"we will be placing millions or billions of nanobots -- blood cell-size devices -- inside our bloodstream to travel into our brains and interact with our neurons."
Right after they've tunneled through the blood-brain barrier? This guy may know something about IT but he's no biologist.
I use Copernic - cross-searches several and saves search results to disk. Can also automatically weed out dead links. More recent versions with more features available but I haven't bothered as Copernic does everything I need.
Interesting approach (more a boycott than a strike really). I wonder though who will really be prepared to do it if it means that when (if) they come back, they will have to start from scratch.
I agree that SOE seems to be somewhat contemptous of their subscribers and particularly of views expressed in the forums. I suspect the forums are kept on mainly as a means to allow players to let off steam rather than anything else. Are they still closed to outsiders? That always seemed a particularly cynical move by SOE. This way subscribers bitch behind closed doors and keep paying. Smart move if you know your product falls short of its hype.
I disagree that petitions aren't worth a shot. Particularly if they are backed up by arguments and a proposal for action. Maybe the best approach is a pair of petitions: one for people who are pissed off and threatening to leave, one for those pissed off but staying. Set SOE a deadline and let them watch the names rack up. Of course there will be people who sign as intending to leave but SOE won't know exactly how many. Hopefully it should help focus their minds on the issue.
Petition online is a great free service for hosting petitions like this. It doesn't seem to have a SWG petition active yet.
My take on SWG is that SOE have more or less accepted that JtL will be kill or cure and so want to concentrate on that before they do anything else.
Seems like they failed to pull off the MMORPG cleanly and had to push it out the door to get some sort of return on their costs. Having spent a year trying to get that playable, it's getting to the stage where the Star Wars brand is no longer a sufficient selling point in the absence of good gameplay.
By delaying their combat rebalance, SOE admittedly piss off subscribers but many of those were pretty pissed off already and have still stuck with SWG. Why? Basically they hope things will improve. If SOE push out the combat rebalance now and it's no good, they will disappoint again. If they wait, those subscribers are likely to hang on long enough to see what the improvements are like. They squeeze a few more months' worth of subs out of people and buy themselves time.
I expect JtL to be indifferent to good and the combat rebalance to be indifferent to poor. I expect JtL will *far* overshadow the RPG combat rebalance. I don't think combat is a priority for SOE in the RPG and from the pre-launch forums I don't think it ever was. They'd rather have a more peaceful, manageable MMORPG world - essentially backstory to JtL. This way moisture farmers pay their subs to live quietly and those who want excitement will have to look for it in JtL.
Unless there is a flaw on the implementation of the phone can this kind of virus really spreads?
It's not a phone virus, it's a Pocket PC virus.
From the article:
The first computer virus to infect handheld devices running Microsoft's PocketPC OS was discovered over the weekend...
Cabir - like Duts - was a proof-of-concept exercise. In both instances, 29A sent its malicious code straight to anti-virus firms.
To my mind, the word "discovered" doesn't really apply here.
Previous attempts have been made to monkey around with handhelds. Google is now overflowing with this latest 'news' but I am pretty sure this is not a first. Palms have had their IR connections compromised. Pocket PCs were never going to be bulletproof in the first place.
If student rumour is correct, there's an unrepealed Oxford law by which Crusaders on their way to the Holy Land could stop by and pick up a degree. Apocryphally, students have tried to invoke this right and been turned down by the Proctors because they weren't wearing their swords when the claim was made.
There is also meant to be a law still in force by which you can request a glass of sherry be brought to you during Finals exams. I don't know if anyone has had the balls to try it - it's exactly the sort of thing the Proctors find unamusing.
university campuses tend to almost have their own legal systems
But with the entire event being isolated to a university campus...
There is no single campus at Oxford, only a collection of Colleges, Libraries and Faculties.
The policing of Oxford students is dealt with mainly by the Colleges and the Proctors. The Proctors can be quite fierce if they fail to see the funny side. They are also quite old fashioned - most students hope only to encounter them at ceremonial occasions when they'll be wearing gowns and funny hats. There are also the 'Bulldogs' who are basically the heavies for the Proctors and go round in bowler hats and used to chase the students out of pubs in the old days.
In this instance, the fact that the story was splashed on the front page of a newspaper with circulation throughout Oxford (rather than just within a campus) probably caused a lot of embarassment. Added to which, I wouldn't be surprised if the Proctors have very little understanding of exactly what has been done or how. They will assume the worst. They probably just want to be seen to be taking the matter seriously and don't know exactly how serious it really is or what reaction is appropriate. In any case, rustication isn't so bad - you can come back to study once you've served your time away). They could have been 'sent down', in which case it'd be game over.
Jedi no longer become more powerful just by using their force abilities. Now their progress is based on other players. Light Jedi need to gather the necessary votes to progress from their peers. Dark Jedi need to fight their way up. A compelling system, and I'm sure it'll work flawlessly by the time I get to a level where I need to worry about it...
