Shanghai Moves to Regulate Banning in Online Games
By Cameron Sorden | December 17, 2008
Via PlayNoEvil, Shanghai appears to be laying down rules about what companies can ban players for and how they should go about it:
Regulators from the Shanghai Information Services Association in China are moving to standardize notifications and evidence when players are banned from online games.
This includes notifications for when accounts are suspended (frozen) and when a player / account is banned.
There also appears to be a move to strengthen online identity and tracking of player’s virtual item inventories.
This is not surprising in light of some of the legal cases in China.
While there will, no doubt, be complaints about government involvement in games, this is yet another wake-up call to the industry to establish best practices & self-regulation. Some areas of interest to the government, such as stronger online identity, are also of benefit to the industry.
Also, clearer & more consistent banning and account termination policies and procedures will help avoid customer support hassles (and really bad press when these things get into the news).
Fascinating stuff. I imagine this would make it a lot harder to get banned, for one thing — and can you imagine the frivolous lawsuits protesting improper bannings? Once you lay down rules about the procedure for stuff like this, it would become legal fodder for challenge the same way processing criminals properly is.
I keep thinking about the IMGDC lectures I attended last May where the sticky legal issues surrounding RMT were being discussed. The overwhelming response was pretty much that when the law starts mucking around in-game, companies are going to leave the market.
Of course, there’s always someone willing to step up and play ball. The next ten years or so are going to be very interesting, as the West starts to recognize and deal with these same challenges. The first step is widespread use of RMT. With Bioware’s microtransaction-driven Star Wars MMOG coming out soon and all of the RMT being added to current games, I’d say we’re almost there.
I wonder who will still be making games when the laws start firming up?
Topics: Blogosphere, Game Design, Massively Multiplayer, Popular Culture, Videogame Industry | 1 Comment »
Workplace Discrimination Against WoW Players
By Cameron Sorden | December 16, 2008
I just saw Darren’s post pointing out this f13 thread where an online media recruiter was specifically instructed not to hire WoW players.
I met with a recruiter recently (online media industry) and in conversation I happened to mention I’d spent way too much time in the early 2000s playing online games, which I described as “the ones before World of Warcraft” (I went nuts for EQ1, SWG and the start of WoW, but since 2006 I have only put a handful of days into MMOG playing - as opposed to discussing them - I’ve obsessed over bicycles and cycling instead).
He replied that employers specifically instruct him not to send them World of Warcraft players. He said there is a belief that WoW players cannot give 100% because their focus is elsewhere, their sleeping patterns are often not great, etc. I mentioned that some people have written about MMOG leadership experience as a career positive or a way to learn project management skills, and he shook his head. He has been specifically asked to avoid WoW players.
As someone who has argued for MMOGs as a way to learn skills, it’s interesting to hear actual feedback from a recruiter that confirms what many people said when I wrote my “Putting Raiding on Your Resume” post back in May. I should mention that my opinion has changed a bit since I wrote that too — the more I think about it, I think that MMOGs tend to reinforce personality traits already present, rather than necessarily instilling new ones in you. That said, I absolutely don’t think it’s fair to disqualify someone from a job on the basis of their hobby (although I’m obviously biased here).
I should say that I’ve mentioned MMOGs as a hobby in two different interviews during the last year, and both of those interviews ultimately turned into job offers. I don’t think it counted against me in either case, though I didn’t mention exactly how much time I spent raiding during the last semester of my Senior year of college. On the other hand, maybe my interviewers just weren’t even game-savvy enough to be familiar with how much time people often spend playing MMOGs.
Speaking of MMOGs not getting you hired, check out one case where playing a lot of MMOGs could get you hired. Iron Realms is picking up a newbie game designer, and I’d guess it’s for their upcoming game Earth Eternal. This is the free-to-play MMOG that I helped write some of the background story for about two years ago, and I’m pretty excited to actually play it. I would have loved to apply for this job about 4-6 months ago, but now my fiancee and I have settled down in Seattle and I’m working for Amazon. Even if I managed to get into the running for the position, I can’t imagine moving to San Francisco at this point.
That doesn’t mean that you can’t apply though! Matt Mihaly is a cool guy, and if you’ve been looking for a way to break into game design and meet the requirements, send in your resume. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
You could probably even tell him that you play WoW.
Topics: Blogosphere, Game Design, Massively Multiplayer, Popular Culture, Videogame Industry, World of Warcraft | 2 Comments »
Runescape: Kind of a Big Deal
By Cameron Sorden | December 2, 2008
I knew that Runescape was popular with the kids, but not so popular that it would come in at #5 in Yahoo’s top ten searches of 2008. That’s two spaces higher than last year. It’s going places. For reference, here are the searches it managed to beat out:
6. Jessica Alba
7. Naruto
8. Lindsay Lohan
9. Angelina Jolie
10. American Idol
I’m actually pretty impressed. You know that games are becoming kind of a big deal when an MMOG is sitting on Yahoo’s top ten list. And hey, Blizzard? I don’t see World of Warcraft on there. Looks like you’ve still got some work to do.
