World of Mana: Multiplatform?

From an article titled Square Enix 2005: World of Mana Goes Multiplatform on IGN, here come more news about the next installment in the Mana series:

World of Mana does exist! Following a tease early last year, all went quiet on Square Enix’s secret Seiken Densetsu (the Japanese name for the Mana series) revival project. Until late last year, that is, when the company revealed that it was working on a new Mana game for the DS. All went quiet again until a few weeks back when it was revealed that a mysterious project called “World of Mana” would be appearing in trailer form at the Square Enix Party 2005, a Japanese event showcasing Square Enix’s biggest titles in playable form.

It also appears that this may span across multiple platforms through multiple titles, too. Awaiting more news about this now.

Popularity: 3% [?]

The Chronicles of Spellborn

Caught on The Chronicles of Spellborn official website, here come the first in-game screenshots. There, a Quarterstone alley lies next to the Mount of Heroes. Check out for more on the screenshots download page.

The Chronicles of Spellborn is a MMORPG currently in development for PC. Said to boast “an original setting and storyline and offering a distinctive art style, the game is being built using the renowned Unreal® Engineâ„¢”. It’s very hard right now to tell whether it will hold its promises or not (I’m used to every MMORPG not holding them completely, so I never put the cart first, so to say), but their approach to conceiving the game, even simply through the artwork, sure looks like something interesting and almost delicate. Going to keep an eye on it.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Heretics Kingdom 2: Revealed?

Found on Chris Bateman’s blog, in the middle of his Where Next With CRPGs entry:

We’re still working with 3D People, and a new Heretic Kingdoms game is in the works. For this one, we’re working on it from the beginning, so we are able to attempt much more. We’re keeping several of the factors that worked well in the first one, such as the simplified healing system, and the Attunement system – although the latter is being improved. The new system is broken into streams of development – it gives the player greater control over how and which Attunements the player learns. In effect, it provides a bespoke class system which the player has control over.

One thing that we’re taking a step backwards on is the character attributes. In the first game, we wanted to keep it as simple as possible. But one thing has become apparent from post-release feedback – the core audience (which is inevitably a Hardcore audience) for these games actually enjoy a little bit of the “spreadsheet full of numbers” – perhaps because it allows them to identify the character in an easy to understand fashion. So we’re providing more of a conventional attribute system, although it will remain simple and accessible.

The next Heretic Kingdoms game will have an open world. We always wanted it for the first game, but it was always going to be too expensive. This time, we can make it happen. The linear structure has its place, but it’s nice to be able to offer the player a world to explore. And similarly, we’re able to give the player more choice as to their starting character. There should be a choice of gender at the very least. We’re also exploring ways to make the world more dynamic… I shouldn’t say too much about this, because at the moment we can’t be sure which elements of this will work.

This, of course, is far from being an official announcement, and the game would still be a good year away or even more than that, but still, it’s something.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Second Life: Win a Lifetime Account

A lifetime account is a great opportunity – anyone who’ve ever played Second Life probably can tell that it is. Alas, such accounts (that cost $225 at the time, but gave you access to a permanent 500L$/week stipend as well as to a land allocation of 4096 sqm) were only available during the initial launch, and never returned since then.

In the news this week, however, is the announcement on Second Life forums that on July 31st, there’ll be a chance to win a coveted Lifetime Account. How? Here’s what Jeska Linden writes about it:

Finally you have a chance to win a coveted LIFETIME (Charter Member) Second Life Account! All you have to do is login between the hours of 7pm and 9pm PST on Sunday, July 31st. Any Resident 18 years of age or older who was logged in for at least 30 minutes during this time will be entered to win a drawing for a FREE Lifetime Account. In addition, these residents will also be entered to win one of 25 special limited edition Second Life necklaces. Just for participating, all residents (including the teens) will receive an in-world Second Life Benshee, a personalized in-world primitive pet that interacts with other Benshees it meets.

All details and rules can be found in the July 31st – Log-A-Thon 5000 Sweepstakes: Win a Lifetime Account post on the official forums.

Now, if only this wasn’t happening at a hour when it’s… uhm… either very very late at night or too early in the morning for me…

Popularity: 4% [?]