...Going forward, Jedi will still be a balance nightmare for SOE. One thing I personally hope they integrate are Ysalamiri. Sure they're part of the Expanded Universe content, and don't really get introduced to the lore until well after Return of the Jedi. But as naturally evolved animals, they certainly exist on Myrkr in contemporary times. Someone just needs to "accidentally" stumble upon them.
What is "them"?
They're tamable animals that project force-cancellation bubbles in a sphere around them. They cannot be affected by the force, and force users within the bubbles can't tap the force. This is the ultimate much-needed trump card in a game that wants to balance Jedi versus Mere Mortals.
Others proclaim the role of the Bounty Hunter as being the Jedi hunter. Yes, this is true too. However, Bounty Hunter players and Jedi players alike need to recognize that both canon and expanded universe content define various levels of Jedi and Bounty Hunter proficiency. Jengo Fett may have fought Obi-Wan to a standstill on Kamino, got the drop on Mace Windu first with the flamethrower, and shot Coleman Trebor all to heck shortly thereafter. But he also got tricked into thinking he beat the Jedi that caused him to limp away from battle on Kamino and got handled verily once Mace got his bearings.
Players may want to be Mace and Jengo Fett, but the realities of both the storyline and the game are that they'll need to first be Luke and Greebo. Plus, there's that little pesky thing called choice. Not everyone wants to be a Bounty Hunter.
Believe it or not, my actual issue with the proposed vamp is the Jedi Trials. Even if players like myself read the expanded universe materials that describe the true number of force sensitive characters alive during this time in Galactic History, there was no formal Jedi training. Luke managed a few minutes with Obi-Wan and three months with Yoda, but nowhere is there any mention of having a Jedi Council vote for his eligibility to higher standings within.
This is a rather sharp departure from lore, and one that surprises even me. While it's a nice recognition that more than a few people per server would like to be Jedi, it would be more appropriate for the game to shift the timeline back or forward 30 years when there was a Jedi Council or elite corps from which to seek approval.
Hmmm. Some things here I like, some I don't. A couple of (mis?)quotes seem appropriate:
Yoda: "Once you start down the path of the Dark Side, forever will it dominate your destiny."
Obiwan: "If you strike me down I will become more powerful than you can imagine."
Ysalamiri sound pants. Not only do they have a stupid name based on an Italian sausage but they look likely to introduce a bigger problem than the one they solve. Creature handlers as demigods all over again. Sounds like a very bad idea to me.
The idea of Dark Jedi fighting to advance I like. Especially if it's not just fighting between themselves but with Light Jedi too. I like it lots if they advance faster the more powerful the Jedi they fight/kill. That way they'll look out for more powerful (probably Dark) Jedi to fight anyway. I guess we're sort of ignoring the "always two there are: a Master and an Apprentice" thing here?
Light Jedi though? The voting doesn't really sit well does it? Never had Yoda pegged as a babykisser myself.
Wouldn't it be better to have Jedi slowly growing more powerful in the Light Side (or weaker in the Dark Side) if they remain peaceful and 'tune in' to
Rewind 200yrs. Has society stayed the same? Have there maybe been one or two changes in the basic structure and function? New laws maybe? New organisational bodies?
Not only does technology change but society does too, and faster by the decade.
The problem is that the audience isn't willing to pay for it. Doing a quick lookup, the standard 3-day "park hopper" ticket for Disneyland is $124 if purchased in advance. That's only a bit under what you'd pay for a full year of Meridian 59! Yet, you see numerous complaints from people on sites like Slashdot complaining about having to spend $15/month on subscriptions. Honestly, the audience that are interested in virtual worlds isn't ready to pay the price for a focused experience like you get at a theme park like Disney.
To be fair the development and running costs aren't exactly equivalent either. I very much doubt any real-world theme park (let alone Disneyworld) could be built and maintained by a "single-digit number of developers". The land must be bought, the physical theme park installed and kept in good condition, the place has to be cleaned and there are most probably significant hidden costs in things like insurance policies. A direct comparison on entrance fee/subscription fee is likely to be misleading.
If you can figure out the cost of providing Disneyworld, the numbers may be more useful. Even then, I am cautious of the approach. My thinking is that theme parks provide an alternative entertainment format to the more traditional storytelling approach and may be better suited to the interactive/collaborative experience of MMO games. Although it is interesting to take that further into a comparison of costs, I think you have to be cautious if you do so. The customer expects an online 'theme park' to cost less than its real-world equivalent and I have to say I don't think that expectation is unreasonable. So far as I am aware, the costs of providing the experience are lower online than in the real world. It then becomes a question of what a fair price is based on the costs involved. The real-world equivalent is of limited value when answering that question.
Taking up on your point on customer expectations, I think there is a subtle(ish) but important distinction here. My take on the customer mindset is that Disneyworld patrons pay for a relatively short and intense burst of entertainment wrapped in a glitzy package - 'fast food fun'. On the other hand, the RPG component of MMO games seems more about developing an alter-ego into which players can escape and in which the entertainment is sustained over a period of time. I don't see them as being directly equivalent. What I do think though, is that the 'bang for buck' which justifies Disneyworld-level prices is more likely to come from a collection of MMO games based on tried-and-tested game formats for which an RPG can provide the context (the packaging).
