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...

BEGM: Battleground Europe Game Monitor

Technically this is a cool thing of the day. Even more, for you WWIIOLers it is probably the COOLEST thing of about any day. Oli created a dbase access set and the guys have been hard at work making very cool widgets. God I wish our UI tools were this sweet.

KFS1 says: Guys who have been developing stuff with WireTap are finally starting to release their tools. Apos520 has had one out for a while, Sres has been providing the High Commanders with TOE training tools using it, SLR released a Java-based (cross-platform) one a few days ago, and Xiper has just released his open source BEGM (Battleground Europe Game Monitor)

BEGM: Battleground Europe Game Monitor

Cool Thing of the Day

Ahwulf sent this to me today. More procedural city building stuff. This is WAY cool. Be sure to read the SIGGRAPH papers.

Pascal Mueller's Wiki - City Engine

Cool Thing of the Day

Many thanks to ahwulf for digging this up.

Cool Thing of the Day

We like to kick around new ideas at the shop, hey who doesn't? Today we wandered off into the moral dilema that would be creating a game called Battleground Iraq. Ahh the free press. Ahh the uses for modern mil sim training. Ahh the death threats and car bombs.

Still there's a lot of cool technologies that came up with this one. Check out DI Guy for instance. If you think that stuff is cool try Baghdad in a box or maybe some of these outstanding models.

I guess its just a matter of time before someone does this game. The question is do we want to be the ones who do it.

Link

I Need This!!1

Lately we've been looking for some middle ware on which to base our next terrain editor. We've got some pretty steep requirements. Need to build a half scale map of Europe with several thousand towns with roads and rivers and satellite digital elevation data as the foundation.

In the past we've looked at many editors but nothing really designed to do what we need. I want it to be automated as much as possible. I'd like a cross between Sim City and Combat Missions. I don't need what most MMO engines have and shoe box shooters can't make stuff on the scale I need. Take a look at Blueberry or Terrex for something close for sim applications. Trouble is I don't want to use satellite pictures and I really need to have playable spaces out of all this.

Those guys have some cool stuff. I think we can work something out of it that might give us quick production and good results. Then I see this:

1 - Good screens of progressive generated interiors with objects.
http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=566

2 - Mostly chat about the game history:
http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=571

3 - Procedural cities. Code generated in a few weeks into the project....AMAZING! http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=586

4 - Using the same basic algoritrhms from street and river and building placement you can do interiors as well.
http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=600

5 - Chicken and the egg, need a dbase for the buildings before you can define the rules to build them...DOOM FTW!
http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=683

6 - The buildings and streets...
http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=733

To turn a phrase...F. Me.