This is what the NineWomen's game shall be called. Amy and myself are working on turning it into a digital multiplayer version. Amy is handling the art for it, we are splitting the coding, and I am going to script the more complicated objects.
First we contacted NineWomen and got their permission to work on the project. Dana Dunn sent a memorandum of understanding for us to print out and sign. After we got that sent in, we FINALLY got the content for Thrive! on the 24th.
Amy is bringing together her concepts on the design, and we will soon be posting those to NineWomen for approval. I made up a primary list of functions and how they will work, and then put that to a hierarchy chart -hooray for tedious, frustrating, responsible coding practices. But uh-oh!
Neither Amy or I are seasoned coders, what a brilliant project to dive into but at least their deadline is 30 Dec. 2009. I'm pretty good with PHP, nice loose syntax there to work with. I don't know enough, however, to have included: keeping the connection open, user accounts on SQL, handling IP's, and other data-basing for the interactions that make it multiplayer, oh also did I mention we both need to learn flash? It's no biggie in the long run though, I have some nice new reference books AND I'm very good at learning coding/scripting and looking into what I need to use. I'll be sharing these with Amy and we can work out our learning processes together.
But until we can start working that out, scripting the current objects and testing them, and then collaborating our work -I've never worked with a group on coding or scripting before- should be time consuming enough.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
The Sword of a Thousand Truths
So, blizzard are a bunch of pricks apparently? The Sword of a Thousand Truths apparently exists. Ok, so it's actually called Martin Fury, rather anticlimactic if you ask me. A blizzard employee transferred the experimental item from his GM to his day-to-day account to prove its existence to his guild it seems? And they get pissed off when every day consumers abuse user rights. This certainly puts a damper on my speculation of being able to accept user generated content in MMORPGs.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
User Generated Role Playing
My favorite genre of game is the RPG. From Legacy of The Wizard, Ultima, and the original Final Fantasy to Lost Odyssey, Elder Scrolls, Fable II, and MMORPGs of today I have always loved this genre above all else. Although they started with "user generated content" as table tops, the scope user generated content for platform rpgs has been minimal.
Until recently, user generated content for games consisted mainly of hacks for advancing game play. Legacy of the Wizard was one of THE HARDEST games for the NES, and most people seemed to rely on the game genie for an extra edge to beat the final boss. Or imagine if you will beating Sephiroth with a zombified Aeris; ok she's not actually re-rendered as a zombie, that would be too awesome, but people do actually sell these hacks -just when my memory seemed to be telling me that the game shark codes had been free. On the bright side, this seems to have been discouraged in later years by memory cards corrupting with hacked saves, and Valkyrie Profile 2 will not accept a hack and play for more than 5 minutes running. But I digress, even with current gen console RPGs there is not a huge emphasis on user generated content. It is in MMORPGs that user generated content finds its welcome home.
MMORPGs have released updates that accepted what users had been wanting to see. They even hold contests for users to create the next class or quest. I can even see where an MMORPG may someday be able to take purely user generated content, from the users computer, and share it with other players in real time on main stream servers.
Until recently, user generated content for games consisted mainly of hacks for advancing game play. Legacy of the Wizard was one of THE HARDEST games for the NES, and most people seemed to rely on the game genie for an extra edge to beat the final boss. Or imagine if you will beating Sephiroth with a zombified Aeris; ok she's not actually re-rendered as a zombie, that would be too awesome, but people do actually sell these hacks -just when my memory seemed to be telling me that the game shark codes had been free. On the bright side, this seems to have been discouraged in later years by memory cards corrupting with hacked saves, and Valkyrie Profile 2 will not accept a hack and play for more than 5 minutes running. But I digress, even with current gen console RPGs there is not a huge emphasis on user generated content. It is in MMORPGs that user generated content finds its welcome home.
MMORPGs have released updates that accepted what users had been wanting to see. They even hold contests for users to create the next class or quest. I can even see where an MMORPG may someday be able to take purely user generated content, from the users computer, and share it with other players in real time on main stream servers.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Little Big Disapointment
There are various similarities and differences between the tool kits in "World builder" and Little Big Planet. The notable limitations that both share are in textures and colors. You can only use what colors the tool kit gives you, an you can only use what textures were familiar and known to whoever created the tool kit. This similarities in limitations stops.