While I'd like to see complex, convincing, 'real' MMORPGs, I don't expect them to arrive in the near future. In the meantime virtual worlds are going to need to provide customers with other reasons to stump up their mothly subscriptions. I think they are going to have to provide players with experiences before they provide them with stories.
First let me say that the parent post is informed, interesting and insightful. Mod points are very definitely due. I totally agree with the assessment of the different natures of traditional storytelling and the online version and there are interesting further points made which had not occurred to me.
I think that MMORPGs are at such an early stage of development that we are still groping forwards to find how best to design them in order to provide a rich and immersive experience. I think we are moving away from product and towards service (in the broad sense of providing entertainment.) The final state is presumably a 'virtual world' where nothing is scripted and everything is the emergent result of interactions within that world. Thus the elements of story such as backstory, characters and plot will develop organically in-game rather than being provided by scriptwriters. True, such a world has to be interesting and fun but I disagree with the idea that the solution is to buy in scriptwriters. The end state seems a long way off though and so we must ask ourselves the question: what is the next step?
I expect we will see MMORPGs move away from stories and towards experiences. What I mean by that is that I imagine virtual worlds will be something like Disneyland where there are automated NPCs but also people employed to work as an in-game agent to keep the immersive experience running smoothly. Something along the lines of the out-of-work actor in the Goofy suit. This seems to me the cheapest and most flexible way to bring richness into the game. The virtual world will be the 'glue' that holds a number of more traditional game formats together so that your character may for instance enter a race, fight in a tournament or put a team together to compete against other PCs and gain credits, reputation and experience. I imagine these games-within-the-game will for a while take centre stage and push out the storytelling aspect - much as the rides at Disneyworld take centre stage and Goofy just ties it all together. What is being sold is entertainment more than the story that goes with it. That a good story is entertaining is something of a incidental bonus. The majority of people are too lazy to roleplay seriously and these games will need to cater to the lowest common denominator.
I guess we will gradually move towards a fully immersive experience with in-world consequences and history, but at the moment it will be far easier to bolt in tried-and-tested subgames with a weaker RPG component around it. In the end serious roleplayers are a niche market compared to 'lazier' casual gamers and game design will follow the money. It'll be interesting to watch but I think the franchising we see for instance in Star Wars will develop into an integrated online experience sold as a single package. That's much more the service model and allows developers more control over their games, upgrades to those games and the predictability of their revenue streams. It also means weak offerings are supported by stronger ones and the variety afforded by the package moves it closer to having universal player appeal.
I agree that other players are the ultimate keystone to whether an MMORPG has a satifying story to it or not. However, I think the concept of 'storytelling' in MMORPGs is a hangover from earlier days and on its way out. The idea that the game tells a story to the player is arse backwards - what is starting to happen and will increasingly happen is that the players tell the story to the game.
Where the RPG is not online the story is mostly already set before the player starts. Where the RPG is online and many players are in the same game, the interactions between those players takes centre stage. The players 'live' the game rather than simply 'playing' it. That can either work very well or very badly - it can get spoilt very easily by a few annoying users. In a shared virtual world though, scripted sequences of events are more obviously brittle and less satisfying and are just plain too labour-intensive to sustain over time.
I think what we'll see is the development of more robust virtual world designs which can tolerate and incorporate player actions. Part of that is figuring out how to deal with the minority who deliberately spoil the experience for others and part of it is working out how to make game AI work to produce a logical and satisfying reaction to actual events in-world. The story will grow organically out of the AI. For this reason I think the future of MMORPGs belongs far more to code writers than script writers.
Interesting thread that deals with emerging content in virtual worlds:
http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2004/06/mu se _of_fire.html
The entry price you pay for an MMO is a few bucks a month and an inconceivably disproportionate amount of time a week. It's the latter element that more and more people realize as the real price of an MMO, and are consequently unwilling to pay it.
I understand MMOs to be more than just MMORPGs. Granted many RPGs are heavily skewed towards powergamers but I'm not convinced this holds true for MMO games where skill is more of an issue. Shooters, fight games, racing games, space sims for instance. There are of course other ways in which your fun can be spoilt but I think that's more down to other players than a game design intended to penalise the casual gamer. I'm not even sure all MMORPGs necessarily have the bias you claim.
What I'm thinking is a single subscription for a bunch of online games where you can choose what you devote your time to and how much time you devote. Bundle it with other content like film and music and any other online goodies that might bring in the crowds and you start to get a package that is sufficiently broad to have mainstream appeal. The presence of older MMOs for free on the net suggests the availability of low cost fillers for such a package. If the selling point is convenience and reliability (i.e. service rather than goods) and the entry point is priced low enough, there may be many average-Joe MS users who are prepared to pay to get a minimum hassle offering. That opens the market for casual gamers up and allows niche offerings to grow and develop as their user base expands.
I disagree that MMO is necessary "a bad bad bad business idea". I do think the approach is still wrong.
