However, just because they make great games based on real news, doesn't mean that they have an easy business model that just prints money. If you're doing traditional sales, you have to worry about piracy. And if you're trying what's popular now, free web-based games, then you're relying on almost the same advertising model that failing to keep traditional news outlets afloat.
I know that my friends' Play The News platform basically simplifies the process of converting news into games, but I don't know if journalists and traditional media companies are receptive to adopting this technology. In fact, late last year, they had to temporarily stop producing new content for their platform. Not exactly sure why, but I can probably get them to comment here on Slashdot if you guys are curious.
I also doubt the "truthiness" of this article. Stories like this tend to get alot of play in the press because people like pointing out that, "Hey, you think current US wiretapping is bad? Check out those Commies in China. That's some good ol' fashioned totalitarianism for ya. You got it good in the US!"
I'm visiting China right now and realistically, there's lots of official government edicts, both old and new, that people only pay lip service to or don't bother following at all. Remember the governmental mandated breaks in online gaming sessions story from a few months back? Most people in China don't even know this law exists, and even if they did, it'd be impossible to enforce. Likewise, if you prohibited teenagers from going to online cafes, they'd all go out of business since that's their main clientele.
Hi, I'm Jia, I wrote that article. Anyway, I'm glad that Slashdot finally posted up a follow-up article to the one from four months ago considering we're the only MMOG that actively supports linux and we've been live for over three months.
Our free downloadable linux client is at http://atitd.com/eClient-linux.run. Our engine is also partially open-sourced. "A Tale in the Desert" owes a lot to the open source community too. We're a small company with only two lead developers that basically coded the entire game on their own. Thus, we make use of alot of free software such as, eCal3D (download source here, a derivative of Bruno Heidelberger's Cal3D.
I'm not sure why some Slashdot readers are so hostile to the idea of a "cooperative thinking game." Isn't that what the open-source movement is all about? Does everyone really love mindless hack-and-slash leveling treadmills that much? I guess we'll find out if SWG becomes a success (and I wish Raph Koster the best of luck too!).
Anyway, this is just the first in a series of articles about ATITD I plan on writing for GGA. The next one will probably be about the player-run legal system. So far players in our game have drafted, voted on, and passed laws about theft, land ownership, property permissions, social taboos, obsenity laws, and even virtual rape. Feel free to continue to link to future news about us since we can't afford to advertise on Slashdot (contacted OSDN's advertising department, figure they quoted was 10 times what we paid for our Penny Arcade ad deal).
Those of you who don't play EQ might not be fully aware of the entire situation. You're probably relying on second hand sources for your information. Maybe these copies of original messages on this matter by Verant management will help.
First, here's a letter from Verant CEO John Smedley regarding the new policies and security checks announced. (From EQ Vault)
Ok. We put the poll in, and with roughly 15,000 people participating the poll came up with 83% of the people being fine with us running the check for cheating.
DESPITE THIS POLL we have decided that it's the wrong thing to do. Enough people have convinced us that it's chipping away a little too much at people's privacy EVEN if they do consent for us to implement this policy.
Therefore, the change to the EULA will read as follows:
Solely for the purpose of patching and updating the Game, you hereby grant us permission to (i) upload Game file information from the Everquest directory and (ii) download Game files to you.
Now, before anyone wonders exactly what this is, let me explain. Technically speaking we probably should have had this language in there from day one for you to consent us to even download new game files to you in the first place. We apologize for not realizing that we should have gotten this consent, but live and learn.
We can admit when we make mistakes, and I believe this is a case where we owe an apology to our Player base. In our haste to try and thwart people from damaging the game we went overboard.
There will be absolutely no scanning of anyone's computer for any reason other than the normal patching process (which won't do any sort of checking on what you have running).
Regards,
John Smedley President and CEO Verant Interactive, Inc.
So to summarize, Verant apologized for their planned policy even though 83% of their player base supported it because they realized it was wrong to scan their computers. They even apologized for not stating previously in their UELA that they scanned and downloaded information to their users for patching (which all online games do).
Here's a posting from the EverQuest Message Boards by Gordon Wrinn, the Verant Customer Service Rep, in reply to a comment by a player.
[In Reply To: Scanning my tasklist for hack programs is not that big of a deal and if it gets rid of the hackers anyway, I say go for it. IMO it is not an invasion of privacy to do this. I give out more information, personal information, everytime I use my credit card at the store ]
Unfortunately it is a case where paranoia ended up winning out. I think that we could definitely have done a better job explaining what it was we were doing, and that would have lead to a bit more buy-in. Instead, some people decided to make up reports that we were scanning directory trees (false), internet files (false), internet history (false), cookies (false), and email (false), and unfortunately many people believed them.
The general paranoia resulted from the assumption that we (meaning: our servers) were actively collecting information from your system. This simply wasn't the case. The client simply would examine a small subset of information on your system, none of it containing information personally identifiable to a third party, and only send it to our server in the event that you were "running" an illegal program at the same time you ran EQ. We had absolutely no interest in what was installed on your system, only what you were running when you connected to ours.
