DAI 627: Design of Virtual Worlds -- cselig

No More Heroes...

2009-03-10T09:53:00.000-07:00

With so many people playing MMO's, there is a trend that is returning to video games. In olden times, characters in video games fit nicely into pre-set molds that determined the overall outcome of the character's design and abilities. An example of this would be Cecil (Final Fantasy IV). Eventually there came a new model where the player would determine the growth and direction of a character like in KOTOR (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic) or Final Fantasy VIII. This provided designers with new freedoms in terms of mechanics and story development. Today, this has evolved into whole new genre of games called MMORPG's. These types of games concentrate on giving the player seemingly complete freedom to develop their character as they see fit. At first this seemed like the greatest thing since sliced Jewish Rye. Eventually a disturbing trend began to emerge: generic character development within the distinctive set types (i.e. warrior, wizard, archer, barbarian, etc.). All characters started to fall within these categories, and the once percieved individuality began to fade. Even Fable (single player adventure/RPG) lacked true freedom for chacter development; every character eventually ends up with all the same abilities and looks relatively the same.

The Bartle test in somewhat misleading. Dispite seemingly differing results, the characters developed by most gamers end up being stale and generic, often comforming to the previously mentioned character types. Since no characters stand out anymore, what is there to define a true hero? This test is telling me that dispite the player's tendancies and intentions, there are no more heroes. Every character is cut from the same cloth and the molds are well worn. What hope is there for the future of MMO's or even games in general?

A Virtual World for Creative Professionals

2009-03-03T10:30:00.000-08:00

Big Idea: A virtual world for creative professionals to network, collaborate, and share work.

Target Audience: Designers, digital artists, and even programmers of any professional age.

Purpose: To allow creative professionals a new and innovative way to network and collaborate with their respective industries and colleagues and get feedback on their work without fear of loosing control of their intellectual property all within a virtual world.

Lacuna: Maintaining a high level of professionalism and decency without restricting the creativity of the users. Allowing anyone to join, but make certain that "griefers" are not tolerated or promoted.

About:
Users will be able to "rent" space in the form of sandboxes, apartments, lofts, or full studios. The users will be able to create content within the world or upload their work to show it off. One big selling point is the fact that almost any data format would be compatible with this virtual world. Users can display their content for all to see, or just colleagues. Other users who view the work can then rate it and leave feedback (similar to YouTube). The highest rated content will be displayed in "museums" (not literally a museum, but rather a space for displaying the work) as sort of hall of fame for all users to see, given the approval of the creator.

Because of the vast compatibility with many varying formats, this world would be an ideal location for collaborative work among industry professionals. Rooms, auditoriums, or stadiums can be reserved for collaboration or performances.

Example:
Several game designers can meet within a presentation room as their avatars, sit down, and both chat and talk about the current project. Once in the meeting the perspective would switch to first person for a more immersive experience. A PowerPoint presentation can be displaying on a screen. Concept images can be be floating on one wall, and when clicked, expand in size and display feedback. 3D models can be rotating in space in the center of the table in a scaled-down view. The user can set his or her personal display for multiple views within multiple windows if needed.

Important Note:
It would be assumed that the target audience would own or have access to higher-end technology because of the nature of their work. Therefore, the technical requirements for this virtual world would be much higher than most already on the market. This would allow for higher resolution images, models, animations, audio and the like.

Virtual World Idea -- The Metaverse

2009-03-03T09:27:00.000-08:00

Big Idea: An open source, free virtual world that is designed to grow and evolve at the will of the users.

Target Audience: Male & female: Developers: 18 - 24, General users: 18 - 35.

Purpose: The Metaverse is blank slate for people to build upon as they see fit. Some users will take on the roll of designer/developer, and others will merely participate in this virtual world using the tools built by those that create. This virtual world will evolve, build-up, break-down, and reflect the people that exist within it.

Lacuna: The design of this world is minimal, but programming and developing is a whole different issue. Creating an engine that is compatible with multiple programming languages and 3D modeling softwares would be ideal, but difficult to bring to fruition. Also, releasing the product as open source, while maintaining a decent level of functionality will be challenging.

In Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash," there is a virtual world called The Metaverse. It's a fully immersive 3D virtual world that has replaced the internet. Think of it as being like Second Life, but on steroids and acid.

I believe this would be an excellent candidate for creating a new and successful virtual world. People have tried to emulate this formula in the past with lackluster results. I believe that others have failed because of one simple fact: The Metaverse is completely user driven. In this virtual world, it is the user that creates all content and manages it, but like the real world, is subject to the basic rules of the Metaverse. Think of these like the laws of physics in the real world. These laws include:

"no build" highways/roads.
no-clipping in vehicles on highways.
users define rules for own property.
death booting/temporary ban.
no weapons of mass destruction.

