Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
General: IMGDC: Celia Pearce and Mermaids
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
Celia Pearce from the Emergent Game Group spoke at the Indie Game Developers Conference about her MMORPG project, Mermaids. Being based out of Georgia Tech gives Celia and co. an interesting perspective on making an MMORPG, and in her talk, she let us know what they were up to.
While attending the seminars at the Indie MMO Developers Conference, I attended a talk by Celia Pearce from the Emergent Game Group where she serves as the Faculty Director on their MMO in production, Mermaids. Yes, that's right, I said Faculty Director. The Emergent Game Group is based out of the Experimental Game Lab at Georgia Tech where they are working on Mermaids, a non-standard MMORPG.
A game being made by students and teachers at a college or university has its advantages. For one, they are able to think more outside the box than other companies because beyond having a finished, playable game at the end, they have no responsibility to investors, enormous loans to pay back, or anything of the sort. In short, the motivation for this game isn't money at all. Rather, according to their website, they "want to know what game rules and constraints account for twinking and other cultural developments in multiplayer games. Knowing how virtual culture emerges from game designs will help us understand how culture at large is affected by interactive media."
Read the whole article here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
I am glad many others are realizing that level based systems place a 'division' between veteran and new players making it so they cannot play together. Also, sounds very neat players can change their characters at will. It will be interesting following this project I am very excited about it.
The author should inform Ceicla that even though City of Heroes has sidekicking- its not all roses. The veteran teams infact usually dont want a sidekick because the lowbie still lacks essential skills. A skill based system thats fairly non-linear would offer a vast improvement over sidekicking if their system allows the player to go 'learn' essential skills. I will closely follow this project sounds very neat
I'm glad you enjoyed the article, and I agree, the project sounds like a very cool one. I'm going to be interested to see where it goes.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Hmmm... interesting ideas, but what is FAR more interesting to me is the production model here. Basically you are taking University resources and Free labor and creating what will be a very marketable game (or could be if they actually complete it.) Perhaps this kind of issue has already arisen in the various other science fields... I know Universities work off grants in their science and medical branches all the time.
But, how would it work if they wanted to sell this game? Do the proceeds go to the University (I am assuming they cannot as they are a public school)?
If this project is deemed "successful" it could be a huge boon to MMORPGs in general, and to the indie dev teams in specific.
http://www.forceofarms.com/index.php
hopefully other developers are paying attention too.
It was interesting to watch the presentation to Mermaids, and there were a lot of indie devs paying close attention. Mermaids may never be released, but you can count on some of the features talked about to show up in other games.
Mermaids huh? Man I can see the character creation now...
Please Pick A Character:
Jennifer Aniston
Paris Hilton
Angelina Jolie
Michael Jackson
You level by getting emotional and cuddling.
This sounds like a wonderful project. Wish i could be in on it.
I would love to see the end results.
"Do not fret! Your captain is about to enter Valhalla!" - General Beatrix of Alexandria
"The acquisition of knowledge is of use to the intellect, for nothing can be loved or hated without first being known." - Leo da Vinci
I enjoyed this article as well. Universities and indies are important experimental grounds for the future of MMOs. I can't wait to see what the MMO equivelant to "The French New Wave" in Cinema will be.
I was especially interested in the commentary about death and combat. I was thinking about this just the other day--why is it that every single MMO has to be focused on death and combat. When I really think about it, it seems silly. Plenty of resource management games have been huge successes in the single player sphere, and I could see such a game translating to the MMO space. SWG had something like this with factories, crafting, and mining. In fact, SWG had non-combat play, and rewarding non-combat play as well (entertainers, crafters).
Damn you NGE!
_____________________________
Currently Playing: LOTRO; DDO
Played: AC2, AO, Auto Assault, CoX, DAoC, DDO, Earth&Beyond, EQ1, EQ2, EVE, Fallen Earth, Jumpgate, Roma Victor, Second Life, SWG, V:SoH, WoW, World War II Online.
Games I'm watching: Infinity: The Quest for Earth, Force of Arms.
Find the Truth: http://www.factcheck.org/
Hi! My name is paper. Nerf scissors, rock is fine.
MMORPG = Mostly Men Online Roleplaying Girls
http://www.MichaelLuckhardt.com
Interesting article, good luck to them.
