I was curious about how the 100+ comment post affected our readership numbers. Yep, double the number of readers on Friday and over 1,000 unique views. I was surprised, however, that it is not winning on the month. Ravious’s latest Guild Wars 2 post is about 50% higher, despite only having 4 comments; his posts that are actually news consistently get a lot of hits. The winner, though, apart from the front page itself? “A Fable,” a year and a half old, but still periodically rocketing up our stats whenever it has a big day on StumbleUpon. “Game Developers and Porn Stars” also keeps getting hits, largely on the strength of search keywords. Sorry if you were one of the hundreds looking for “game porn,” “game porno,” “porn game,” “games porn,” or “porn games.”
This is also the first time I have not seen Ethic’s Asheron’s Call 2 closing ceremonies in the top 10. People may finally be emotionally moving on from AC2. I never did make that Lugian Tactician.
: Zubon
The network effect is one of those critically important, foundational concepts needed to discuss the success or failure of multiplayer games intelligently, one that gets more “what?” reactions than it should. I’m hoping people know it but perhaps not by that name; knowing it by name lets you tap a century of research and discussion rather than re-inventing the wheel.
The idea is that adding someone to a network creates value for everyone else. If you have no friends on Facebook, it is just a platform for solo Farmville. Every additional user creates additional potential value for every other user. In many of our online games and social network, the primary value we are seeking is that connection with other users. It is not just that users create content; users are the content.
Continue reading ‘Network Effect’
A friend of mine has dolls that she treats as children. They each have personalities, wardrobes, adventures, etc. She posts about them on the assorted social networking sites. I sometimes find this odd until I remind myself that we are doing the exact same thing, probably for more hours per day, only our dolls our imaginary, digital, and gated behind a monthly fee.
: Zubon
I was going to try a positive spin on Cryptic’s approach, but Sente covered it, so let’s pull that up from the comments:
The philosophy that Cryptic has applied here is one that is “player-driven development” in the sense that feedback from the players should drive much of the development of the game.
I think it is a nice idea and also something that puts less risk into the project, which I think is needed for MMOs. But going with a traditional subscription-based model topped with an item shop does not fit that well into this approach to development.
The offerings of 6 month/12 month/lifetime subscriptions for STO and CO is also something that does not quite rhyme well with this development approach.
Given the choice if Cryptic should have spent 2 years or 5 years developing STO I definitely prefer the current approach of 2 years. But it is not fair to ask customer to pay to wait for them to develop what initial player feedback might indicate.
I forgot at which blog I read a little model showing moving “release” a few steps earlier in several waves of “fix bugs and add content” (link it [thanks!] if ya got it). Of course, a downside is if an entire system fails. City of Heroes underwent massive overhauls to basic systems in years of beta, such as back when Origins were very important rather than 98.72% decorative. If you decide that your entire combat system needs to be re-done, there are few positive synonyms for “NGE.” If they decide in 2011 that Champions really should have been class-based, that is hard to graft on top.
: Zubon
As gamers, you have likely slaughtered thousands if not millions of the virtual undead. We celebrate your preparedness. Daniel Lakeland has modeled several zombie apocalypse scenarios using rigorous statistical methods, and he estimates that we may need as many as 4 “elite zombie hunters” per 10,000 population to make up for the general apathy and lack of education concerning the zombie threat. Be ready to take your honed skills to the streets, for you may be all that keeps the death cry of humanity from being “Braaaaains.”
: Zubon
Hat tip: Gelman
This weekend is double-xp and welcome back in City of Heroes/Villains. Issue 17 is not live yet. The free time starts Thursday, but get your download done in advance because waiting on updates is not fun.
: Zubon
Ethic is too modest and shy to announce his foresight, but he picked up some Gods and Heroes pre-order boxes on the cheap after it was canceled. He gave me one, which I have kept in my desk drawer so I would be ready for the fateful day that has arrived.
: Zubon
I am so quitting this game when Dawn comes out.
The pay shop model is very visibly in the process of learning painful lessons. This is a joke. This is a debacle. Cryptic did a last-minute emergency abort on the planned debacle of charging a subscription fee for a game lacking in content then putting all the new content in the cash shop.
I watched Cryptic pull beta content from STO to add it to the cash shop, and I couldn’t even be bothered to snark on it. Not even “fail.” You just shake your head and walk away, you know?
: Zubon
Four years ago today, American Vice President Dick Cheney demonstrated that friendly fire is turned on in meatspace. No word yet on how Vice President Biden plans to celebrate the anniversary.
Whether to include friendly fire is a powerful factor in games. MMOs tend to exclude it because of the great potential for griefing, while many FPS games keep it. Planetside is the intersection of those two, and I still clearly recall a night when one guy went on a team-killing spree. It took a long time for that TK penalty to build up enough for his allies to be able to fight back without suffering penalties themselves. Take the current WoW AE damage fests in random dungeons and imagine if Blizzard turned on friendly fire for just an hour without telling anyone; would you ever run with a Paladin tank again? Continue reading ‘Karma Houdini’
