets online game services outsource their customer support. (Another notable figure on the Themis team is the esteemed game designer Greg Costikyan.) Given the problems some online game companies seem to have with customer support, sometimes regarding it almost as an afterthought, I wish Themis well. They're good at conveying the important message that an online game company isn't selling the game, it's selling the service.

Re:Jessica Mulligan at Themis Group

[Anonymous Coward]

Jessica Mulligan does indeed have one of the longest and most respected resumes in online games. I was distantly acquainted with her back in 1989-91 when (as Richard Mulligan) s/he

Shouldn't the title of the book by "Developing Online Games, co-authored by a TRANSEXUAL PROGRAMMER!!!"

I think they'd sell way more copies that way.

Re:Jessica Mulligan at Themis Group

[lightspawn]

There seems to be a pattern here:

Jessica Mulligan
Dani Bunten Berry
Jamie Fenton

I hope I'm don't come off as intolerant, but this got me thinking: Is this a coincidence? Or maybe it's just that video game programmers (or programmers in general) tend to be dissatisfied with their lives, and thus more likely to try something extreme?

Re:Jessica Mulligan at Themis Group

[Zathrus]

I hope I'm don't come off as intolerant, but this got me thinking: Is this a coincidence? Or maybe it's just that video game programmers (or programmers in general) tend to be dissatisfied with their lives, and thus more likely to try something extreme?

Yes, we're sure to see Joan Carmack in a decade or so.

Re:Jessica Mulligan at Themis Group

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't just wake up one day and say "Gee, I think I want to be a girl instead". It's something that many of us spend half a lifetime denying or fighting with. Consequently, many of us spend/spent considerable amounts of time alone or online with our computers. Furthermore, with all that internal struggle going on, quite a few of us tended toward under-developed social skills.

Online, you can create a persona for yourself that is not dependant on your physical appearance. Being online (role-playing in games or just in chat rooms) was an escape from the unpleasant reality of one's gender dysphoria.

If there is a pattern, that's it...

The truth however, is that there are a lot of us out there - Some of us "Made the change" rather young in life (I was 21 when I had my surgery - yeah boys, don't think about it too much or you'll have sympathy pains) and you might work or go to school with one of us and never even know.

Actually, I'll be the first one to admit that those women you linked to are/were far more brave than I am. At least they didn't author their games as "Anonymous Coward"

Re:Jessica Mulligan at Themis Group

[0x00000dcc]

I guess they all took mulligans on their birth-assigned sex.

I kill me.

Re:Jessica Mulligan at Themis Group

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the individuals instrimental in designing the ARM processor / Acorn computer also had a sex change operation

Re:Jessica Mulligan at Themis Group

[Anonymous Coward]

So did Caroline Cossey

Re:Jessica Mulligan at Themis Group

[Anonymous Coward]

So did Caroline Cossey

Damnit - shoulda hit "preview"

Re:Jessica Mulligan at Themis Group

[TheEnigma]

It is certainly interesting. Have you also met Glenda Adams?

--

Feeling Bored?

Re:Jessica Mulligan at Themis Group

[FurryFeet]

I kill me.

Please. Oh, please. ;)

Quickly deploying underpaid games?

[Gizzmonic]

I don't know what the big fuss is about "online" games. You can't just slap on "online" features to a game and expect it to play well.

The best games will always follow the 'good gamer' strategy: have plenty of customization, tight control, run fast on older hardware, and light bugs (fewer than 4 or 5 if possible.)

While these ladies seems to know a bit about how to paint a gauntlet in Ultima Online or the coolest magic effects in EverQuest, I can't see anyone following this advise in a professional gaming environment. The commercial depression is just too high.

as they journey from ...

[burgburgburg]

"as they journey from the state of confusion (0-1 month), on to excitement (2-4 months), glide through the state of involvement (5-48+ months) before landing in boredom"

You realize what this means? I've been playing /., and I still have at least two years left.

Re:as they journey from ...

[asparagus]

Wait until it becomes an addiction. Then you'll understand the full meaning of the phrase '/. effect'.

Re:as they journey from ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that would be more properly termed the "/. affect".

Such a good review to make the reviewer some money

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you do and buy it from Amazon instead of barnes and Noble (who wouldn't after all), the guy that wrote the review gets a kickback!!!

He cunningly inserted his affiliate ID in the second to last paragraph (the book on screenplays), so if you click that, anything you buy on amazon subsequently makes the reviewer some doleros.

And remember...

[inertia187]

...step 3 is profit!

Irony

[moc.tfosorcimgllib]

Am I the only person that finds irony in the last name "Mulligan" for an author of game design books?

well,

[frodo from middle ea]

This book is a wonderful psychoanalysis of the gamer's mind

Well, I play tetris you fool, and all it requires is a good hand-eye co-ordination.

VH1

[Anonymous Coward]

strong reminder that this isn't a task for slackers who never could get around to forming that garage band.

That's probably why VHI won't be making any "Behind the Game" documentaries unless bad hair and good coke starts making a comeback in the game development community.

Not quite

[0x0d0a]

I agree that it is very uncommon for women to enjoy violent games, but I do remember one Quake goddess from high school...

Also, there may be more flux among likes. TV tended to homogenize interests -- you watch one show that's in line with your interests, and it becomes very easy to also try another show that isn't quite as much as it, and eventually, you watch a pretty broad range.

