Monthly Archives: April 2006

Doomsday

by | 7 Comments

Election day in Italy. In fifteen minutes the firsts exit polls will be released.

I hope it isn’t the definitive suicide of a nation and I hope it isn’t a draw.

—
Likely to what happened with the preemptive victory of Kerry, then turned into a victory of Bush, Berlusconi wins for a couple of votes.

Where is the button I have to press for the autodestruction? I don’t want to be here. I’m serious.

I don’t fucking want to be italian.

OBEY THE MONKEY

EDIT:
Ok, I just wake up. After being awake for 30+ hours following that thing I slept for nine hours straight. Now I dread to turn on the TV. I really fear what could happen because the situation is worse than the worst scenario.

For a brief summary. I think everyone has an idea of who is Berlusconi, it’s not so simple to frame him because it is actually true that the perception of what he is, is distorted both here and outside italy but what is sure is that HE IS an anomaly. But an italian anomaly that also closely represent what the italy has been for many, many, many years. Berlusconi is both the product and the origin of this italy and some of the “qualities” has always been of these people, since Mussolini. Self-interest, demagogy, conformism.

What is true is that this italy DESERVES Berlusconi and Berlusconi REPRESENTS this italy. Everyone knows that he is an extremely wealthy entrepreneur who already owns most of televisions, publishing, insurances and so on. What isn’t under his direct control is under the control of his sons. But what people don’t understand is that Berlusconi is sincere. He is truly convinced that doing his own interest he is able to do the interest of all people and make everyone happy. He leads this nation exactly as he would lead one of his enterprises. There is just no difference for him.

He has this absurd convinction that his self-interest must be also the interest of everyone else. And he feels on a holy mission to lead this nation because he is so completely self-absorbed that he really thinks that without him the world couldn’t continue and there is no viable alternative if not the disrepair.

He went from the economic world to the politics because of this egocentric vision of reality. Because of this distorted and hallucinated version of reality. He developed a sense of persecution and he sees everywhere conspiracies against him and attempts to sabotate his “regime”. His electoral campaign (obviously on TV) has been all about evocating fears of communists conspiracies taking over. Now the point is that Berlusconi is also considered as a liar who uses his power on the media to influence the masses, but this isn’t true. Berlusconi isn’t a liar, he is truly convinced of this reality. And he feels like a prophet, a paladin, the only hope for this nation.

We are in the hands of a fool, this is the anomaly. It’s quite obvious that here there isn’t ONE INCH of political value or depth. This is just the distorted, ill vision of a mind with a sense of onnipotence. His politics is about convincing people as he would sell you any other commercial good and from this point of view he has a wonderful power because he is naturally able to break through the passive, grave, boring screen of the “politics” to reach the people more directly, with a common language and very simple ideas that really have no concrete sense (demagogy) but that still have the appeal. When you see him, from a side you are amused, and from the other you are in anguish. Because we are going straight to hell, this nation is moving toward a complete collapse, lead by an hallucinated mind who overthrew the rules of the politics to transform the reality exactly to mirror his hallucination.

There are many doubts about how Berlusconi achieved his power. He was able to gather an insane amount of money and built his economic empire just too quickly, from one day to the other. There are suspects that the source of this money was illegal and coming from the “mafia”, but today it doesn’t really matter anymore. Trying to sabotate what he is doing now with those accusations is only an attempt to build a time machine to go back in time and prevent all this to happen. And it’s not a valid solution. The truth here is that italy has no hope to free itself from Berlusconi. He is a parasite that cannot be removed anymore. The truth is that, today, italy is Berlusconi. Italy become his image.

What happened yesterday:
Yesterday was election day after five years of his disastrous government. We came out of an electoral campaign that went over the line too many times (offences and arrogance were the norm). I was confident in the other side and I thought there were the premise to bring change here in italy. This isn’t a case like in America where I could vote Kerry just so that Bush could go away. No, I was truly confident in the other side. I thought there were valid principles and the premises to finally move out of this delirium. I was counting on this. I was counting on a plebiscite. I was counting, hoping in the democracy. At least after five years of a government that is destroying italy piece by piece.

Now, to explain things roughly, in italy the executive power is of the whole parliament so Berlusconi is only the “frontman” and doesn’t have so many executive powers on his own. We have two “parliaments” (camera and senato). A law basically bounces back between the two till it is approved by both. So we need the same “majority” in both so that a government can exist and approve the laws. The basic difference between these two parliaments is that one is voted by people slightly older.

We expected to have the final results of the elections around the 21 PM, yesterday. I went to sleep at 4 AM in the morning and we still didn’t know exactly what happened. But this is italy and things never work here.

The side against Berlusconi had an advantage over him of about 4-5% for many months before the election day in the surveys. Yes, I was hoping on this. Yesterday, at 15 PM, we got the first “exit polls”, just after the voting was complete, and these confirmed the advantage of 5%. Then the true data started to arrive, absurdly slowly. Also this data gave a huge gap in favor of the side against Berlusconi but this data wasn’t homogeneous (since some regions here vote more for a side or the other, as in the USA) and as the hours passed this gap became increasingly thin. Till around 22 PM when the margin became so thin that all the statistics institutes “gave up” because there was no way to figure out who was going to win.

