I played it for about 2 weeks before I became completly bored with it. I kept thinking to myself.. what is the point? I level up so I can get better weapons so I can kill bigger animals so I can level up so I can.. etc.
This is what we call in the MMO industry, treadmilling. It's working hard to get nowhere.
Some games make it obvious and unrewarding, but many have managed to disguise the treadmill with entertaining content (and these games go on to become successful). It can all depend on the game you're playing. I've not personaly tried FFXI, but I've played a few other MMO games (E&B, AO, SWG).
I spent about 6 months on Earth & Beyond. It was a very fun game, very social, and the treadmill was not too bad in the first 2/3 of the game. The only real problem I had with it was that it had a short feature list (ie no automatic selling), and I was interested in trying something more sophisticated.
I spent about 2 weeks on Anarchy Online. I got tired of doing the missions, and it seemed like there was nothing else to do, since PvP was not a realistic option until I had finished treadmilling. There was also little to no crafting ability, and very few people were open to socialize with a "newbie". =(
I spent about 4 months on SWG. I got in on the beta testing, and had a blast exploring all the new stuff and chatting with people who were game enhusiasts more than they were 'l33t d3wds'.
Once the game was released, it was still a fairly fun atmosphere, but it slowly degenerated into 'l33t d3wds' and people became less socialable. Also, by this time I had seen most of the content that was available to the game, and new content was very slow to come.
I think the problem with SWG was that they were all tied up with bugfixes that they had no time to add significant content in the first few months of release.
Finally, I found Second Life. =P I can't really expect that I will ever get bored here, since 95% of the content is made by the people who play it. It's not really even a game so much as a large simulation world. This is the closest thing we have right now to a metaverse.
I had heard of SL back when it was in beta, but what finally hooked me to try it was when I heard that it let everyone write scripts to put into the objects they build.
When I finally did the free trial, I realized the world looked a whole lot better than the website depicted it, and that it is a lot more flexible and friendly than I thought was possible in an online environment (minimum age of 18 could have something to do with this).
I think I've realized the problem with most online games is that the developers can't keep things fresh enough for all the users. This is why I think online environments that give the players the tools to create ALL of the content will become more popular as people get bored of the levelling treadmills.
I guess SL is a lot like slashdot. The developers give us bits of things to get us started, but we create and enjoy most of the content. I think this is the best way to go, and will definitely keep things interesting (and very addictive) for a long time to come.
Anyway on the topic of game addiction in South Korea, I think it has a lot to do with:
Availablilty of Technology + Social Acceptability to Enjoy that Technology
In the United states, we have a good amount of the former, but not much of the latter.
In the US, most people use technology only a tool. We have no more interest in it than to get the job done, so they can go home and watch friends or hang out at the bar. We don't need to upgrade because their current computer runs Word 97 just fine and that's all we need. Also, we don't have many "gam
Model Team was cool. I still kind of wish that they came out with a micro-lego size, for finely detailed models, sort of like micro-lego : lego:: lego : duplo.
I'll apply the principal of Occams Razor. I.e. The simplest answer is most likely the correct one.
I always wonder why people say it this way. Maybe I'm wrong, but wouldn't Occam's Razor be more like:
The simplest explanation is the most appropriate model.
There's a subtle difference. The first quoted interpretation implies to me, to take blind faith on the least complex hypothesis. The way I see it, the idea is to cut out all the redundant or irrelevant variables (ie reduce your equations to simplest form), hence the "razor".
I could be wrong though...
It just seems like most people have a subtly different concept of it from me, which by Occam's Razor problably means I'm wrong... Or does it? =P
MMO gamess are fun for a while, but I think after you've seen 2 or 3 of them, you realize that the difference between them isn't really all that remarkable. They all have the same general framework of doing mundane tasks to increase virtual rank.
I think the next big online phenomenon is going to be metaverses.
In a metaverse, you are not given a bunch of artificial skills and abilities. You (the person behind the keyboard) are the determining factor of your online persona's skill. And it's not a twitchy kind of skill either, it's pure creativity.
The first time I logged into a network and was able to communicate with other people around the world in real time, I knew it was going to eventually catch on and spread to the point of being mainstream phenomenon.
Now I'm getting the same feeling now, as I've jumped into the "metaverse" environemnt known as Second Life. I've played a handful of MMORPGs before Second Life, and got the impression from them that all online environments would have basically the same general template.
