Terra Nova

Life on the Edge

After six months of feedback on my original whitepaper on why digital worlds and the real world need to be tightly linked, I've written a new article that focuses on the two most common discussions topics: the right to play and intellectual property (new paper here) Originally written for DCC04 Workshop on Virtual Worlds: Design and Research Directions, I ended up liking the paper but decided that it wasn't appropriate for the workshop. However, it dovetails nicely into the many TN discussions about these issues.

Not quite Camp David but...

At the ComWork symposium Julian introduced a catchy proposition. Juxtaposing an image of a group of some of the most prominent MMOG developers with that of the U.S. founding fathers he asked us to consider the similarities. Both groups operate(d) around questions of governance, normative behaviors, how to sustain vibrant communities... basic social contract questions. So I'm left to muse about what we might make of the recent "EverQuest Guild Summit." This past weekend Sony invited 60 guild members and community leaders (note: a lot of these were the hard-working people who produce all that "auxiliary" material like maps, item databases, and class helpers that makes EQ playable) to discuss a variety of matters related to the game and customer service. I remember when I first gave a talk about culture and ownership in EQ several people commented that Sony was so at the far end of things in terms of inattention to customers and "big hammer" solutions that it was almost unfair to see what was happening in the game as pointing to any significant issues we might generally face in the MMOG world. I disagree of course. EQ, like all games, circulate in a broader culture and work with, and through, all kinds of conventions (legal and otherwise). They may be extreme, but they do tell us something important. So here we are several years later and they are holding an intensive event soliciting player input on matters from game structure to service. It's probably no real surprise. EQ players have made some interesting attempts at group organizing (recall the Steel Warriors protest for example). The leap from communal action to "summit" is one we've seen before... offline.

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Coming to a console near you!

[Ed: I'm posting this for Alan Stern, a regular TerraNova commentator and a law-type-person at U.Conn]

Over on Slashdot there's a story: Is The Xbox The Cause Of The PC Gamer's Downfall? While the article discusses "whether the Xbox has grabbed much of the development effort and talent from the PC gaming scene," the comments to the article raise an interesting question. Without a doubt, consoles, coupled with falling prices, a bevy of beautiful games and an ever-increasing load of developers, have helped make gaming (in general) a much more prevalent (and affordable) past-time. Throw in technology add-ons such as Xbox Live and the Playstation 2 Network Adapter and consoles start looking more and more viable.

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Imperial Crackdown

At the recent SWG Fan Fest, Haden Blackman (LucasArts Producer of SWG) discussed SOE / LucasArts’ anti-eBay’ing strategy - but he wasn’t giving much away.

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A virtual world by any other name?

What do you mean by a "virtual world"? While on the one hand, it is unlikely we can (or even want to) pigeon-hole our vast (and exciting) virtual world experiences and visions into neat (and irksome) boxes. But on the other hand, it is still useful to calibrate ourselves, once in a while. So. What do you mean by a virtual world? What are the basic features you require of a "virtual world" to be one. To get the ball rolling, consider Richard Bartle's delphic words (Designing Virtual Worlds, New Riders Publishing, 2003):

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What Have Online Games Done To Us?

"Us" meaning China in this case. This China Daily news story doesn't really answer the question posed by its headline, but it does highlight some of the recent examples of social problems with virtual property and addiction in Chinese MMORPGs. To wit:

On March 6, 2004, a 31-year-old Legend of Mir II addict literally dropped dead after playing the game non-stop for 20 hours in a Chengdu internet café. Soon after this tragedy, a Shanghai online game player suffered serious burns in an attempted self-immolation after the Shanda Customer Service Department expropriated his virtual equipment for The Legend of Mir II that he had bought from other players for 10,000 RMB [ed. approx. $1,200]. On April 11 the first case of online virtual currency fraud, to the tune of 15,000 RMB [ed. approx. $1,800], was exposed by Dalian police.

Interesting reading -- there is also some discussion of cheating, rogue servers, and a micro-history of VWs in China. Again, here's the link.

Everyone wants to be a Jedi

But that’s a problem. If everyone is a Jedi it just won’t be cool anymore - and just think about what will happen to the eBay prices.

SOE / Lucas Arts' way round this is the biggest buzz here at the SWG Fan Fest right now.