I think privacy is important as well, but I don't really care about what a piece of client software is doing on my system. I only care when that piece of client software is transmitting information from my system to an outside source. In this case, the only time any data transmission was to take place was when something bad was found by the client. There was to be no server-side analysis of raw data. I'm sure that most people would agree that we do have a right to insure that our software license is being complied with.
In any case, I guess it's water under the bridge now. I'll blame Hollywood for all of the misunderstandings.
-Gordon
While I don't agree with all his views, I do see where he's coming from. His viewpoint reflects the majority of EQ players.
Hope that cleared a few things up.
"A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents."
Far be it from me to start a flamewar, but it seems to me that you might be experiencing EQ burnout and therefore giving EverQuest a harsh representation.
My experience with EverQuest has been pretty positive. I started beta testing for the game a little bit over a year ago and continued to play it past the release for six months. During that time, I played a variety of characters up to level 20.
If you yourself played EQ long enough to build up a 50th level (highest level possible for you people who don't play the game) and 25th level character, then something must have brought you back to the game night after night.
Both the best and worst part about EverQuest is its addictiveness. It's been called "EverCrack", a name that suits it pretty well. I remember when I was in the high point of my addiction cycle I would stay up into the wee hours of the morning questing with friends. March 16th was EverQuest's one year anniversary and according to EQ Vault, they hit their 200,000 active subscribers mark. Obviously, despite all the people who have quit the game to its negative aspects (camping, large time investment, ebay item farmers), a large number still remain faithful to the game.
In my opinion, Verant Interactive is the best developer of massively multiplayer online games currently out there. EverQuest easily dominates over its competition. While Ultima Online was created first and Asheron's Call offers some innovative features, both lack the customer service and addictive quality that make a truly good online game stand out. One of the reasons I quit EQ was to beta test for Asheron's Call, which I highly regret doing now. Despite being the newest online RPG on the market, the game was poorly developed and rushed prematurely to meet the holiday season. How typical of M$. However, Verant's game design and customer policies allow me to rank it high amongst game developers, almost equaling Blizzard. My advice to all you Star Wars fanatics out there is to keep your eye out for news of when Verant will begin accepting applicants for their beta test and book your spot.
On a side note, The Ruins of Kunark, a expansion to EverQuest is due to be release next month. I'm planning on buying it to begin my relaunching into the world of Norrath.
I thank you for your sweetly faked attention. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake
Slashdot Mirror
However, just because they make great games based on real news, doesn't mean that they have an easy business model that just prints money. If you're doing traditional sales, you have to worry about piracy. And if you're trying what's popular now, free web-based games, then you're relying on almost the same advertising model that failing to keep traditional news outlets afloat.
I know that my friends' Play The News platform basically simplifies the process of converting news into games, but I don't know if journalists and traditional media companies are receptive to adopting this technology. In fact, late last year, they had to temporarily stop producing new content for their platform. Not exactly sure why, but I can probably get them to comment here on Slashdot if you guys are curious.
I also doubt the "truthiness" of this article. Stories like this tend to get alot of play in the press because people like pointing out that, "Hey, you think current US wiretapping is bad? Check out those Commies in China. That's some good ol' fashioned totalitarianism for ya. You got it good in the US!"
I'm visiting China right now and realistically, there's lots of official government edicts, both old and new, that people only pay lip service to or don't bother following at all. Remember the governmental mandated breaks in online gaming sessions story from a few months back? Most people in China don't even know this law exists, and even if they did, it'd be impossible to enforce. Likewise, if you prohibited teenagers from going to online cafes, they'd all go out of business since that's their main clientele.
Hi, I'm Jia, I wrote that article. Anyway, I'm glad that Slashdot finally posted up a follow-up article to the one from four months ago considering we're the only MMOG that actively supports linux and we've been live for over three months.
Our free downloadable linux client is at http://atitd.com/eClient-linux.run. Our engine is also partially open-sourced. "A Tale in the Desert" owes a lot to the open source community too. We're a small company with only two lead developers that basically coded the entire game on their own. Thus, we make use of alot of free software such as, eCal3D (download source here, a derivative of Bruno Heidelberger's Cal3D.
I'm not sure why some Slashdot readers are so hostile to the idea of a "cooperative thinking game." Isn't that what the open-source movement is all about? Does everyone really love mindless hack-and-slash leveling treadmills that much? I guess we'll find out if SWG becomes a success (and I wish Raph Koster the best of luck too!).
Anyway, this is just the first in a series of articles about ATITD I plan on writing for GGA. The next one will probably be about the player-run legal system. So far players in our game have drafted, voted on, and passed laws about theft, land ownership, property permissions, social taboos, obsenity laws, and even virtual rape. Feel free to continue to link to future news about us since we can't afford to advertise on Slashdot (contacted OSDN's advertising department, figure they quoted was 10 times what we paid for our Penny Arcade ad deal).