If someone tries a MMORPG, it may be easier for them to play similar games.

Re:Not quite

[unclethursday]

I agree that it is very uncommon for women to enjoy violent games, but I do remember one Quake goddess from high school...

Yeah, I know a few Girl GamerZ who can kick serious ass in FPS and RTS games.

This past New Year's I saw the side of a few girls I didn't even know existed. All of them attractive and in their 20's...playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Their sole intent in playing? To kill as many people as possible, in as many ways as possible.

One girl found the 'bail' button while driving, so she would purposefully wreck her car until it was on fire, then aim at a large group of pedestrians, at full speed, and bail. I've never heard such gleeful laughter.

And she seemed like such a nice, sweet girl otherwise. I guess I'll just have to keep my hand on the door latch if I ever drive with her. ;-

Uncle Thursday
---Attracted to Women GamerZ...especially Geek Women GamerZ---

Re:Not quite

[0x00000dcc]

I've learned my lesson on underestimating women in the geek realms. Example: My sister, who looks like computers would be the last thing on her mind (tall, blond, tan, etc.) actually asked me the other night how letters are represented by ones and zeros. I was busting at the seams, busting out the ascii charts and translating her name to binary and hex for her. And she was genuinely interested!

And NO, you may not have her either.

Re:Not quite

[Anonymous Coward]

What, if you can't sleep with her, no one else can either?

Re:Not quite

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said he doesn't sleep with her?

Re:Not quite

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool! Hey, I'm interested in ones and zeroes too... Can you show me how her name and phone number is represented in binary and hex?

Required Reading

[jpmahala]

I really appreciate the fact that this book focuses more on theory and concepts rather than code, but statements such as "...and it should be the first and last book read by game developers..." is a little ridiculous.

Please give a little thought before you post something.

(of curse now, someone will find a typo in my post...;)

Re:Required Reading

[Anonymous Coward]

(of curse now, someone will find a typo in my post...;)

of course someone will

dfcaholic

[frankm_slashdot]

darkness falls: the crusade - now theres a game that puts you into a state of bordem yet through sheer addiction makes you... noo.. forces you to come back for more. its like.. you cant just say no.

...you go back to it...

...you will always go back to it...

*begin evil laugh*

Different type of entertainment

[0x0d0a]

Give us something other than levelling via meaninless repeated tasks to look forward to.

If you aren't interacting with other people, adventuring with friends and the like, yes, MMORPGs are not really competitive with traditional CRPGs.

Richard Bartle, Players Who Suit MUDs

[Drey]

If anyone cares to read the original article discussing the types of MUD players (which does translate to other online games), Richard Bartle's paper "Players Who Suit MUDs" can be read here:

http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm

This is the source of "reduce killers to increase achievers" and such. I haven't had the chance to see this book yet to verify if they give him the proper credit for his research, however.

Re:Richard Bartle, Players Who Suit MUDs

[Drey]

Should have checked the book site first, he's mentioned by the publisher as one of the "case studies". In any event, perhaps I've saved a few people some shekels and given you the URL to a site that has a number of interesting papers on multi-player online games, focusing on MUDs primarily.

I think MMORPGs are a bad idea.

[thatguywhoiam]

And I'll tell you why.

The biggest problem with games like Ultima and EverQuest is that there is very little actual role-playing going on. This is news to no one in here, of course, but I do find it interesting how the term 'RPG' has been kind of mutated.

Traditionally I would not call something like Final Fantasy an RPG, but that's what it is in computer game terms. You don't get to shape your character's identity, or their destiny. You don't get to 'act' the character. You merely plod along the pre-determined timeline towards your only fate; in the case of FF, sometimes this line abandons you, to search for the next game thread. That's not what I want RPGs to be.

An interesting approach to online RPGs: throw away the Massively Multiplayer aspect. It's possible (in my mind anyways) that this is just an unattainable fantasy, to have a fluid, engrossing, plot-driven world where everyone is a character. The qualifications just aren't there. They've already identified these little subgroups (achievers, killers, etc.) and those players, for the most part, don't seem that interested in the role playing itself.

Rather, I like the dynamics of Neverwinter Nights. Small groups of people, who are like-minded. It's what you look for in your typical RPG anyways; the party comraderie, the give-and-take, clasing of personalities... a great story to tell later, if successful.

What if, rather than selling a packaged online game for all comers, you started a sort of RPG Society? You'd apply for membership, pay a monthly fee, knowing that every player is absolutely into the role playing. Applying would consist of your character history and thoughts about what you want to get out of it. Keep the number of players on each server small. Several instances of the game world. That way you' d be guaranteed of a much better experience. Pipe dream I know, but a nice thought.

I mean, look at what has happened to Star Wars Galaxies. Ugh. It's already become fucked up before they've even released it (yeah, I'll smuggle stuff on foot. In Star Wars.)

Re:I think MMORPGs are a bad idea.

[Zathrus]

What if, rather than selling a packaged online game for all comers, you started a sort of RPG Society? You'd apply for membership, pay a monthly fee, knowing that every player is absolutely into the role playing

So what you're after is an online version of SCA?

Honestly, look into the world of MUDs - there are quite a few out there that are more about role playing than character advancement. As with everything else, it's merely a matter of looking in the right place.

Re:I think MMORPGs are a bad idea.

