Culture of Crime

When players find a loophole in a game that benefits them, most will exploit that loophole. In regards to online games, my view has always been that if it's possible, it's allowed. It's up to the designers and programmers to prevent and close loopholes, and not the players to police themselves.



In the case of ourWorld, a recent loophole closure prevented players from using 'dummy' accounts to buff up their main accounts through the game's gifting system. Many players had dozens of accounts, and a few had hundreds. Use of these dummy accounts let players get items that normally cost real money for free, in potentially unlimited amounts.

Here's the thing, we're not certain that practice was actually bad for the game. It may be that some number of Gems (the for-real-money currency of ourWorld) greater than we currently provide for free is what's best for the game's success. We're looking quite hard at this, actually. I'm not at all certain what the answer here is.

I am certain that closing the loophole was the correct course of action from a cultural standpoint. I think large numbers of players knowingly scamming a game is toxic to the community. Players shouldn't feel like they have to run what is obviously a scam to get the results they want from a game. Players who choose not to run the scam shouldn't feel like they're foolish for leaving 'free stuff' on the table. The entire situation creates discord and I'm glad that we've put a stop to it.

If it is decided that more free Gems injected into the ourWorld community is best for everyone, the process should be done inside the game, in a manner that's above board and for everyone. If it's not, well, then our job will be to make sure the game with the current level of Gem awards is still drop-dead-amazing. Time to go back to work!

Adam!!!
www.gameguts.blogspot.com

Let's Me and You Fight! (Old School)

For whatever reason, my favorite fighting game of all time has faded into obscurity. Likely the reasons I liked it so much are the reasons for its lack of enduring success.

Bushido Blade


Most people don't remember this game from the prime Playstation 1 years, but back in 1997, when fighting games were absolutely the dominant form of game, it stood apart.

Unlike nearly every game before or since, Bushido Blade didn't bother with life bars. Your attacks could have two effects. Wound or Kill. Some battles lasted a second or less. Because blocking was so very important, everyone who played the game got really good at it, and the results were amazing. Dodging, parrying, thrusting, and ultimately positioning yourself for that final blow. The battlefields were large and fairly plain (even for the time) but included a lot of cool touches. For example, in the bamboo forest, attacking too close to a tree would cut it down. Some battles would be put on hold for a bit of forestry, before the death-dealing could commence.

It included a fairly interesting solo adventure mode, but, like most fighting games, one-on-one duels where the highlight of the game. Ultimately, I think the lack of the expected life bar and the potential for really short games turned off too many players. Combine that with a sub-par sequel and a publisher that was more interested in making vast piles of money with Final Fantasy games and the book closed on this amazing and unique fighter. Bushido Blade never made the jump to the next generation.

Such is life...and violent, brutal, death.

Adam!!!
http://www.gameguts.blogspot.com/

Fan Site on Steriods!

Ladies and Gentlemen...The ourWorld Cereal Killers

Damn fine site. You got a better one? Let me know!

Deja What Again?

From Virtual World News:

Richard Garriott's Portalarium Aiming At A More Mainstream Second Life?

Later in 2010 the company plans to release CenterPort, "the virtual world social hub for the OpenLife ecosystem, a broad yet fully integrated meta-community." CenterPort will start as a social network app, though the company promises that it "will be more graphically advanced than what you see out there on social networks today." It will include a persistent avatar and "a semi-3D world" where users can buy virtual clothes, housing, accessories, and more. Currency can be acquired either through ad-supported mini-games or direct purchases.

Some of the development features may be new, but the general description of their product sounds, well, like another game I'm pretty familiar with, right down to the poker game.

When Ultima 3 came out, Richard "Lord British" Garriott was THE rockstar of game developers. Also, he more or less invented the MMORPG with Ultima Online.

Maybe the report is missing important details, but I don't see the innovation here. With Flash 10 coming, even moving away from Flash seems like an odd move. Still, the dude's got a worthy track record. I for one will stay tuned.

Adam!!!
http://gameguts.blogspot.com/

Dantes Internet

Not sure where this came from, but I love it.

-Adam!!!

The Volunteer Train - CHOO CHOO!!!!