The biggest fear was a “draw”. Because if we have two different winners at the two parliaments, there is no “governability” and we must go back to redo all the elections. Italy right now isn’t in a good position to go through all this all over again. We cannot afford it.

So we went through all the afternoon where the side aganist Berlusconi was convinced to finally have won, and by a considerable margin. There was a public announce to be made around 18:30 PM and people were ready to party. There was something to celebrate. It was a success. But the data started to slow down, progressively. Till it crawled. Till it barely moved. The more the time passed the more the advantage grew thinner and the victory, from certain, to in doubt. That public announce in the afternoon was delayed hour by hour. Till 3 AM in the fucking morning. And we still had to receive the final data.

We assisted to some sort of nightmare and what happened after was pathetic at best. At 3:30AM in the morning it was finally certain that the side going against Berlusconi was going to win one of the two parliaments by just 20.000 votes, while the other was still uncertain. With the possibility to win for them even there, but where Berlusconi got more than 50% of the votes.

The debacle was complete. Despite all this, the representants of this side came out and made the public announce (awaited for the afternoon) that they “won the election”. When it was not even completely true. When the situation coming out was DRAMATIC, prospecting the impossibility to govern. It was an utter failure and still they came out declaring they “had won”. It looked pathetic, depressing. The truth is that the scenario of this “victory” is worse than the worst. It was a complete failure, Berlusconi was able to recuperate the 5% gap of disadvantage, against all the expectations. We just cannot free ourselves of him.

At 3:30 AM, while this side was declaring a false, inconsistent victory, Berlusconi sent out the announce that he was disproving this victory and that he would ask a recount of the votes from the beginning. I went to bed with an italy broken in half, with no clear winners and a situation of complete crisis. With Berlusconi as the moral winner and the other side announcing a victory that doesn’t exist when they should have JUST SHUT UP AND HIDE. No fucking smiles because there isn’t anything to smile about.

This was an utter failure, a defeat. Prospecting a complete ungovernability and a crisis both social and political. I went to sleep with an irreal victory and celebration from a side and a menace from the other, in angst. I wasn’t anymore recognizing myself in any of those two political sides. It’s just one single, dramatic future.

Now I fear to turn on the TV. Whoever won, the situation is dramatic.

13:50 – last edit –
We STILL don’t have all the data. It’s insane. But it’s fairly safe to assume that the side against Berlusconi can technically have the majority on both paliaments, with 20.000 votes of advantage in one and 200.000 votes of disadvantage on the other. How is this possible? Similarly to how it happened in the USA, the other parliament is voted depending on the regions, so it matters more who won the specific region more than who got more votes overall.

It’s still a defeat, from my point of view, for the reasons I explained above. It will be extremely hard to govern this nation with these premises. It’s more reassuring that is not Berlusconi to have to deal with this mess but this doesn’t change that the situation is dramatic. You can easily imagine that both sides are proclaming right now their victory since Berlusconi has techincally more votes (and, honestly, even a more compact coalition).

Summarizing: we have won, but there isn’t anything to smile about. We should have won with a huge margin and Berlusconi was able not only to recuperate all of it, but even risk a victory. There is technically the possibility to govern but the coalition is extremely fragmented and way too shaky and instable. The point is that we tried everything and then more. If this is the best scenario, I fear to imagine what is the worst.

So what? We fight and then fight more, trying to govern even with that tiny, technical advantage to try to drag italy out of the mud even if without the full, “democratic” consensus of the people or we just give up we say “fuck off” and just let italy in the hands of who it truly deserves? If it was me, I would have chosen the latter, the coalition decided for the former.

The funny thing: Berlusconi rewrote and tailored the electoral laws so that he could have a technical advantage and more possibilities of winning. What is fun is that these laws retorted against him. If the other side has now the possibility to win and govern even without a definite majority on the overall votes, it’s because of the stupid changes he made on those laws.

Posted in: Uncategorized | Tagged:

Arbitrium – Free Will

by | 1 Comment

“I think, therefore I’m virtuous”.

The thought started from a derailed discussion about “what is a virtual world”.

—
Raph was on this (the definition of virtual world) recently.

Virtual worlds are implemented by a computer (or network of computers) that simulates an environment. Some — but not all — the entities in this environment act under the direct control of individual people. Because several such people can affect the same environment simultaneously, the world is said to shared or multi-user. The environment continues to exist and to develop internally (at least to some degree) even when there are no people interacting with it; this means it is persistent.

The quote is from Richard Barttle, though. But I agree. The core concept is the persistence. The “objectivity” of some parts and the depth and variety of interactions, where these interactions don’t happen linearly but in a systemic relationship (elements within a set, so where each can be potentially linked with everything else instead of elements one after the other, where each element is only linked to the previous and the next).

There’s no precise definition of a virtual world, but the more there is “persitence”, variety of interactions and systemic complexity, the more you go closer to a legitimate virtual world.

These definitions come right from sociology since a virtual world is exactly a complex system.

“Virtual world” and “sandbox” are synonymous to an extent.