Final Fantasy XI PC Pack A-Coming

Square Enix announces that the Final Fantasy XI PC pack for PC is scheduled to ship on August 16th:

Final Fantasy XI: The Vana’diel Collection will ship for the PC on August 16, Square Enix announced today. The bundle includes the original Final Fantasy XI, the expansion packs Rise of the Zilart and Chains of Promathia, the Tetra Master minigames, and a free 30-day trial to the massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

“We are very pleased to be able to bring Final Fantasy XI to gamers in a much more accessible package,” said Ichiro Otobe, president and COO of Square Enix. “Since the launch three years ago, Final Fantasy XI has constantly evolved, always incorporating the demands of players, so I think the newcomers will really enjoy the experience that awaits them in Vana’diel.”

(Source: GameSpot)

This looks like a tempting deal. It had been a while anyway that I’d been pondering giving the game a try, and if this delay is respected, might as well wait until August 16th and see how things turn.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Video Ads in Anarchy Online

Beginning of July, I was mentioning the coming of TV-style commercials in games. Well, we have it now: Massive Incorporated brings video ads into Anarchy Online:

Durham, USA — July 25, 2005— Funcom, developer and publisher of top video game titles like Anarchy Online and The Longest Journey, has once again broken away from the pack to bring a bold new direction for advertisement in videogames. By working in conjunction with Massive Incorporated, creator of the world’s first video game advertising network, Funcom is now offering dynamically delivered video ads in Anarchy Online. The new advertising elements accompany the dynamic billboard ads introduced earlier this spring.

In Anarchy Online the video and audio ads start playing on billboards or other appropriate locations when gamers enter select areas or zones within the game. This ground-breaking new advertising element has two distinct applications; it can be used to dynamically deliver television equivalent 15-second advertising spots, as well as audio messaging. The advertisements, using a combination of code created by Massive Incorporated and Funcom coders and utilizing technology licensed from RAD Game tools, do not increase latency, interrupt gameplay or gather personal information from players. Like the prior advertisements, those opting for the entirely free version of Anarchy Online will see the videos as a natural part of the city environments, while paying subscribers may opt in to view the content. The first video ads were unveiled to players at the four year anniversary for Anarchy Online in June, and brought fictional video advertisements from the warring factions in the game. Now the first paid video advertisements are in, with Panasonic and Channel 4 being the first companies to kick-start the new era for advertising in games.

Will this indeed not disturb the gameplay? Will this be a problem? I can’t decide whether such ads would contribute to a good old cyberpunk feeling (who doesn’t have visions here of Bladerunner-like streets filled with neon ads?), or simply be a nuisance like they already are for me on regular TV. In a Fantasy-setting MMORPG, at the least, this would sure not be welcomed at all, if such advertisement can ever be.

I guess I’ll have to patch and log in again to see and hear that with my own eyes. I have a somewhat bad feeling about this (and not only because Anarchy Online has been the MMORPG I’ve played for the longest).

Popularity: 3% [?]

Battles of Prince of Persia

Ah, Prince of Persia…The very first game I played on PC, when I still was a happy camper in junior high and would be in awe in front of those computers I could only use at friends’, during afternoons of gaming. Still a nice, nice memory.

The game has evolved a lot since then, and according to Gamespot, UbiSoft now releases some information on the upcoming Battles of Prince of Persia game for DS:

Battles of Prince of Persia will stray from the franchise’s traditional acrobatic action and take a mellower path. Battles will be a turn-based strategy game with a card system. Cards are acquired by progressing through the single-player campaign, and they can be used in competition or traded with friends through the wireless multiplayer support.

The story takes place between the plots of The Sands of Time and its sequel, Warrior Within. The prince unwittingly unleashes a great evil, spurring a war between Persia and India. Gamers will be able to play as nine different generals leading their respective armies on their various conquests for power.

Myself, I’m really not fond of “cards stuff”, but as usual with games, this will be of interest to more than one.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Halo 2 Update Takes Care of Cheaters

The announcement of the latest Halo 2 update was explicit enough regarding the policy about cheats, mods and various other hacks – and for those who use them as well:

Q: What will happen to a player if his or her Xbox contains modded content?

