IBM MMOG Roundtable Rundown

Plaguelands has up a rundown on the recent IBM MMOG Roundtable, with speakers such as Steven Reid, Raph Koster, and Geoff Heath putting in their two cents on the growing massive industry. Krones is not shy about voicing his opinions as regards the speakers and their effectiveness. From the article: "Continuing on, despite my subjective disagreement, Steven Reid; Directory of Community Relations NCsoft Europe stepped in after Heath and he pretty much spoke general edification about mmo communities. His presentation was average, not up to the quality of articles seen from community specialist Jessica Mulligan, but I believe he is well qualified in doing what he does and has an excellent head on his shoulders. The defining part of his presentation on community building is that community leaders should be local and native from that community. This is crucial for many reasons... including the most important, cultural differences." Also includes links to streaming media of the event.

Pathfinding

[ockegheim]

On the tech aspect, something I didn't know Koster mentions is that 40% of the cpu processing is utilized on pathfinding. Yes, fuckin' pathfinding. A fuckin' decade, and almost half of the potential processing powers developers are allocated is used to fuckin' pathfinding. And you know what? Pathfinding is a joke, it could use a lot of work.

I suspect a lot of work has already been done on pathfinding (the optimum legal way for a monster to get from A to B?). An algorithm that delivered a performance bonus and good pathfinding would be a MMORPG's Holy Grail.

Unless the game makers are happy to get people to buy faster computers for poor pathfinding.

Re:Pathfinding

[RaphKoster]

Everybody basically uses A* or variants thereof. The issue is that the environments have gotten more complex (bigger and more detailed graphs to search), the behaviors demanded by consumers have gotten more complex, and there's just plain more AIs to run. BTW, the comment was largely MMO specific. As such, the pathfinding is happening on the server, not on the client computers. You buying a faster computer won't help much. ;)

Re:To summarize

[RaphKoster]

I must say, I have always been fascinated by the different behaviors taken by game fans towards game creators than by fans of other media's relationship to entertainers in other media. Nobody says that Stephen King is a retard because he screwed up an alien invasion novel--I mean, how easy a home run is that? Clearly, we should never listen to a word he says again. Besides, he bears sole responsibility for what he did, it's not like there was a team writing the book.

I'm not whining or being defensive here--I really do find it curious. I suppose it's derailing the thread, but why is it that gamers behave in this different way? Is it because of greater passion? The illusion of greater knowledge about the entertainer? The illusion of greater understanding of the process? Why is the rant considered to be one of the highest forms of game critique?

Re:To summarize

[Dachannien]

I think part of the reason is because there has historically been a channel between MMOG players and developers. Since MMOGs are generally works in progress, players see an opportunity to take part in the design process. Unfortunately, many of those players are motivated only by enhancing their own ease-of-gameplay, even at the expense of other players. Since that goal is pretty much directly opposed to the goal of balance held by the game designers, some players view it as a battle to be fought (a sort of "metagame").

In a sort of dramatic irony, part of the reason that some of the more ambitious features of SWG fell flat is because the players, driven by greed and the desire to be first at something, chose to do things the hard-but-fast way instead of doing things the way the game tried to steer them. They should be blaming themselves for the failures in SWG's design, instead of blaming the designers. It's really the players' fault tht eliminating "the grind" is probably the biggest challenge in MMOGs.

By the way, book authors really don't make a good comparison to MMOG designers. But you may cringe at who does:

Politicians.

All those rants on the official boards of whatever game? They're just the 21st century version of a grumpy, crotchety letter to the editor.

Re:To summarize

[RaphKoster]

I've made the politician comparison myself many many times, so I don't cringe at it at all. :) That tension is interesting, though. We are, in the end, entertainers as well as politicians. Something like the post above is decrying the entertainment value (I think) not the management as such. At least, that's the way I generally read it. I won't pin blame for failings of SWG on the players, nor will I take credit for its many successes (which posters like the above tend to overlook). What's interesting to me is that there's such a desire to pin blame, and such vitriol attached to it.