Monthly Archives: June 2007

Step into the Age of Conan (Hyborian Adventures)

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Funcom, the creater of the renowned Anarchy Online, is at the helm of one of the most anticipated games of the year (if not the most anticipated in the realm of massively-multiplayer online games). However, there is a veil of mist surrounding exactly what it is that Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures actually consists of. Is it an MMORPG? What makes it different from the big players in the field right now? Is it going to be full of little kids, or can we expect a more mature audience given the subject matter?

We won’t know about the playerbase until the game actually hits, but we can at least try to tackle those first two questions.

Manhunt 2 and the AO Death Sentence Rating

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There was some big controversy stirred up yesterday on the interwebs as the ESRB handed down their initial sentence rating of AO (Adults Only) for the anticipated game Manhunt 2. The game is to be released on PS2, PSP, and Wii simultaneously on July 10. For some reason, both Nintendo and Sony have adopted policies that they will not allow licensed third party software providers to release AO content on their console (meaning that only games without the license on the package, such as the white wii stripe at the top of Wii games and the “Playstation 2? on the side of PS2 games, can have such a rating). This means that Rockstar’s upcoming title has no choice but to either abandon production (a stupid move for a game that’s already complete enough to be handed a rating) or take out enough of the content or mood to change the rating back down to M.

I personally don’t care about this game at all, and I’ll probably never even play it, but I feel like this situation and the attitudes of both Sony and Nintendo toward this issue are somewhat anti-competitive. Releasing a game with no license is a veritable death sentence for a console game. Retroactive edit of the game once it’s in this production phase seems as if it would take something away from the original intentions of the game designers. Rockstar’s in a pretty bad situation.

What are they to do? Personally I hate everything about having a video game rating system at all; what a good way to pass the buck to someone else for corrupting your kids, though. It’s not as if putting any kind of rating or preventative measure on a product has ever stopped any minor or otherwise from consuming as much of that product as they wanted. AO is a slightly different ballgame from an M rating, though. I don’t have enough information about how the ESRB came to their judgement, and whether it was a marginal case or not. However, the ESRB seems to have a disproportionate amount of power relative to the amount of good they’re actually doing.

I have a feeling that most of this hype is just a big marketing scheme for Rockstar, those silly guys. My feeling is based on nothing but my gut, which is why I believe it to be true with unflinching certainty. Hopefully Rockstar bucks up and tries to reverse this rating. Otherwise, I hope they make it way worse and send me a copy at my home address. At least it will be more interesting than trying to sit through another Saw movie.

Subscription Price Breakdown

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With the recent explosion of new MMO’s that has occured in the last few years, the trends in the genre have certainly gone through changes. One of these fluctuations, although maybe not quite as obviously, has been the way in which these titles handle subscription fees; whether it be a controversially hefty one, or a complete lack thereof.

Take for instance data as posted on MMOGdata, a site dedicated to gathering up to date information regarding subscribers and accounts of most current MMO’s. One table lists exactly 122 games, and what their subscription plans are like: either free to play, pay to play (As in a recurring subscription), or box to play (corresponding to games that only require you purchase the box to play). When these three categories are compared, though close in numbers, the number of games that are free to play actually exceed those that require a subscription. Out of the 122, a total of 60, nearly half, are free to play, while 58 require a fee, and only 4 just a box price. So what makes companies decide to charge the players more for the game than others?

With the massive increase of MMO’s available to play, this gives the players an incredible chance to look through many different games to find the one that appeals to them the most. While a subscription cost may deter away a few customers, it may in fact grab many more. This is due to the fact that a company whose game requires a monthly fee undoubtedly exudes a certain kind of confidence that someone looking for a quality game can’t ignore. Obviously, this company must have more to offer me, the searching player might say. But is this really the case? In fact, in many ways it is. One can argue that by requiring a subscription, the company is entering a sort of ‘pact’ with the player; you keep paying, and we’ll keep producing. While this may make the game appear stronger, the company is also required to do just as it says (which, in some cases, the company seems to forget it has entered in to this agreement).