A: You will be banned if you are detected playing our game with modified Halo 2 content. Your ban will be from matchmaking, it will be permanent, and there will be no appeal process.
[...]
A: Playing with ANY modified content online is a bannable offense. Custom game types, created or loaded using Action Replay or similar devices, and then played on Live are considered modified content.

If one were to decide to not download this update, the consequences are also made clear enough – no access to the Live Servers anymore. Beware of softmods, too, because they’re included in what constitutes a bannable offense. As the saying goes: “this is at one’s ownrisks”.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Resident Evil 5 Comes to 360 and PS3

Capcom has issued a press release announcing that their Resident Evil 5 title would be ported on both PS3 and Xbox 360.

Gamespot also gives a few more details about this in a recent news article:

The announcement of an Xbox 360 Resident Evil 5 does mark an increasing change of heart for Capcom. Traditionally, the company has given Microsoft’s current-generation console, the Xbox, only tepid support in the form of rereleases of older titles such as Genma Onimusha. However, that changed during this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, with the unveiling of Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance and Final Fight: Streetwise, two top holiday titles that will ship on the Xbox and PlayStation 2 simultaneously.

Capcom’s brief announcement did not mention a ship date for Resident Evil 5 for the Xbox 360, which is due in Q4 2005, or the PlayStation, which currently has a “spring 2006″ launch window. American Capcom reps told GameSpot that they “do not have any further details at this time” on the announced versions or a potential version for Nintendo’s Revolution, which was not mentioned in the release.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Dungeon Siege II Gone Gold

Reported by Gamespot.com, Dungeon Siege II has gone gold, and is now scheduled to ship on August 16th:

The sequel to the 2002 RPG of the near-same name, Dungeon Siege II once again drops players into the magical realm of Aranna. However, this fantastical land is not doing especially fantastic, as it’s been laid waste by a wandering horde of malevolent brigands and years of civil war. It will be up to players to assembly a group of stalwart adventurers to vanquish the heartless bandits and restore peace to Aranna.

Besides the new storyline and a new extensive quest system, Dungeon Siege II will sport enhanced artificial intelligence and a new 3D graphics engine that will power the game’s real-time combat. The game will also support online cooperative multiplayer action.

For more details about the game itself, an interesting Q & A with Bartosz Kijanka (the game’s executive producer) has also been released.

GS: How much gameplay do you figure is in Dungeon Siege II? We know that you can play through the campaign three times, and each subsequent time you start with the character that you ended with the previous time, meaning that the game scales up to become a tougher challenge. Is there any randomization or things that will be different on subsequent attempts?

BK: Dungeon Siege II contains a massive amount of gameplay. The exact figure is determined by your skill as a player, how much you like to venture off the main path to explore, and other factors such as how much you like to spend in the shops to maximize your characters. On average, I would expect the campaign to take 60 or more hours to play. It could take significantly longer for some who like to explore, or for those who like to replay sections. Yes, there is a substantial amount of randomization in the game, mixed in with handcrafted scenarios and boss monsters. One could spend a lotof time exploring this world, and I expect many people will.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Age of Conan : An Interview

Spotted on RPGdot.com (and originally on French portal MMORPGS.info), here’s an interview of Gaute Godager regarding Funcom’s upcoming Age of Conan game. Given the legend that is Conan – in all seriousness, who has never read or even simply heard about him, if only through movies? – carrying all of this to a good ending is a heavy task. From what I’ve read in this interview, though, many elements that seemed to me quite “experimental” could actually give interesting results once the game is finished. I wonder, too, how the dichotomy of the game style – single-player RPG for the first levels, MMORPGs one one’s character is more developed – will be playable; these types of games can be pretty different, and appeal to very different audiences as well.

2) How long will be the first ‘offline’ section in the game for an average player? Will we be allowed more than one character? If so, will we have to play the ‘offline’ section for each character?

It’s too early to say exactly how long it will take, but it will be for the first 20 levels (out of 80). We reckon it will take around 15 hours or so, depending on how good you are and what your focus is. I am not sure I fully understand what you mean by “more than one character� but in Conan you can naturally create several characters, which you can take through the single-player. Since we have four branching story-arcs you can therefore go at it again and again with a different approach. If you can skip this part entirely remains to be seen, but we are working on various approaches to see what works best.