It's unrealistic to imagine that a large and complex online environment can be built, provided and maintained for a large player base without costing the developers big bucks. The automatic reaction is to charge players to buy the game and then latch onto them with a monthly fee. Games are pushed out the door early to try to claw back cash from the initial purchasers and suffer because players don't perceive their end of the deal as value for money. When I've paid the equivalent of a regular game just to be able to pay the monthly subscription and I need to keep an internet connection all the time I'm playing, I'm going to want to be seriously impressed. MMOs seem to me to have too much to live up to in terms of expectation (and this is compounded by hype) for them to be able to deliver. Look at SWG as a case in point. The approach is too geared towards providing a product in the form of a game and not focussed enough on providing the service to justify the monthly fee.
Where does the money come from to support a soap or a sitcom? In part advertising, in part merchandising. How does a soap or sitcom develop the following which these revenue streams depend on? Mostly because they are provided at low cost, often because they start small and low budget. Nobody paid a monthly fee just to watch Friends but the cost was bundled with a package (cable subscription, whatever) which allowed you access to the show. It grew huge. Same with Buffy. Same with most any big TV show you can think of.
These things need to be bundled together as packages which can be subscribed to with minimum front-end cost to the subscriber. They need to bring in advertising and merchandising to subsidise the cost as much as possible. They need big network names to get on board and turn them mainstream. I don't think that day is too far off and I think predictions of the imminent death of online gaming are premature. There will be plenty that fail (as with TV) but the few that are successful will eventually be huge.
At first glance this looks like a great idea. I had visions of a sort of geographical wiki - a resource for users by users and with the potential to knit communities together with local information. East Enders is fiction - in London most of us barely even speak to our next door neighbours.
I imagined it could help with directions to the nearest tube stop, police station or whatever. Lost tourists would be shepherded to safety. Public-spirited Londoners would post interesting and informative nuggets of local culture.
Fun uses could include placing a string of notes by pubs to mark out a pub crawl or helping commuters hook up with that girl they see each day on the opposite platform and never get a chance to talk to.
Then I snapped out of it.
Without any sort of regulation or structure, this is just going to become a blizzard of virtual flyposting. We already see enough junk posters pasted up around the city. When you can do the equivalent digitally just by walking through a neighbourhood, when you know that the section of the population viewing that content will be a target market (young professionals, gadget-hungry kids) the opportunity to spam will just be way too hard to resist. Any worthwhile content will be buried amongst acres of worthless junk. At least with email you know that (apart from a relatively small number of spammers) most people with your address are people you would want to have your address. Even then, spam is still a huge problem.
When every kid with a mobile can post inane junk and every 'guerilla marketer' can post repeatedly about their latest product, the signal to noise ratio quickly drops to unusable levels. The only advantage is that you don't see it unless you look for it.
I must admit I got caught up in the pre-game hype and agree that the devs seemed to miss the point of the Star Wars universe (haven't played the game but even before release you could see which way the wind was blowing from the forums - and lo and behold, non-gamers were then locked out of them). My understanding though was that SWG had a definite placing in the timeline and was part of the Expanded Universe. I also thought they had said they were working closely with Lucas and nothing would be added or changed without his specific say-so.
Has their approach changed then? If so, when?
Hoping that the space expansion will bring some excitement. Otherwise SWG just sounds like a buggy and boring game (which is why I haven't gone near it).
Luke thought farming was dull too. SOE should go figure what that means for the Star Wars fan base they are trying to sell to.
Depending on how it's done, seems to me that the space expansion could save the game.
Need a reason to keep grinding for credits? Maybe you'll get to buy a ship.
Need a way to get powergamers and PvPers out of the standard SWG RPG world and away from the casual players? Sell them an extra layer and let them shoot it out in space.
Nobody's forcing you to get the expansion pack. If you enjoy farming, there's nothing to stop you staying in the role and never leaving your home town. What you will hopefully see though is the emergence of a richer RPG world as the space jockeys kick back for downtime and a chat in your local cantina. That's spot on for SWG.
Spaceships and space combat should have been in this from the start - they are central to the Star Wars Universe and they are what the fans expect. Sticking them in a year after launch isn't wrong, just late.
If we're talking 5 miles/hop then presumably that gives a maximum radius of 40 miles? The radius of the M25 is very roughly 25 miles.
Looking at the Consume node database, it looks like coverage is hugely less than 5 miles from each node. Probably more like a couple of hundred meters. I had always assumed that Consume nodes would just pass data along as many times as necessary to get it to its destination. Is there a maximum number of passes then? If so, then making a mesh with 802.11b kit (a la Consume) seems a lot harder than I'd initially thought.
Can anyone give a brief explanation of how these work?
Slashdot Mirror
"we will be placing millions or billions of nanobots -- blood cell-size devices -- inside our bloodstream to travel into our brains and interact with our neurons."
Right after they've tunneled through the blood-brain barrier? This guy may know something about IT but he's no biologist.
Perhaps "was not exactly setting the world on fire" would have been more accurate?
A 3 month old graph is not so useful when commenting on a newly identified trend, is it now?
Hmmmm indeed.
Just a thought:
If you Google your own card number, presumably that'll help you check your details aren't compromised and posted online this way?
Isn't WINE an emulator?