[Rinikusu]

Oh god.

Maybe you've never heard of "live action roleplaying", exemplified by the "Vampire: The Masquerade" from White Wolf. I'm sure someone around here has.

Re:I think MMORPGs are a bad idea.

[Tackhead]

> An interesting approach to online RPGs: throw away the Massively Multiplayer aspect. It's possible (in my mind anyways) that this is just an unattainable fantasy, to have a fluid, engrossing, plot-driven world where everyone is a character.

/me screams through the flames "the Heretic speaks the truth!"

The best "multiplayer" RPGs, plot-wise, were the single-player Wizardry series. One player commands six people. The first week, it always seems weird - these guys are cannon fodder, these guys are generic spellcasters. The second week, it sorta gels that they're working together. Fred's the guy who's mean with the sword, Zapp's workin' on the polearm. By the end of the third week, all six have their own (imaginary) personalities and the party just wouldn't be the same without 'em.

If I'm gonna play an online multiplayer RPG, let it be with three of my friends from meatspace, the four of us taking on the world, to emerge as heroes a month later... only to re-roll and do it all over again as another party if the adventure was good enough the first time.

The idea of being an anonymous luzer scraping out a living killing orcs in a vast countryside teeming with 100,000 other anonymous orc-killing luzers... shit, if I wanted that, I'd play The Sims Online... or I'd just drop the RPGing and stick to real life.

Re:I think MMORPGs are a bad idea.

[Dracos]

The biggest problem with games like Ultima and EverQuest is that there is very little actual role-playing going on. This is news to no one in here, of course, but I do find it interesting how the term 'RPG' has been kind of mutated.

Finally, someone on /. who isn't pixel-blinded as to the definition of "RPG".

"MMORPG" is a misnomer at best, and really dilutes the meaning of its "RPG" element. I've said it before and I'll repeat it here: Quake + character.creation != RPG. Unless the R stands for "roll", not "role" (well, in software is should probably stand for "random()").

Online games do have a certain number of "role" players, many of which cast "role" aside in order to keep up with the advancement rates of the Quake-boys: the roll-players who do nothing that doesn't advance their character; the social voids that play 22 hours a day, even after the novelty wears off.

The social hierarchy in online games simply isn't sophisticated enough. Most involve a very small number of (semi)-automated NPC's, versus thousands of PC's. Almost every one of those NPC's has a specific purpose, most likely to feed some part of the player driven economy. There are no common folk for the sake of having common folk. When was the last time you walked into a village in an online game and saw children? Farmers? The butcher's wife? If you did, they were there only to support a non-essential sub plot (quest).

Offline games haven't even truly achieved this yet, but the Elder Scrolls games come close.

An RPG is a social event. Face to face. There's no substitute for that, no matter how much bandwidth is burned for audio and video. Sitting at a table, you and your friends accomplish something together. "Grouping" in an online game is a flimsy facsimile of this. There's also the tactility of tossing dice (which most players of online games would only find distracting, if they could actually get past the concept of having to do simple math for themselves). Finally, the thing most people don't understand about a true RPG, is that there is no concrete definition of winning, therefore people don't see the point of playing. The reasons for playing are:

1. Being there
2. Having fun
3. Working together
4. Escapism
5. Exercising the imagination

Now, any MMORPG could provide these, except #1 and #5. Why? There is no "there" in an online game: it's virtual. If you can see and hear everything, you don't have to imagine it.

All this rambling to get to imagination: that' the key. Online games deprecate your imagination, instead of nourishing it.

Re:I think MMORPGs are a bad idea.

[grumpygrodyguy]

Rather, I like the dynamics of Neverwinter Nights. Small groups of people, who are like-minded. It's what you look for in your typical RPG anyways; the party comraderie, the give-and-take, clasing of personalities... a great story to tell later, if successful.

I agree with many of your points. The best way to bring the players closer together would be voice chat. Naturally you'd need a small, NWN-type party system in order for it to work. The griefers just love to abuse voice channels. You need to game with a group of people you know in order to avoid this problem.

Re:I think MMORPGs are a bad idea.

[RollingThunder]

So what you're after is an online version of SCA?

You mean I could play Asheron's Call, but as a Klingon wearing a T-tunic, since it's close enough, and I don't have to pay, unless I want to be the King or run something big?

I won't go into the getting blotto drunk or chasing tail all over while putting on an atricious accent... let's just leave it at "SCA == everyone is absolutely into the role playing" strikes me as rather amusing... and I'm a kingdom webmaster.

Re:I think MMORPGs are a bad idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

I completely agree. Lets call it a MMOPGP, for "Massively Multiplayer Online Power Gamer's Paradise"

Re:I think MMORPGs are a bad idea.

[Razor Blades are Not]

I think the key to making these games successful is to drop the RPG appelation entirely. You're completely right - there isn't any roleplaying going on... so why bother claiming they're roleplaying games at all ? So you control a character.. big deal. I humbly suggest that there really aren't *any* computer games that support role playing. The distinguishing feature to RPGs is the playing of a role... assuming a persona different from ones own. This works best in a free form environment where you can interact with the world in any way imaginable... you just can't do that in a computer game (yet).

Don't bother with Plot in MMOgames. It's not going to be satisfactory. There's basically 2 ways of doing story in a game like this.