All in all, if Funcom can indeed hold to the promise that their game’s universe will be conform to Robert E. Howard’s creation, this could fare well among “mature” (and Conan-liking, that is) MMORPG players.

There is, also, a certain fun in the idea that one of the PvP will be based on the consumption of alcohol. No, really.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Tactica Online: Clash of Ideologies

Tactica Online is still in development, but I admit I’m eager to see where this one will lead once it’ll be finally available. Checking their website more thoroughly today, I took a peek at the “dev diary” held by Imaginary Numbers’ CEO Luke Carruthers, and this fourth issue seemed to present an interesting take on the “ideologies” that will be available in game:

The Renaissance setting for Tactica Online led directly to the different factions. Historically, the central conflict of the age was the clash between the Church and the developing sciences that it perceived as undermining its role. On one level this was a political conflict between a governing power and the forces it thought could end its rule, but it was also much more than this: it was a conflict of ideologies, between those who viewed the world through the received knowledge of their faith, and those who believed that true understanding came from observing the world around you.

We’ve complicated this by adding magic to the mix. It’s not that great a complication really, because the magic we’ve added is exactly what those of the time believed in – alchemy, numerology, astrology, kabbalah, and the like – adding a third ideology not only makes for a more interesting set of conflicts, but makes balancing each side easier as well! [...]

Each ideology’s abilities reflect its beliefs. Faith, concerned with preserving the status quo, is focused on preserving and undoing things – reflected in its ability to prevent damage and restore lost attributes. Magic, concerned with transformation and change, has capabilities that allow you to modify abilities and exchange effects. Science, obsessed with understanding the world around it, can put natural effects to good use.

I now wonder how all of this can shape up in an online turn-based universe, because it almost looks too rich to be true (at least from an avid roleplayer’s point of view). Combat “only”? Opportunities at really roleplaying (and this, without the player being penalized for not fighting or taking missions during this time)? Both? Heated fights during which roleplayed ideologies clash? All of this? There is something intriguing and appealing in this issue of the dev diary. When the FAQ of the game nonchalantly mentions that The Name of the Rose and Da Vinci’s art were inspirations for the game just as much as Fallout and Jagged Alliance, one can indeed wonder what there will be to see, and how this seemingly growing stack of ideas will be exploited.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Insight On Lost Eden

RPG Vault publishes an interview with Morten Byom, Game Director on Anarchy Online, regarding the next planned expansion (known as “Lost Eden”):

Morten Byom: The main goal is to provide an expansion that will entertain people for the years to come. This will be done through both a varied PvP environment and the addition of new dungeons for the players to explore and gather resources.

There are strong ties to previous expansions like Notum Wars and Alien Invasion. Several of the new features in Lost Eden can be utilized in Notum Wars combat. There will be more buildings added for the AI cities allowing players to harness some of the power that the battle stations will provide. There will also be new ways for players to combat the Aliens and continue the struggle to ensure the humans survival not only on Rubi-ka but across the entire universe.

A bit of game-related history later on – for those who don’t know what Anarchy Online is, or what its universe looks like – the interview itself begins. Some of it will be no news for whomever has followed the storyline a little, but for the other folks, I think it can be an interesting insight on what is to come next in AO’s universe. Orbital battle stations sound like something worth being seen.

Popularity: 3% [?]

“Fable: The Lost Chapters” Comes To Xbox

Remember the bit about “games and morality” published a few days ago about Fable? Well, good news for the Xbox RPG lovers: Fable: The Lost Chapter is definitively coming to Xbox – and IGN offers a nice article about it:

Microsoft Game Studios announced today that Fable: The Lost Chapters, currently in development for Windows and slated to release this September, will also be available in late Fall for Xbox®. Fable: The Lost Chapters builds upon the original best-selling Fable with loads of new content including new regions, quests and enhanced story elements that further enhance the mystical world of Albion. Fable: The Lost Chapters gives players the chance to fight new monsters, use epic spells to obliterate huge numbers of enemies, don new armor, wield additional weapons and interact with friends and foes using amazing new expressions.

You can read the full article here.

Popularity: 11% [?]