Somebody gets a lot more traffic than I do! One of the more popular ourWorld blogs must have posted about the volunteer program because over the weekend I have received hundreds of new requests from ourWorld players who want to be volunteers. As most of the requests have come from qualified players (over 13 years old and over level 30) it looks like there will be lots more volunteers in the next day or so.

This is very good news, as we'll want a lot of volunteers to make our new Helper program work.

Following the next update (scheduled for Wednesday, Feb 24th) all the volunteers will have the option to help other players. If they turn on the Helper tool, they will get alerts when somebody requests 'Live Help'. The system will transport them to the players room and they will (hopefully) be able to answer questions. It's a pretty simple system, but if our volunteers do half the job I think they can do, it'll be a great boon to new players trying to sort out our game, which has become quite complex as it has grown.

Adam!!!
www.gameguts.blogspot.com

Step 3: Profit!

Flowplay got a great write-up in TechFlash

Step 2 is 'make a kick-ass virtual world' (Step 1 is just to impress potential investors)

To see ourWorld grow and succeed over the last couple of years has been and remains truly exciting. Big thanks to the players who have shown extraordinary support for ourWorld. Without you guys, it's all for nothin'.

Adam!!!
www.gameguts.blogspot.com

Build a Combat Robot in one Day

If you didn't know, I build combat robots (or if you're picky about termonology, R/C fighting machines) and it's a lot of fun. It's also easier than most people think. Normally I have an idea for a machine and build it a hour or two at time over the course of a couple of weeks. Well, with a new baby in the house and Jeni with a new job, time's been against me. Now the event is Saturday and I only had 2/3 of a robot (I registered 3). I needed at least one more.

I have a lot of vacation saved up, so I decided to take the day off and re-build my son's robot, "Vision #9". Today was my only day to work on it, so I had to finish. And I did!

Vision #9 (front) and Mister Twister (back). Both 3 pound Beetleweights

My Build Photo Album

See these and lots more robots fight at the Northwest Model Hobby Expo!

-Adam!!!
http://gameguts.blogspot.com/

Pulling out the Rug

It's always easier to add features to a game than to take them away. A lot of games will put off taking features away until a major event, like a new edition or version, both from a practical standpoint (paper games aren't good at mid-stream changes) as well as a PR standpoint. Players hate losing things they are used to. If you wait for a big event, you add some sugar to the medicine by introducing an assortment of new features that are replacing those that are being lost.

We don't have that luxury with ourWorld, because our game gets incrementally updated every two weeks. Even a huge update is a smallish change in the overall scheme of things. This last week, we implemented a change in ourWorld that prevents players from buying gifts for other players unless they first make an actual purchase. The problem was that each coupon code for Gems (ourWorld's for-profit currency) we issued worked once for each account. This allowed one code to provide a small number of Gems to a large number of players. Free samples, more or less. The problem was that players were creating large numbers of 'fake' accounts, loading them up with free Gems from the codes, and bleeding those Gems into their main accounts. The problem reached epidemic status a couple of weeks ago when we accidentally released Gem codes worth more than the usual 10 and the number of fake accounts skyrocketed, throwing off all our statistical data for the week, and reducing the value of a single Gem to a fraction of its normal worth.

We had to make a change, and our choices were to reign in Gem Codes or reign in gifting. We think there's a lot of value in releasing a modest number of Gems each week for everyone, so we addressed gifting. The problem isn't gifting, the problem is free Gems combined with gifting. The solution turned out to be simple to implement. Players who have collected all of their Gems for free can't give gifts. Once a player contributes to the site monetarily (and there's a lot of ways to do this) they can gift normally after that, including with their free Gems.

We aren't really taking away a feature, really we're taking a way a loophole that has been badly exploited. Of course, many players don't feel that way. The ourWorld forum has erupted with complaints and polls and "how can we get ourWorld to change this back" threads. I totally understand. Players used to be able to get something for nothing, and now they can't. Even so, I've got to take a hard line with this. I know people are mad, but I've been to this rodeo before, many times, and the furor won't last. The best interests of the site and my company are my primary goal, and I know this is the correct call. It was true when the first Magic cards were banned (not a lot of fun, that) and when any game I've ever worked on was canceled due to lagging sales (BattleTech TCG, Harry Potter TCG, Clout: Fantasy...and more.) Sometimes the rug simply has to go, and there's nothing to it but to do it.