Put in another way: if the author dies, the world continues on its own. This is another interesting definition. If we assume that god is dead we can think of reality as a virtual world :)

—
Now you would wonder what’s the logic sense that brings to that last line, because there is none. The truth is that I was quickly writing while chasing multiple thoughts spawning all at once and I jumped at that odd conclusion without explaining how I landed on it.

The original thought was that the “objectivity” of the game is exactly what Raph defines as “the server is authoritative”. The keyword and premise for a virtual world, from my point of view, is the persistence, but this persistence is then actualized in different forms and these forms could bring to quite different definitions of “virtual world”, where the original element that joins all of them is exactly that persistence actualized in those different forms.

For example let’s take three hypothetical virtual worlds: a mmorpg, Oblivion and the Middle Earth. All three could be loosely defined “virtual worlds”.

(1) In a mmorpg there’s a continuity set by “what happens”, you log out and the world continues to exist without you. Its existence is actually independent from the single character. It’s a “world” as it has an identity that “emerges” from the level of the single player.

(2) Oblivion is often defined as a sandbox. It is “single player” but it can be considered as a virtual world. It allows you to be who you want, shape your character the way you like and interact with the world with a degree of freedom. Hopefully, observing it react and adapt. This last part is actualized with the levelled lists that spawn mobs and loot to your approriate level, a feature that wasn’t really well accepted by the players but that is still an attempt to “allocate freedom” and make the game world “react and adapt”. This is the “western” idea we have of RPGs, the player choice, the possibility to create your character the way you like, pursuing different goals and attitudes. The persistence here is in the world. The “context”. The strict history, geography and culture of the world where you are immersed. That world is objective and the interaction is between your subjectivity and the impact you have on that objective world.

(3) Finally there’s the Middle Earth. Tolkien shaped a virtual world with its own history, cultures, myths, languages and so on. The detail and depth of this world is staggering and it’s what transforms it in a virtual world. Tolkien is dead, but the Middle Earth is still alive. Virtual worlds outlive their creators.

That’s the first step. Now let’s go back at the standard idea of persistence so that I can reach the other core point: the free will.

The persistence of the character in a mmorpg, or the idea of the “objectivity” I quoted above, mean that things happen on a server and not on the client. This ultimately brings to the fact that if you log out (cease to exist) the virtual world continues without you. In a single player game the world is dependent on you. If you aren’t there, it doesn’t continue on its own in the background. But in a mmorpg the virtual world continues to exist in its own persistence. The core concept here is that you may log in another day and possibly find a different situation: the world has changed. Whether you are there or not.

This specific idea of persistence underlines a weakness in the current mmorpgs: the world never really changes. The truth is that the players have little to no impact on the world. They don’t have real choices, they don’t really exist. It is not a virtual world.

My idea is that the concept of a virtual world is *tightly connected* to the possibility for the players “to create content”. Which doesn’t mean that they repleace the content designers of the game creating quests and new zones (or rules). It just means that they should have an impact on the world, the players should become the subject and focus of the game, where the world can be shaped by their hands and choices. The persistence would become real and the virtual world would actively change, becoming the emergent product of the actions and choices of the players. Only in this case someone logging in after a long time would be able to find a world that truly changed, that truly evolved toward something else. A world with a true persistence and that truly puts the players at the center of the experience.

The “emergence” here represent a jump of quality of a whole medium. We don’t have anymore a set, objective game with goals strictly defined and pre-planned patterns to discover. Instead we have a game, as a virtual world, that is open to the interpretation.

Give a look at these slides that I keep reusing (still from Raph). Some old quotes:

– We talk so much about emergent gameplay, non-linear storytelling, or about player-entered content. They’re all ways of increasing the possibility space, making self-refreshing puzzles.

– We also often discuss the desire for games to be art – for them to be puzzles with more than one right answer, puzzles that lend themselves to interpretation.

– That may be the best definition of when something ceases to be craft and when it turns into art – the point at which it becomes subject to interpretation.

– Games will never be mature as long as the designers create them with complete answers to their own puzzles in mind.

The “interpretation” here is the keyword. The possibility for the players to define their own patterns, create their own characters, manipulate the game objects the way they like with the possibility to recombine them and define their own personal patterns. There’s a degree of “immersion” in all these concepts but I think this definition of “interpretation” doesn’t grasps the real value of this discovery.

Raph did a good work to isolate that concept but I believe that his definition doesn’t fully discloses its actual value. It’s not a sole matter of interpretation. It’s instead about a larger, broader concept: Arbitrium – Free Will.

In a world with strictly codified patterns that you are forced to follow and “embody”, there’s no “free will”. There is no responsibility, no guilt, no merit. There aren’t true choices, there isn’t a subjectivity. You are just forced in a pre-planned path and need to accept it for what it is. The lesson is imposed. The learning process forced into a precise direction. In a world without “free will” there’s always a “third power”, a god, that is responsible for everything. There aren’t other “players” into the system. The world is already set, it has a start and an end right from the first instant it was created and all the elements within this world can exclusively follow a set program on which they have no control nor responsibility. Passive executors who can only observe. There is no judgement, no moral, no facets, but just imposed rules that must remain undiscussed. A fixed state that cannot change in any way. An authoritarian regime. One thought.