Although there was a time limit to the man's musings in "World Builder," the only other limit was his imagination; he could make any thing he wanted to with box modeling and other tools and methods common to any 3D modeling program; which is meant to be stretched. Little Big Planet, however, is limited not only to textures and colors, but to what objects the creator has already made and given the user to work with; one interesting perk is that objects can be resized to ridiculous proportions with out loss of visual quality. There is also a gauge which measures and limits what the player can do in the world creator, similar to that in The Sims albeit more lenient. Not to mention the fact that you are limited to a 2D side-scrolling interface.
Regardless of these limitations to Little Big Planet, the players seem to stretch and apply their given abilities to produce interesting levels. There are even snippets of interaction meant to emulate the player imposing their will upon the level, but those are only provided solely by what objects the level creator wanted to player to use.Hard as any one tries, however, Little Big Planet just does not come away with "worlds" created, only shortly engaging stories created by the levels.
Even in "World Builder" there was no world created. What was created was a desperate man's endeavor to make a place where his comatose love could exist again. Although she could interact with any object she pleased there, and in any way she wanted to, there were no people to interact with. Even in her brief presence before her love, she only observed and did not truly exist, and so the world he made was not truly a world.
1: This video playlist
2: World Builder
3: Little Big Colossus
3: Little Big Calculator
Although there was a time limit to the man's musings in "World Builder," the only other limit was his imagination; he could make any thing he wanted to with box modeling and other tools and methods common to any 3D modeling program; which is meant to be stretched. Little Big Planet, however, is limited not only to textures and colors, but to what objects the creator has already made and given the user to work with; one interesting perk is that objects can be resized to ridiculous proportions with out loss of visual quality. There is also a gauge which measures and limits what the player can do in the world creator, similar to that in The Sims albeit more lenient. Not to mention the fact that you are limited to a 2D side-scrolling interface.
Regardless of these limitations to Little Big Planet, the players seem to stretch and apply their given abilities to produce interesting levels. There are even snippets of interaction meant to emulate the player imposing their will upon the level, but those are only provided solely by what objects the level creator wanted to player to use.Hard as any one tries, however, Little Big Planet just does not come away with "worlds" created, only shortly engaging stories created by the levels.
Even in "World Builder" there was no world created. What was created was a desperate man's endeavor to make a place where his comatose love could exist again. Although she could interact with any object she pleased there, and in any way she wanted to, there were no people to interact with. Even in her brief presence before her love, she only observed and did not truly exist, and so the world he made was not truly a world.
1: This video playlist
2: World Builder
3: Little Big Colossus
3: Little Big Calculator
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The Temperature at Which Humanity Burns
"You'll be here for the White Clown tonight, and the ladies coming over?" cried Mildred.
Montag stopped at the door, with his back turned. "Millie?"
A silence "What?"
"Millie? Does the White Clown love you?"
No answer.
"Millie, does--" He licked his lips. "Does your 'family' love you, love you very much, love you with all their heart and soul, Millie?"
He felt her blinking slowly at the back of his neck.
"Why'd you ask a silly question like that?"
He felt he wanted to cry, but nothing would happen to his eyes or his mouth.1
As Anastasia said, ten years ago many people wouldn't have been able to predict what the world is today2. The future is the stuff of science fiction, as time will continue to prove. Ray Bradbury had not only an uncanny sense of fantasy that would inspire future, but an uncanny sense of the progression of society. In Fahrenheit 451 he portrayed "wall-to-walls" -television screens in place of walls- that provided interactive 'family' to households, and a mind numbing, consuming escape of reality. As Castronova preaches, people are motivated by wants and "fun"3.
Televisions and home entertainment centers continue to increase in size. People will grow more comfortable surrounded by fabrication, especially as it grows in its capacity for interaction. They will read less, exercise more through media interaction (thank you Nintendo), and natural selection will evolve sociologically and adapt to using our own technologies to aid it.
I don't doubt that office jobs will still be office jobs, McDonalds and Wal Marts will still be populated with part time employees. People will have to work to support their anti-reality habits; although software licensing and government regulations will probably have to adjust to allow for virtual sales and profits. My job, ideally, will be to program graphics and physics engines that will advance how real interactive media feels; or perhaps to devise against hacking that might collapse virtual and real economies.
Media synchronization will improve to provide reality relief away from home. Home entertainment will undoubtedly grow to take up entire walls, perhaps not as soon as in the next 10 years but soon. Considering I can remember a time when there were a limited number of iMax theaters in the world, I'm quite sure that iMax will replace normal theaters -my preference being the dome theaters.
1: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
2: Anastasia Salter
3: Exodus to the Virtual World by Edward Castronova
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Death of a Salesman. I mean MMO...
When Final Fantasy XI was announced to be an MMORPG, I was insulted by the break from the essence of the series, sickened at the death of a classic. Perhaps being a Final Fantasy Fan is just akin to being a Star Wars fan, because there are plenty of other things that Square does to bastardize its products and destroy itself; but when I say death of a classic, I mean that Final Fantasy XI can not become a classic game like its console predecessors.
Console video games can be held onto; exhumed from the depths of second hand markets; emulated; or recoded and released as special editions for newer consoles. They can be replayed and enjoyed for a long time to come, they can become classics. Original copies of classic games can even get more expensive than new generation games, I once found a deal of just over $70 for a CIB copy of Ultima: Warriors of Destiny for the NES, and Final Fantasy fetches similar high prices.
An MMORPG on the other hand, must have a death. At some point in time, the company running the server -that imperative part of the game- will find it unprofitable to upkeep the server. This may be due to an irreparable drop in subscriptions, or perhaps a more important project will divert attention away from the previous game's server; there is a chance that another company may purchase rights to upkeep the game for a time, but the same crippling situations will cause some company to pull the plug on an MMO, for every MMO. Even though it may die, an enigma of the MMO is that it can become legend -living on through videos, archived forums, and tales from the gamers who experienced its prime.
Although it remains largely undressed and even unknown by the bulk of MMO subscribers, this is also part of what makes the MMO. Any given MMO is a world complete with its own environment, species, society, culture, linguistics, politics, and currency. Much like ancient civilizations, the individual MMO will die to be replaced by another. It may fade out, or it may suddenly cease to be; but its inner workings can become the stuff of legend and curiosity to those after its time.
This is the premise of my study, the death of an MMO. I am going to play not one, but three MMORPGs to study what the MMO society is past its prime, what the mechanics and environment had to offer, what made it good, and why it is dying. My games of choice are Ultima Online, Runescape, and Guild Wars. Everquest would have been the obvious choice had reading Taylor not turned it into an issue of beating a dead horse; Guild Wars is a suitable replacement -although a newer game- because it languishes where its once parallel society, World of Warcraft, has flourished dramatically. I will follow up in the blog with a brief analysis of each world.
Console video games can be held onto; exhumed from the depths of second hand markets; emulated; or recoded and released as special editions for newer consoles. They can be replayed and enjoyed for a long time to come, they can become classics. Original copies of classic games can even get more expensive than new generation games, I once found a deal of just over $70 for a CIB copy of Ultima: Warriors of Destiny for the NES, and Final Fantasy fetches similar high prices.
An MMORPG on the other hand, must have a death. At some point in time, the company running the server -that imperative part of the game- will find it unprofitable to upkeep the server. This may be due to an irreparable drop in subscriptions, or perhaps a more important project will divert attention away from the previous game's server; there is a chance that another company may purchase rights to upkeep the game for a time, but the same crippling situations will cause some company to pull the plug on an MMO, for every MMO. Even though it may die, an enigma of the MMO is that it can become legend -living on through videos, archived forums, and tales from the gamers who experienced its prime.
Although it remains largely undressed and even unknown by the bulk of MMO subscribers, this is also part of what makes the MMO. Any given MMO is a world complete with its own environment, species, society, culture, linguistics, politics, and currency. Much like ancient civilizations, the individual MMO will die to be replaced by another. It may fade out, or it may suddenly cease to be; but its inner workings can become the stuff of legend and curiosity to those after its time.