If anyone really wants to know, the gift limitation was my idea. Direct your hate mail thusly.

Adam!!!
http://gameguts.blogspot.com/

High Maintenance Customers

Some customers require a disproportionate amount of attention from the support team. They write or call nearly everyday, often with some sort of problem. Usually the problems are legitimate, if not a bit on the nit-picky side. The question isn't what to do with that one customer. She's a great customer, so you help her as best you can, every time. The question is whether everyone is having these same problems, and only this one great customer cares enough to tell you about them.

The question stresses me out.

It has been my experience that a small percentage of players have far more problems than the average player. I'm not sure exactly why this is, exactly. For computer games like ourWorld, it's most likely an unusual system set-up or poor internet connection, but there's no way to know for sure. Some people are a lot more picky than others as well. It's not surprising that some of the bigger spenders are also some of the most vocal about problems (I would be too!) I'm also hopeful that I'm correct that it's only a small percentage, because if lots of people are having these problems, and simply not letting us know, that's bad news.

Now that we've added a forum for ourWorld, it's easier than ever for players to share their experiences with us, and so far it's been good. We've certainly learned things we didn't know from the extra input, but nothing earth shatteringly wrong has been discovered (that we didn't already know.)

Maybe some people do have more problems than others, and that's just how it is.

Northwest Pinball and Gameroom Show

This was AMAZING last year. Check out their video (which I haven't watched with sound, so who knows what they are saying.)

http://www.nwpinballshow.com/video/index.php

For a single entry fee of $20/day there are hundreds of pinball machines and video games set to free play.

AWESOME!

-Adam!!!

Um...Ewww

Just got this Facebook notification:

"Warning! Pet Society Is About To Explode! It's so packed with Valentine's Day stuff it could blow at any minute!"

Me no likey.

-Adam

Are you a Hunter or a Farmer?

This is my interpretation of a recent Seth Godin blog post as it relates to online social gaming.


The difference between hunters and farmers in the gaming public has been apparent for years now, but only recently, with the explosion of social networking sites like Facebook, have games for farmers taken off as successful. I don't mean just social games like Farmville and Farmtown, though they certainly fit into the category. I mean any game where the barriers are time, patience, and social skill rather than direct obstacles to be defeated as rapidly as possible.

ourWorld is primarily a farmer game, populated with an assortment of hunter games. Most of the 100 or so flash games in the ourWorld arcade are hunter type games. The disconnect between the games and many of the players who just aren't all that into them has been obvious to us for a long time. Changes like allowing basic chatting and other activities to replace gaming as the means to level up have addressed this disconnect, and things seem to be fairly well balanced now, though I believe the disconnect still lingers.

I believe the contrasts between hunter and farmer games are already known, but are being labeled differently and perhaps incorrectly.

Hunter - Farmer
Male - Female
Traditional - Social

Are all three of these pairings the same? In a very, very, broad sense, I think it's fair to say that more hunters are male and they tend to play more traditional games. Conversely, more farmers are female and tend to play more social games. As soon as you start to get more specific, however, things get less clear. What exactly is the difference between a traditional game versus a social game? The two get more intertwined every day. Sure, a lot of girls and women play social games, but lots and lots of guys do as well. Mafia Wars is a farmer game, but not targeted specifically at women (as far as I can tell.) Same for Farmtown.

I think it's a good idea for a game designer to have a clear idea of who he or she is making their game for, but finding categories that are stronger than just "boys vs girls" or "traditional vs social" will make those ideas more successful.

-Adam!!!

Destroy All Critics!

There is ZERO reason to waste bandwidth complaining about the quality of a web comic. I can (and do) ignore most of them without anyone's help. PVP, on the other hand, is awesome, and everyone should know about it.

Back when content always cost money, the purpose of a critic was to tell you what was good and what was bad so you didn't waste your hard earned scratch on crap. That's still more or less true when it comes to things that you can't try out for free. The thing is, there's not much you can't try out for free these days.

With the free model in place, what does a critic have to do? Well, in the age of the internet, a role of critic gives way to that of an advocate. There's no longer any point to criticizing as everyone has access to the same (or at least adequate) content that a critic does, normally for free. The new problems is that of sorting the wheat from the chaff, and that's where the critic/advocate again becomes useful. There's hardly any use for 'bad' reviews these days. I can find things I hate on my own, thanks. What I need is a concentrated dose of what's awesome. What that is amazing would I possibly miss if the advocate doesn't alert me to it?

People seem more naturally predisposed to rant about what they hate, but that's of no use in the internet age. Useful information centers around what's great and why. Provide that, and you're contributing.

-Adam!!!

Pac Man vs Mario Brothers

-Adam!!!

Stubborn as a M.U.L.E.

My favorite game of all time. Suck it, Mario.

The original M.U.L.E. game, on the Commodore 64, is probably my favorite game ever. Yes, I'm old. While I've been able to play it on C64 emulators for years, controls and life in this modern age have prevented me from playing it as it was intended, with two to four real live human opponents. That has just changed.

The new version has got 'it' and 'it' is a big pile of tasty smithore. YUM!

Planet M.U.L.E.

After years of rumor, M.U.L.E. is once again available FOR FREE on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It's brand new, buggy as hell, failed to run on two of the three computers we've tried installing it on, but on MY computer it works like a charm. The game is about 95% the same as the original, and most of the differences are bugs to be addressed in future updates or very minor improvements. The devs say on their forum they want to duplicate the original game as faithfully as possible before adding options that deviate (too far) from the classic's perfection.

While it runs on my PC, it seems like this game really needs to be on Facebook and on mobile phones. It seems perfectly suited to those platforms.

-Adam!!!

I am Dirk the Daring. Dragon's Lair!

There is no question that the original Casey's arcade left a permanent and powerful mark on my childhood. Even now, the smell of freshly popped corn brings me back to the hot, crowded, neon-purple-lit techno cave that consumed so much of my middle school years and so many, many, multi-colored tokens.

Casey's was the Everett Washington home of Dragon's Lair. For 25 cents (all the other games at Casey's cost a nickle, offset by a cover charge.) we could enjoy a visual gaming experience unlike any other. It was magical.

20 years later, Dirk the Daring still has running, jumping, grunting, and slaying to do.

Now that magic is captured on the tiny, tiny iPhone screen, and you know what? I can still smell the popcorn when I play it.

-Adam!!!

It's My Turn to Get the Pizza You Asshole I Need it More!

From Slate Magazine

Et tu, Mario?

By Jamin Brophy-Warren

Wait until Christmas? My wife thinks so...

Jesper Juul, a video-game researcher and professor at NYU's newly minted Game Center, argues that multiplayer games give us three things to balance. Players want to win and they want the game to be fair, but they also need to navigate whatever relationships they have outside the game—that is, if you shoot your friend in the head in Call of Duty, you'll have to answer for that in the offline world. My brother and the jerk from E3 were solely concerned with winning. I mostly cared about the game being fair. None of us, though, sat down and talked about the third factor—what we were planning to do during our journey as in-game teammates.

I recommend the entire article! (Don't worry, it's short)

-Adam!!!

Shut My Mouth, Open My Ears

I've been struggling with how to manage the ourWorld volunteers for around six months. Everyone agrees we should have them, but what they should do (and why they should do it) have remaining frustratingly elusive questions. To make matters more complex, the players really want to be volunteers. Requests to join the program (such as it is) have been staggering.

I realized, just yesterday (around six months late) that what the volunteers do is important, but a distant second to what they are really for. The primary job of the volunteers is to tell me what they think. My most important job is to listen to them, with all other jobs remaining important, but not the first priority. My old strategy for meeting the volunteers' needs was finding things for them to do. By doing that I would somehow take a step towards solving all the challenges of a volunteer program.

Starting this week, listen first will be the my volunteer motto. Listen and act.

Note: Listening is not the same as agreeing. The answer to many volunteer issues will be 'no', but it will be a considered answer, and an honest one.

-Adam!!!

Movie Time!!!!

Once again we're having an ourWorld YouTube contest. If you're an ourWorld player, you might want to give it a shot, as the top prize is 1000 Gems and all valid entries will get rewarded.



http://www.youtube.com/ourworldmovies

For details, see the ourWorld Blog

-Adam!!!