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Virtual Real Estate Story Resonates

I would have let this go without posting on it, but the amount of pickup has been extraordinary. Reuters reported yesterday on Second Life's virtual real estate sales. It is a pretty good survey of the last few months as well good coverage of Gaming Open Market and comments from a SL land baron. It's been picked up by /., cnn.com, usatoday.com, msnbc.com and others. The concept of virtual real estate resonates with people in a really powerful way.

American Psychiatric Association Joins the Fray

A week or two ago (okay, confession: I am delinquent on blogging this), Kurt Squire & I participated in an 'issues workshop' at the annual conference of the American Psychiatric Association entitled 'OnlineVideogames: Psychopathological or Psychotherapeutic?' I was surprised to find that this was the first time the topic has been formally broached by APA clinical psychiatrists, especially given the amount of air time (and anxiety) given it by the industry (e.g., Damon Watson's session at GDC this year entitled 'Massively Excessive: Addiction or Irresponsibility?'). Either way, these folks may very well be the new face of the movement to 'medicalize' the issue of mmoging.

Here's a barebones (mildly editorialized) overview...

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Nomic World: By the Players, For the Players

Clay Shirky, god of group interactions and social software, has posted an essay on governance in VWs/MMOGs that came from his presentation at the State of Play conference. In the paper he asks "What would happen if we wanted to build a world where we maximized the amount of user control? What would that look like?" It's a fascinating question, especially in light of the on-going control issues of game developers (compare Second Life's ceding of control to their users, with the crackdowns on eBaying that are in the news these days).

ComWork Pix

Gonzalo Frasca and Mirjam Eladhari have posted some great pictures from the Com Work symposium at ITU Copenhagen, where four of our Terra Novans presented and six attended. Link, link, link. Quite a fine, happy, healthy-looking bunch of 1337 VW 5ch0l4rz...

Ren's previous coverage here, here, here.

PvP and MMORPGs: a case of timidity?

Are PvP MMORPGS more fun? Do they ultimately make better business sense? Recent TN discussions seem to circle, vulture-like: "Griefing(too much of a good thing?)", "NPCs (if they weren't so busy as rubbish...)", and even (obliquely): "Addiction (is avatar suicide brinksmanship just a perverse variant?)."

Discussion earlier this year on Gamemethod frames the two schools of thought (pro and con) thusly:

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Field trip to Avalon

With Fizik's permission I've posted screen shots from my recent tour of Avalon in Second Life.

The first three shots show the Mrs. Jones clothing gallery. An avid Mrs. Jones collection wearer was nice enough to model a few pieces for me. And yes, most of them would give the wearer very unusual tan lines in RL ;)

The remaining images relate to Avalon's artists in residence. They have living quarters and a sculpture garden with some interesting pieces. The most intriguing one is a cat surrounded by a flock of birds. It looks like a still sculpture, but Fizik told me it's actually a moving sculpture with an extremely slow motion setting. You can't see the sculpture moving but every time you come back it's progressed to a different position. The early 20th century Italian futurist movement lives on in 2L.

I didn't really get a shopping mall vibe from Avalon. The Mrs. Jones gallery was definitely commercial in the sense that there were logos and products prominently placed throughout, but it felt more like a funky SoHo boutique than your average American mall.

Synthespians

NPCs are rubbish. They are simplistic vending machines that lack the sophistication of even the simplest natural language processing system. Over on MUD-DEV Amanda Walker recently proposed a tangential solution..

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Virtual Worlds: Good For Our Health

Four years ago, Bill Joy warned that some of the most exciting new technologies on the horizon - genetic engineering, nanotechnology, robotics - could kill us all. That horizon has gotten appreciably closer, and Larry Lessig has recently reminded us of the dangers. He also put them in the context of contemporary international relations, which, obviously, don't offer much solace about the chances that a disaster will actually happen. In a sure sign we really should think about it all, insurance companies have even begun to hedge the costs. Lessig's analysis of the situation suggests that no police powers, however intrusive, could possibly protect us. GNR technologies will be well within reach of small, otherwise unremarkable groups of dedicated killers. And if we can't control the killers, it seems, our only option is to reduce their incentive to kill us. That's becoming a tough row to hoe.

I'd like to argue for a third option: Run away. Run away into the comparatively safe haven of virtual worlds.

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