From the Slashdot summary:
This isn't emulation -- they claim that it is 'kernel-integrated and supported as an operating system feature'.
I use Copernic - cross-searches several and saves search results to disk. Can also automatically weed out dead links. More recent versions with more features available but I haven't bothered as Copernic does everything I need.
Interesting approach (more a boycott than a strike really). I wonder though who will really be prepared to do it if it means that when (if) they come back, they will have to start from scratch.
I agree that SOE seems to be somewhat contemptous of their subscribers and particularly of views expressed in the forums. I suspect the forums are kept on mainly as a means to allow players to let off steam rather than anything else. Are they still closed to outsiders? That always seemed a particularly cynical move by SOE. This way subscribers bitch behind closed doors and keep paying. Smart move if you know your product falls short of its hype.
I disagree that petitions aren't worth a shot. Particularly if they are backed up by arguments and a proposal for action. Maybe the best approach is a pair of petitions: one for people who are pissed off and threatening to leave, one for those pissed off but staying. Set SOE a deadline and let them watch the names rack up. Of course there will be people who sign as intending to leave but SOE won't know exactly how many. Hopefully it should help focus their minds on the issue.
Petition online is a great free service for hosting petitions like this. It doesn't seem to have a SWG petition active yet.
My take on SWG is that SOE have more or less accepted that JtL will be kill or cure and so want to concentrate on that before they do anything else.
Seems like they failed to pull off the MMORPG cleanly and had to push it out the door to get some sort of return on their costs. Having spent a year trying to get that playable, it's getting to the stage where the Star Wars brand is no longer a sufficient selling point in the absence of good gameplay.
By delaying their combat rebalance, SOE admittedly piss off subscribers but many of those were pretty pissed off already and have still stuck with SWG. Why? Basically they hope things will improve. If SOE push out the combat rebalance now and it's no good, they will disappoint again. If they wait, those subscribers are likely to hang on long enough to see what the improvements are like. They squeeze a few more months' worth of subs out of people and buy themselves time.
I expect JtL to be indifferent to good and the combat rebalance to be indifferent to poor. I expect JtL will *far* overshadow the RPG combat rebalance. I don't think combat is a priority for SOE in the RPG and from the pre-launch forums I don't think it ever was. They'd rather have a more peaceful, manageable MMORPG world - essentially backstory to JtL. This way moisture farmers pay their subs to live quietly and those who want excitement will have to look for it in JtL.
Yup. Pretty much the way I see it.
Unless there is a flaw on the implementation of the phone can this kind of virus really spreads?
It's not a phone virus, it's a Pocket PC virus.
From the article:
The first computer virus to infect handheld devices running Microsoft's PocketPC OS was discovered over the weekend... Cabir - like Duts - was a proof-of-concept exercise. In both instances, 29A sent its malicious code straight to anti-virus firms.
To my mind, the word "discovered" doesn't really apply here.
Previous attempts have been made to monkey around with handhelds. Google is now overflowing with this latest 'news' but I am pretty sure this is not a first. Palms have had their IR connections compromised. Pocket PCs were never going to be bulletproof in the first place.
This threat assessment might be useful to someone.
If student rumour is correct, there's an unrepealed Oxford law by which Crusaders on their way to the Holy Land could stop by and pick up a degree. Apocryphally, students have tried to invoke this right and been turned down by the Proctors because they weren't wearing their swords when the claim was made.
There is also meant to be a law still in force by which you can request a glass of sherry be brought to you during Finals exams. I don't know if anyone has had the balls to try it - it's exactly the sort of thing the Proctors find unamusing.
In Oxford, they call it the "Sisyphus Punishment".
News to me.
university campuses tend to almost have their own legal systems
But with the entire event being isolated to a university campus...
There is no single campus at Oxford, only a collection of Colleges, Libraries and Faculties.
The policing of Oxford students is dealt with mainly by the Colleges and the Proctors. The Proctors can be quite fierce if they fail to see the funny side. They are also quite old fashioned - most students hope only to encounter them at ceremonial occasions when they'll be wearing gowns and funny hats. There are also the 'Bulldogs' who are basically the heavies for the Proctors and go round in bowler hats and used to chase the students out of pubs in the old days.
In this instance, the fact that the story was splashed on the front page of a newspaper with circulation throughout Oxford (rather than just within a campus) probably caused a lot of embarassment. Added to which, I wouldn't be surprised if the Proctors have very little understanding of exactly what has been done or how. They will assume the worst. They probably just want to be seen to be taking the matter seriously and don't know exactly how serious it really is or what reaction is appropriate. In any case, rustication isn't so bad - you can come back to study once you've served your time away). They could have been 'sent down', in which case it'd be game over.
Long section from the article:
...Going forward, Jedi will still be a balance nightmare for SOE. One thing I personally hope they integrate are Ysalamiri. Sure they're part of the Expanded Universe content, and don't really get introduced to the lore until well after Return of the Jedi. But as naturally evolved animals, they certainly exist on Myrkr in contemporary times. Someone just needs to "accidentally" stumble upon them.