My belief is that the ideal of a virtual world goes against this enrooted model to implant not just different, possible interpolations (the interpretations), but the true core that is missing: the “free will”. The possibility for the players to self-determine within the virtual world, the possibility of choice. This goes beyond a superficial personalization but opens up the potential of a complex system where the choices you make bring to actual consequences and the game world reacting and adapting to what you do. To what you are. Your “free will”. This is what misses to a true virtual world and the ideal to reach. The final myth to pursue.

Now, if you connect all the dots, if you gather all the pieces of the puzzle, you can clearly see the conclusion. The true aim and nature of a virtual world: the emancipation from its creators.

The persistence becomes the state for a virtual world to “continue to exist”. Its future will be determined by the emergent behaviours. The possibility for the players to truly react and impact the world where they are going to “exist”. The possibility for them to see the true, concrete result of their choices. The possibility for this world to outlive its creators, to constitute a form of persistence that becomes concrete and that is truly affected by the actions of the “players”.

The reunion of the three concepts of persistence:
– The world is persistent because it can change, react, adapt, be transformed. (history)
– The world is persistent because it gives the players the possibility to determine themselves. (free will)
– The world is persistent because it is emancipated from its creators and acquires a life and emergence on its own. (maturity)

And, maybe, we’ll move from virtual worlds to “virtuous” worlds.

Halo: Orion – FPS MMO

by | 1 Comment

The guy who revealed the first screenshots of a game on the Revolution (taken from a scanned magazine) also has some rumors about a FPS MMO based on Halo that is still on the planning stage. The scan is almost unreadable, but I have super powers:

Bungie’s other project

Last issue we told you about Bungie’s Forerunner Halo project, and now we’re gonna let you in on another game the developer has cooking – a project currently codenamed Orion. Bungie is teaming with Ensemble Studios for this Halo-themed FPS MMO on the 360, and the game is currently still in the planning phase. So details regardin Orion – like Forerunner – could change.

Another April’s fool?

My guess is that this is going to be a version of Halo focused on the multiplayer, but I doubt it will be a true MMO. The term has been rather inflated lately.

Posted in: Uncategorized |

Random dialogue: collaboration, hardcore content and healthy communities

by | Leave a comment

Continuing the “random dialogue”, this time the topic is too much important to be condensed into one simple principle. Here we deal with the basic structure of a mmorpg and the discussion could continue in every direction and include every other topic.

My comments still in italics.

—
Key idea: Players should be able to play with any other players they like, unless those players don’t want to play with them

Putting artificial barriers between players is bad. Players should have the opportunity to play with their friends without having to satisfy any special conditions. They should also be able to join any group they are interested in, as long as that group wants them. A single-shard model is ideal, but in the event that it’s impractical, characters should be transferable enough that players never feel like they can’t be with the people they want to be with. This applies to levels, shards, regions, whatever. If two people want to play together, they should never be prevented from doing so. There shouldn’t even be disincentives.

This is a huge problem and not that simple. A single shard isn’t a simple solution and, while possible, it still needs a form of “stratification” to be viable. My strategy and keyword is about “permeable barriers”. Which means that the barriers are still there (like servers and classes) but they are permeable, so with the possibility for the players to cross them with relative ease. The goal is to transform a limit (a barrier that makes you bounce back), into an advantage.

Sidenote: WoW managed to screw this up and STILL have the queue problem thanks to the retarded regionalization system they went with at launch.

Sidenote: World Passes? What the fuck? Are you telling me that if I buy this game with my friend, and we both go online that evening, we can’t make new characters and start playing together? Why the fuck not? Do you want me to play your game alone? Maybe it should be single-player, then. I don’t buy multiplayer games with the expectation of playing them with jackasses selected at random from the general public. I want to play with people I know.

Another large problem, the social structure of a mmorpg is the most important part and I have many ideas about this. The idea of “permeable barriers” allows the players to meet and play together if they want, without impassable barriers in the form of servers, classes or levels. But at the same time it’s crucial that the community opens up, welcomes and integrates new players. If you give the possibility to the players to just mind their own business, you’ll have an arid and drying community as a result. I always repeat that these games should be based on processes of integration more than exclusion and it’s where I think a game should go. That’s the strategy I would follow.

It is important to erase LFG problems. It is important to erase the dependence of players on other players and specific classes. To remove mandatory requirements. But at the same time the game needs to branch up and move to a level where the collaboration is important. I’m going to write more specifically about this, but the goal is to involve every player instead of just setting higher accessibility requirements (like the 40 people to do a raid). Veteran guilds and new players should play side by side. The biggest guilds should become the fabric of the game for the rest of the players, not elitist, secluded communities. Higher level content that opens up when you have many players collaborating should exist, but it should also become a structure that, when active, is going involve just everyone. Becoming “content” for everyone.

DAoC’s relic raids are an immature way to do something similar. A type of content that opens up and affects a whole realm, not just the single catass guild. My goal is to bring this type of content and overall collaboration to be the center of the game.

Brenlo has various questions and I have a few solutions to propose. My goal has always been about focusing on the collaboration. The “defects” he points out are instead the direct result of gameplay structures that aren’t really focused on the collaboration and where this collaboration is often just a side-effect that may or may not happen. So the idea is to give this approach much more relevance within the game and less self-greed driven mechanics. More “inclusion” than exclusion.

Let’s talk about high-end hardcore guild content. Something concrete, though. My idea is that what a guild accomplishes should be visible and affect the whole community. It shouldn’t be constricted in a private space detached from the rest of the game. The goal here is to make these guilds, and what they do, the center of the game, affecting everyone. Make people participate instead of segregating them.

Let’s take two concrete examples demonstrating roughly how it could be possible to achieve those goals. These aren’t real ideas, but just schematizations to simplify the idea, so don’t take them literally:

1- The hardcore guild goes into a private instanced dungeon to defeat a dragon. But the result isn’t exclusively a personal power growth for a couple of characters winning lottos. Instead the guild obtains the possibility to summon the dragon in the open PvP world and have it fighting for them in the territorial conquest. The dragon becomes a content that is ultimately exposed to everyone and not exclusively existing in a private space without affecting anyone else. The defeat of the dragon equals to the possibility to command the dragon in the non-instanced space for a set period of time.

2- A new dungeon is added to the game. This is the most hardcore type of content in the whole game. The difficulty is set very high, the dungeon is a 5-man but to complete it you need to go through a 6-hours marathon. Completely inaccessible for a casual player. The trick is to provide content and a true sense of achievement for the hardcore players. These guilds will slowly progress through the dungeon, getting nearer to its completition. There are no quests to grind as with the opening of Ahn’Qiraj, but just challenging, unforgiving content for those who can “afford” it. The change of pace happens at the end. When the first guild will finally “conquer” the dungeon by completing it from the beginning to the end, they’ll have the possibility to open a new portal to it. Every successful run through this dungeon will grant the possibility to open new portals, till all of them are enabled. The purpose of these portals is to “fragment” the dungeon in smaller units, so that single sections can be completed in a shorter time span and the six-hour marathon can be segmented into smaller, more accessible play-sessions. Every portal opened by a single catass guild is then available on the whole server. Giving the guild who achieved this acknowledgment and, at the same time, slowly opening up the hardcore content for every other player.

In both cases we have hardcore “catass” content. And in both cases this content isn’t isolated, but “brought back” to the community so that it is usable by everyone. So that it includes everyone. So that it has an effect for everyone. Concrete consequences. With at the end the purpose of the collaboration (the dragon fighting for the whole faction in PvP and the portals being enabled for the whole community).

Which is the ultimate goal: *all* the hardcore content in the game must always have an “hook” back to the whole community. What many players in a guild achieve should *always* have a communal objective that can then be shared with the whole playerbase. This is how you make a game truly collaborative and how you can make these big guilds a center of a game that *creates gameplay* for everyone. This is fundamental. Opening up these communities instead of isolating them and creating increasing gaps between veteran and young players. The goal is again to have them play *side by side*, becoming reciprocal resources.

The result is an healthy community in the long term, a better player retention, a true sense of positive achievement and collaboration and an overall better satisfaction while playing the game. Since what you do is better “motivated”.

Random dialogue: players and developers

by | Leave a comment

Unicorn McGriddle is the guy who paraphrased one of my ideas to make it more understandable, while I was just struggling to explain it better.

Yesterday I find a couple of PMs on Q23 where he says he read this whole site and decided to continue with some sort of manifesto distilled from what he read here. Now I really have no clue about why he did this, but I’ll use it as a way to rinse and repeat some core concepts. His manifesto isn’t exactly mirroring my ideas but it’s an occasion to make precisations.

Since it was getting too long I’m going to break this thing in multiple parts. Btw, I haven’t asked his permission to post this, so I’m just answering to him directly here ;p

My comments are in italics.

—
I was originally intending to write a fictionalized account of play (probably with some chatlogs) in one or more hypothetical “dream MMORPGs” developed and administered using concepts you discuss (and a few ideas I’ve had). I may still do that, but for now, since “the reader writes the book,” please allow me to write your manifesto, as I’ve read it from your site. Corrections, of course, are welcome. I’m sure I’ve left some things out, but for now, here are my Eight Key Ideas and Sixteen Sidenotes Derived from an Excursion into the Cesspit:

Key idea: Developers should be more tied to their MMOs

An MMO is an evolving kind of game — it never entirely leaves the design phase. How it grows post-launch is a development issue and the lead developer (and ideally, everybody who makes design decisions) should stick around to deal with that. Lead developers and other people who make design decisions should be held accountable for their performance on their past games. This doesn’t mean that bad developers should never be removed, but depending on the level of influence they’ve had with the game, it may already be too late. (The whole “when is a game irrevocably fucked” issue is a difficult one, and I won’t really address it here.)

I believe in authorship and I’d like the developers to feel more part of the process. The idea of “accountability” is there so that when something wrong happens the developers don’t start dodging their responsibilities and unload them on someone else. Or feel “estranged” from what happened. I’d like them to have more control over what they do, more responsibility, more involvement. They should care about the game, they should feel part of it. When it’s time to discuss the long term plans and current status, everyone should be involved, free of strict work roles. Teamwork should be promoted and there should be an open, unrestrained communication everywhere, without distinctions of merit or prejudices.