No Need For A Pad When You Have A Chainsaw

“True or false?”, one could certainly ask… It gets harder to tell these days, as weirder things have been seen! Here’s indeed one of the weird things: it seems that in October of this year (according to some of the sources), the PS2 will be gifted with a new nifty tool in the shape of a Resident Evil 4 chainsaw controller. Yes, a chainsaw. GamesAreFun posts about it, just like Boomtown and EuroGamer – and they all even have “nice” pictures to show.

Someone definitely left their taste in the lockers room when working on this tool, but this is another story. Let’s say it’s at least worth to know it exists – for the entertainment and snicker that reading this bit provided.

Popularity: 3% [?]

The Loot Directive

Sell is a recent graduate from Nanjing University. At 24, he’s a manager for Vpgamesell, a large SWG Chinese farming center that wholesales to popular resellers. He started off by selling gil in Final Fantasy XI, but his farming days are over. He’s moved up to manager status, helping with marketing and delivery. His many farmers work 10-hour rotations and are paid $121 a month. Sell gets $180 a month and works closer to 14 hours a day because he lives at the office, which is a fairly common practice at farming centers—if you lose your job, you also lose your home. Sell negotiates with resellers online to determine the amount of credits they promise to purchase from Vpgamesell. While chatting with me, he’s messaging five different people and making contracts for 5 million credits for each server per day.

And more, way more, to be read at 1Up.com, publishing this article about “videogame sweatshops”. Where there is money to be made by trading in-game gold and items against real dollars, there are some people who get paid dirt to “play” all day long and farm as much loot as they can for profit. Use of scripts or dupes? Macros and exploits? You name them, it’s likely have been done. An interesting insight on the dark side of the MMOGs industry, from more than one perspective, actually.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Cory Doctorow Comes To Second Life

For anyone following either the Second Life current events or Cory Doctorow’s antics at Boing Boing, this is probably not such a novelty. For anyone else, this might be the opportunity to get in game and grab a free copy of Cory’s latest novel, Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town, which is a particular, bizarre yet entertaining read, with weird characters evolving in a not-so-normal world. In game, or on Cory’s website, where the e-book is also available, although not as prettily as made in Second Life – “made” being the word, given how a “real” book got created and assembled by a handful of residents, and rendered readable directly in world.

E-book or prims-book? Whatever strikes your fancy! Be also aware that on July 24th, at 2pm PDT/5pm EDT/10pm London time, Cory himself will be in the game for an online discussing and signing of his novel. Another reason to go and have a look at Second Life and at its growing creative possibilities.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Demon Stone On PS2

Some information about Stormfront Studios’ Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone, their third-person action RPG bound for PS2. GamePro.com gets hands-on on it for a little review:

One part D&D (saving throws, familiar spells and bestiary), one part button-mashing action (X button is your friend), Demon Stone adds another twist to the action adventure genre–switching between characters. At any time in the game, players can switch between the three characters: Rannek, a frontline-tank fighter, Illius, a sorcerer, and Zhai, a quick-tongued Half-Drow (Drow’s are dark elves, for non-D&D geeks) rogue. Hitting the directional button instantly puts players in the shoes of a different character, enabling you to play to the individual strengths of each character for every level. As the typical bruiser, Rannek specializes in taking on multiple enemies at close range. Zhai with her short swords favors hiding in shadows, backstabbing and slitting opponent’s necks. Illius is the best ranged character, shooting bolts of lightning, magic missiles, and acid arrows. Despite having different strengths, each have the same mechanics–all have three-hit melee combos, ranged attacks, evasion moves, and special attacks–meaning players don’t need to memorize three different control sets.

More details in the article itself. I’m not a total D&D-styled games fan, but this one can be quite interesting to peruse further.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Devs Can Start Working Now

GameIndustryBiz.com reports that MicroSoft has now begun shipping development versions of the Xbox 360 to studios – not as powerful yet as the final product will be, but more advanced than the G5-based ones used for game demos at E3. In fact, the hardware seems to be much closer to the one of the final version, rather than the contrary.

It looks however like the launch being planned for the fourth calendar quarter, said developers will have to work quickly in order to finalize games. We’ll see, we’ll see. This at least sounds like good news, being able to work on more stable hardware than the alpha version.

Popularity: 19% [?]