My first day within SL was like my first time on the internet, I was overwhelmed that so much creative flexibility could be organized in a real time multiperson environement. It's sort of a feeling like walking down a very long narrow confining hallway which suddenly opens up to a wide open outdoor field.
The metaverse-like applications we have currently are nowhere near the sophistication of those dipicted in science fiction, but to be fair, we're just getting started. Before too long, I predict that they are going to be as mainstream as the internet is now.
I think MMO games are nearing their limit for flexibility. The only direction to go from here is to open up the virtual world that make up these games and let your users truly create the content. Of course, when that happens, it's hard to stay confined to a theme or license, so it seems inevitable that metaverses will be the next rung on the evolutionary ladder.
Most of the people who run our public educational system are, unfortunately, not very well rounded. Often they are too quick to make presumptions while drowning in ignorance.
Back in my computer class in high school, I often finished my assignments way ahead of schedule, so I had a lot of free time.
We had a Novell network where I managed to gobble up 25% of the network storage space by hiding my files in a directory with a difficult-to-type name.
The teacher couldn't figure out how to delete my files, so he wrote me up (without even asking me to delete them).
Since the school didn't have any classification for this kind of "deviant" behavior, they decided to call it "computer vandalism", and gave me the same punishment as regular school vandalism, three days suspension.
If they had asked, I would have just deleted the files.
Not only is it a powerful tool, but the new popularity of low-carb diets will improve the quality of life for diabetics, since a lot of new food variety will be available for them.
I'm beginning to think that places that give players more freedom to do things will have fewer griefers. Griefers like to toe the edge of the rules and play it to their advantage. They like to find loopholes in the hard-coded rules that they can climb into and disrupt other player's enjoyment of the game.
However, I'm learning that if there are fewer hard-coded rules, then there will be fewer loopholes to grief from. The fewer loopholes, the more likely everyone is on an equal footing, and anyone can deliver paybacks, ie., "anyone can own a gun, so don't push your luck".
For example, in Second Life, it's a completely open world, so it's very easy for griefers to pick up a script and make a nuisence of themselves. The thing is, however, regular players have access to these scripts as well, so there's nowhere for the griefer to hide when revenge comes around to balance the equation.
On top of that, the griefers usually tend to be newbies and have not yet acquired the experience or library of scripts and countermeasures that many of the older (usually more mature and good-natured) players have, so the griefers quickly lose or get bored and go away.
Basically, the more complicated the rules that are enforced programatically upon the players, the more loopholes the griefers will exploit, while the victims and the bystanders (even the experienced ones) will be helpless to stop them.
If game designers would keep the player's abilities much more free and open, then the griefers will be the ones at a disadvantage.
I stopped playing MMORPG's when I realized I was buying into that attitude that one has to compete against someone that is not their enemy. Unfortunately the MMORPG encourages this competition more then any other gaming genre.
Second Life is a fairly non-competitive online environment, with a "SEAK" Bartle ranked sort of slant. Best thing is they have a required minimum age of 18, so most of the griefer kiddies don't make it in, and those that do don't last long, as the developers keep in close contact with players and any complaints are quickly addressed.
Their next update on 12/22 comes with a big change to their economy and how we pay for our accounts. One thing that should attract a lot of people is the addition of a non-monthly one-time $10 account for people who don't have the desire to own any land.
There is a "Leader Board" of sorts, but as there are no minors in the game, little is made of it, and that which is said is usually congradulatory.
And as long as the patent office makes more money by rubber stamping approvals than it gets by rejecting, they will continue to approve everything they can get away with...
I'm one of the freaks that paid $10 for the early versions, back when nullsoft wasn't owned by a megaconglomerate, so I've been following it for some time...
I'm sticking with 2.x. I don't use skins, I don't use playlists, I don't need all the feature creep.
As a matter of fact, I probably could just as well go back to one of the 1.x versions I still have archived somewhere on my drive and it'll still do all the things I want... but I can't be bothered =P
Sounds Pretty.... I for one can't wait to watch the Northern Lights from a Balcony in Mexico. Couldn't care less if My brian is being fried and friends become mindless zombies.
I seem to recall reading somewhere early on (though maybe it got lost in all the controversey) that the top 25 users will also split $1000 USD, and that similiar monthly rewards will be sent to the most creative residents.