Ironically, most people who know what WoW is would give you a blank stare if you mentioned Runescape. Maybe that’s why they’re all looking it up…
Topics: Casual Games, Massively Multiplayer, Popular Culture | No Comments »
Passage
By Cameron Sorden | November 30, 2008
I read about Jason Rohrer’s game Passage in the latest issue of Esquire and headed over to his site to check it out. The premise is like lots of other arcade games: move around the map and collect as much treasure as you can in five minutes. However, Passage is actually a metaphor for life that’s guaranteed to have you at least a little choked up (if not outright crying) when you finish it. I won’t ruin the surprise for you if you haven’t played it.
It’s especially interesting to me because while games have certainly touched me emotionally before, at certain moments, Passage just hits you so personally. Precisely because the characters are blocky and pixellated, they’re easy to view as representative stand-ins for you and your loved one instead of some external “other” out there in game land.
If games as art is a topic you’ve ever been interested in, you definitely want to go check this out. It’s a small download and doesn’t make you install anything. Just don’t try to play it in a public place, because you might be surprised at how moving it is.
Topics: Casual Games, Game Design, Videogame Industry | 2 Comments »
Understand Your Customer
By Cameron Sorden | November 26, 2008
The recent announcement that Tabula Rasa is shutting down has me thinking about the success rates of mainstream MMOGs. Why do certain MMOGs fail where others succeed? I don’t think it’s as simple as “the market is saturated” or “no one can compete against WoW.” If anything, those statements just show a lack of imagination on the part of the speaker. The answers to why these MMOGs fail are probably as varied and numerous as the games themselves, but I think a key factor to consider is who the game was built for.
On some level I just have this feeling that the design discussions for Tabula Rasa went something along the lines of, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we made a game where X” instead of “What our customers want is X.” It probably helped enormously that the speaker in this case was Richard Garriot, but we’re all seeing how well that turned out now. Not to knock Garriot, of course. As Darren said, TR at its core was a fun game — It’s just that no one played it. Whose fault was that? Whoever greenlighted the project without doing the proper market research, of course.
While just making your vision and putting it out there might net you a few lucky wins, in most cases that’s a perfect recipe for crashing, burning failure. Lets be honest: the MMO industry isn’t Field of Dreams. This is a business. If you build it, they might come… but you need them to stay to be profitable, and what you’re competing for is people’s time. You have to have something very compelling to part people from their personal time in the long run. Making what you think would be cool and throwing in a few dashes of what you think people expect doesn’t cut it. Innovation is important, but innovating a AAA game in a random direction is a very expensive way to perform market research. I’m sure NCsoft learned some very expensive lessons there (and hopefully the rest of the industry is auditing this course).
I think that it’s absolutely possible to build a AAA MMOG that can be competitive — even with an 800-lb Warcraft-flavored gorilla in the room — but it’s not going to happen by blind chance or luck. WoW raised the bar in a lot of ways that the industry is still grappling with four years later, and one of them is that you absolutely have to know who your customer is and what they want. You can give Blizzard as much grief as you like, but the one thing they really do well is that they get their core customers. They don’t innovate so much as iterate with twists, and they know exactly who they’re building something for when they build it.
If you’re just firing blind into a direction you think is right, you’re doing it wrong.
Topics: Game Design, Massively Multiplayer, Videogame Industry, World of Warcraft | 6 Comments »
Fallout 3 Bringing User-Generated Content via G.E.C.K.
By Cameron Sorden | November 25, 2008
Well, it looks like I’m going to have to buy the PC version of Fallout 3 now. They just announced the upcoming release of their world-builder tools (amusingly called the “G.E.C.K.”, which any Fallout fan will recognize), along with three pieces of downloadable content that will be rolled out as 2009 progresses. While the game is amazing on its own, this is what I was really waiting for. The Fallout community is just full of immensely passionate and creative fans, and I’m beyond excited to see what they do with this. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see someone try to recreate sections of the previous two games in the new engine within a year or two.
One of the DLC modules allows you to play the game past the main quest’s ending, which is a badly needed feature. I was a little annoyed in my first play-through when the game just ended before I really had a chance to explore, even if the ending was incredible. Here’s the full press release from RPGwatch:
Bethesda Softworks Announces Creation Kit and First Downloadable Content for Fallout 3
Editor to be Available in December; Downloadable Content coming for January, February, and MarchNovember 25, 2008 (ROCKVILLE, MD) – Bethesda Softworks®, a ZeniMax Media company, today announced plans to make both its editor and downloadable content available for its award-winning game, Fallout® 3 in the coming weeks. The official editor for Fallout 3, called the G.E.C.K. (Garden of Eden Creation Kit), will be available for free download in December and will allow Games for Windows® users to create and add their own content to the game. In addition, the first official downloadable content, Operation: Anchorage, will be available exclusively for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and Games for Windows® in January, and more downloadable content coming in February and March.