Jedi no longer become more powerful just by using their force abilities. Now their progress is based on other players. Light Jedi need to gather the necessary votes to progress from their peers. Dark Jedi need to fight their way up. A compelling system, and I'm sure it'll work flawlessly by the time I get to a level where I need to worry about it...
What is "them"?
They're tamable animals that project force-cancellation bubbles in a sphere around them. They cannot be affected by the force, and force users within the bubbles can't tap the force. This is the ultimate much-needed trump card in a game that wants to balance Jedi versus Mere Mortals.
Others proclaim the role of the Bounty Hunter as being the Jedi hunter. Yes, this is true too. However, Bounty Hunter players and Jedi players alike need to recognize that both canon and expanded universe content define various levels of Jedi and Bounty Hunter proficiency. Jengo Fett may have fought Obi-Wan to a standstill on Kamino, got the drop on Mace Windu first with the flamethrower, and shot Coleman Trebor all to heck shortly thereafter. But he also got tricked into thinking he beat the Jedi that caused him to limp away from battle on Kamino and got handled verily once Mace got his bearings.
Players may want to be Mace and Jengo Fett, but the realities of both the storyline and the game are that they'll need to first be Luke and Greebo. Plus, there's that little pesky thing called choice. Not everyone wants to be a Bounty Hunter.
Believe it or not, my actual issue with the proposed vamp is the Jedi Trials. Even if players like myself read the expanded universe materials that describe the true number of force sensitive characters alive during this time in Galactic History, there was no formal Jedi training. Luke managed a few minutes with Obi-Wan and three months with Yoda, but nowhere is there any mention of having a Jedi Council vote for his eligibility to higher standings within.
This is a rather sharp departure from lore, and one that surprises even me. While it's a nice recognition that more than a few people per server would like to be Jedi, it would be more appropriate for the game to shift the timeline back or forward 30 years when there was a Jedi Council or elite corps from which to seek approval.
Hmmm. Some things here I like, some I don't. A couple of (mis?)quotes seem appropriate:
Yoda: "Once you start down the path of the Dark Side, forever will it dominate your destiny."
Obiwan: "If you strike me down I will become more powerful than you can imagine."
Ysalamiri sound pants. Not only do they have a stupid name based on an Italian sausage but they look likely to introduce a bigger problem than the one they solve. Creature handlers as demigods all over again. Sounds like a very bad idea to me.
The idea of Dark Jedi fighting to advance I like. Especially if it's not just fighting between themselves but with Light Jedi too. I like it lots if they advance faster the more powerful the Jedi they fight/kill. That way they'll look out for more powerful (probably Dark) Jedi to fight anyway. I guess we're sort of ignoring the "always two there are: a Master and an Apprentice" thing here?
Light Jedi though? The voting doesn't really sit well does it? Never had Yoda pegged as a babykisser myself.
Wouldn't it be better to have Jedi slowly growing more powerful in the Light Side (or weaker in the Dark Side) if they remain peaceful and 'tune in' to
Come on people...
Rewind 200yrs. Has society stayed the same? Have there maybe been one or two changes in the basic structure and function? New laws maybe? New organisational bodies?
Not only does technology change but society does too, and faster by the decade.
This story is just dumb.
Maybe you didn't catch the Wired article a week or so back:
0 0. html?tw=wn_6culthead
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,64040,
I have to say, messing with biology is to my mind not the sort of thing I can see teenager doing in their bedrooms though.
The problem is that the audience isn't willing to pay for it. Doing a quick lookup, the standard 3-day "park hopper" ticket for Disneyland is $124 if purchased in advance. That's only a bit under what you'd pay for a full year of Meridian 59! Yet, you see numerous complaints from people on sites like Slashdot complaining about having to spend $15/month on subscriptions. Honestly, the audience that are interested in virtual worlds isn't ready to pay the price for a focused experience like you get at a theme park like Disney.
To be fair the development and running costs aren't exactly equivalent either. I very much doubt any real-world theme park (let alone Disneyworld) could be built and maintained by a "single-digit number of developers". The land must be bought, the physical theme park installed and kept in good condition, the place has to be cleaned and there are most probably significant hidden costs in things like insurance policies. A direct comparison on entrance fee/subscription fee is likely to be misleading.
If you can figure out the cost of providing Disneyworld, the numbers may be more useful. Even then, I am cautious of the approach. My thinking is that theme parks provide an alternative entertainment format to the more traditional storytelling approach and may be better suited to the interactive/collaborative experience of MMO games. Although it is interesting to take that further into a comparison of costs, I think you have to be cautious if you do so. The customer expects an online 'theme park' to cost less than its real-world equivalent and I have to say I don't think that expectation is unreasonable. So far as I am aware, the costs of providing the experience are lower online than in the real world. It then becomes a question of what a fair price is based on the costs involved. The real-world equivalent is of limited value when answering that question.
Taking up on your point on customer expectations, I think there is a subtle(ish) but important distinction here. My take on the customer mindset is that Disneyworld patrons pay for a relatively short and intense burst of entertainment wrapped in a glitzy package - 'fast food fun'. On the other hand, the RPG component of MMO games seems more about developing an alter-ego into which players can escape and in which the entertainment is sustained over a period of time. I don't see them as being directly equivalent. What I do think though, is that the 'bang for buck' which justifies Disneyworld-level prices is more likely to come from a collection of MMO games based on tried-and-tested game formats for which an RPG can provide the context (the packaging).
While I'd like to see complex, convincing, 'real' MMORPGs, I don't expect them to arrive in the near future. In the meantime virtual worlds are going to need to provide customers with other reasons to stump up their mothly subscriptions. I think they are going to have to provide players with experiences before they provide them with stories.
First let me say that the parent post is informed, interesting and insightful. Mod points are very definitely due. I totally agree with the assessment of the different natures of traditional storytelling and the online version and there are interesting further points made which had not occurred to me.
I think that MMORPGs are at such an early stage of development that we are still groping forwards to find how best to design them in order to provide a rich and immersive experience. I think we are moving away from product and towards service (in the broad sense of providing entertainment.) The final state is presumably a 'virtual world' where nothing is scripted and everything is the emergent result of interactions within that world. Thus the elements of story such as backstory, characters and plot will develop organically in-game rather than being provided by scriptwriters. True, such a world has to be interesting and fun but I disagree with the idea that the solution is to buy in scriptwriters. The end state seems a long way off though and so we must ask ourselves the question: what is the next step?
I expect we will see MMORPGs move away from stories and towards experiences. What I mean by that is that I imagine virtual worlds will be something like Disneyland where there are automated NPCs but also people employed to work as an in-game agent to keep the immersive experience running smoothly. Something along the lines of the out-of-work actor in the Goofy suit. This seems to me the cheapest and most flexible way to bring richness into the game. The virtual world will be the 'glue' that holds a number of more traditional game formats together so that your character may for instance enter a race, fight in a tournament or put a team together to compete against other PCs and gain credits, reputation and experience. I imagine these games-within-the-game will for a while take centre stage and push out the storytelling aspect - much as the rides at Disneyworld take centre stage and Goofy just ties it all together. What is being sold is entertainment more than the story that goes with it. That a good story is entertaining is something of a incidental bonus. The majority of people are too lazy to roleplay seriously and these games will need to cater to the lowest common denominator.
I guess we will gradually move towards a fully immersive experience with in-world consequences and history, but at the moment it will be far easier to bolt in tried-and-tested subgames with a weaker RPG component around it. In the end serious roleplayers are a niche market compared to 'lazier' casual gamers and game design will follow the money. It'll be interesting to watch but I think the franchising we see for instance in Star Wars will develop into an integrated online experience sold as a single package. That's much more the service model and allows developers more control over their games, upgrades to those games and the predictability of their revenue streams. It also means weak offerings are supported by stronger ones and the variety afforded by the package moves it closer to having universal player appeal.
My 2c in return.
I agree that other players are the ultimate keystone to whether an MMORPG has a satifying story to it or not. However, I think the concept of 'storytelling' in MMORPGs is a hangover from earlier days and on its way out. The idea that the game tells a story to the player is arse backwards - what is starting to happen and will increasingly happen is that the players tell the story to the game.
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Where the RPG is not online the story is mostly already set before the player starts. Where the RPG is online and many players are in the same game, the interactions between those players takes centre stage. The players 'live' the game rather than simply 'playing' it. That can either work very well or very badly - it can get spoilt very easily by a few annoying users. In a shared virtual world though, scripted sequences of events are more obviously brittle and less satisfying and are just plain too labour-intensive to sustain over time.
I think what we'll see is the development of more robust virtual world designs which can tolerate and incorporate player actions. Part of that is figuring out how to deal with the minority who deliberately spoil the experience for others and part of it is working out how to make game AI work to produce a logical and satisfying reaction to actual events in-world. The story will grow organically out of the AI. For this reason I think the future of MMORPGs belongs far more to code writers than script writers.
Interesting thread that deals with emerging content in virtual worlds:
http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2004/06/m
The entry price you pay for an MMO is a few bucks a month and an inconceivably disproportionate amount of time a week. It's the latter element that more and more people realize as the real price of an MMO, and are consequently unwilling to pay it.
I understand MMOs to be more than just MMORPGs. Granted many RPGs are heavily skewed towards powergamers but I'm not convinced this holds true for MMO games where skill is more of an issue. Shooters, fight games, racing games, space sims for instance. There are of course other ways in which your fun can be spoilt but I think that's more down to other players than a game design intended to penalise the casual gamer. I'm not even sure all MMORPGs necessarily have the bias you claim.
What I'm thinking is a single subscription for a bunch of online games where you can choose what you devote your time to and how much time you devote. Bundle it with other content like film and music and any other online goodies that might bring in the crowds and you start to get a package that is sufficiently broad to have mainstream appeal. The presence of older MMOs for free on the net suggests the availability of low cost fillers for such a package. If the selling point is convenience and reliability (i.e. service rather than goods) and the entry point is priced low enough, there may be many average-Joe MS users who are prepared to pay to get a minimum hassle offering. That opens the market for casual gamers up and allows niche offerings to grow and develop as their user base expands.
I disagree that MMO is necessary "a bad bad bad business idea". I do think the approach is still wrong.
It's unrealistic to imagine that a large and complex online environment can be built, provided and maintained for a large player base without costing the developers big bucks. The automatic reaction is to charge players to buy the game and then latch onto them with a monthly fee. Games are pushed out the door early to try to claw back cash from the initial purchasers and suffer because players don't perceive their end of the deal as value for money. When I've paid the equivalent of a regular game just to be able to pay the monthly subscription and I need to keep an internet connection all the time I'm playing, I'm going to want to be seriously impressed. MMOs seem to me to have too much to live up to in terms of expectation (and this is compounded by hype) for them to be able to deliver. Look at SWG as a case in point. The approach is too geared towards providing a product in the form of a game and not focussed enough on providing the service to justify the monthly fee.
Where does the money come from to support a soap or a sitcom? In part advertising, in part merchandising. How does a soap or sitcom develop the following which these revenue streams depend on? Mostly because they are provided at low cost, often because they start small and low budget. Nobody paid a monthly fee just to watch Friends but the cost was bundled with a package (cable subscription, whatever) which allowed you access to the show. It grew huge. Same with Buffy. Same with most any big TV show you can think of.
These things need to be bundled together as packages which can be subscribed to with minimum front-end cost to the subscriber. They need to bring in advertising and merchandising to subsidise the cost as much as possible. They need big network names to get on board and turn them mainstream. I don't think that day is too far off and I think predictions of the imminent death of online gaming are premature. There will be plenty that fail (as with TV) but the few that are successful will eventually be huge.
At first glance this looks like a great idea. I had visions of a sort of geographical wiki - a resource for users by users and with the potential to knit communities together with local information. East Enders is fiction - in London most of us barely even speak to our next door neighbours.
I imagined it could help with directions to the nearest tube stop, police station or whatever. Lost tourists would be shepherded to safety. Public-spirited Londoners would post interesting and informative nuggets of local culture.
Fun uses could include placing a string of notes by pubs to mark out a pub crawl or helping commuters hook up with that girl they see each day on the opposite platform and never get a chance to talk to.
Then I snapped out of it.
Without any sort of regulation or structure, this is just going to become a blizzard of virtual flyposting. We already see enough junk posters pasted up around the city. When you can do the equivalent digitally just by walking through a neighbourhood, when you know that the section of the population viewing that content will be a target market (young professionals, gadget-hungry kids) the opportunity to spam will just be way too hard to resist. Any worthwhile content will be buried amongst acres of worthless junk. At least with email you know that (apart from a relatively small number of spammers) most people with your address are people you would want to have your address. Even then, spam is still a huge problem.
When every kid with a mobile can post inane junk and every 'guerilla marketer' can post repeatedly about their latest product, the signal to noise ratio quickly drops to unusable levels. The only advantage is that you don't see it unless you look for it.
In case you are not already aware of it, there is a dedicated collaborative blog on Virtual Worlds to which Bartle is a regular contributor:
http://terranova.blogs.com
Very interesting reading!
Interesting...
I must admit I got caught up in the pre-game hype and agree that the devs seemed to miss the point of the Star Wars universe (haven't played the game but even before release you could see which way the wind was blowing from the forums - and lo and behold, non-gamers were then locked out of them). My understanding though was that SWG had a definite placing in the timeline and was part of the Expanded Universe. I also thought they had said they were working closely with Lucas and nothing would be added or changed without his specific say-so.
Has their approach changed then? If so, when?
Hoping that the space expansion will bring some excitement. Otherwise SWG just sounds like a buggy and boring game (which is why I haven't gone near it).
Luke thought farming was dull too. SOE should go figure what that means for the Star Wars fan base they are trying to sell to.
Depending on how it's done, seems to me that the space expansion could save the game.
Need a reason to keep grinding for credits? Maybe you'll get to buy a ship.
Need a way to get powergamers and PvPers out of the standard SWG RPG world and away from the casual players? Sell them an extra layer and let them shoot it out in space.
Nobody's forcing you to get the expansion pack. If you enjoy farming, there's nothing to stop you staying in the role and never leaving your home town. What you will hopefully see though is the emergence of a richer RPG world as the space jockeys kick back for downtime and a chat in your local cantina. That's spot on for SWG.
Spaceships and space combat should have been in this from the start - they are central to the Star Wars Universe and they are what the fans expect. Sticking them in a year after launch isn't wrong, just late.
Or more specifically, how far is eight hops?
If we're talking 5 miles/hop then presumably that gives a maximum radius of 40 miles? The radius of the M25 is very roughly 25 miles.
Looking at the Consume node database, it looks like coverage is hugely less than 5 miles from each node. Probably more like a couple of hundred meters. I had always assumed that Consume nodes would just pass data along as many times as necessary to get it to its destination. Is there a maximum number of passes then? If so, then making a mesh with 802.11b kit (a la Consume) seems a lot harder than I'd initially thought.
Can anyone give a brief explanation of how these work?