About the Revolution Controller

Some more from GamesAreFun.com, with a little bit regarding the controller for Nintendo’s upcoming Revolution console. It seems that nobody exactly knows what it will look like – nobody from the public, that is.

In an interview with EGM, Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime said that just because “you and your fans haven’t seen the controller doesn’t mean that no one else has. The thing that I always find surprising, and certainly in the last year I’ve had wonderful opportunities to spend quality time with a number of our key third-party publishers, is when you sit down and share the innovation with them, just how excited they get. I saw it firsthand with DS, we’re seeing it now with Revolution,” he continued.

But since he wasn’t content at just talking up Rev and plugging the DS, he dropped some hints as to the design of the controller, saying, “If you just think about it, we’re going to have the ability through wireless internet to download all your great games from NES, SNES, N64. Think about it – each of those controllers are different. How are you gonna play? That captured some of the imagination of what our controller needs to be able to do, and certainly as you get into the meat of that type of innovation with the developers, their eyes truly light up because they start to imagine what’s possible with that kind of configuration, which is vastly different than a sheer horsepower kind of game.

I also saw some comments praying “No touchscreen, please”. We’ll see what other news will be gotten from Nintendo about this in times to come – “soon” would be nice.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Lunar Comes To DS

GamesAreFun.com had previously reported that Lunar: Dragon Song was being developed for Nintendo DS:

According to the translation, the game is set to take place 1,000 years before Lunar: Silver Star Story. Players will assume the role of Gien Campbell, a 15 year-old who works in a harbor city. He will be accompanied by Lucia Collins (a 14 year-old magician), and Gabriel Ryan (who can absorb and reflect enemy attacks).

More info has now been added, notably regarding the players’ ability to use the microphone in order to directly give commands during combat, as well as release dates for the game: Lunar: Dragon Song is slated for U.S. release this September, a European release sometime in the 3rd quarter, and a Japanese release on August 25th.

The full article, along with screenshots and sketch artwork, is available here.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Games, Choices And Morality

The Toronto Star again, this time with an interesting article raising quite an amount of questions regarding moral choices in games – giving Fable as an example:

We begin with a scenario:

You’re a young boy who has just wandered behind a shed in your hometown and discovered a villager consorting with a pretty young blonde who is not his wife. A few minutes ago you met his better half. She asked you if you’d seen her husband anywhere.

Her husband notices you watching his tryst. He begs you not to tell his wife, and offers you cash to keep his secret. So, what do you do? More than that, what is the right thing to do in this situation? The “good” thing to do? Do you tell the wife, destroy the marriage, and leave just as broke as you were before? Or do you take the money in exchange for your silence? Is that right?

Who knew that a video game could be this complicated, so questioning of my moral values? Who knew that I’d find myself, a man of 24, staring at a video screen, considering the best course of action and contemplating just what kind of man I want my young hero to grow up to become?

Anyone who has spent more than a couple of hours in the past few years getting intimate with a hunk of plastic and electronics will recognize the situation. Such choices and puzzles have become a feature of some of the most popular and complex video games of the past few years. [...]

(Read full article here)

While we’re not yet at games when nothing at all is linear and players can really do whatever they please, it’s true that there’s often a demand for “something more”, and when this “something more” develops, we’re faced with this direct consequence: doing whatever we want necessarily implies that our choices can also be the wrong ones (not as in making us fail to solve game puzzles or quests – “wrong” as in “morally questionable”, sort of). It’s indeed interesting to think of all the premises without black-or-white answers that can stem from such kinds of games.

There’s another hypothesis I could raise out of this. Making immoral choices out of curiosity, to see where the game will take us next, is it wrong in itself? Would it make players, in the long run, less able to make “good” choices – and would we be faced with another wave of “video games makes people violent, and now they make them immoral too”? I may be extrapolating too far, of course. Let’s say that to me, the problem isn’t that improbable.

For the remaining time, I for sure won’t be one to complain about wide possibilities in games. I like being given the choice to play good, neutral, evil and other variations by taking actions and decisions, and not only by checking a box or moving sliders.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Reading Gamers’ Minds

Tom Leupold from GameSpot.com extrapolates about the psychological analysis and tricks involved in the making of video games:

You think you’re playing the game, but maybe it’s playing you.

