Daedalus Project Updated

You know what to do. Get on over there and support the cause. Let the world know we don;t just make games with high elf quotients. Especially go over there and represent if, latz kan gruk wut dis uruk am blahin'!

AGDC Links

I'm planning on writing up my time at AGDC this year as there are a lot of good tools that I came away with. In the interim, here's a list of links about the show that I need to read and you might find interesting as well.

Panels
MMO on Console - I missed this one but someone IS going to do it and they might even do it well. Ok yes, technically someone HAS already done. A few somebodies actually. The news here is making it cross platform, oh and probably also trying to make it suck less than previous attempts. NCSoft has already thrown their cape in with the PS3. Maybe even the PSP?

Defining Fun - I didn't see this but BLOO and many were very impressed. It defines fun through the PENS model (Player Experience of Needs Satisfaction) :
- Competence
- Autonomy
- Relatedness

BLOO notes:

This matches with other research and opinions of other game academics
and designers.

- Competence (PENS)
- Achievers (Killers in PvP) (Bartle Player Types)
- Game (Schubert)

- Autonomy (PENS)
- Explorers (Bartle Player Types)
- World (Schubert)

- Relatedness (PENS)
- Socializers (Bartle Player Types)
- Community (Schubert)


Richard Bartle:
Player Types In MUDS: http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm
Bartle Test: http://www.guildcafe.com/bartle.php

Damion Schubert: http://www.zenofdesign.com/

Tools
Vivox - Warcry covers the Vivox demonstration. Vivox is a cool voice technology we've looked at before and it include some cool multi channel command and control layering that might just work excellent for the game.

Big World

News
Matt Frior moves to ZeniMax. I've always admired Matt and his talks at AGDC are among the best. Very focused and down to earth. ZeniMax on the other hand...hmm...well, technically I probably can't talk about it, so I won't. Good luck Matt, you'll need it.

Star Trek Online - Killer Tribbles. Really, what else is there to say? Not much apparently.

Romero - Even less to say. I did sit next to him and Stevie Case one year flying out to E3. I remember thingking at the tmie "Wow, that chick is hot!". That was years before everyone starting talking about WoW. I'm visionary, you see, just like John!

Raph Koster - Interview. Raph really stole the show for me this year in the final panel. While I don;t think the big MMOs are going anywhere soon (and neither does Raph I bet), the success of web based and casual spaces is ludicrous to argue against. Habbo Hotel, more players than WoW and more importantly a 60% ROI? Seriously...

Looks Like MO Has Been Busy

I'm not so sure what I'd do in a lego virtual world. Probably since I don't really care much for virtual worlds and much prefer games but this one stll intrigues me. Proabably all that time as a kid sorting colored blocks. Hey MO! Where's the beta invite?

News Flash! Escapist magazine Doesn't All Suck!

Ok so the head lines a little over the top but honestly, I can rarely read all the way through the fluff pieces that fill up the latest trendy industry web-zine blog-thingie. That's probably as much to do with the gawds awful layout that they use to give it that whole 'zine-thingie. Yuck.

Anyway, today they talk about gold farming:

Then there's the question of the game designers' intent. Having worked with designers, I know they hate farmers more than a lot of players do, because the farmers are finding and exploiting design weaknesses in products they've worked on for years. Some people would say, "Hey, tough luck. If your design is weak, it's your own fault."

Well, Darius pretty much nailed that one. He goes on to add:

Others would take the stance that people who agree to play a game are entering in an implicit contract to not only play by the rules, but to play reasonably within the designer's intent.

These "others" are the same ones who believe that there is some sort of code of conduct among the player community and not following this unwritten code constitutes cheating. Most of these codes come into play in PvP and VW's where game rules are largely up to the player. You can see where that all leads. Yeah, when someone else isn't playing the way you want them to play that's cheating... uh huh. Let's invite 7 million kids over to the house this weekend and tell them not to get into any trouble while we go to the movies. Here's a thought for an AGC talk: "If you don't want people doing RMT in your game, design it out of the economy."

I really can't get designers or players who have an issue with the concept that my best friend Kevin wants to give me some gold because I need to buy a mount and since I play a hell of a lot less than he does so he's got the scratch among his 7 alts.

Does it really make any difference if the above scenario is altered to a worse case and I don't know Kevin and his name isn't Kevin and I used my lunch money so he could buy lunch and pay his light bill? "Others" might think so.