With the introduction of a large number of games, a door has been opened for a new type of gamer. One who is not solely dedicated to their game, but instead leap frogs across the genre, dipping in casually to a number of games that span all sorts of themes. A subscription, however, makes this rather difficult. Many players probably find it difficult to justify paying 15$ a month for a game that they login to maybe 5 times a month. Does this make subscription games out of reach for the leap frog gamer? Not necessarily. Lately, many companies have been making the jump to not only next-gen games, but to next-gen subscription methods.

What exactly does this mean? Where the common approach of providing a free month upon purchase has gone straight past regular toward almost required, many companies are finding new unique ways to handle the situation. Take for instance the upcoming Age of Conan, a game many are describing as having next-generation features. According to an interview from mmorpg.com, game director Gaute Godager states

It is important to tell players that the first 20 levels, the single player experience, will not feature a subscription fee. If you buy the game, you can play this portion for as long as you want, without subscription. It is only in the next 60 levels, the more “normal” MMO portion (though this game is no true MMO, but rather an Online Action RPG) there will be a subscription.

This ‘hybrid’ style game is certainly not alone though. Many games, such as Dofus, have mixed it up by doing a similar in-between method: the game is free to play, but if you want to experience all the content, you must subscribe. There are many aspects to this ‘optional’ subscription choice that players must find appealing.

And while there are many players who instantly turn away from a free game, and many who simply refuse to be charged monthly for playing a game, almost all will be relieved to see new trends emerging in the way companies charge their players. So rejoice MMO players; new options are becoming available, in the form of new subscription plans.
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Nintendo tops Sony’s market value

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According to this article at Bloomberg, Nintendo’s market share rose to 6.57 Trillion Yen today, topping Sony’s struggling , pathetic market value of 6.48 Trillion Yen.

From the article:

Sony, which overtook Nintendo as the world’s biggest console maker after PlayStation 2’s introduction in 2000, suffered production delays and slow sales at its latest player. Wii’s lower price and a wand-like controller that players swing like a sword or tennis racquet helped Nintendo widen its sales lead over the PlayStation 3 in Japan last month.

Reasons cited as the cause of the fluctuation? The increasing popularity domestically (and internationally) of Nintendo’s DS Lite, which is taking PSP by the balls.

Its two-year-old handheld DS player, Nintendo’s best-selling game machine ever, uses a stylus instead of button controls, making it easier for users to play Frisbee with their virtual pets, practice calligraphy and draw pictures. Nintendo is also looking to capture an older audience with a “brain-training” game and tutorials for cooking and languages.

While this doesn’t really actually mean anything, maybe it’s a testament to the fact that sometimes more fun is better than more pixels. Then again, nothing really matters unless it’s in dollars anyway, so we’re right back to square one.

Money and banking: the saga continues

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This is a follow-up post to the Money and banking in online games article from yesterday:

After heavy traffic and mixed feelings from Digg, I’d just like to summarize what the main benefits and detriments of having a banking system in a game are, as well as emphasize certain points that were lost on many people.

First: These ideas have little to do with World of Warcraft

These ideas (or rather, these suggestions) were not meant to be retrofitted into any of the games that are out there right now. They’re meant to be addressed by game designers for future games, and it looks like some game designers have already considered something like this to a degree.

Personally, while writing the article I had imagined what the effects on the economy of my EverQuest II server would be, as that is the community with which I’m most familiar. I’ve come to the conclusion that putting a system such as this into a game which has been thriving for any amount of time is completely unfair and pointless. These ideas are for new games only.

For anyone who would like to see what something like this banking system looks like in action, please consider the following games which have been suggested to me:

Entropia Universe, which looks interesting, although the emphasis seems to be on transferring money between the real- and online worlds.
Carnageblender 2: I can’t vouch for personally as I’ve never played it. It was suggested that many of the implements discussed in the article are currently in place in this game.
Second Life
EVE: Online, a very general sci-fi rpg in which a large-scale banking system run by players was attempted and eventually robbed.
The Universal: This game reportedly has a system of banks whose interest rates depend on the owner of the planet. I’ve never played it, though.

I’ve personally only played EVE: Online, and found myself joining the game too late into its life cycle to really accomplish anything new or daring.

