Category: General

General

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Tamagotchi Craze

KTReuters – Teh Internet 1996

Today Bandai of Japan has released their flagship digital pet they call the Tamagotchi.  A spokesperson for the company said that they believe that most schoolchildren will be playing with the small handheld game by Christmas.  The game itself allows the player to interact with a virtual pet that the player can grow, feed, and teach.  The controls and game are simple, but can allow for hours of fun according to the creator Akihiro Yokoi.  Bandai stocks went through the roof with the projection that 70,000,000 Tamagotchi products will be sold in just over ten years.

This caused somber news throughout the handheld game industry.  Nintendo, the company known for its popular Gameboy system declined official statement.  However, a businessman speaking on condition of anonymity said that if the Gameboy could sell even a fraction of the amount of Tamagotchi’s sales it would make money hand over fist.  The businessman refused to discuss whether the rumors of Nintendo planning on ditching its Gameboy line for a Tamagotchi-esque product were true.

This reporter, during the time traveling session, noted that in the reporter’s classroom of 26 students nearly two thirds of the students owned a Tamagotchi game or a similar knockoff.  Only 4 students owned Gameboys.  With reports like these coming from the children who will shape the future, it is clear that the future of handheld gaming is Tamagotchi.  Now back to your regularly scheduled time.

–Ravious
plutonium is available in every corner drug store

Early, Middle, Late

For a game that depends on a stream of income from subscribers or RMT shoppers, the first hour of play must be the top development priority. This is where you hook players. After that, the endgame is important because that is where your players will be spending time indefinitely and where your game’s chatter will come from in the long run. Next is the early game, when you build momentum. The mid-game has already fallen this far down the list, as you have certainly seen in a lot of MMOs, and frankly few care much how good the late-game is because they are already fully committed and racing for the end-game.

I stand by my repeated claim that optimizing the new player experience is of paramount importance. You must grab my attention within five minutes, and you must deliver a satisfying hour or two for my first play session. Without that, any free trial is worthless, and you may even lose some people who have thrown down $50 for a box. This is the part of the game that every single player will see on every single character, and if you cannot do a good job here, I have no hope for the rest of the game. Yes, it is hard to make things interesting while giving the player only a few buttons to play with. Suck it up, we all have hard parts in our jobs. That’s why they pay us. Continue reading Early, Middle, Late

rand(Kindness)

It’s the end of random week.  It was a good one with a guest post on managing community expectations, thoughts on MMO biological conditioning, random raid poop and balls, and I even got to sneak in an article on food.  I actually had trouble for the closing post.  Should I do a puzzling haiku?  How about writing in an errant random matter?  I could’ve started an all out attack against other blogs to find my nemesis.  It’s Friday after all.  All blogger sins are forgiven on this day.  I had considered a post on random acts of kindness yesterday afternoon, but Suzina’s latest post cemented the decision.  It is nice, after all, to have some synergy on our blogomerate.

Continue reading rand(Kindness)

I bought WOW gold

I have a confession that I’m a little embarrassed about. Yes, you guessed it, I’ve been playing WOW. I haven’t been spreading that around too much, because of the stigma associated with it. I imagine the next time someone yells at me to “Go back to WOW”, it might actually sting a little. But that’s not what this blog entry is about. Really, this is about someone reacting to me purchasing gold.

Continue reading I bought WOW gold

rand(Developer Droppings)

(I asked Dan Gray if he would want to touch on the subject of random developer updates.  He was kind enough to oblige, and here is his great contribution to random week. –Ravious)

In the age of 140 character communication it’s becoming standard practice for developers to tease their audience with sporadic tidbits of information, be that through Twitter, forums, or other mediums. It’s guerrilla warfare tactics in the fight against stagnation, but just how effective are these seemingly random ‘micro-updates’? A sincere effort to maintain a more responsive and fluid relationship, or just the easiest solution to a tricky problem?

To me, any effective communication strategy revolves around the ability to manage expectations. Everything you say or do is weighed against past events, and evidence that you are reneging on a precedent or accepted belief will always upset someone. Recognizing how these expectations are built is crucial, because they have just as much impact on the reaction to a message as the message its self.

Any form of communication will earn you an overwhelmingly positive response in the beginning, simply because it is unexpected. Whether it’s the first developer blog, the first post on a fansite, or the first tweet, the community’s reaction will always be encouraging. It’s comforting to imagine that the strategy will continue producing that positive vibe month after month, but of course it’s never that easy. Keep anything up for too long and you build an expectation around it; the stimulating effect fades as it becomes routine, leaving only disappointment when it’s absent. Thus a guaranteed positive turns into a potential negative, and much of your hard work is undone.

So what is the value of these micro-updates? Their complete lack of schedule and random content makes them an ideal candidate to keep expectations shifting from day to day. Provided you can keep the content varied, interesting, and significant it will keep the audience on their toes, always looking forward – never becoming entirely numb to that buzz.

This form of communication is possibly also more suitable for the younger generations of gamers, famed for their short attention spans. Where a developer blog or Q&A transcript might arouse a bit more interest from your core audience, a brutally paired down message will impact a broader audience with much greater speed – provided there’s an existing positive expectation that ensures peoples immediate attention.

So be wary of letting your micro-updates become a drip feed of banalities, just because they tend not to carry much individual weight. With every update you build an expectation that directly influences the impact of that medium, and how effective it is at keeping your community content and forward looking.

This post was brought to you by Dan Gray, author of BiffTheUnderstudy.com

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

rand(Loot Pinata)

As soon as any MMO player hears the word random applied to the MMO genre, as it has been throughout random week, thoughts of the loot pinata spring to mind.  Every time a little dirt weasel falls to the ground a right click tears that sucker open to reveal: a melted candle, a shiny red apple, a handful of copper coins, and a 1 in 1000 chance at a small brown pouch.  Now anybody can gain a few levels and slaughter lower level mobs with impunity, but the loot pinata takes on a revered glow when there is one big pinata for 25 people at the end of a 3-hour raid.

Either way, opening up dead mobs like paper mache is an addictive part of vanilla MMO play.  One lucky kill or resource node can provide a player with the feeling of elation.  This “windfall” granted by the random number gods seemingly puts a spike in the efficiency of time versus reward.  Suddenly the lucky player is beating the system (and other players). There is a heavier term MMO lexicographers use to analogize the loot systems found in the big MMOs.  Instead of a colorful, lively pinata used at children’s parties across the world, these wordsmiths liken the system to a slot machine. Continue reading rand(Loot Pinata)

rand(Gamer Food)

I love food.  For anybody that knows me, I think everything can be analogized to food.  Thankfully Ethic keeps me in check here, for without him this would probably be Kill Ten Rats and Grill.  Well this is random week, and here is my one random topic thinly veiled as a gamer topic.  Gamer food is important for MMO players, especially.  We have to maintain strength and energy through long weekend raids.  One poorly chosen meal gobbled down during a bio break can lead to some unwanted gastrointestinal problems right in the middle of the boss fight. We need mental stamina from good meals so we can stay out of the poop, in all senses.

Continue reading rand(Gamer Food)

rand(Two Step)

Welcome to rand() week at Kill Ten Rats unknowingly sponsored by Leala Turkey of Spouse Aggro fame.  For those sane enough not to have scratched much of the surface of spreadsheet programs or number intensive programming, rand() is a random number generator.  And this week, I will be talking about randomness, choosing random topics, and generally throwing things to the whim of the all-conquering RNG. Sound boy, proceed to blast into the galaxy. Continue reading rand(Two Step)