Beyond these basic rules, the users possess complete freedom within the Metaverse.

Imagine a virtual planet that is completely blank, except for the highways that run along the lines of longitude and latitude. The Equator would be the primary road for transportation with user designed vehicles. Because there are no restrictions of physics, vehicles can be programmed to go any speed, allowing for fast travel throughout the vast world.

There would be no restraints on user content. Anything can be built in The Metaverse in any proportion (within reason and ability). Skyscrapers can reach hundreds of miles high, vehicles can travel many times the speed of sound, avatars can look like anything (not creepy and distorted like Second-Life). The style and scale of the user's designs would completely depend on their computer's ability and thier abilities with design and programming.

For those users who find designing and programming their own content a little discouraging, there would be basic construction sets that people can download to be able to build their own avatars, vehicles, objects, and structures. Since it would all be open source, users would eventually build their own construction sets, thus eliminating the need for content to be constantly built by the admins.

"Snow Crash"

2009-03-03T09:14:00.000-08:00

Trust me... go out and get "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson. It's a science fiction about virtual worlds, conspiracy, and hacking. This book has had a definite influence on game design and the progression of virtual world design since it was published in 1992. If anyone is interested in checking it out, here is the Wikipedia page.

Chatting in There... ZOMBIE!!!!!!!

2009-02-24T10:05:00.000-08:00

I decided to check out this place in There called Hula Gulch because I heard there were zombies. It ended up being a "ghost town." I ended up chatting for a while - experimenting with the expressions and other chat options. After a while we got hot so we took off our clothes. Good times. Eventually we got bored and made our way to this supposedly haunted graveyard.

It turns out that it's just a lame graveyard, with bats frozen in space above it. That is until we got close to it! Suddenly, zombie arms popped out!

Next to the zombie arms was a sign that was exceptionally funny. I had to have spacerdead post for a screen shot. Even thought the graphics turned out to be a little dissapointing, the humor more than made up for it. It actually reminds me of a video game that came out some time ago called "Stubbs the Zombie" by Wideload Games.

"Stubbs the Zombie"

New Life in Second Life

2009-02-16T18:29:00.000-08:00

Took a screen shot of my avatar... I may change it periodically.

Name: Endo Chrome

Better Navigation (Q14)

2009-02-10T09:45:00.000-08:00

Adding a mini-map on the HUD and removing the PC (player-character) indicators would make navigating through Toontown much simpler. Just display other PC locations on the map with a dot, and objectives with some other indicator.

Minimap

Toontown HUD (Q1)

2009-02-05T10:00:00.000-08:00

ToonTown HUD

A: Chat
B: Friends
C: Player Character Locators
D: Book (options & in-game functions)
E: Subscription Link
F: Player Name
G: Health (laugh points)
H: Actions of Nearby Player Characters

Functions of the HUD (Q2)

2009-02-05T09:58:00.000-08:00

Toontown HUD

The HUD offers many indicators as to what is going on in the world around your character and what actions are available. The HUD changes depending on your situation and status in the game - changing both graphically and in function.

The "cow" icon indicates that the catalog is available at your "home," and there is new content available to you. Once you complete this task (ie. go to your home and call the catalog on your phone) the icon disappears. The icon next to it is the friend icon. While this icon doesn't change in appearance, it's function changes as you make friends with other player characters. Even if you can't see your friends, you can open this menu and chat with them, go to them, or make them a "best friend," which is only available to paying subscribers.

Another important HUD feature is the player character indicators that float around the perimeter of your perspective. These "icons" contain the name of the player character and an arrow that points in their direction in relation to your camera's position.

The chat icons in the upper-left corner of the screen are probably the most important in the game (depending on the players personal priorities). They allow you to communicate with other player characters in the Toontown world. If you sign up for the Speedchat Plus feature, then the blue icon will appear. This function allows the player to type in a personal message into a dialog box and when entered, will display above the avatar's head. The downside is that the vocabulary allowed by the software is very limited, often making it difficult to communicate. The green icon, on the other hand, only allows the player to choose words and phrases from a pre-approved list. Though limiting at time, this can be a quick way to get a point across.

Lastly, the health indicator, or the Laugh Meter, is located in the lower-left corner of the HUD. As your character takes "damage" in the game, the meter goes down. Though there is no graphical feedback (with the avatar) that shows your character is getting hurt or even "unhappy," this icon allows the player make decisions based on his or her current status.

Favorite Activity (Q16)

2009-02-05T09:52:00.001-08:00

I have found experimenting with the Speed Chat Plus function is quite entertaining. The chat functions of Toontown are very strict, restraining you to a set list of approved words. If you experiment using alternative words and pronunciations, it is possible to say nearly anything you want.

SHE'S COMING!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!

2009-01-27T13:44:00.000-08:00

this is only a test...