This is the premise of my study, the death of an MMO. I am going to play not one, but three MMORPGs to study what the MMO society is past its prime, what the mechanics and environment had to offer, what made it good, and why it is dying. My games of choice are Ultima Online, Runescape, and Guild Wars. Everquest would have been the obvious choice had reading Taylor not turned it into an issue of beating a dead horse; Guild Wars is a suitable replacement -although a newer game- because it languishes where its once parallel society, World of Warcraft, has flourished dramatically. I will follow up in the blog with a brief analysis of each world.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Virtually No Morals
The Episode of Mr.Bungle is a questionable one to start up a debate on whether Game Designers are entirely responsible for moral actions within game environments. If one was being blatantly obvious they could say that the designers of lambdaMOO were entirely responsible for not coding limitations to the object of the VooDoo Doll, or even user content filters; which is an unfortunate foresight that is now ingrained with game designers -perhaps due to the influence of Mr.Bungle- and even the ESRB has to use this foresight by labeling warnings on any multiplayer game stating potential mature behaviors by other players. In this way, game designers have taken much responsibility for player decisions; but there is no content filter on life, nothing but upbringing and moral judgment that keeps a stranger in public from projecting profanity, say in front of small children.
There are certainly games that undeniably influence a range of moral decisions which are rated accordingly for raw content. Take Maple Story1 for example, it is rated Everyone 10+. The game content is mild and childish; there is playful killing involved that is no more graphic than stomping goombas; there are comprehensive curse filters that will star out profanities; there is even a spam filter for the sake of netiquette that makes the user moderate the rate of text entry. Despite the clear intentions of community content, however, there are still immature players who will make questionable decisions in the game regarding player experiences. They will go to extremes to find ways of cursing, they will degrade and harass other players, abuse world speech items to prompt abuse of other players, and persist to find ways of perpetrating social ineptitude.
Maple Story provides a mild example of morally exploiting design boundaries. With other games, there are other boundaries to be tested. In some Teen rated games, users may take advantage of suggestive outfits, or they use actions like crouching to simulate dry humping. These are common examples, and the moral stretching of the games limits depends of the mentality of the player abusing said limits.
Game Designers are certainly responsible for the raw moral content of their games, and for the coded point and click decisions necessary from npc or plot content. That is where the line stops; when it comes down to the moral decisions and actions that players take against other players, the acting players are responsible. There will always be idiots, social retards, and profanely bored people in the world, and there is no thorough method of censoring their questionable actions from public places or virtual realms short of active eugenics -which of course doubles back on moral decision making. In the end, those who make the decisions are responsible for what they do; and if you happen to be targeted, your actions in retaliation -whether it be to ignore, or perhaps log off for an amount of time passing their attention span- are an important factor in whether or not you become a "victim."
1: http://maplestory.nexon.net/Intro/
There are certainly games that undeniably influence a range of moral decisions which are rated accordingly for raw content. Take Maple Story1 for example, it is rated Everyone 10+. The game content is mild and childish; there is playful killing involved that is no more graphic than stomping goombas; there are comprehensive curse filters that will star out profanities; there is even a spam filter for the sake of netiquette that makes the user moderate the rate of text entry. Despite the clear intentions of community content, however, there are still immature players who will make questionable decisions in the game regarding player experiences. They will go to extremes to find ways of cursing, they will degrade and harass other players, abuse world speech items to prompt abuse of other players, and persist to find ways of perpetrating social ineptitude.
Maple Story provides a mild example of morally exploiting design boundaries. With other games, there are other boundaries to be tested. In some Teen rated games, users may take advantage of suggestive outfits, or they use actions like crouching to simulate dry humping. These are common examples, and the moral stretching of the games limits depends of the mentality of the player abusing said limits.
Game Designers are certainly responsible for the raw moral content of their games, and for the coded point and click decisions necessary from npc or plot content. That is where the line stops; when it comes down to the moral decisions and actions that players take against other players, the acting players are responsible. There will always be idiots, social retards, and profanely bored people in the world, and there is no thorough method of censoring their questionable actions from public places or virtual realms short of active eugenics -which of course doubles back on moral decision making. In the end, those who make the decisions are responsible for what they do; and if you happen to be targeted, your actions in retaliation -whether it be to ignore, or perhaps log off for an amount of time passing their attention span- are an important factor in whether or not you become a "victim."
1: http://maplestory.nexon.net/Intro/
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