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GDC09: User generated stories in shardless worlds
Massively checked out an interesting session at GDC 2009 titled "User Generated Story: The Promise of Unsharded Worlds" by James Portnow, CEO and Creative Director of Divide by Zero. His talk was part of the Worlds in Motion Summit, and focused on how single worlds and their shared space can also give rise to shared stories. Portnow discussed ways that game designers can encourage and enable players to tell their own stories within the virtual space. *** The storylines we've seen thus far in MMOs aren't yet tapping the potential of massively multiplayer online games, Portnow relates, largely because they're not capitalizing on an MMOs greatest asset -- its players. Portnow says, "We haven't achieved stories that really rely upon the core of our media, the playerbase that a MMO environment environment gives us. We haven't achieved player-driven stories really directed by players themselves. And lastly we haven't achieved meaningful stories."Why do people skip the quest text? It's because they have no stake in it. Unlike the experience they get from single player games, their actions don't affect the the world they play in. Story, then, doesn't add to immersion and thus players don't feel engaged by quests. The solution then is to unshard worlds and give agency back to the players, with real choices, real consequences, and less restrictions. %Gallery-48460%
Korean government to pour $200 billion into gaming industry
As Western game developers are losing money and closing down more games than ever before, the Korean government is taking a drastically different approach. According to a recent report, the Korean government plans to invest $200 billion USD into their gaming industry in an attempt to boost the country into the top spot for game development. Although this incentive will reach across all gaming genres, Korea is well-known for its involvement with MMOs. NCsoft, which is among one of the largest MMO publishers, is headquartered in Korea and could potentially aim to benefit from such funding. This proposal plans to fund the gaming industry through 2012 and hopes to expand its game exports to around 5 trillion won (around $3.3 trillion USD) per year.
The Daily Grind: Non-combat titles vs combat titles
I admit it; I'm a title hunter. Way back when I started up City of Heroes, the idea of gathering as many badges as I could seemed like a lot of fun to me. It gave me a plethora of various titles and accolades to choose from at any given time. Later, when the TaxiBots entered the scene, I joined up with their cause. One of the things we had the most success with in regards to player-run events was the Badge tours, whereby people who either didn't know where the badges were, or just didn't feel like hunting them could get teleported from place to place via Recall Friend. We took the badge flavor text and spun outrageous stories based on it, then sent them along to the next person in the route. After approximately 2 minutes, the "fare" (player) would have gained 5-7 new badges, and had a lot of fun listening to us spin tales of bravery and occasionally depravity. Fast forward to WoW and LotRO, and I find myself chasing titles once again, but most of these require combat to gain. It is quite different from the early CoH badges with many available just for walking over a certain area, or finding an easter egg. Is there a better way to do it? Perhaps. But this is what we'd like to ask you about today. Are you also a badge hunter, seeking the next new title? If so, do you prefer yours for combat and feats of prowess, would you rather have them for just finding some "historic" spot that advances the lore, or do you like the idea of a combination of both? Do you think the idea of a non-combat title is just silly? Or do you really just not care about the idea of titles at all?
Sony considers incentives for commercial PS3 use
Tired of wasting all those idle PS3 clock cycles curing diseases for the benefit of all humanity? Wish you could sell off your extra processing power for prizes and free stuff instead? Sony knows how you feel, and is reportedly looking into a program that would let you do just that.Sony Computer Entertainment CTO Masa Chatani told the Financial Times that they are in discussions with a number of companies interested in using the parallel processing power of the PS3 network for their own research. Chatani realizes users might be hesitant to simply loan out use of their $600 living room computer to a commercial enterprise, so the company is considering offering incentives such as free products to users who would aid in such research.This sounds like a win-win-win situation to us: Sony gets a new revenue stream; small companies get their research done relatively cheaply; and PS3 owners get free stuff. Of course, every PS3 running one of these commercial projects is one less project running the potentially life-saving Folding@Home. OK, so maybe it's win-win-win-lose. Still, three out of four ain't bad.
Sony offering trade-in credit for your old laptop
While not quite as sweet a deal as getting a free computer for your rusty and bloodied old gun, Sony has still managed to one-up rival Apple's PC recycling program by actually offering you a cash incentive to bring in your used, non-Mac notebook when you go to purchase a new one from the Japanese electronics giant. Depending on your machine's capabilities, the company will give you anywhere from $23 (for a Pentium II-powered lappy) all they way up to $318 (for a Pentium 4 rig) as a trade-in credit towards a new Vaio, with Sony-brand laptops unsurprisingly fetching more loot than products from other manufacturers. Consumers interested in this deal can either bring their old gear to a Sony retail store or simply mail it in when they order online; as for us, we'll still be paying full price for our Sony products, because the CSR we spoke with just laughed and hung up when we asked how much they'd give us for our still-working Osborne.