[modifyable by the user who currently owns the object:] * Allow anyone to move object * Allow anyone to freely copy this object * Sell *this* copy of this item for n amount of currency * Sell a copy of this item for n amount of currency * Next owner can modify * Next owner can copy * Next owner can sell or give the item away
[unmodifyable by the user who currently owns the object:] * Current Owner can modify this object * Current Owner can copy this object * Current Owner can sell or give away *this* copy
This is the current set of permissions that are applied to all objects--prims, builds, sounds, scripts, textures, notes, clothing, etc. What I'm hearing more and more is that they are planning to integrate the Creative Commons model into the permissions system as well.
What I assume this means is that things like ShareAlike will be enforced in code (as best they can, I suppose modifyable scripts will always be able to be copy & pasted into a new script object). I'm guessing that means things like original scripts, textures, sound files, or child object sets that have the ShareAlike flag set will not be able to be accessed or dropped into the container of a new object unless that object is also marked ShareAlike (and the ShareAlike mark will not be removable without also removing the child ShareAlike objects from it's container).
There *is* a finite amount of land available. Each server is responsible for one region 256m x 256m in size.
To add more land, they have to add more servers. To add more servers costs real money.
At least this business model makes more since, as it ties their income to their costs more directly and will allow the world to grow more quickly with demand.
It makes you wonder, if drug tests continue to fail to keep up with the ways that athletes are able to hide the performance enhancing "supplements" they take, how long will it be until sports organizations (ie the Olympics) just say "bugger it" and give up on testing?
Slashdot Mirror
This is what we call in the MMO industry, treadmilling. It's working hard to get nowhere.
Some games make it obvious and unrewarding, but many have managed to disguise the treadmill with entertaining content (and these games go on to become successful). It can all depend on the game you're playing. I've not personaly tried FFXI, but I've played a few other MMO games (E&B, AO, SWG).
I spent about 6 months on Earth & Beyond. It was a very fun game, very social, and the treadmill was not too bad in the first 2/3 of the game. The only real problem I had with it was that it had a short feature list (ie no automatic selling), and I was interested in trying something more sophisticated.
I spent about 2 weeks on Anarchy Online. I got tired of doing the missions, and it seemed like there was nothing else to do, since PvP was not a realistic option until I had finished treadmilling. There was also little to no crafting ability, and very few people were open to socialize with a "newbie". =(
I spent about 4 months on SWG. I got in on the beta testing, and had a blast exploring all the new stuff and chatting with people who were game enhusiasts more than they were 'l33t d3wds'.
Once the game was released, it was still a fairly fun atmosphere, but it slowly degenerated into 'l33t d3wds' and people became less socialable. Also, by this time I had seen most of the content that was available to the game, and new content was very slow to come.
I think the problem with SWG was that they were all tied up with bugfixes that they had no time to add significant content in the first few months of release.
Finally, I found Second Life. =P I can't really expect that I will ever get bored here, since 95% of the content is made by the people who play it. It's not really even a game so much as a large simulation world. This is the closest thing we have right now to a metaverse.
I had heard of SL back when it was in beta, but what finally hooked me to try it was when I heard that it let everyone write scripts to put into the objects they build.
When I finally did the free trial, I realized the world looked a whole lot better than the website depicted it, and that it is a lot more flexible and friendly than I thought was possible in an online environment (minimum age of 18 could have something to do with this).
I think I've realized the problem with most online games is that the developers can't keep things fresh enough for all the users. This is why I think online environments that give the players the tools to create ALL of the content will become more popular as people get bored of the levelling treadmills.
I guess SL is a lot like slashdot. The developers give us bits of things to get us started, but we create and enjoy most of the content. I think this is the best way to go, and will definitely keep things interesting (and very addictive) for a long time to come.
Anyway on the topic of game addiction in South Korea, I think it has a lot to do with:
Availablilty of Technology + Social Acceptability to Enjoy that Technology
In the United states, we have a good amount of the former, but not much of the latter.
In the US, most people use technology only a tool. We have no more interest in it than to get the job done, so they can go home and watch friends or hang out at the bar. We don't need to upgrade because their current computer runs Word 97 just fine and that's all we need. Also, we don't have many "gam
Model Team was cool. I still kind of wish that they came out with a micro-lego size, for finely detailed models, sort of like micro-lego : lego :: lego : duplo.
I stocked up two years ago when Target was selling 1000-piece tubs for $14.
I've now got 26,000 brand new legos (and only god knows how many used legos)...
What I really wish was that the Technic pieces were less expensive. It's practically impossible to order them in bulk at a reasonable price...
If I remember correctly, ATS11=1 made a remarkably fast DTMF dialing sequence =D
I'll apply the principal of Occams Razor. I.e. The simplest answer is most likely the correct one.
I always wonder why people say it this way. Maybe I'm wrong, but wouldn't Occam's Razor be more like:
The simplest explanation is the most appropriate model.
There's a subtle difference. The first quoted interpretation implies to me, to take blind faith on the least complex hypothesis. The way I see it, the idea is to cut out all the redundant or irrelevant variables (ie reduce your equations to simplest form), hence the "razor".
I could be wrong though...
It just seems like most people have a subtly different concept of it from me, which by Occam's Razor problably means I'm wrong... Or does it? =P
MMO gamess are fun for a while, but I think after you've seen 2 or 3 of them, you realize that the difference between them isn't really all that remarkable. They all have the same general framework of doing mundane tasks to increase virtual rank.
I think the next big online phenomenon is going to be metaverses.
In a metaverse, you are not given a bunch of artificial skills and abilities. You (the person behind the keyboard) are the determining factor of your online persona's skill. And it's not a twitchy kind of skill either, it's pure creativity.
The first time I logged into a network and was able to communicate with other people around the world in real time, I knew it was going to eventually catch on and spread to the point of being mainstream phenomenon.
Now I'm getting the same feeling now, as I've jumped into the "metaverse" environemnt known as Second Life. I've played a handful of MMORPGs before Second Life, and got the impression from them that all online environments would have basically the same general template.
My first day within SL was like my first time on the internet, I was overwhelmed that so much creative flexibility could be organized in a real time multiperson environement. It's sort of a feeling like walking down a very long narrow confining hallway which suddenly opens up to a wide open outdoor field.
The metaverse-like applications we have currently are nowhere near the sophistication of those dipicted in science fiction, but to be fair, we're just getting started. Before too long, I predict that they are going to be as mainstream as the internet is now.
I think MMO games are nearing their limit for flexibility. The only direction to go from here is to open up the virtual world that make up these games and let your users truly create the content. Of course, when that happens, it's hard to stay confined to a theme or license, so it seems inevitable that metaverses will be the next rung on the evolutionary ladder.
Most of the people who run our public educational system are, unfortunately, not very well rounded. Often they are too quick to make presumptions while drowning in ignorance.
Back in my computer class in high school, I often finished my assignments way ahead of schedule, so I had a lot of free time.
We had a Novell network where I managed to gobble up 25% of the network storage space by hiding my files in a directory with a difficult-to-type name.
The teacher couldn't figure out how to delete my files, so he wrote me up (without even asking me to delete them).
Since the school didn't have any classification for this kind of "deviant" behavior, they decided to call it "computer vandalism", and gave me the same punishment as regular school vandalism, three days suspension.
If they had asked, I would have just deleted the files.
Not only is it a powerful tool, but the new popularity of low-carb diets will improve the quality of life for diabetics, since a lot of new food variety will be available for them.
Aren't there other, more healthy ways to lower your risk of diabetes? Like exercise and eating right?
Our goal as a race is to try to find things we like to do to counteract the negative effects of not doing the things we don't like to do. =)
Pfft... Coffee? People still stain their teeth with that stuff?
Take 12.5 of these a day and you get your RDA of calcium too! =P
I've wondered this...
What's the correct term for a white person who was born and grew up in Africa, but then moved to the USA and got her citizenship?
I'm beginning to think that places that give players more freedom to do things will have fewer griefers. Griefers like to toe the edge of the rules and play it to their advantage. They like to find loopholes in the hard-coded rules that they can climb into and disrupt other player's enjoyment of the game.
However, I'm learning that if there are fewer hard-coded rules, then there will be fewer loopholes to grief from. The fewer loopholes, the more likely everyone is on an equal footing, and anyone can deliver paybacks, ie., "anyone can own a gun, so don't push your luck".
For example, in Second Life, it's a completely open world, so it's very easy for griefers to pick up a script and make a nuisence of themselves. The thing is, however, regular players have access to these scripts as well, so there's nowhere for the griefer to hide when revenge comes around to balance the equation.