If someone makes a mistake, even a huge one, he shouldn’t be fired. People should be fired as a very last measure, when this person is really damaging the project more than adding to it. Having people accountable about the game isn’t a way to put at risk their work. It’s the exact opposite. It’s a way to expose the problems so that the developers can learn from them. It’s a process of education, not a process of exclusion. A problem coming up is always a way to learn something, it’s important that they are exposed and discussed. The desire to do better should never come from a menace (if you mess up, you are fired) but from the desire to contribute to a team in the better way possible. And to achieve this it is important that the discussion is free from “taboos” and that everyone feels involved in the creation instead of just a passive executor. Make people participate, open up the communication, remove ranks and roles in the development.

The keywords are: participation and collaboration. Both between the dev group and outside with the community.

About firing people: Naguib Sawiris is an overly ambitious, emergent Egyptian tycoon who says something I agree with about this topic. “I fire only who is dishonest. If you have someone stupid, you don’t fire him. You just give him a stupid work.”

Sidenote: Raph Koster is better at theory than he is at practice. His games ought to be more consistent with his goals, and he should stay with them as long as he can.

I agree that Raph shouldn’t have left SWG, but this is an universal rule, not something about this precise case. When it comes to Raph, and not his games, I believe that the bigger problem is the lack of “cross examination”. I don’t really believe that he is “better at theory than he is at practice”, I believe that he needs someone at his side that is able to counterbalance and regulate his ideas. A “measure”. Someone who can nail his feet to the ground. Keep the ideas tightly tied to a functional goal with solid premises.

Think to a balance. Raph is a weight all on one side, so you need someone else, with equal value, but at the opposite side, so that an equilibrium is achieved.

The idea I got is that there are too many “yessir” around Raph. Too many taking him in high consideration, with the fear to truly criticize or create an actual debate. I think Raph would do his best when his ideas are truly considered and criticized. I believe he needs “antagonism” and I always had the idea of placing at his side someone with a completely different attitude and mindset, a nemesis. Then force them to work *together* and watch them brawl :) I think the result could be good. More than an abstract mmorpg guru I’d like to see him as someone serviceable for a concrete project.

Sidenote: Brad McQuaid sucks. In the long term, only catasses will enjoy his games. Even they could probably be seduced away by something better. Fuck his “Vision” bullshit. Putting Diku into 3D and requiring massive time investment doesn’t make him Joan of motherfucking Arc. The main “innovation” there is a monthly fee — which previous games already had (for example, the original Neverwinter Nights).

Well, I don’t agree here. I already wrote my overall point of view on the supposed “vision”. I’m skeptical about Vanguard and Brad himself but far from blaming both openly. My biggest worry about the game isn’t even about the design. It’s about the current state of the systems, the technical side. The design only comes later and we always forget the crucial importance of the technology. We’ll see, but my suspect is that we won’t complain about game design at launch, but about the technical issues, the client, controls and so on. Blizzard was extremely successful also because they had a long experience with single-player games and “battle.net”. They had already rock solid technology and experience to build upon. A mmorpg for them wasn’t a beginning, it was a finishing line. Brad “is supposed” to have an experienced team with him but they still had to start from scratch and they’ll have to demonstrate again that they have the competence.

I respect Brad and I’m even ready to bite the leaf when it comes to some of his foolish ideas. But he still has to demonstrate me that he has the resources to pull all that concretely and make a “mainstream” game. I fear that their technology is still rather rough and immature, far from being able to compete with the firsts. Which is again why I’m much less worried about the design.

Key idea: Communities should have meaningful relationships with developers

“Your players will know your game better than you do,” as the saying goes. Players are a design resource. They will test and critique the games they play. Their playing styles will adapt based on the strengths and limitations of the game (and its competitors). Attention must be paid to such phenomena. Furthermore, players want to be treated with respect, and most players behave in a manner deserving of such treatment. Developers should relate to players in as transparent a way as possible, disclosing all the raw data, design documents, and various internal efforts that they can. When something goes wrong, they should tell the players what it is — not “there will be no service for at least a week,” but “a lightning bolt struck our server cluster, so we’re replacing everything, which our site people say will take five days; characters are all backed up, so they’ll be fine, but we may not be able to recover world data, so guildhalls and houses may be lost (and we’ll post our communications with the site people in the forum as things happen, so you’ll know as soon as we do what the deal is; if it turns out data has been lost we will try to compensate everyone as best we can, and while we wait for the replacement to go through, we’re looking into lightning-proofing our building and sending a delegation to Zeus to ask him to hit churches instead.” Developers should frequent the boards and be visible and known there, even if they don’t have time to read everything that gets posted. They should be aware of memes and behaviors within the playerbase. They should be in adequate contact with real players to know how the game is actually played, and if problems are discovered this way, steps should be taken to fix them. No important development figures should be seen as inaccessible, nor should they be seen as bullshitting spinmasters who can’t be trusted to tell the truth. Players want information, not propaganda. We’re in your forum to think and to learn, so don’t read us the back of the box.

No, people aren’t a design resource. I believe that a community should be always interpreted, not just directly seconded. It’s always wrong to make a community set your development schedule and direct the game through polls. Authorship isn’t a democracy and a community should never become a substitute for game designers. What I’d like to see, instead, is about them interacting. An open communication and involvement is something positive, a resource. The community is an occasion to test and elaborate ideas, discuss positives and negatives. But it should never replace the creation process. The line should never be crossed (making people design and lead the game) but it would be a good thing if that line is felt less as a barrier of misunderstading, contraposition and conflict.

