Category: General

[City of Heroes] I have been editing some things on the Paragon Wiki recently (because I am a nerd). It is a useful guide to City of Heroes and Villains, although I am still supplementing it with Vidiot Maps at present.

My favorite thing on the wiki so far is the page of City of Villains accolade badges. These are the ones that give you powers, and the page is a convenient guide to which powers there are, which badges get you there, and what you need to get those badges. I now have a text file for each of my main villains, where badges get deleted as I get closer to having my accolades. If you have not looked at your accolade needs, it can be nice to realize that you can get a permanent +5% endurance for reading a plaque (given what you did without trying).

I liked it so much, I made another for City of Heroes. More text file checklists may be in my future (because I am a nerd). I now have another thing to keep me occupied while waiting for people to get ready for missions.

: Zubon

I’ve been putting in 60+ hour weeks lately, so playing and/or posting has been on an as-needed basis, but apparently I’m completely missed the boat on this PS3 thing. I say this since I swung by the local Wal-Mart on the way home for some supplies to find people on their beds on the sidewalk. Yes, on their beds. I didn’t get any pictures, but I’m considering swinging by before work tomorrow. I had to ask someone inside what the fuss was (I thought they were panhandlers). Funny thing is there was a good 40+ people outside, and the place expects to get 10, at most, with 0 a more likely quantity.

Even when I was single, sleeping outside of a store for days waiting for a gaming system never made my list of stuff to do. Going to assume that’s a good thing. Looking for your PS3 camping/camper stories!

[Second Life] My wife has been asked to make a presentation for librarians at Second Life’s Information Island next year. Yes, real professional organizations have meetings in Second Life. She has been logging time to practice and not be a total noob. Also, she has been shopping for cute hair and dresses, though she does not plan to give her presentation as a fairy or in her new Wonder Woman costume.

Information Island is a fun place to network with other librarians. One had a grant to bring public health information online, so they were discussing information architecture and ways to deliver public health resources. Then one librarian said something about her tattoo and nipple piercings. “Sorry, wrong channel.”

I was surprised that was as risqué as it got, not just because Second Life is a cyber-brothel, but because these are librarians we are talking about. If that does not make sense to you, you need to hang out with more librarians.

: Zubon

I was getting ready to take another forced break from all monthly-fee games and spend more time doing other things, like watching Battlestar Gallactica on DVD, when I opened my email to find another beta invitation. I’m interested in the development of this one, so I guess I’ll have nothing to say here for a while. I’ll continue playing Guild Wars, even when it tells me I’ve played for 2 hours and should take a break. I love that.

Zubon, you have the bridge.

– Ethic

One of the more important economic principles that affects MMOs is called “network effects.” Network effects cause some goods to become more valuable as more people have them. The first fax machine, for example, cost a heck of a lot but had exactly zero value because no one else had one. To whom are you going to fax anything? The value you get from buying a fax machine is being able to interact with all those other fax machines out there.

In online games, the same effect applies to players. The more players there are, the more you can play with. Being the only person at an online poker site is pointless. Being on an underpopulated server means that you cannot get a full group going. Playing during off-hours means the same thing, as does playing a game where you don’t really speak the language.

Products with large network effects either have standardization that facilitates multiple entries or else tend towards market concentration on one winner. Did someone say WoW?

Continue reading Network Effects

Why is World of Warcraft The One? This has been a recurring theme in our little world of gaming blogs and discussion groups for quite a while. Answers have generally focused on what WoW supplies in terms of casual play, soloability, polish, simple but compelling graphics, popular intellectual property, attracting new market entry, network effects, humor, etc. I would like to focus on a demand side issue.

Median Voter Theorem is an important political concept explaining why we get the public policy that we do. I would like to briefly apply that to MMOs, explain why the model is wrong for a market with multiple games (rather than one government), and why it is right enough to produce WoW revenues on the order of $1,000,000,000/year. The short answer? It is what people want.

Continue reading Median Gamer Theorem

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: Zubon

Sometimes you meet interesting new people and have a great time, but quite often you end up on the ground declaring, “I swear to God, I will never do this again.” Until next week, when optimism and amnesia set in and you keep slamming your hand in that car door.

: Zubon

Terra Nova has a good discussion about in-game superstition and urban legends. When confronted by random behavior and rare events, people frequently make up explanations, some of which even sound plausible.

Funny thing is, occasionally they are true. Asheron’s Call really did have a Wi Flag based on character names. In the original A Tale in the Desert, wine flavors were based on the number of grapes that had been crushed in a barrel. In Kingdom of Loathing, you used to be able to change your odds of getting encounters by logging out and back in. Games have all sorts of oddities, which is why a seemingly harmless tweak can cause bugs throughout the game. You are in a non-linear feedback system where quasi-random systems can be based on arbitrary variables.

: Zubon