Seeing that Ragnarok Online claims to have 17 million subscribers, I thought it might be appropriate to draw out some interesting game mechanics in RO as a way to generate some discussion on cultural differences in MMO design. Even if RO's reported subscriber base were one order magnitude off, they would still have more subscribers than any current Western MMO. It was as if someone had stolen... my essence." I was further impacted by her pain when the character likeness of her in "Frozen" had an affair with her collaborator: I submit for your comments the idea that the reason many developers have a hard time finding anything of value not only from researchers, but often from their own players, is that they are, in effect, seeing a different world, all the time.

Woot! Despite the nay-saying to my presentation last year at MUD-Dev conference [6.3MB.ppt] *cough cough Raph cough* where I argued that MMOG designers would do well to provide web-based content-development tools to the people who actually create the majority of their content for free (i.e., the guild leader 'hubs' of the social networks on each shard), it seems Sony Online has finally moved on it.

Woot! Despite the nay-saying to my presentation last year at MUD-Dev conference [6.3MB.ppt] *cough cough Raph cough* where I argued that MMOG designers would do well to provide web-based content-development tools to the people who actually create the majority of their content for free (i.e., the guild leader 'hubs' of the social networks on each shard), it seems Sony Online has finally moved on it.

"Someone keeps stealing my letters..." is fascinating to watch. It's somewhat like an open wiki, but with a constrainted set of symbols. You've got persistence, scarcity, a lack of any clear goal, a lot of anonymity, and the possibility for user creativity. Like art, but socially negotiated on the fly. Sound familiar? I submit for your comments the idea that the reason many developers have a hard time finding anything of value not only from researchers, but often from their own players, is that they are, in effect, seeing a different world, all the time. They looked friendly enough--at least, no one had fruit ready to throw at us. It was simply kind of surreal, after reading the comments on TN this past week and hearing other things at the conference about the problems with game studies and developer/academic relations.

The German word Doppelgänger is by first meaning the"ghostly counterpart of a living person." They too may also be omens and images in the corner of your eye. Our avatars in virtual worlds may at times seem our doppelgangers. For myself, those moments lie closest to the end on those rarest of nights: have you too ever found yourself playing too long, holding up your edge of an MMORPG party (team) spiraling deeper into the Heart of Darkness? Leading to those inevitable tiny regrets before dawn. After our "high energy" presentation, the questions were even stranger. Someone asked why humanities research got left out, and we had to say that we couldn't find it to be directly relevant on our top 10 list of bulleted points. Ian made the point, and I agreed, that doing the research for this panel made us think differently about academic research.

WoW is doing more for Quests than is the norm in the industry. The quest system is flawless, mechanically. We will see if the stories are engaging. My own experience since alpha has been that you often don't even realize you are leveling up, because your mind is focused on the storyline you're completing. Finish the quest, kill a few mobs, bingo - there's your level. Sheer grinding to get ahead is not as necessary. This also needs to new types of challenges, e.g. environmental management. After our "high energy" presentation, the questions were even stranger. Someone asked why humanities research got left out, and we had to say that we couldn't find it to be directly relevant on our top 10 list of bulleted points. Ian made the point, and I agreed, that doing the research for this panel made us think differently about academic research.

Casual players have little time but represent a huge population. In WoW, any character class can log in, get things done, and log out, without having to interact with anyone. Perhaps that seems to be a violation of the multiplayer game standard, which is to force interactions by making it impossible to do anything without friends. I rather think there's more to be gained by accepting some player independence than lost by downplaying direct interdependence. There's indirect interdependence, for example - markets. I, for one, am much more inclined to make some friends in WoW than some other place, because it seems the world will not frustrate my desire to act on my own. It doesn't hurt that experience points are gained at a higher rate when you've taken a break from the game for awhile.

I've never used a more intuitive HCI system in a MMOG. It's just so easy. The next candidate launched today. World of Warcraft held an open beta two weeks ago and attracted 500,000 testers before shutting down the sign-up system. [Edit: They have launched with 42 servers.][Edit: 71 servers as of 7pm EST 11/24.][Edit: 88 as of 8pm EST 11/25]. Exit polls suggest that more than 30 percent of the US population plans to skip work or school today [Edit: I'm kidding!]. Azeroth, are you The One?

OK, so maybe it's true, maybe it's not. Maybe the five games are Toontown Online, FurryMUCK, and Yahoo! Checkers, Bingo, and Canasta. But how about instead of pondering such imponderables, all you bright people sink your teeth into Galrahn's argument that game publishers are actually better off licensing IGE than running their own server-side exchange systems a la Sony: I submit for your comments the idea that the reason many developers have a hard time finding anything of value not only from researchers, but often from their own players, is that they are, in effect, seeing a different world, all the time. They looked friendly enough--at least, no one had fruit ready to throw at us. It was simply kind of surreal, after reading the comments on TN this past week and hearing other things at the conference about the problems with game studies and developer/academic relations.

Halo 2 is a conventional multiplayer title, where games are limited to 16 players each, possessions are fleeting, and the world is reborn pristine and untouched with every new match. But the impact of bugs on the social fabric is the same, said Dibbell. "Economy is scarcity of goods and the question of how you distribute them. The Halo 2 game space does have scarcity, and the leader board is one of the only commodities around....