On top of that, the griefers usually tend to be newbies and have not yet acquired the experience or library of scripts and countermeasures that many of the older (usually more mature and good-natured) players have, so the griefers quickly lose or get bored and go away.
Basically, the more complicated the rules that are enforced programatically upon the players, the more loopholes the griefers will exploit, while the victims and the bystanders (even the experienced ones) will be helpless to stop them.
If game designers would keep the player's abilities much more free and open, then the griefers will be the ones at a disadvantage.
I stopped playing MMORPG's when I realized I was buying into that attitude that one has to compete against someone that is not their enemy. Unfortunately the MMORPG encourages this competition more then any other gaming genre.
Second Life is a fairly non-competitive online environment, with a "SEAK" Bartle ranked sort of slant. Best thing is they have a required minimum age of 18, so most of the griefer kiddies don't make it in, and those that do don't last long, as the developers keep in close contact with players and any complaints are quickly addressed.
Their next update on 12/22 comes with a big change to their economy and how we pay for our accounts. One thing that should attract a lot of people is the addition of a non-monthly one-time $10 account for people who don't have the desire to own any land.
There is a "Leader Board" of sorts, but as there are no minors in the game, little is made of it, and that which is said is usually congradulatory.
And as long as the patent office makes more money by rubber stamping approvals than it gets by rejecting, they will continue to approve everything they can get away with...
I'm one of the freaks that paid $10 for the early versions, back when nullsoft wasn't owned by a megaconglomerate, so I've been following it for some time...
I'm sticking with 2.x. I don't use skins, I don't use playlists, I don't need all the feature creep.
As a matter of fact, I probably could just as well go back to one of the 1.x versions I still have archived somewhere on my drive and it'll still do all the things I want... but I can't be bothered =P
Why wait until 9 on monday? If the network goes down, you can just connect in with your VPN and ...
oh... um nevermind =D
Sounds Pretty.... I for one can't wait to watch the Northern Lights from a Balcony in Mexico. Couldn't care less if My brian is being fried and friends become mindless zombies.
Why wait? Don't they have raves in Mexico?
I seem to recall reading somewhere early on (though maybe it got lost in all the controversey) that the top 25 users will also split $1000 USD, and that similiar monthly rewards will be sent to the most creative residents.
Here are some of the permissions for an object:
[modifyable by the user who currently owns the object:]
* Allow anyone to move object
* Allow anyone to freely copy this object
* Sell *this* copy of this item for n amount of currency
* Sell a copy of this item for n amount of currency
* Next owner can modify
* Next owner can copy
* Next owner can sell or give the item away
[unmodifyable by the user who currently owns the object:]
* Current Owner can modify this object
* Current Owner can copy this object
* Current Owner can sell or give away *this* copy
This is the current set of permissions that are applied to all objects--prims, builds, sounds, scripts, textures, notes, clothing, etc. What I'm hearing more and more is that they are planning to integrate the Creative Commons model into the permissions system as well.
What I assume this means is that things like ShareAlike will be enforced in code (as best they can, I suppose modifyable scripts will always be able to be copy & pasted into a new script object). I'm guessing that means things like original scripts, textures, sound files, or child object sets that have the ShareAlike flag set will not be able to be accessed or dropped into the container of a new object unless that object is also marked ShareAlike (and the ShareAlike mark will not be removable without also removing the child ShareAlike objects from it's container).
The difference between this and an online casino is that you can't directly convert USD -> Linden Dollars through any normal means.
I don't know if this little fact will spare them the potential problems or not though...
There *is* a finite amount of land available. Each server is responsible for one region 256m x 256m in size.
To add more land, they have to add more servers. To add more servers costs real money.
At least this business model makes more since, as it ties their income to their costs more directly and will allow the world to grow more quickly with demand.
It makes you wonder, if drug tests continue to fail to keep up with the ways that athletes are able to hide the performance enhancing "supplements" they take, how long will it be until sports organizations (ie the Olympics) just say "bugger it" and give up on testing?
Don't do this too often. Your liver is already unhappy with you as it is for drinking. Tylenol will not make it any happier. =)
(Don't anthropomorphize your body organs--they hate it when you do that)
Heh.. I could have used this a week ago. Took me a day of getting no spam to notice something was off =)
Heck, just stack the books vertically and feed the robots a Towers of Hanoi algorithm... =P