Limited Progress

All phenomena are the same the world over, it's really quite amazing. Economic behavior can be analyzed as an ecological system, group dynamics as art theory, and even structural engineering as a form of psychology; its just that some systems have been better built to express certain kinds of data (but looking at things from novel perspectives can always be helpful). My actual point is not quite that highbrow, but I just wanted to get the whole thought out.

People always ask the SAME questions. If you go to boards people ask the same questions over and over in different ways - In the words of Captain Hook, "Me, me, me, I, I, I, want, want, want." I've been listening to CtC tonight, while working on XSI, and it never fails that when it comes to caller questions people continuously ask "well couldn't it be that god... (feel free to replace god with aliens, subjective reality, or whatever else you fancy). As a friend of mine in Seattle said, 'stuck in their own trip."

If you want to ask a question, fine. Questions are good things. Do yourself the service though of making sure that it hasn't already been asked, and for chissakes, don't keep trying to rephrase it on the off chance that they might agree with you.

I’ve been working on texturing. Mainly trying to get different 'looks' from the same object. I'm having marginal success, and will continue to work on it. From left to right the obelisks are: faux-toon shader, rendermaped, and lit (with poly approximation).

Battle of the 3rd Generation MMORPG's

Well DnL seems like its about to go somewhere or implode finally. A Vanguard: SoH seems way cooler then when I last looked at it like 6 months ago. Why is it that all the best games are always on the horizon somewhere. I read on interview with a lead on Vanguard btw that punches a whole in part of my economic thesis. He argues (and correctly I think) that in order to use item decay to relieve equipment pressures, one must have items leave the world at rate very close to the speed they enter it at. This puts me back to the drawing board.

That makes 2 games (Seed and Vanguard) that may well introduce enough new features to a game to at least partially eclipse combat as the point of it all. Yeah, I know, I’ll believe it when I see it too. It makes me wonder if either will correct, what is in my mind the most egregious failure of MMORPG’s to date: the lack of treed dialogue. Graphics aside it’s the feature that sets new console games apart from the very earliest one’s. (TSR gold box anyone?) I understand that it would be time consuming to write dialogue for every NPC in the game, but you would think that if WoW and CoH can sit down and build massive instances they could include a little dialogue to give some choice about RP. Games like KOTR and Jade Empire would be nothing without this innovation, and thus I think it bears direct relevance on the MMO industry as a whole.

In other news I’m working on an obelisk in Softimage right now (as well as still rendering those zany stick figures). It’s going to be about 500 polys for render mapping purposes, then about a tenth of that when finished. Maybe I’ll have a render of it tomorrow.

Innovative Gameplay

Innovative game play seems to have been abandoned in favor of reliable stand-by’s these days. This is truer in MMORPG’s because of their staggering cost to develop. I find it disheartening that so few companies are willing to take even small risks for the sake of innovation.

I admit that there are some changes over time; some games are willing to try at least one new thing, though more often than not this is nothing more than perfecting an element found in older games. WoW, for instance, gave us the instance, exelent art direction, and beautiful level design. CoH gave us extreme character customization, and instances. EQ2 gave us instances, player housing and crafting mini-games. Only one of these features is ‘new’. Can you guess which one it is? (hint: it isn’t instances) For a truly innovate feature (and an otherwise lack luster performance) check out the way Horizons implemented housing. Now that is radical.

In the interest of new ideas, I thought I’d share with all of you a truly innovative game mechanic. Eye Maze is a site with several games on it; the one I bring to your attention is Grow Cube (and its semi-twin Grow RPG). The game is a flash that presents you with a puzzle even more obtuse than the crimson room. There is a cube and 10 seemingly arbitrary buttons; you choose one and it places that object, whatever it may be on the cube and then waits for you to choose another. After you take another turn, if the conditions are right all previously placed objects will grow to their next stage. If you place all objects in their correct order, then they will all interact perfectly, performing the function of a conceptual maze. A sort of irrational causality. In fact, until you play the game several times there is no way of knowing how these things work together, nonetheless, it is definitely worth your time.

Two Diverse Findings

Two finds of note today. First, I Found a site which analyzes the trends in MMORPG currency over time. It samples the selling price of several online vendors and releases that average price as a weekly data point. It is interesting to note that almost all of these currencies are in complete decline according to online sellers, and stranger that only one has gained value this year.

The article I was reading (how I found the site) averaged this price drop over the number of months a given game was up to determine total depreciation. I take issue with this though. I don’t think you can make a direct correlation between the time a game is in existence, and the price drop; the correlation is likely with total player hours, or maybe even level hours. The data supports this in that the most played games tend to suffer the quickest devaluation.

Second, I was reading boards today, and couldn’t help but notice the ‘everyone is an expert’ phenomena; in this case, everyone is a game designer; and if given the chance they would build the perfect MMORPG. I remember my dad saying something about how everyone wanted to write ‘The Great American Novel’ at some point in the future; Dickens even said disparagingly that everyone was out trying to sell their own three volume novel – so the phenomena is not a new one. When I was trying to write a comic book I found 3 things shocking: every artist thinks he’s a good writer (not true), every writer is convinced their product is the best (if only they could find an artist), and there are people out there (a disturbing number) who are looking for both artists and writers because they have a great idea. People have differant talents, and few have them all. I mean, I'm sure everyone falls into this syndrome at times (note: this includes me. obviously I would like to try my hand at some aspects of game design eventually, but right now Id just be happy doing enviromental art).

People are talking about a wide variety of issues. Mostly these conversations consist of rehashes – old ideas that haven’t been thought through completely, concerns about more player freedom or better combat, and expressing worry that if they post their 1337 idea someone will steal it from them and make a million. Obviously, creation is theft, but I don’t think they have much to worry about.

On the bright side, the average member of the seed boards, as opposed to many other forums, are fairly smart people. Perhaps it’s the lack of combat in that MMORPG that draws a better sort.

First Post!

Let me take this moment to introduce myself to all my pixilated-peers. My name is David, and I play with polygons; not professionally of course, but hopefully I will in the near future. I currently live in southern California, though will be relocating to New Jersey in the near future to stalk the Pine Barrens and work on my demo reel. I started this blog to discuss issues that my friends seem to tire of. Though sometimes that is the current socio-political policies of America, these days they tend to revolve around the game play issues of video games, particularly the problems present in the most popular variety currently: MMORPG’s.

Here’s a sample of my work I’m almost proud of. Its part of a 7 second animation that is much too large too post.

Currently I’m working on an 8 second piece of my demo reel: 21 Stick figures doing a variety of different Lines of action (walking, running, jumping, pushing, etc). I’m also working on an essay that outlines the problems and solutions of the major economic problems present in MMORPG’s. It has been suggested though that I need to provide a more academic angle, otherwise it is nothing more than an op-ed. I’ve managed to find a great many opinions (many of them ill informed) but few academic resources. Input and links would be welcome.