It may sound a little harsh, but good game designers know how to con the player. They have a bag of tricks they use to push and pull the player in particular directions. And, if they’re good at it, you won’t even know you’ve been had. [...]

Designers use a variety of tricks to shepherd players in the right direction. One of the most widely used is simply putting items of interest in the player’s field of vision. This draws players toward the areas that move the story forward and away from the invisible walls that can shatter the game’s illusion. It’s sort of like a bit of cheese that draws a rat through a maze.

And the laboratory analogy can go further. Like scientists do with test animals, designers can reinforce certain behaviors. If trying something unusual has amusing results, you can count on players to try it again. [...]

I found this instructing and amusing at the same time. Why would this be a surprise, after all? Medias do it all the time in other fields of action, notably in advertisement – and it works. It’s only logical that game devs do what works too in order to keep players hooked and interested.

It’s more than just that, though: the creativity and inventivity people are able to display can be a double-edged sword, for instance when its direct consequence is to threaten game balance by finding a shortcut or a cheat. The article gives an interesting example of how a potential havoc-wreaking problem arisen in Diablo II was turned into an advantage and added gameplay event by the developers’ reaction.

That players get tricked when they think they were outwitting the devs is in my opinion a cherry on top of the cake for both parties; inventivity runs on either side of the fence, and pushes the boundaries a little further each time.

Designers may resort to trickery, but the object is always the same: to create a satisfying experience for the player and forever pursue that elusive quality known as “fun.”

Read full article here

Popularity: 2% [?]

Second Life 2nd Anniversary: Free Accounts

This got announced on Second Life forums (to which only subscribers have access, though):

Second Life 2nd Anniversary: Free Account Giveaway

If ever there was a perfect time to tell someone about Second Life, this is it.

Join Linden Lab as we celebrate our Second Anniversary FREE Account Giveaway! For a limited time new subscribers can join Second Life for free.* Starting 12 AM PDT July 7th, 2005 through 11:59 PM PDT July 13th, 2005 (7 AM GMT July 7th thru 6:59 AM July 14th GMT), simply visit Second Life (http://secondlife.com) and sign up.

Make sure your friends don’t miss this limited time opportunity to celebrate our Second Anniversary!

*The Fine Print: As part of this new subscriber promotion, Affiliate Credits (http://secondlife.com/corporate/affiliates.php) and Basic Account referral credits will be suspended during this promotion. The Free Account is only for new subscribers (only those that do not have a current Second Life account) and is limited to one free account per new subscriber over 13 years old.

Second Life is quite a particular “game” as it is – in fact, to me it’s more about content creation and designing one’s own items than really “gaming” – but, hey, when it’s free, it’s always worth a try. (The basic account is also a lifetime account, by the way; you can’t own land with it, but you only need to subscribe once, and won’t pay any monthly fee unless it is upgraded to a Premium account.)

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TV-style Commercials In Games

Starting this summer, be prepared to see actual advertisement spots in games :

Short TV-style commercials will make their way into the video game world starting in the summer as in-game advertising provider Massive Inc. plans to debut 10-second spots on its network next month.

While this practice is nothing new in games nowadays, displaying 10-second long spots (and not only still images or “cameos” of actual products, such as the smartphone in Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow) may be another matter. Any other aspect put aside, the intrusiveness of said ads may be the biggest problem; it’s already hard enough as it is to cope with the many popups and other intrusive banners we run in every time we visit a handful of websites, but if they’re to interrupt gameplay, there’s going to be a few TV-murders along the road. Fortunately, it seems that this has been so far approached with a certain dose of logics: the ads are to appear in scenes where they’d look like something natural and realistic, for instance when a character walks into a room where a TV set is on.

Some games had already made their players get used to advertisement in context– I remember the ad panels in Anarchy Online (some were fake ads, some were for the game’s add-ons), that were actually more funny to look at than really annoying, as they wouldn’t get in the way and were simply part of the background. On the other hand, we see ads everywhere, and it can and will become quickly tiresome if they get overused in games like they got overused everywhere else.

The interfering with gameplay – or rather, its hoped absence – will likely be the key in here. This, and finding the right balance between nothing and too much, without a backlash occurring in the middle.

Popularity: 3% [?]