First, here's a letter from Verant CEO John Smedley regarding the new policies and security checks announced. (From EQ Vault)
Ok. We put the poll in, and with roughly 15,000 people participating the poll came up with 83% of the people being fine with us running the check for cheating.
DESPITE THIS POLL we have decided that it's the wrong thing to do. Enough people have convinced us that it's chipping away a little too much at people's privacy EVEN if they do consent for us to implement this policy.
Therefore, the change to the EULA will read as follows:
Solely for the purpose of patching and updating the Game, you hereby grant us permission to (i) upload Game file information from the Everquest directory and (ii) download Game files to you.
Now, before anyone wonders exactly what this is, let me explain. Technically speaking we probably should have had this language in there from day one for you to consent us to even download new game files to you in the first place. We apologize for not realizing that we should have gotten this consent, but live and learn.
We can admit when we make mistakes, and I believe this is a case where we owe an apology to our Player base. In our haste to try and thwart people from damaging the game we went overboard.
There will be absolutely no scanning of anyone's computer for any reason other than the normal patching process (which won't do any sort of checking on what you have running).
Regards,
John Smedley
President and CEO
Verant Interactive, Inc.
So to summarize, Verant apologized for their planned policy even though 83% of their player base supported it because they realized it was wrong to scan their computers. They even apologized for not stating previously in their UELA that they scanned and downloaded information to their users for patching (which all online games do).
Here's a posting from the EverQuest Message Boards by Gordon Wrinn, the Verant Customer Service Rep, in reply to a comment by a player.
[In Reply To: Scanning my tasklist for hack programs is not that big of a deal and if it gets rid of the hackers anyway, I say go for it. IMO it is not an invasion of privacy to do this. I give out more information, personal information, everytime I use my credit card at the store ]
Unfortunately it is a case where paranoia ended up winning out. I think that we could definitely have done a better job explaining what it was we were doing, and that would have lead to a bit more buy-in. Instead, some people decided to make up reports that we were scanning directory trees (false), internet files (false), internet history (false), cookies (false), and email (false), and unfortunately many people believed them.
The general paranoia resulted from the assumption that we (meaning: our servers) were actively collecting information from your system. This simply wasn't the case. The client simply would examine a small subset of information on your system, none of it containing information personally identifiable to a third party, and only send it to our server in the event that you were "running" an illegal program at the same time you ran EQ. We had absolutely no interest in what was installed on your system, only what you were running when you connected to ours.
I think privacy is important as well, but I don't really care about what a piece of client software is doing on my system. I only care when that piece of client software is transmitting information from my system to an outside source. In this case, the only time any data transmission was to take place was when something bad was found by the client. There was to be no server-side analysis of raw data. I'm sure that most people would agree that we do have a right to insure that our software license is being complied with.
In any case, I guess it's water under the bridge now. I'll blame Hollywood for all of the misunderstandings.
-Gordon
While I don't agree with all his views, I do see where he's coming from. His viewpoint reflects the majority of EQ players.
Hope that cleared a few things up.
"A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents."
Far be it from me to start a flamewar, but it seems to me that you might be experiencing EQ burnout and therefore giving EverQuest a harsh representation.
My experience with EverQuest has been pretty positive. I started beta testing for the game a little bit over a year ago and continued to play it past the release for six months. During that time, I played a variety of characters up to level 20.
If you yourself played EQ long enough to build up a 50th level (highest level possible for you people who don't play the game) and 25th level character, then something must have brought you back to the game night after night.
Both the best and worst part about EverQuest is its addictiveness. It's been called "EverCrack", a name that suits it pretty well. I remember when I was in the high point of my addiction cycle I would stay up into the wee hours of the morning questing with friends. March 16th was EverQuest's one year anniversary and according to EQ Vault, they hit their 200,000 active subscribers mark. Obviously, despite all the people who have quit the game to its negative aspects (camping, large time investment, ebay item farmers), a large number still remain faithful to the game.
In my opinion, Verant Interactive is the best developer of massively multiplayer online games currently out there. EverQuest easily dominates over its competition. While Ultima Online was created first and Asheron's Call offers some innovative features, both lack the customer service and addictive quality that make a truly good online game stand out. One of the reasons I quit EQ was to beta test for Asheron's Call, which I highly regret doing now. Despite being the newest online RPG on the market, the game was poorly developed and rushed prematurely to meet the holiday season. How typical of M$. However, Verant's game design and customer policies allow me to rank it high amongst game developers, almost equaling Blizzard. My advice to all you Star Wars fanatics out there is to keep your eye out for news of when Verant will begin accepting applicants for their beta test and book your spot.
On a side note, The Ruins of Kunark, a expansion to EverQuest is due to be release next month. I'm planning on buying it to begin my relaunching into the world of Norrath.
I thank you for your sweetly faked attention.
~ Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake