Some random speculation, without any insider information:
crankyuser: "I’m guessing they’ve decided to clear the decks in anticipation of Halo 2, which is likely to push Live to the breaking point." http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/xbox/xbox-live-ban-day-025247.phpwow, that's an idiotic theory -- "lots of people are going to be on live! we haven't planned for this, NOR engineered live 3.0 specifically for this game! let's ban people!"
pen40ny: yeah, I don't buy it. I think it's more like, "lets get people to buy halo 2, play a bit, then drop the hammer on them. a little "fuck you" from microsoft"
crankyuser: heh
The Gaming Open Market is a stock market clearing house where players can trade currency in different MMOs. They recently lost $3k in a trade where a player claimed the delivery did not go through, so they're revisiting their policies. To that end, they are switching from PayPal to YowCow, and not dealing in anything other than Second Life Linden$.
Part of their press statement, via the Alphaville Herald:1) Game publishers need to recognize the commodification of their game worlds, and accept that out-of-game trading is going to occur. Plain and simple. Until they do that, no trading, mule or deposit account is safe. Of course there are *many* good reasons why the companies might not want to do this, and I won't bore you with the details. (Email me if you would like to discuss it.)2) Payment services have to start recognizing that FedEx courier tracking numbers are *not* the only way to prove delivery was made. PayPal doesn't, and has no interest in considering it.
3) Game companies have to become open to working together with payment services to prevent fraud. This isn't hard. The game companies simply have to be willing to provide documented proof for the payment systems to use when defending themselves against a claim. What's so tough?
Working together with Linden Lab and YowCow, we *can* provide you with a safe trading environment.
Also mentioned on Terra Nova and Penny Arcade.
Interesting theory from the CEO of Second Life -- one of the alternative MMOs -- about how griefing only comes about when players get frustrated that there isn't enough to do, and when tormenting other players is the most fun thing you can do.
Via the Alphaville HeraldPhilip Linden: You can look at an online world, and ask how much freedom it gives you as a user. Sort of like the rat-in-a-cage analogy... How big is the cage? What is there to do? So when you look at historical online worlds... something like everquest, or even TSO... it seems quite obvious that in them you are far more restricted than in your waking life. There is a LOT less you can do there than in reality.
Urizenus Sklar: true
Philip Linden: So I believe this is a simple test for how basic and abusive and frustrated people will become in these worlds. The answer to the question "how much can I do?" tells us "how mean you will be."
Urizenus Sklar: you mean the less you can do the meaner you will be?
Philip Linden: YES
I had a wonderful and insightful writeup of E3 on my laptop, working locally in Zempt since I was travelling and didn't always have a connection. I enjoyed the shortcuts one gets in an application, and not having the fear that all your edits will be lost when you hit Save and the page refreshes.
The upside of working on a webpage is, of course, that all your work is saved externally and that when you access it through the crappy interfaces afforded by a browser, your brilliant work and all the crappy interfaces are identical whereever you go. So you don't have to worry about a machine dying (unless it's your server), since you can work anywhere.
So instead of brilliant writing or name dropping, you get photo galleries!
Me and my spycam
Jeff's take
The many booth babes of Elijah (but not the other Elijah)
Red vs. Blue visits the Bungie FanFest
Souris misses her plane again
Collectibles, Roundtable
Damion Schubert, Wolfpack (ShadowBane)
Dan Greenawalt (MS), Naomi Clark (GameLab), in attendance
Definition: lateral, optional gameplay, with some concept of scarcity and percieved value. ie: unlocks, exploration, easter eggs.
Bragging rights are built into MMOs, via levels and object collection. Someone will always try to maximize anything with a number attached to it. Orkut is a social collection.
Why? - compulsion, completion, status
Skinner says random payout (slot machines) are the most effective methods. Players try to game the system and predict payout.
Hunting vs foraging - specific vs random search
Animal Crossing has unhuntable items (depends on game seed)
Items that look cool vs. being utilitarian
Druids' rite of passage. Find a cabbage (rare item), post on forum.
Secondary market validates personal value.
Color is no longer worth value; allow players to change color.
Allow players to quickly change outfits based on need? (Utility vs coolness.)
Sets - complete subsets that have incremental value, then a bonus when complete. Used to show off. Make sure the set is complete in time for it to be useful, ie player is not too powerful.
Chasers - Monopoly McDonald's pieces, where Park Avenue is worthless
Nintendo PR events - go, plug your device in, complete your Pokemon set, etc
The most rare Magic card was Proposal, which Garfield played on his then-girlfriend.
Insert Credit posted a review of a lecture I was unable to attend at GDC:
Make Better Criticism: A Mature Form of Cultural Analysis
Commercials based on H5's video for Royksopp's "Remind Me."
(Via Matteo's blog):...displays the same obsession for statistics, charts, infographics, and numbers that pervade all Will Wright's games, as if video games and video clips shared the same language (a form of hyper-remediation, in a sense).
This got posted at work; it's a good entry level article to the secondary market of MMO games:
http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,62929,00.html
What's interesting to me is how the argument of cheapening the experience for gamers that don't pay for game items is usually overlooked when discussing how it’s an economic system where players with more money than time can get ahead. The design/philosophical question of whether players subverting the system is good or bad is often assumed as good, and just dealt with. As developers and academics we somehow have this loftier goal of creating a balanced economic simulator, whereas for a lot of casual gamers it's just a game.
One thing not mentioned was EQ’s aversion to having virtual cash have a conversion rate to real cash, since that would create a financial liability where if a player lost their account or got hacked, they could request for the cash equivalent of their game assets.
User Created Content, Roundtable
Trent Oster, BioWare (NeverWinter Nights)
Raph Koster (Star Wars: Galaxies), Dan Huebner (Second Life), folks from There, in attendance
BioWare had to let the community host their own content, because of licensing and bandwidth issues. Company legally owned all the content, but did not distrubute without author permission.
Pros:
Cons:
Localization gets done based on what work is the most popular work and people are willing to translate themselves.
[At this point I asked a couple of questions about user created content for MMOs, which I am most interested in.]
There
Second Life
Some MMO questions I had:
When does live support end? User-created content/expansions use the old engine, but how do you transition the game? What will EQ2 do? I spoke with a designer who used to be on EQ, and he said that 2 was a different game, targeting a more casual audience. Rather than try to cannibalize or tap other MMOs' audiences, they want fresh blood. I'm rather worried that the market's oversaturated, especially for fantasy RPGs.
MMO Community Management, Roundtable
Kevin O'Hara, Star Wars Galaxies
Folks from Uru, Meridian 59, The Matrix Online, in attendance
Pre-launch community was idealistic and in the honeymoon phase, where the game “could be anything.” The live community expected things as paying customers.
Good to keep forums readable for everyone, otherwise people will take it elsewhere and you’ll lose moderation rights. “What you respond to is what you get more of” – don’t start flame wars or fall for bait. Be strict at first, and set laws that you don’t bend. Start a precedent of what behavior is acceptable. Consider having a miscellaneous section of the forums, for areas not related to the game. Basically allows people to rant or talk about off topic things, without expecting developers to comment.
Commenting on fan forums create an immense amount of positive feedback. Officially link to fansites that meet a set of requirements
Get developers to comment on the best forums, thus increasing their quality and readership. Have a list of good and taboo topics for your developers, approved by PR. Tape this to their monitor. Spell check and use proper grammar. You’re a PR representative first and a game developer second--posting is a privilege. Beware disgruntled developers whose ideas get shot down internally, and get the community excited about it. This has been used as a tactic to try to get internal support and is ultimately another promise you have to keep to the community.
Smaller development houses deal with their own feedback—if you flame you deal with the fallout—unlike larger houses or places where the publisher “stirs up the pot” but doesn’t deal with the mess.
SOE can blacklist griefers, and kick people out of the game for their behavior on the forums.
They show all the posts of troublemakers to a reviewer, ie keeping an eye on them. Tools like Lithium hunt for keywords. Find tools that create visual patterns that can be scanned more quickly.
Remove # of posts to prevent people from trying to level up their post skill. Slashdot style ratings and moderation are considered not refined enough. 30% of players are on the forums. Creating town halls for in-game forum discussions was rejected because of the need for constant real-time moderation. Forum posting is not accessible in game for SWG.