“We’ve always seen the original world of Fallout 3 as a foundation for even more content. Some created by us, and a lot more created by users,” said Todd Howard, game director for Fallout 3. “It’s fun to create your own character, but it can be equally fun to create your own adventures. We can’t wait to see what the community does with the G.E.C.K.”
The release of the G.E.C.K. provides the community with tools that will allow players to expand the game any way they wish. Users can create, modify, and edit any data for use with Fallout 3, from building landscapes, towns, and locations to writing dialogue, creating characters, weapons, creatures, and more.
Three downloadable content packs will be coming to Xbox 360 and Games for Windows Live starting in January that will add new quests, items, and content to Fallout 3.
- Operation: Anchorage. Enter a military simulation and fight in one of the greatest battles of the Fallout universe – the liberation of Anchorage, Alaska from its Chinese Communist invaders. An action-packed battle scheduled for release in January.
- The Pitt. Journey to the industrial raider town called The Pitt, located in the remains of Pittsburgh. Choose your side. Scheduled for release in February.
- Broken Steel. Join the ranks of the Brotherhood of Steel and rid the Capital Wasteland of the Enclave remnants once and for all. Continues the adventure past the main quest. Scheduled for release in March.
Topics: Console Gaming, PC Gaming | 11 Comments »
By the Hand of Fate…
By Cameron Sorden | November 9, 2008
I just tried to log into World of Warcraft for the first time in weeks only to be greeted with the “account frozen” message. They suggested that I should go add some more time to continue playing. I guess that the old credit card I had on my account expired and I haven’t updated it with the new one yet. So… For the first time in almost a year I don’t have a WoW subscription.
We’re on the very brink of plunging headfirst into a new expansion that I had had every intention of playing, but for some reason I find myself more or less where I was at the launch of The Burning Crusade: just not that excited. I’ve played with the new talents. I’ve read up on the new skills (I also thought Tobold’s recent post on skill expansion was a good read). New zones, new items, and new dungeons all sound interesting… but it’s still just more of WoW. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily. But I don’t really feel like doing another ten levels of the same old quests (with some new twists) and the same old classes (with some new twists) and the same old game (with some higher numbers).
I’ve barely touched Fable 2 and I’m halfway through my second replay of Fallout 3. I’ll probably take a month or so to more fully explore Fallout before I go back and play through Fable all the way. And then I’d kind of like to try playing Fallout 3 as a truly evil character (I always find myself leaning towards good — I’m just too much of a sucker, I guess). More games will be coming out soon that look interesting and I still have the Xbox live arcade to keep me busy when I get bored of the sprawling RPGs. Plus, my weekend D&D group over Ventrilo has been going strong, which tends to scratch that online group itch.
I’ll probably still buy Wrath of the Lich King just because I want to have it, but I’m guessing that I’ll do the same thing I did with the Burning Crusade: It will sit on my computer for months and months until I get that itch to come back to Warcraft sometime in Spring (most likely) and then I’ll play the heck out of it for a few months.
I think WoW, at this point, has kind of settled into the same kind of place for me that EverQuest has. I’ve done it. It’s great. I’m good at it and it was a blast to play and master. I’ll come back to it every now and then just to have some fun, but I won’t stay too long. I’m looking forward to new stuff. I’m excited to play a Jedi in Bioware’s MMOG, for one.
And for now, I’m just going to go with the flow and leave my account closed, Wrath or no Wrath.
Topics: Massively Multiplayer, Personal, World of Warcraft | 4 Comments »
Fallout 3
By Cameron Sorden | November 3, 2008
I’ve been meaning to write about Fallout 3 since I started playing it on Tuesday (the Xbox 360 version). I haven’t done so yet because I’ve spent every single spare moment I’ve had playing Fallout 3. I saw that Darren had a post up about it a few days ago, and when a reader actually e-mailed me to ask what I thought of it I realized I was really slacking and decided to come talk about it a bit. However, I want to get back to playing (it’s paused at the moment), so I’ll keep this fairly brief.
The short answer: Buy it. Play it. It’s amazing. I love it. As we got nearer to release, I was getting worried that it just wouldn’t be as awesome as the first two, but it’s absolutely incredible. Bethesda has put an enormous amount of work into making this a truly great and authentic Fallout experience, and it shows.
I’ve already beaten it once (about 20-25 hours played), and I’m working on my second playthrough now. I should point out that when I say I “beat it,” I mean I played through the main quest to completion in a way that ended the game while doing the side quests that I stumbled across. I didn’t spend a lot of time exploring the wasteland or going out of my way to do random things. In that whole time, I really only thoroughly explored a fourth of the map and found only one or two locations on the entire north side of it. Basically, there’s a TON of game here, and digging into it all will take you a long, long time.
There are a few criticisms that can be made: The wasteland feels a little cluttered sometimes. The melee enemy AI isn’t stellar. The main quest feels rushed towards the end and is a little anticlimactic, in my opinion (plus you won’t even realize that you’re ending the game when it happens). It would be nice to have more random encounters where hostiles tried to talk to you or run away instead of just attacking until you’re dead.
However, those criticisms are really minor points in the big picture. The dialogue and quests are much more interesting and much tighter than previous Bethesda games. Unlike Oblivion, I’ve never found myself bored or at a loss for what to do. There’s SO much content. The combat system is ridiculously fun and cool-looking (try using Unarmed with a power fist — it’s glorious). It definitely “feels” like Fallout from a lore perspective. There’s plenty of history and silly side-diversions to be found in the many computers you can hack.
It’s everything I hoped it would be and then some. I know I sound like I’m being a fanboy here, but I’m really having a blast with it. When the mod tools come out for PC, I’ll probably buy it again just to take advantage of the fan-made content. If you like open-ended RPGs and post-apocalyptic settings, if you’ve ever been a fan of the Fallout games, or if you just want to check out a cool game, I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Now I’m going back to playing…
Topics: Console Gaming | 6 Comments »
Hellgate: London Closes for Good
By Cameron Sorden | October 26, 2008
I had pretty much written the game off anyway after Flagship’s July announcements, but the news came out today that Hellgate: London will finally be shutting down and closing its doors entirely at the end of January. As I mentioned in July, the only reason I even care is that I ponied up the $200 for a “lifetime subscription” to the game, which turned out to be slightly over a year in this case. Calculating the actual live time in months and multiplying it by $15 actually puts me at a little over $200 in subscription fees, but considering that I played it for all of one month (and intended to come back after they fixed some bugs and added some content), I feel like I got screwed. No more lifetime subs for me, thanks. I’ll pay for my games month to month (or in small installments when I want to, if Zenke’s right about the future of online games).
Topics: Massively Multiplayer, Videogame Industry | 10 Comments »
When in Doubt, Look Around for Some Inspiration
By Cameron Sorden | October 23, 2008
I find myself rather unexcited about Wrath of the Lich King. I’ll buy it eventually. I’ll play it. Whenever my WoW addiction fires back up I’m sure I’ll be writing about all the cool stuff that everyone will have written about already. I can’t get into the hype right now, though — even with a brand new patch to enjoy. As fun as it can be to just dive into a game and grind (and I do enjoy that), I just feel that Lich King, like Warhammer, simply won’t be offering me anything new. New talents and skills aren’t enough to pique my interest at the moment.
In the meantime, I’m looking for something else to play with. EverQuest’s introduction of mercenaries (which, by all accounts, are awesome) has me seriously considering resurrecting my subscription there. Even if there’s nothing technically new there, there’s still plenty of the game I haven’t seen. EverQuest just satisfies my exploration itch. I feel like I’m actually “in their world now,” as SOE is fond of saying, and lets me immerse myself in an experience of setting out to wander in a dangerous and alien world that more “gamey” worlds like WoW and WAR offer will simply never be able to capture, for me. It’s kind of the feeling that I talk about towards the end of this article.
Honestly, it doesn’t even have to be MMOGs right now. Our first Sunday D&D session with my college buddies over Ventrilo and OpenRPG was a smashing success, and I’m really looking forward to doing that every weekend. The freedom and flexibility offered by tabletop gaming really can’t be reproduced by a computer. It’s great to flex my mind like that, although I’m still getting used to 4th Edition. On the console side of things, I’m passing on Fable 2 for now because I’m so jazzed about Fallout 3 coming out next week.
In some ways, I’m kind of hesitant, too. I’m really, really excited for it… but I know it’s not going to be as fun as I want it to be, no matter what. It’s difficult to compare to my rosy memories of Fallout 1 and 2. How do you compete with a game that I spent countless high school and college nights and weekends playing? It’s more than that, though. I thought this article was really interesting, because it talks about this exact issue. It seems that even new players, after playing the original games, don’t think that Fallout 3 will compare. As much as I like Bethesda, it’s the 12th hour and I’m worried that the game they made isn’t really the game I want, even if it’s cool.
Of course, I can always keep dredging up interesting games from the indie world and hope that they give me my fix, too (seriously — when is Age of Decadence going to be done?).
Topics: Casual Games, Console Gaming, Massively Multiplayer, Tabletop Gaming | 3 Comments »