1. You put in quests anyone can do. Everyone does them - soon everyone knows about them, and it's not exactly conducive to a "uniqueness" experience for everyone.
2. You put in once only events. These are hosted by GMs. People clamour to get in on them because of the rewards they expect to recoup. Others are left out.

There are probably other approaches, but no one has really tried them yet - either due to lack of manpower or lack of vision.

Re:I think MMORPGs are a bad idea.

[TheEnigma]

It's about percentages. I bitch about this to my MMORPG-playing friends all the time. You cannot have a world (or universe or galaxy or whatever) wherein the majority (Molyneux forbid it is everyone) are "special" -- adventurers or what-have-you. It makes no sense!

I think that, in order to have fun at actually role playing, the ratio of NPCs to PCs has to be about 100:1, where NPCs are people living "by the rules", and the PCs are people doing whatever the hell they please. It does not matter whether the NPCs are virtual or if they are played by actors. Both are expensive propositions.

I agree with the other poster who called for small bands of players, but I think, in a big enough world, you could probably support hundreds of these bands, if they were dispersed well enough. Problem is, the worlds are also too small. When you think about a world being 20km by 20km or so, at first it sounds impressive (see Xenus or Morrowind). But how many lost dungeons can you reach on a day's hike? This is "mitigated" by speeding up time by six or so, but that's a bit of a cheat if all the player is doing is walking outdoors.

Let's just change the name to MMOG and forget the role playing until the environments are suited to and inspire it.

--

Feeling Bored?

Re:I think MMORPGs are a bad idea.

[Blue Stone]

"The idea of being an anonymous luzer scraping out a living killing orcs in a vast countryside teeming with 100,000 other anonymous orc-killing luzers... shit, if I wanted that, I'd play The Sims Online... or I'd just drop the RPGing and stick to real life."

No, no, no!

There are no orcs in The Sims Online!

There are no orcs in real life!

Please trust me on this, and don't kill any orcs you meet while walking down the street.
Step away from Everquest, and spend a little time, re-adjusting to real life... please, for pity's sake.

Re:I think MMORPGs are a bad idea.

[Mac Degger]

I absolutely agree with you: I'm just real surprised that voice chat hasn't been introduced on a AAA tittle for the PC (no, Marathon doesn't count...it was released too long ago). If even only for the broadband segment...and I'd even say voicechat could be a killer app driving more broadband adoption.

As for channel spammers, that's what personel ban-lists are for.

Re:I think MMORPGs are a bad idea.

[DeadScreenSky]

Traditionally I would not call something like Final Fantasy an RPG, but that's what it is in computer game terms.

I agree, which is why I recently coined a new term for games like Final Fantasy, Xenosaga, etc.: Stats-Heavy-Interactive-Movies, or SHIMs for short. I think it rolls off the tongue nicely, is fairly catchy, and the term itself isn't really nasty (though I was tempted - these games are not my thing).

Maybe if more people start using the term SHIM to describe games like Final Fantasy, real RPG fans will have an easier time finding games with actual RPG elements. It might even encourage additional coverage of more pure RPG games, as they won't be so much in the shadow of games like Final Fantasy X2 or Pokemon.

Re:well,(kinda OT)

[Jedi Alec]

I waste my precious youth playing games like Planetarion and Starsphere and all they require is a browser and way too much of my precious time. Oh, and a fee in the case of Planetarion, but that's a detail.

These are really big games, you actually get to talk to the people that develop and run them, and over the course of time they develop to comply with the wishes of the majority of the players. These are truly what I'd define as on-line, interactive games...and guess what, there's way better choices than C# for this kinda thing...

Re:c++ sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

What an AMAZINGLY ignorant comment!

Re:c++ sucks

[Billly Gates]

I had a friend who worked in a computer science laboratory at NorthWestern where they tested cpu cycles on code compiled with various compilers. C++ was terribly inefficient compared to C. The majority of cpu cycles were spent on things like relationships.

C is the only real programming language where high end graphics and other high performance requirements are needed. Object oriented programming just slows things down.

HOLY FUCK!

[Anonymous Coward]

We cna maek kewl icons?!!!!

What language?

[Angst Badger]

The authors spend four lines discussing the best computer language for the job (C/C++)

Am I the only C and C++ programmer who finds the "C/C++" label annoying as hell? Having it come from HR people who don't know any better is one thing, but hearing it from programmers drives me up the wall. I sometimes suspect it comes from C++-only programmers operating under the mistaken assumption that because C++ is a superset of C, they know C, too.

Despite similar syntax, C and C++ are completely different languages. C++-only programmers write C code that's on a par with the code produced by C-only programmers dabbling in C++. Perl, PHP, Objective C, and several dozen other Algol-descended languages have really similar syntax, but no one says "Algol/BCPL/C/C++/PHP/Perl/Pascal" with a straight face.

My guess is that if the authors are extolling the virtues of objects, they are primarily extolling the virtues of C++.

Re:What language?

[tuffy]

Am I the only C and C++ programmer who finds the "C/C++" label annoying as hell?

You're not the only one. I think folks buy a C/C++ compiler package, develop something with it, and label themselves C/C++ developers - or something. Considering the vast design differences between Thompson's minimalist C language and Stroustrup's maximalist C++ language, the notion of lumping the two together grates on my nerves.

Re:What language?

[Anonymous Coward]

C++ really is a superset of C. The only difference I find is that void function prototypes are different. Void in C means that it can except any return type for the corresponding function deffinition but in C++ it means it can return any value at all.

C++ also includes tail recursion, standard temples, function templates, and a few other object oriented goodies. Its still heavly based on C.

Re:What language?

[tuffy]

C++ also includes tail recursion, standard temples, function templates, and a few other object oriented goodies. Its still heavly based on C.

C++'s syntax is based on C, and it has (limited) backwards compatibility with C, but the design of the two languages are very different. C emphasizes a low-level yet (usually) portable approach that places the programmer very close to the bare metal. C++, OTOH, is a smorgasbord of object-oriented programming paradigms with C underpinnings resulting in a less-than-ideal language design. Sortof the unholy child of C and Simula. C++ lacks the cleanliness of C, Java or other languages, but it's here now and it does work. Though I think a successor to C would be better to retain its predecessor's minimalist goals.

Re:What language?

[Fnkmaster]

Well, I can understand the confusion. Even C++ isn't always C++. I mean, the difference between a full-fledged Stroustrop-complete C++ program and a simplified, Java-style object-oriented C++ API is large. I can actually read and follow the latter - the former is still a bit of a mystery to me (who learned C++ back in the day before it became such a broad, all-encompassing language, and didn't really touch it again for quite a few years).

So I don't know if I'd say that C and C++ are totally different languages, just that C++ in its entirety is such a complex language that there are many stylistic variations possible that result in greatly different program structure. C certainly has different stylistic variations possible too, but not to the same extent, and clearly structuring a program in C and in C++ usually result in fairly different designs and solutions, though it doesn't have to be that way (object-ish C programming is certainly possible).

I think it's fair to say that somebody exposed to all of these stylistic variations is able to better pick and choose the appropriate techniques for the job at hand, and equally importantly, is able to pick up and read a much wider variety of code than your average schmoe who claims to be a "C/C++" programmer.

Re:What language?

[Anonymous Coward]

Languages don't include tail recursion. It's an optimization trick. You can write a tail recursive C compiler. Granted, you can design a language which makes tail recursion easier for the compiler/interpreter to notice.

Re:What language?

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only C and C++ programmer who finds the "C/C++" label annoying as hell?

I have heard this kind of complaint before, and it is from people with a chip on their shoulder.

I guess you don't read the "C/C++ Users Journal" .

Stop being such a dick. YOU are as annoying as hell.

Re:What language?

[GlassHeart]

C++ really is a superset of C. The only difference I find [...]

That's irrelevant. The important difference is that a good C++ program looks little like a good C program. In fact, it's easier to translate good Pascal into good C than good C++ into good C.

That's what makes them separate languages, and more importantly, that's what makes them two separate programming skills.

Re:What language?

[revery]

C++ also includes tail recursion, standard temples,

I stopped worshipping at the standard temples long ago. They take anybody... ;)

Re:I predict many posts

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed they should just automatically put a couple of stock posts with certain articles. For instance any game articles should come with, as you mentioned, stock "Games don't have the gameplay they used to..blah blah when I was young blah blah" posts. Furthermore any article on video cards should automatically have a "Why? So you can play Quake 3 at 500FPS rather than 300FPS? What's the point?". Articles on CPU speed increases should automatically have a "Who needs it? A Pentium 3 750 is more than anyone needs!"

I feel that by automatically have these stock posts we can save a lot of nerds the wear and tear on their already masturbation weakened wrists.

*cough Meridian59*

[AForwardMotion]

I've been playing that old online game for 6 years now and still love it. It looks like doom and the NPC's look the same from every direction, but you can spank your bitter enemies down (or look like an idiot trying) and the player created soap opera is the bomb. (ie - Most powerful guild is brought to it's knees by a woman who seduced the gm and reduced him to an sobbing wreck thus spawning a large server wide war) That game has got it goin ON! I Really suggest game developers (and companies) take a hard look at the underlying structure of it when they venture out to strike it rich with their own online game. And doom graphics are just cool.

I didn't even ask (yet)!!!

[unclethursday]

And NO, you may not have her either.

I see my reputation preceeds me.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. At least you'll all know who you're dealing with. ;-

Uncle Thursday
---Cuses! Foiled again!---

Agreed

[unclethursday]

Let's get a new ZORK game out!

Who's with me?

Anyone?

Hello? Is anyone there?

Uncle Thursday
--Listening to the crickets chirp.---

Re:Agreed

[Xformer]

Zork Online?

gilmlet-eyed?

[kisrael]

Gimlet-eyed? Had to go look it up at. What an odd expression, especially given the second definition of gimlet as given by. (It means "having keen vision")

Jessica Mulligan Article

[MCS]

After reading some posters comments on Jessica/Richard Mulligan, I found the following site on google:
Bites The Hand

It is her bi-weekly editorial/thoughts on the gamming industry. Skimming over these bring some interesting insight into the industry over the last 20 years.

Mod parent

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 Predundant!

Re:c++ sucks

[Jewbird]

If C++ sucks so much then how come the entire software entertainment industry uses it to write games?

Multiplayer for GTA3

[mindaktiviti]

http://www.gta3mta.tk/

slightly OT : Networking question

[linuxlover]

I am developing an online card game, and I am stuck with Networking. Both client and server has to call each other. (callbacks in other words)

- First, I used Java RMI, and it couldn't work behind firewall-firewall situations. So much for network transparency promise!

- I am evaluating various Networking mechanisms. Apache SOAP, XML RPC...etc. They all work on the principal of request-response.

* I want a protocol that would work with the existing client Socket. Let me explain, client behind fire wall makes the connection to a server (behind firewall, but one port open). Now both have to use this existing socket to communicate.

* when the server wants to call-back client, it uses the existing socket. not opening a new connection, as that won't work when a client is behind a firewall. Both XML RPC and SOAP can not handle this.. or am I missing something?

* I want a package that will handle marshaling/unmarshaling data structs and also can handle exceptions.

* right now, I am left with plain socket programming. There must be a better way..right?

thanks in advance.. ./LinuxLover

Re:slightly OT : Networking question

[Kingpin]

Your client opens a socket to the server. Now both client and server have input/output streams for that socket. Use a thread for each stream and you have asynchronous bidirectional communication. You can put whatever you wish through these streams, be it XML, or Objects (eg. ObjectOutputStream). Multiple serialization APIs exist.

Write your own abstraction layer above the "plain socket programming" if need be.

Re:slightly OT : Networking question

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm... I'd suggest that you get significantly more programming experience before you attempt to program a multiplayer networked game - your question was bordering on a troll in it's naivity.

Games tend to discard a lot of higher-level approaches for a reason - Apache and XML aren't appropriate game construction technologies unfortunately - at least, from the sound of it, not for what you're trying to do. I presume you're using Java, in which case sockets really are the best way of doing what you want. Things can get complex (particularly if you're not that comfortable with it), but you need to abstract things so that they become simple on the conceptual level - break things into parts and solve one problem at a time.

At the very least, start with making a list of all the message types you think you'll need to get started. Give each type a unique message ID. Build a data structure that contains the ID and some generic-format data (probably of variable length). Your socket code should handle passing these generic-format data packets around. (which could contain the following members: length_of_packet, message_id, from_id, to_id, data_size, data[max_data_size]; although of course only transmit data_size bytes of data - as some of your messages won't use all of it).

Make a giant switch statement that checks the ID and unpacks the message-specific data from the generic-format data (making sure there's enough there to fill in your message). When you've unpacked the message, route it to the appropriate code that deals with those types of messages.

Anyway, that's how I'd get started (there are certainly more complicated and complete approaches, but that's almost the simplest I can think of [although I suppose you could just send ASCII text messages containing your moves and parse them]) - but bear in mind I've been programming in C for over 10 years and am still not entirely comfortable with socket programming (much less multiplayer games). It's a bit of a black art, particularly when it comes to performance. You might be better off starting in a language such as Python where a lot of the socket details are handled automatically.

Re:slightly OT : Networking question

[Anonymous Coward]

You could try and use CORBA. Maybe. I just designed my own messaging protocol. Worked fine.

The request-response model is a bit misleading. TCP connections are bidirectional streams, of course. There's no particular reason why a messaging protocol needs to work only in one direction.

More troubling may be issues with deadlock. If both sides try to invoke each other simultaneously, for example, you should be able to handle this case. Don't forget that you've got data going down a byte stream, so you can't just multiplex multiple streams together.

You can use a multiplexing protocol to abstract some of this stuff away. Maybe BEEP would work.

Re:slightly OT : Networking question

[linuxlover]

that is what I am doing now. But it gets tiring soon. you know
- marshalling
- unmarshalling
- and having to write this for every method call...

that is why I need a 'framework' that would do it for me. any suggesions?

thanks

Re:slightly OT : Networking question

[Anonymous Coward]

You can have an XMLRPC solution where the client makes a request and the server just doesn't respond until it has something to send. And when that happens the client can just make a new request.

As long as you have your threading set up right on both ends then it shoudn't be a problem, and it is the most firewall safe solution you can expect.

Re:c++ sucks

[Billly Gates]

They don't. Quake1-3 and doom1 &2 as well as dune2, duke nukem all use C. Only half-life and UT use c++ and they are loaded with bugs.

Re:See history happen

[Anonymous Coward]

NOPE, by a long shot. So Sorry!

Technically.....

[lysium]

He wasn't underestimating them as geeks; rather, he was saying that women tend not to be the socially-maladjusted, emotionally-repressed sort that enjoy (a) violence and (b)ruining/exploiting the game itself.

----------

Re:Technically.....

[0x00000dcc]

He wasn't underestimating them as geeks.

Actually, the original thread was entitled "Women Programmers." But I never said s/he was underestimating them. Is that off-topic? Gee, I think if we were not given the liberty to digress slightly from the context of the original thread as long as we keep somewhat near the thread that posts would not be worth reading after the first 2 or 3 becuase they'd be the same thing just different wordings.

he was saying that women tend not to be the socially-maladjusted, emotionally-repressed sort

Anyone who believes that crap should try to think more objectivly.

FYI

[Bruha]

Jessica was contracted to Turbinegames [website] by the Themis Group [press release] where she is helping bring that game around.

It's interesting in that one chapter in the story says more programmers wont make it go faster becuase AFAIK Asheron's Call 2 the game she's bringing around has only 3 coders working full time on the game in production. It's even to the point that one of the leading websites AC2 Warcry the site manager quit out of disgust of the game's lack of vision into the "Elder" game. While the Site Manager says he still plays the game it's not the only other game with the same issues. It's a too common occurance in many new games and presents a challenge to all future game developers to not have these mistakes.

I guess the old site manager must be a progressive customer. He wants more content!

The four player types

[alansz]

For what I think is the source of the fourfold player type thing (explore, socialize, kill, achieve), see this 1996 article by Richard Bartle, a mud pioneer.

Why so many books on game design?

[CrazyJim0]

It seems like no independent developer has made a successful game since the late 80's.

Re:Why so many books on game design?

[mfiror]

Mythic Entertainment was (and is) an independent game developer that developed and self-published Dark Age of Camelot in 2001 - and it is continuing strong. So, it can happen, although it is not the normal path. Matt

Re:c++ sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

You sacrifice some efficiency for shorter development time. It's better to have a working version faster and then profile it and rewrite heavy hit sections in assembly than to waste time writing three times as much source code.

killers

[pyrrho]

make a online game compelling for achievers, socializers, killers and explorers.

yes, whatever you do, don't forget to make the game attractive for killers.

Re:killers

[yarisbandit]

make a online game compelling for achievers, socializers, killers and explorers

good news for the homicidal playboy entrepreneur grandsons of Stanley & Livingstone so...

Re:Such a good review to make the reviewer some mo

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine... using the affiliate program for what it was intended. That bastard! How dare he charge us more money... oh wait, it doesn't cost more money. Well, he's a bastard anyway. Making money is evil.

Yes, it's just you.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that it's pedantic and anal that you'd make such a massive distinction between the two languages. You're living up to your name that's for sure. :)

Yes, there are some newer programmers who don't get the rift, but it's basicly the same syntax. If you understand C++ (or at least without the stupid bits), you're going to grok C. C++ compilers understand C code. Some versions of C++ preprocess the code into C for compilation with the regular C compiler. The modules link together without any changes. Face it - the languages are joined at the hip.

Re:Yes, it's just you.

[Anonymous Coward]

The latest C and C++ standards are incompatible. Nobody compiles C++ to C anymore. Furthermore, you can compile BASIC to C, Java to C, and basically any other programming language to C.

Furthermore, C is a prettier language.

Re:Yes, it's just you.

[Anonymous Coward]

By extension you can compile C, C++, BASIC and Java to assembler as well - but that doesn't mean that assember is "better" than any of the higher level languages.

Being "pretty" is subjective as well, I don't think that hold much weight. I quite like being able to call methods on objects. Function pointers in structures, while fun, don't quite have the same neatness to it.

Personally I'm quite interested in the D programming language - at least in it's philosophy of cleaning up the bits of C++ that get in the way and simplifying the grey areas that nobody admitted to using (I'm less sold on it's garbage collection though). I'd be quite happy with a language that was perhaps "C+" - a language defined as being "C with objects" - indeed, this is what I use in most of my day-to-day work.

Re:Yes, it's just you.

[GlassHeart]

it's basicly the same syntax. If you understand C++ [...], you're going to grok C

The context in which "C/C++" appears most often is a job ad, where it is in fact crucial whether you find yourself a C expert, a C++ expert, or an expert in both. In fact, even an experienced embedded systems C++ programmer may be unfamiliar with exceptions and templates, which are generally only usable on higher powered machines.

A person who doesn't make a distinction in this case is not likely to hire the best person for the job.

C++ compilers understand C code.

No, they don't. C doesn't require an explicit cast to convert any pointer to a void *, and vice versa. C++ does. What you have is a compiler with two modes, only one of which can be active for one source file. Try this if you don't believe me:

char *a = new char; /* correct C++ */
char *b = malloc(1); /* correct C */

You will get a compile error on one line or the other.

Some versions of C++ preprocess the code into C

Irrelevant. Many languages are "pre-processed" into assembly before it turns into object code.

The modules link together without any changes.

Even less relevant on two separate fronts. One, ever heard of name mangling? C++ needs to be specially written (as opposed to linking with just other C++ code) to link with C, and instance methods are not even callable from C. Two, many other languages are designed to link with C. So what?

Re:Yes, it's just you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Though your statement is correct about c++ barfing. I would not consider the lack of an explicit cast "correct" in that example. That is, unless you want a compiler warning because the prototype does not match it's usage. Unless you are talking about K&R C, then thats your funeral.

Re:Yes, it's just you.

[Yunzil]

No, they don't. C doesn't require an explicit cast to convert any pointer to a void *, and vice versa. C++ does.

No, C doesn't require an explicit cast to convert from a void *, and C++ does. You can convert to a void * freely in either language.

Re:Yes, it's just you.

[GlassHeart]

I would not consider the lack of an explicit cast "correct" in that example. That is, unless you want a compiler warning because the prototype does not match it's usage.

First of all, your compiler will most likely issue an error, rather than a warning.

Omitting an explicit cast will catch the error of a missing prototype. Adding an unnecessary cast hides the error. Which one is more correct usage of the language?

Re:Yes, it's just you.

[Viol8]

C++ instance methods ARE callable from C but only if you know the mangled name beforehand. Pointless but possible.

Re:Yes, it's just you.

[GlassHeart]

C++ instance methods ARE callable from C but only if you know the mangled name beforehand.

IIRC, C++ name mangling is not standardized, so your hack will only work on one pair of compilers.