Second: The banking and financial systems ought to be designer-controlled, not player-controlled.

Those who read through the article in its entirety will notice that there is a large section near the end where I talk about how a system like this, while still flawed, could be implemented.

A basic principle in macroeconomics is that output equals input, so though monsters drop coins that players pick up, players spend those coins on repairs, mounts, and in-game items which effectively destroys that portion of the currency. Picking up where this leaves off, the game designers have full creative license to implement a system of banks and finances which use the information regarding coin drops and destructive sales (repairs, etc, mentioned above) to tweak not only coin drop rates in the wild, but interest and other factors in the banks themselves. Furthermore, what’s to say that a future game with these features doesn’t have a far more interactive social environment in which there are things to invest in?

Third: Much like the currency of the world’s nations, online currency is not backed by any commodity

This was the most common, as well as the most frustrating, complaint that the article received. Most people apparently do not know a thing about the currency in their own country:

Fiat Currency means “fake money”. Read about it. Your United States have been relying on this system since the 1970s.

Fourth: There is absolutely no mention of crossing over between real US dollars and online currencies.

The article was not about gold farming, not about moving assets from the real world to the online world, not about selling your soul to chinese farmers. There’s nothing anywhere in the article to even suggest that. However, that is another topic for another day, and is equally as important. Maybe if there were growth measures in place, investing in an online currency money market would be more lucrative than investing in a real currency money market.

The effect of this kind of investment would not only serve to make the online currency more stable, but also legitimize the fact that anything people are willing to trade with is considered currency, as long as both parties believe that others will accept it as such. Again, fiat currency.

I’m interested to see how the Entropia Universe unfolds, and I’m equally curious to find out how the Carnageblender economy is doing as a whole.

I’ve read the article about the valiantly attempted EVE: Online bank and its failure. However, this article is dealing with a bank controlled not by the players but by the game designers. Everyone has stories of guild banks being robbed by those trusted most with the money.

Subscription Price Breakdown

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With the recent explosion of new MMO’s that has occured in the last few years, the trends in the genre have certainly gone through changes. One of these fluctuations, although maybe not quite as obviously, has been the way in which these titles handle subscription fees; whether it be a controversially hefty one, or a complete lack thereof.

Take for instance data as posted on MMOGdata, a site dedicated to gathering up to date information regarding subscribers and accounts of most current MMO’s. One table lists exactly 122 games, and what their subscription plans are like: either free to play, pay to play (As in a recurring subscription), or box to play (corresponding to games that only require you purchase the box to play). When these three categories are compared, though close in numbers, the number of games that are free to play actually exceed those that require a subscription. Out of the 122, a total of 60, nearly half, are free to play, while 58 require a fee, and only 4 just a box price. So what makes companies decide to charge the players more for the game than others?

With the massive increase of MMO’s available to play, this gives the players an incredible chance to look through many different games to find the one that appeals to them the most. While a subscription cost may deter away a few customers, it may in fact grab many more. This is due to the fact that a company whose game requires a monthly fee undoubtedly exudes a certain kind of confidence that someone looking for a quality game can’t ignore. Obviously, this company must have more to offer me, the searching player might say. But is this really the case? In fact, in many ways it is. One can argue that by requiring a subscription, the company is entering a sort of ‘pact’ with the player; you keep paying, and we’ll keep producing. While this may make the game appear stronger, the company is also required to do just as it says (which, in some cases, the company seems to forget it has entered in to this agreement).

With the introduction of a large number of games, a door has been opened for a new type of gamer. One who is not solely dedicated to their game, but instead leap frogs across the genre, dipping in casually to a number of games that span all sorts of themes. A subscription, however, makes this rather difficult. Many players probably find it difficult to justify paying 15$ a month for a game that they login to maybe 5 times a month. Does this make subscription games out of reach for the leap frog gamer? Not necessarily. Lately, many companies have been making the jump to not only next-gen games, but to next-gen subscription methods.