I’d like to see more disclosure and less “fear”. Less scruples when it comes to disclose something. The point is to consider the feedback as legitimate and give it a priority. The discussion on those points should be brought back in the community, the plans shared, the design goals pointed out clearly. Let’s discuss about other games, let’s make comparisons, let’s confrontate. Let’s discuss different ideas and solutions, let’s discuss failures and successes. Without filters or articles that need to be “approved” before they can be posted. Without community managers in the middle. Sanya is doing a good work with DAoC but what a community manager does should never replace a direct communication with the devs. So the community managers should work parallel to the other forms of communication, without substituting them. They should be an aid, not a replacement.

The more the communication opens up and is felt as normal, the more these communities will *lose* the overdramatization we see now everywhere. I believe that a more direct and continuous communication would normalize the relationship instead of rising the conflict.

Sidenote: “Players will tend to automate the parts of your game that are fucking stupid.” Ultima Online could have done away with macroing if the developers had felt like bothering.

Yes, I always considered the use of macros as a design problem. And it is where this problem should be solved: in the mechanics, not on the surveillance of players and enforcement of “rules”.

Sidenote: Memory Holing your forums is a piece-of-shit tactic. All this message control bullshit is a substitute for actually fixing problems and providing a place for players to discuss the game. Both of these things pay serious dividends if pursued, leading to a better game, so developers are only hurting themselves with this Orwellian board-pruning.

There are a number of ways to move the discussion in better ways. I think the developers should come to a forum and create discussion instead of answer passively. The moderation is needed but it should focus on the actual content rather than the “tone” and “politeness” of a message. I would erase in a heartbeat all those “first!” posts and everything that is off topic or doesn’t contribute in any way to a discussion, but I would never moderate negative feedback or critics. Not even harsh attacks if they hold a trace of legitimacy. The point is to understand and interpret the feedback coming from a community and let them understand clearly the situation. The goal isn’t to agree and convince everyone. The goal is to avoid misunderstanding and help both sides to understand the reciprocal positions.

The conflict isn’t a bad thing when it is motivated.

Amusing retrospective

by | 1 Comment

I found an old comment I posted on Brokentoys right at WoW’s launch, when people were still skeptical about its success and value. It is quite amusing to read now :)

—
So, the time has come where I point out you and Haemish discussing on the old WT.o that no mmorpg, not even WoW, will reach the 400k mark in the near future?

:)

My predictions seem to be correct. Now call me ‘fanboy’.
And keep minimizing what WoW does, blame the brand and the kids and repeat that it’s just EQ 1.5 with more ’shiney’. Keep trivializing, keep dismissing. (Oh, but it’s just a stable client with a polished interface, come on)

We’ll see in six month or a year if the subscriptions will fall or will keep raise. I’m sure I’ll found around a new bunch of “excuses” about why the game is indeed a long term contender.

The process of “Oh, but we all knew already about all this happening” is already started. Everyone! Jump on the bandwagon! QUICK! I wonder why any other company hasn’t tried to create a better WoW five years ago if it was that expected and easy to build.

Sure, there’s no innovation at all. This is why 600k supposed players are going to play *this* game. It’s just a miracle. Or “Blizzard”, or another excuse to dodge the *merit* of *why* this happens.

The “boring shit” is about to collapse. You’ll see that. Everyone that will keep with this type of blindness will be repaid with an even bigger failure. WoW is a (still weak) proof that sometimes something good happens. Even if 90% of the elitists will keep refusing to accept it.

Now go on with the sarcasm, it’s the only way to keep this defensive, jaded attitude. Go on to repeat the same old misunderstanding. You have to complain and whine, no matter of what happens or why it happens.

I feel a well hidden but consistent dose of hypocrisy. Quite spread around. About something I’m sure: WoW will be successful because of the “diet coke” marketing.

Diet coke marketing for the win!

P.S.
Or perhaps, if you want to be honest and have some modesty and humility, go read what even Lum directly wrote in the presentation about the ‘mass market’ and this genre that he posted around April. Then consider what WoW accomplished there and consider what any other mmorpg hasn’t. And why.

But going defensive is simpler and doesn’t requre any effort. Keep going.

I wonder if I’ll be ever able to see some professionalism in this genre. And for ‘professionalism’ I don’t mean being polite (aka known as: “(a) anything that can be construed as talking negatively about competitors is wildly unprofessional”). But being honest and unpretentious. Trying to accept the weakness and the mistakes, trying to learn from them with some humility.

To finish a last note: what I wrote has a value only if WoW is going to overwhelm EQ2. If it happens it means I was and am right. If it doesn’t happen and EQ2 subscribers will match WoW’s subscribers (low or high), it will mean that I’m an idiot.

DDO: Rumors of implosion

by | 2 Comments

There’s a thread on Q23.

Here I know really nothing, so I don’t have a clue about what’s relevant, what isn’t, what’s true, what’s false. That DDO was doomed was already pretty obvious long before release, exactly as it was obvious for AC2. Just wait. Remember that AC2 was a major failure and STILL resisted for how long? Three years?

