Author: Zubon

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Network Effect

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

Perspective

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

Comment Spotlight: Cryptic’s Model

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

Continuing Preparations for the Zombie Apocalypse

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

RMT Growing Pains

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

A Letter from Pharaoh

Citizens of Egypt,

Just a short newsletter about a new “social experiment” that we’re about to try. But first, I need to talk to you about “Dunbar’s Number.”
Anthropologist Robin Dunbar hypothesized that there are certain stable sizes that groups of humans tend to naturally form. Depending on the type of group (extended families, cultural lineage groups, tribes), the numbers cluster around 50, 150, and 2500 (upper limit.)
We’re toward the end of our fourth Tale in the Desert (preparations are underway for ATITD V!), but I’ve noticed a pattern in each Tale: Our peak subscriber count has ranged from 1750 to 2500, always about 30 days in, and regardless of the peak, we settle down to a population of around 1100 subscribers (slightly lower this Tale, slightly higher in Tale 2) where we remain for most of the Tale.
Could there be a “Dunbar’s Number” for A Tale in the Desert? If there is – if the game design itself leads to a population of around 1100 subscribers, then growing “the” ATITD community may be the wrong approach – we should try to create a second ATITD community! And if this experiment succeeds, a third and more.
So to test that theory, we’re going to start a second ATITD IV shard, beginning on February 20. I’ll have more details about “Shard Bastet” next week, but if you’ve always wanted to get in on the beginning of a Tale, this is a great opportunity to do just that.
I’d be most interested to hear thoughts on this from those that have been away from ATITD for a while.

On the Nile,
Teppy

Omniscient Morality License

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 Omniscient Morality License

Onion Headline Syndrome

I like The Onion, but I rarely find myself reading much of it because the full text rarely improves on the headlines. You might need to read the first paragraph to see where they are taking the joke, but stringing it out for 1000 words does not add much to the first 5 seconds. (I might take this as an object lesson, but look at me go, still typing.)

Syp finds the same problem with Star Trek Online, I said the same thing about LotRO skirmishes, and many of us have said the same about Borderlands and Torchlight: it is great at first, but there is not all that much improvement or variation over time. (I do credit the two single-player games for having interesting boss fights mixed into the repetition, where MMOs tend to rely on even more repetition, even in tank-and-spank bosses.) I appreciate being able to get 95% of the benefit in 5% of the time. Portal did that brilliantly and then ended.

: Zubon

Non-MMO inspiration banished to the first comment.