What exactly does this mean? Where the common approach of providing a free month upon purchase has gone straight past regular toward almost required, many companies are finding new unique ways to handle the situation. Take for instance the upcoming Age of Conan, a game many are describing as having next-generation features. According to an interview from mmorpg.com, game director Gaute Godager states

It is important to tell players that the first 20 levels, the single player experience, will not feature a subscription fee. If you buy the game, you can play this portion for as long as you want, without subscription. It is only in the next 60 levels, the more “normal” MMO portion (though this game is no true MMO, but rather an Online Action RPG) there will be a subscription.

This ‘hybrid’ style game is certainly not alone though. Many games, such as Dofus, have mixed it up by doing a similar in-between method: the game is free to play, but if you want to experience all the content, you must subscribe. There are many aspects to this ‘optional’ subscription choice that players must find appealing.

And while there are many players who instantly turn away from a free game, and many who simply refuse to be charged monthly for playing a game, almost all will be relieved to see new trends emerging in the way companies charge their players. So rejoice MMO players; new options are becoming available, in the form of new subscription plans.

Money and banking in online games

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Anyone who’s ever played a roleplaying game for any amount of time will tell you stories about their money. Maybe it’s how they had to grind 500 sewer rats to pay for their new wooden sword, or maybe they were up for 9 days solid in some obscure part of the world where “no one’s ever been” collecting a rare harvested material to price gouge in the marketplace to fund that new mount. Whatever the details are, it becomes very obvious that people treat their in-game money just as defensively (or even more defensively for the younger age groups who don’t have as much experience with earned “real”-life currency) as they treat the money they earn in their real jobs. Many players don’t even realize that they’re actively contributing to an economy that lives, breaths, and behaves just as one would expect under “real”-world conditions; they just want that new piece of gear, or to repair the gear that they’ve been fighting in for the last 12 hours solid.

Virtual money, just like the currencies used to fund nations in the “real” world, can be explained using extremely rudimentary economic concepts. The models of markets, of supply and demand shocks, of counterfeiters and others can all be used with some accuracy to predict (with varying accuracy) fluctuations in the economic conditions of a game world. However, there are several things which are markedly missing from today’s role-playing environments that any real, sustainable, thriving economy should have, and this does much to undermine the day-to-day reality of the game itself.

The most obvious thing that the roleplaying and other massively multiplayer games are missing are banks and other financial institutions. Banks in today’s games are a joke: most of the time they’re simply a geographically separated version of your wallet. Some games opt to not even offer this wallet service and instead find it O.K. to specialize only in providing a lock-box service for in-game items.

The ironic part of this whole mess is that even in the time periods during which some of these games are taking place (think: medieval, feudal) there were strong banking implements in place. Why is it that we have an auction-house or a broker that will take a certain percentage of your profits, but we don’t have a bank or money market that will pay a nominal rate of interest? Why is there magic, and the ability to have thriving cities and metropolitan areas in some of these worlds, but yet we have no means through which to invest our hard-earned money? Clearly there are people playing these games who have enough time invested such that their banking contributions would be non-negligible; for every workaholic you show me, I can show you a gamer who spends just as much time in front of their character.

Think of these possibilities: Guild, faction, or city banks. Guilds, factions, businesses and individuals within a city or region need natural resources to grow their empire. Buildings need wood, castles need bricks and mortar, and these two things need tools with which to be built. Who will provide this for them? Why not set up a faction banking system? Members of the guild deposit their funds in the short- or long-term to fund the project at a certain interest rate (a fair market rate of return based on what marginal value the newly funded resource will bring), the faction can use the funds in the interim for their benefit, and then will have to pay back the principal and the interest when the term expires. It works every day in real life, why not in the role-playing world? The entire financial infrastructure could be implemented on the server side (meaning that players wouldn’t have to keep track of what it is that they owed) and would have no less chance of failure than today’s modern auctioning systems.

Currently, the primary way to expand one’s own resources is to lend to other players (and collect interest), which may or may not work since online worlds are distinctly lacking legal systems as well (another day, another topic). Another way is to perform arbitrage within regional markets: that is, to buy something from someone low in one area, and sell it to someone else high without adding any value to it somewhere else. This is the meat-and-potatoes of the entire World of Warcraft economy, and it’s no secret. A third way, popular mostly to those with rare patterns, etc, is to buy the materials or required ingredients for a low price, craft them into usable resources (thereby adding value to the items) and reselling them for more than the sum of their parts.