The news is that Ken Troop leaves Turbine to move to Wizard of the Coast. No clue about what this means. Here some quotes from the comments on Jason Booth website:

Anonymous 1:
I worked with Jason Booth at Turbine for almost 9 years. I can honestly say that he would always tell it like it is. Many times managment would not like to talk about the big white elephant in the room, but Jason would shine a light on it. Many managment folks resented him for that, but he was always right.

Anonymous 2:
Jason was just uncouth about how he approached things. That’s what led to his being fired from Turbine.

I recall when he told Robert Blackadder (the senior producer at the time) to “fuck off, I do what I want and answer only to Jeff Anderson” when Rob tried to schedule him for tasks. Or when the time he and Dan Ogles threw a fit when it was announced that Wizards wanted to change the combat system so it was more in line with traditional MMOs. Or when Jason walked out of a meeting as a form of “protest”.

Things like that don’t belong in a professional environment on any level.

Jason Boot:
clearly you have a nack for re-writting history; I never told Rob ‘fuck off, I only listen to Anderson’. I think I only talked to Jeff about 4 times that year, so he’s hardly the person I would be responding too.

Yes, I was always a controversial figure at Turbine. Love me or hate me, agree or disagree, I was going to let people know what I thought. But if we all just kissed ass and said things were great when they clearly were not then you wouldn’t have a place in this world; and that wouldn’t be good, now, would it?

Anonymous 2:
The point was not that you expressed a differing opinion. It was how you expressed it. Be professional about it, for God’s sake.

Funny how Rob himself told several of us one day that you yourself told him to “fuck off”. Why would he make that up?

Bottom line though is that I agree with you about the credits. People who worked on the game, especially those who worked on it for as long as you did, obviously contributed and therefore should have received credit. You were robbed.

Troop, btw, left to go to Wizards of the Coast. He can now fuck things up over there. Go go gadget ignorance!

Jason Boot:
Getting things done at Turbine required extreme measures. At harmonix, you simply have to state a reasonable case and someone will give you a reasonable answer and rational. But lets face it, whoever you are, you know that isn’t the case at Turbine. Someone up high gets a whim, and suddenly everything is pulled out from under you. That doesn’t make for good development, or good company health. You sit waiting for the axe to fall, because you know it will. There’s a reason DDO shipped and MEO hasn’t, and ignoring the problems was a big reason why.

Now, I will readily admit to some evil enjoyment in certain cases, but I am much happier not having to come down with a nuclear warhead when some bone headed move comes down the pipe. Those are the exact types of things that managers are supposed to filter out in advance, and that company heriarchy is supposed to protect people from. Instead, the filter seemed to work in the oposite direction. I shouldn’t have to deliver the mail to show management that they are wasting money by not hiring an intern to do the task. That having every developer on the project sift through a giant box looking for thier mail each day is a really bad use of resources. These things should be obvious, and if they are not, it should be easy to point them out and not require theatrics.

As for Ken, as I told him at GDC, I think he makes a lot more sense there than at a video game company.

Back from Q23:

Rumours peg DDO subscription numbers around 40000-50000. Concurrent connections around 15000.

Engineering Director Justin Quimby also has bailed for Maxis.

The low number of concurrent users is also having a strong negative and active impact on the players since it brings to serious LFG problems. How surprising, huh?

Rumors of gloom and doom are being weakly restrained on the official forum:

DDO is not coming to an end. We are still seeing steady growth in our subscriptions every day.

Another random quote, as an unreliable source:

By March 14th they had between 20k and 40k sales (30k +/- 10k). Now, you are saying that DDO has increased it’s playerbase to 160k, or more specifically, 800% since the 20k pre-release that were avail on day one and through all of this has not had to open 1 extra server? really??? no, seriously… I mean it? You are saying that?

Not only that but you are saying a game with a playerbase of 160k only manages to have 150-250 players online during peak play hours (Between 3PM and 9PM PST) on normal pop servers and the 3 highest servers garner 300-450 during those same hours?

Remember the Golden Rule of the mmorpg industry: the more you fuck up the higher you will be promoted.

Come on, prove me wrong.

No more muddy textures in Oblivion

by | 8 Comments

There’s one impressive mod that really improves considerably the graphic quality of the far clip plane in Oblivion. No more muddy textures!

There’s a demonstration screenshot showing the result.

I tested it and there’s absolutely no impact on the FPS.

And it looks amazing. Impressive. In some parts it looks BETTER than the narrow terrain (which has the awful “tiled” effect).

Consider that this is just the beginning. The guy who did that mod just took the “soup” textures, enlarged them and sharpened them. Someone with a bit of skill could actually add much more detail and make the transition even more smooth.

Here starts the 360 jealousy toward PC-only mods ;)

I’ll have to open a page for Oblivion where I can gather all the informations and mods that look interesting.

Posted in: Uncategorized |

April Fools

by | Leave a comment

So.

Lum left Mythic to become a designer, Shadowbane is free, Wolfpack is closing down, Raph left SOE, Bioware is working on a mmorpg and Oblivion is super-cool.

And I don’t think we’re done yet.

Posted in: Uncategorized | Tagged: