MMO – Page 3 – Ciaran Laval

December 29, 2014December 29, 2014

2014 Reviewed Part 1 : January To June

In this post I will review 2014 from a largely virtual world perspective for the months January to June. This is part 1 of 2 as part 2 is still a work in progress but will hopefully appear tomorrow. I’ll combine both posts into another post for easier future reference once they are both completed. These posts will miss lots of big and interesting stories because the nature of the beast demands some brevity. These post may well look longer than they actually are at first glance because of images and pictures. The aim of posts such as these are to give a brief overview of the year, rather than an in depth review. An in depth review is too long for a blog post, it may make for an interesting book.

Anyway, on with the show, as they say.

January

January started with a look back to 2013 and the number of private region losses. The scores on the door from Tyche Shepherd displayed a slow down on the number of regions leaving the Second Life grid, something that would continue during 2014.

2012 Net Private Region Losess – 2865 (12.0%)
2013 Net Private Region Losses – 1719 (8.2%)

The virtual world of Kitely moved to a different pricing model which largely did away with the pay by the minute options as these had not been popular.

Blackened Mirror poster should be here — The Blackened Mirror Poster

Season 2 of The Blackened Mirror was taking a mid-season break but would return by the end of January. The show was recorded in Second Life.

Linden Lab were Raising The Roof : The HTTP Project. This project, which had started in 2012 was aimed at improving HTTP communications to improve the end user experience. Linden Lab would continue working on improvements during the year.

Second Life users were getting frustrated by tax and account information requests from Linden Lab. They would continue to be frustrated by these requests throughout the year despite Linden Lab improving their communications and information on these issues.

Second Life got a mention in the comedy show, 2 Broke Girls.

Then came the storm to warm up many a chilly January evening, Cloud Party announced that they would be closing their virtual doors on February 21st.

This was quickly followed by even more news to warm up January, Aston Villa fan and Linden Lab CEO, Rod Humble, was leaving Linden Lab. This created a Twitter storm.

Continue reading “2014 Reviewed Part 1 : January To June”

November 12, 2014

The Iron Horde Are Coming But I won’t Be Battling Them

Warlords Of Draenor. Blizzard’s fifth expansion in the World Of Warcraft series launches tomorrow and in typical Blizzard style, they have launched a mightily impressive PR campaign with Videos, storylines, social media hype and a very angry looking ride in a New York Cab!

Blizzard really are an impressive company when it comes to publicity, their cinematic trailers are superb and one wonders if they’ve ever considered extending those trailers into a longer series on their own, although I’d imagine they are damn expensive to make.

Warlords Of Draenor takes a step back in time to create a new timeline and the rise of the Iron Horde to bring new chaos to Azeroth.

There are obviously going to be new quests, new places to explore, new dungeons, an increased level cap and more. Despite all this and despite the buzz I’m seeing around certain circles, I won’t be participating.

Continue reading “The Iron Horde Are Coming But I won’t Be Battling Them”

November 11, 2014November 12, 2014

Ebbe Altberg At Endgadget Expand NY – Virtual Reality Beyond Video Games

The Endgadget Expand NY event this weekend saw Ebbe Altberg going coast to coast as he participated in a panel discussion : Back To Reality VR Beyond Gaming. This panel discussion saw Ebbe joined by Matterport’s Matt Bell and BeAnotherLab’s Marte Roel and has been summarised on Endgadet itself in an article entitled : Virtual reality has a future beyond video games, and it’s already started.

The discussion has also been discussed, eloquently, in detail and with great analysis by Inara Pey in an article entitled : Beyond gaming: looking at VR with Ebbe Altberg and others.

The panel was hosted by Ben Gilbert of Endgadget who introduced Ebbe Altberg as “The CEO Of Linden Lab, who you might have heard of from Second Life and other fun products.” This sort of introduction is exactly why I thought Rod Humble was on the right track in terms of expanding Linden Lab’s portfolio. Second Life should really be a tag line of Linden Lab, not the other way round. However it does emphasise yet again the sway that Second Life has in terms of its name.

Host Ben Gilbert then earns cheers from the virtual world fanbase when he says that the people on the panel are not making video games. You see, some people do understand the difference between virtual worlds and games! Ben also earns some bonus points for realising it’s Linden Lab, not Linden Labs. However he only found that out on the same day of the discussion.

Ebbe indicates that beta testing of Linden Lab’s new virtual world may start around the middle of next year, so watch that space. Ebbe also talks up Second Life well discussing use cases such as education, art and entertainment as well as talking of the economic model and how Linden Lab allow users to create the content.

Ebbe makes a good point about lines between the virtual and real worlds when host Ben Gilbert brings up the issue of the lack of the sense of smell in virtual reality. Ebbe feels there are pro’s and cons and that it’s not about reaching equality between the two spaces. That’s a very important point because I feel some people feel virtual reality will lead to some people being lost in the machine but I really can’t see the feared level of immersion some have being an issue for eons, certainly not in this generation of VR.

Continue reading “Ebbe Altberg At Endgadget Expand NY – Virtual Reality Beyond Video Games”

October 3, 2014

Intel Give In To The Baying Mob But Don’t Make Gamer A Dirty Word

Hamlet Au over at New World Notes reports that Intel have pulled their adverts from Gamasutra in a new round of nonsense in the ever mounting pile of cack that is #GamerGate. Hamlet also suggests that this is an anti feminist campaign, which I don’t actually agree with because there’s far more to this than misogyny. Unfortunately too much of this issue is buried so deeply in that pile of cack that it’s hardly likely to see the light of day.

Intel, a company known for its processing power, don’t seem to have applied much processing power to their decision. Intel will now be faced with another angry mob, complete with torches and pitchforks, criticising their decision. The central issue of this latest round of dispute is Leigh Alexander’s Gamasutra article : ‘Gamers’ don’t have to be your audience. ‘Gamers’ are over. Intel should have shown some backbone here and let their adverts stay and I say this as someone who thinks that Leigh Alexander’s article was bloody awful, but I’ll most definitely defend her right to post the article.

The problem I have with Leigh’s article is that she goes at the subject matter with a ten ton hammer, swinging wildly and mostly missing the target whilst upsetting a lot of innocent bystanders. This is at the very least unhelpful and in many ways it’s adding more cack to the ever mounting pile of cack.

Leigh does make some good comments and amongst them is this one :

When you decline to create or to curate a culture in your spaces, you’re responsible for what spawns in the vacuum.

However what Leigh’s article also does is go some way to creating something monstrous. There’s nothing wrong with the term ‘Gamer’. I’m a gamer, I’ve been playing games going back to the days of Manic Miner, Horace goers Skiing and Sabre Wulf. This reminds me, Elite passed its 30th birthday in September, which is rather scary. Where was I? Oh yes, the creation of the gamer golem. This needs to stop, for the good of everyone.

Continue reading “Intel Give In To The Baying Mob But Don’t Make Gamer A Dirty Word”

September 24, 2014

Blizzard’s Decision To Cancel Titan Should Sound A Warning Bell For Linden Lab

Hamlet Au over at New World Notes has a blog post about Blizzard’s decision to cancel Titan. Titan was a planned new MMO from Blizzard, a long rumoured new MMO, indeed seven years long and it never seemed to see the light of day but it was supposed to be the next big thing.

Hamlet’s article has a link to a Polygon post on the same issue : Blizzard cancels its next-gen MMO Titan after seven years. That article has some great quotes from Blizzard’s co-founder and CEO Mike Morhaime and Blizzard’s senior vice president of story and franchise development, Chris Metzen. Linden Lab should pay careful attention here to what is being said and what has happened. Mike Morhaime is quoted as saying :

We had created World of Warcraft, and we felt really confident that we knew how to make MMOs, So we set out to make the most ambitious thing that you could possibly imagine. And it didn’t come together.

Linden Lab have created Second Life and I’m pretty sure that they feel really confident on how to make virtual worlds. They have now set out to make the most ambitious virtual world that one could possibly imagine, but will it actually come together?

Chris Metzen is quoted as saying :

We were losing perspective and getting lost in the weeds a little. We had to allow ourselves to take that step back and reassess why the hell we were doing that thing in the first place.

Linden Lab need to ensure that they don’t find themselves in this position with their future virtual world, that they don’t find themselves making something that isn’t fun, that isn’t really progressing how they would like it to and that might not be worth their time at the end of the day.

Then there’s the World Of Warcraft factor. World Of Warcraft may be in decline but it’s still quite healthy. The same can be said of Second Life. Chris Metzen confirmed that Blizzard will continue to support World Of Warcraft, indeed he goes further and says :

My hope personally is that we’ll support it forever

Linden Lab have said that they will continue to support Second Life, I’m sure there are people at the lab who hope they will support Second Life forever.

Continue reading “Blizzard’s Decision To Cancel Titan Should Sound A Warning Bell For Linden Lab”