Furthermore, a good financial intermediation system could allow new players to get up and running more quickly. Imagine being able to deposit your funds in a bank as an experienced player. This benefits you, as you’re now earning a nominal amount of interest on your money, rather than just keeping it in your inventory. Now, say Mr. Newbie comes along, and he really wants to buy that horse. He’s just the slightest bit short. So, he takes out a loan from the bank, buys the horse, and pays back the money he borrowed plus a little bit of interested when things are going better for him. Now we have three parties benefiting from this situation: First, the lender is earning interest on his money, so he’s happy. Second, the bank is earning interest on the money they loan out, so they’re happy. Third, Mr. Newbie gets his horse (because he’s willing to pay the bank back), so he’s happy. Without a good financial intermediation system like a bank, this situation would never arise. Simple in-game implementations of this could include taking a percentage of every unit of currency Mr. Newbie makes until his loan is paid off, as well as giving our original lender (the one earning interest by depositing in the bank) a slightly increased amount of money for each kill he makes.

Now, there’s nothing here that says the banks themselves have to be completely controlled by the players; that would leave to extremely ill-founded practices in some instances (praying on new players, among other things). It seems like it would be a safe assumption to say that the game designers, or the controllers of the game itself would have very in-depth knowledge of the inner-workings of their game’s monetary system. Even now, when dupes are found with currency, the problems are retracted relatively quickly. This hints at a monetary system which is at least somewhat secure (or, if not secure, prepared for the worst). Why not expand this?

Consider the scenario where the player above defaults on his loan. Well, in the real world, the bank would be out the money. The original investor would be shielded from this event by the bank and the FDIC, so the bank would take the hit. However, game companies are very good at filling out the details of certain situations. We now have extremely complicated PvP systems, extremely detailed and complicated raid zones for drones of mindless raiders to waste away in at night. Could not some of this energy be applied to creating a strong financial system? If done in a black-box fashion, a defaulted loan could simply result in a lower interest rate for future investors (in the short run), causing the bank to recoup its losses in a relatively quick manner (though there would likely be many defaults and thus many interest rate fluctuations in a given time period).

Of course even then there are downsides to all of this, but: aren’t there downsides to any aspect of any game? A simple implementation of this kind in a future game could set a trend that would make it a norm in online games. Money could grow, and it could encourage new players and the younger masses to not only use it to their advantage, but, in so doing, teach them valuable lessons about money and banking. That way, next time Mr. Newbie’s mom is screaming at him to get off of the computer and go to bed, instead of screaming back he can say “O.K., mom, just let me make this last deposit!”

I want my environment to be a product of me

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In a very interesting and through-provoking article over at Strangelands, author pixiestyx looks at the double-causation involved in defining an environment with your character versus defining your character through your environment. It reminds me of that quote (and the namesake of this post) from The Departed, when Jack Nicholson says:

I don’t wanna be a product of my environment, I want my environment to be a product of me.

It’s early in the movie and it really puts the rest of the movie into perspective, but I don’t want to talk about The Departed, I want to talk about computer games. Here is where I get to talk about what it means for fantasy in general, and role-playing games in particular. The main question in that post revolves around whether or not there needs to be an explicit declaration of the environment and background of where the game takes place in order for a player to feel comfortable playing a given fantasy-type character.

However, for example and there are many examples out, In the Dreseden files, the setting is the modern world and has fairies, elves and demons bouncing around quite happily in it. Would you be comfortable playing an elf in this environment ? Yes as the background clearly defines who you are and why am I here.

In the case of a MMOG, I think that this might be the case.

From what I know about RPGs in general and from the experience I’ve gained from those which I’ve played, I feel like a strong background is an important point in the development of a character. However, when I think about EverQuest II and the way that particular game started off, I begin to have doubts. Is there really very much character development going on in the beginning of this game?

EverQuest II begins (or, at least nearer release, began) on a boat where the captain asks you to perform some simple tasks for him. Before you leave the boat you achieve level 3, at which point you have no class or any other notion of what you are, other than your race. The races cover the gamut from regular (human) to completely wild (frog). Well, where’s the normality in this? What kind of environment could we possibly be living in where Frogs and Humans are on equal ground? In a world where racism for the smallest differences in human skin run rampant, what kind of ill-founded notions of equality must we shed in order to believe that a Human could possibly consider a Frog his equal?

After this ship experience, the player chooses the kind of adventurer they want to be and begin to perform more tasks on the island in pursuit of a new set of gear and the approval of the captain. At this point, the player begins to interact with the other player characters around them. They learn how to move fluidly, how to fight, how to move the camera, and how to interact with the user interface. Other people around them are busy learning the same things, and this forms a way for them to bond with one another.

There’s really no character development during this portion of the game. You’re on an island, there’s absolutely no lore behind the place, you got there from a boat onto which you were somehow taken by some mysterious force. There’s essentially no backstory to the beginning of this game, but there is something else which is equally important acting on the player: other people.

The story comes later, of course, as the adventurer makes his travels through the myriad cities and towns of post-shattering Norrath, but that’s not what kept people coming back in those vital first moments of the game. Not the story: the people.

Do you think that back-story and the environment is more important for defining your character for who they are, or do you think that the people who surround your character on a continuous basis are a more important foundation for your character?

Nomura’s New Project

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With an amazing list of games on his record, developer Tetsuya Nomura of Square Enix has certainly come to be a driving force in their productions. Having started there in 1990, with so much history, the games he has produced have certainly changed. So we can only wonder: What will his next project be like?

Having finished his most recent work, Kingdom Hearts 2, Nomura’s new title Final Fantasy XIII Versus is not quite stealing the spotlight for most anticipated games. Perhaps due to it’s brethren being released under the simpler title Final Fantasy XIII, it hasn’t generated too much individualistic excitement. It so far is merely being considered as just another title in the subseries Fabula Nova Crystallis that Square Enix is so hard at work on. So what sets it apart to have been crowned as Versus?

Simply put, Nomura has finally gotten a chance to produce a game with the theme he has always wanted, namely darkness. The game is reputed to be much darker, much more serious, with an outlook attempting to elaborate more on the human aspects of the characters and the realism of the world that is supposedly only linked mythologically with Final Fantasy XIII’s world.

According to Nomura himself,

Nomura: “There’s been times when I’ve wanted to take FF in a completely different direction than the game’s producer has wanted. I’m not saying that his or mine opinions have been right or wrong, just different. One thing I’ve always wanted to explore deeper is human emotions. By going in that direction, you risk to make the target group for the game narrower, and FF is appreciated by a very large audience. But with Versus XIII, it feels like the right time to take that risk. Since the script isn’t done yet, I still don’t know exactly how far I dare to go, but I know I want to squeeze humanity out of these characters. I want Versus to feel in the entire body.”

It’s exciting to see a company willing to put faith in their developer enough to take a risk like Nomura describes it. Both exciting and refreshing.

Nomura has also said,

“When I produced Kingdom Hearts, I was in a world so bright that I almost got blinded. So now I want to do something completely different. Maybe it has something to do with my love for extremes. FFvXIII is about man in the real world. In that sense, the game will contain less fantasy than usual. We’ve created some dark environments and shown them in our trailers. But the entire game won’t look like that; we’ve only just begun.”

Even more evidence that the project will be very unique, and will incorporate very new ideas. For instance, Nomura has been quoted saying the game will even include more “real-world events”. His goal is to create a world the player truly believes in. This time around however, it will be integrated with the real world. Exactly how they will blend this together is a mystery, but an exciting one.

What this all means we have yet to see, but all together it seems Versus will surely stand apart as a next-gen RPG.

Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree Review

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Much like WarioWare: Smooth Moves, Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree (BBA) gives the player an opportunity to test their skill in a variety of minigames. Unlike WarioWare, however, BBA will leave a far better taste in the mouth of the typical player as there is no true “end” to the game, which is designed to keep users coming back for small sessions every day.