Interview With An Online Game Maker

[mono_indy]

I recently interviewed an online game maker (interview with Sean McGough ... creater of Shawn's Dance Grooves and Melting Mitsubishi) and it sounds like its a pretty fun job. A lot of work ... but once you get something that works ... he says it's a lot of fun. Especially trying to figure things out. Plus his games, Shawn's Dance Grooves (online dancing game) and Melting Mitsubishi (if you liked Missile Command ... you will love Melting Mitsubishi), are a ton of fun.

Re:c++ sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Only half-life and UT use c++ and they are loaded with bugs

Your sweeping statements are most troll-like. Have you ever tried playing Quake2 unpatched? How about Doom1 "The Network Killer" unpatched? What's that about bugs?

As for C++ - 90% of all console games (yes, Playstation 2, Gamecube and Xbox) use C++. The majority are pretty damn robust if you ask me.

voices have eyeballs now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Genetic engineering sure has come a long way. Anyone seen my flying car?

The Video Card Conspiracy

[Vagary]

For some reason gaming companies got the idea that the only popular games are those that are maximally realistic. As a result, they consistently sacrifice gameplay for gee-whiz graphics. This leaves people like me, who aren't willing to a pay a graphics tax to play games, happily stuck with CounterStrike. When will the industry get a clue?!

This is NOT a programming book.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm amazed at the number of comments here that assume the book is about programming games. It may come as a suprise to you, but real game development teams have 30+ people who specialise in different areas of development. Given the title of the book and it's contents, it seems as though this book is aimed at game designers - not programmers.

When a game is small, sure, the same person might be wearing different hats - only then should a programmer be worrying intensely about game design. With larger teams programmers tend to concentrate on the technical details, working with the designers to accomodate the visions of the project. Meanwhile the designers concentrate on the design and layout of the game, while working with the programmers to make sure that it's technically possible and is implemented smoothly. It's only with this division of tasks that anyone can really focus and hone their skills.

Re:This is NOT a programming book.

[Zodman]

Pigs ass.

If you want to buy it

[RobertKozak]

Do use the Barnes & Noble link. I usually use Amazon but when I checked there I found their price to be somewhat inflated.

List Price of 49.99 at Amazon vs. 29.99 at B&N. I never noticed before but I'll be sure to double check next time before I buy a book online.

Robert

Content

[rufusdufus]

I wrote my own MMPORG a couple of years ago. I learned a lesson. I built my own 3d engine and network code. And it was glorious; fast, lots of fancy effect, and beautiful lag tolerant lurping. I was very proud.

It was ready to do the 'easy stuff': content. Thats when things got bogged down. Turns out that games have huge lists of people on their credits because there is a huge unavoidable time sync in doing content. This article says 2-3 years and I say they are being very aggressive with that estimate.

So my lesson was this: you will need a lot of skilled 3D artists, musicians and content designers in order to finish the job. Do not take this part lightly!

Re: Content

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is your engine today? Did you license it? Is it sitting on a shelf somewhere? Are you still trying to turn it into a product?

Jessica Mulligan's Game Column

[herderofcats]

One of the co-authors, Jessica Mulligan, has a bi-weekly column on online games called "Biting the Hand" which can be found at www.skotos.net/articles/bth.html. Last week's columnThe April Fools Spring Clean-Up is about what has been happening with the big online games in the last few months.

The Skotos articles website has quite a few other interesting columns and articles on online game design at www.skotos.net/articles with several new articles going up weekly.

-- Herder of Cats

MUD/MMOG development resources/references

[Brand X]

Just about every MUD resource online can be found via the library at kanga.nu, as can some extensive archives of the online game development list (MUD-Dev), which you can find if you nose around the site. Several of Jessica's articles can be found there, as well as Dr Bartle's Suits article referenced above. The mail list itself can get fairly heady, but might as well be required reading if you're serious about being part of the industry. There's more social engineering and business plan traffic on the list now, compared to the extremely technical bent of five, six, seven years past, when it was by invite only, but it's still the most serious discussion venue online. Take a look... -- To email me, drop the second through seventh character and the repeated symbols.

Player Typologies, in 1987

[goliard]

For what I think is the source of the fourfold player type thing (explore, socialize, kill, achieve), see this 1996 article by Richard Bartle [brandeis.edu], a mud pioneer.

FYI, in 1987 or so, TSR came out with the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, which explicated a three-fold typology of gamers, in its DM section. They were (approx.) "hack-n-slasher", "dectective" and "role player". Not online-specific, but obviously similar and for an obviously similar purpose.

Re:Coder

[Tuna_Shooter]

After reading this i thought of the guy that did the majority of the network code for Mechwarrior Mercs 2... I believe Dan Kegal is the guy.... interesting person .... and after taking apart the network code for that game i have the utmost admiration for him..i wish i could get his take on this discussion.....

Re:c++ sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

::snicker:: C...C++...both of them suck any time you need a safe, stable product in a reasonable amount of time.

Here's her info!

[0x00000dcc]

Ok here's her name: 01011001011011110111010100100111011100100110010100 10000001100001001000000110011001110101011000110110 10110110100101101110011001110010000001101001011001 0001101001011011110111010000101110

And here's her phone number: 00110001001011010011100000110000001100000010110101 00010101000001010101000010110101010011010010000100 100101010100