Speaking to the simulated act of killing as being the primary motivator in most games, I would say its rather more the motivation of what comes after the killing that is used as a action initiator. Hoping to gain something from that pixelated death; be it gold, credits, magical items, or what have you. Its basic psychology, like the lab rat that keeps hitting the bar over and over, in the expectation of a food pellet, or a slot-machine gambler. Of course the rewards are virtual, but it stimulates the same little pleasure response in our brains, "Awesome, I got something, go me". Everyone on the planet responds to the motivation. And despite Pearce's poo-pooing of the profit motive, its also an inbuilt method of customer retention, meaning you keep players playing and paying by continually offering an increasing series of rewards as time goes by.
And I don't get casting profit as motivator for innovation as being something to avoid. I know that in the many years since my own graduation that universities have become even more infested with liberals and socialists, but even while attending the students know in the back of their minds that as soon as they have diploma in hand they'll be out and about and clawing away for a peice of the pie, same as all those who came before them. Without capitalism, exactly how many mmorpgs would we have?
Also, a skill based system . . . how is this innovative? I admire them chosing this over the level based system, but it has been done before. One of the greatest online games ever, the original Star Wars Galaxies, utilized this method to near perfection, so much so that anyone could, in fact, join up with anyone else. And don't even bring up EVE or the Saga of Ryzom, they don't compare. In Ryzom, for example, imagine a newb trying to join and play with someone with even a few more skill points in their combat skills. Mobs even one combat level ahead could trash you. Whereas in SWG, Buke Newbwalker, fresh out of the spaceport, can join up with a team heading to Dantooine and contribute in some small way. It may be nothing more than plinking away with his noob pistol and slipping a downed teammate a shot of stim-A, but it could be done. Or course, that all changed when they remade the game into a level based system, but we all know that sordid history and I won't get into it.
The hand-waving thing. It sounds nice, but if the end result is you casting a spell that another game would give by pressing the keyboard, then what is the real difference? It may, in fact, be hampering certain players, like those with arthritis who have a hard enough time pressing a key, much less having to zig-zag the mouse around every single time you want to accomplish something. Its worth thinking about.
Finally, a word on lack of social interaction apart from group combat. Ever since rpgs have started moving off the table and onto the interweb, this has been a problem. I have 5 book cases full of old D&D style pen-and-paper games, all gathering dust. Everyone I know had started playing Everquest or whichever, and thus for my gaming fix I too had soon moved to the realm of online gaming. Combat is at the heart of most mmorpgs simply because of the inherent limitation of the medium. No more do we sit around the table, sharing Doritos and Mt. Dew, laughing at someone's terrible roll of the dice, arguing over some minor point in the rules, getting to talk in the silly voices of our characters, and all the rest of it. Voice communication, as enabled by the likes of Ventrillo and Teamspeak, has been a step in the right direction, but even that has limitations; I often turn mine off for various reasons: one person is too loud while another is whisper-quiet, someone keeps yawning or chewing food into their mic, or maybe I just want to hear the game itself. Ultimately there can be no substitute for face-to-face socialization, no matter how wonderful you are at programming. By the mere act of spending our free time online, we have chosen to be less social than we could be if, say, we went out to a film with friends or join a club or whatever.
Well, that's my spiel. Sorry if I seemed over-critical, its just my nature. I do wish them all luck with their project, the gaming industry needs a shot of innovation into their collective arms, and this sounds like a step in the right direction.
Graphics look like they need some ...ah....work.
The image above is featured on the frontpage... I can only guess what the goal of this little gem is, but when I pointed my browser to mmorpg.com this morning, I feared that I had misspelled the url somehow and that I had entered a pornographic website
I'm not quite sure how 'mermaids' is a metafore for what I'm thinking when I look at this image.
Or, maybe I'm just weird.
You know, as bad as it may look, I thought the same thing when I first saw it. Then I realized it was water... haha - Terrible intro.
Far more interesting IMO, will be the reaction to a game that isn't based on collecting the most "shinies". Although technically, I guess A Tale in the Desert has already proven that can work.
I for one prefer a skill based system. But for a MMORPG from my point of view, there has to be a reason to play besides socializing online. Go read some of her published papers and you will gain some insight into where she is going and I for one prefer to gain something and not play the Sims online, a game that is all roses, and lets all be nice to each other.
More and more players want to pit themselves against living and breathing opponents as the AI is not smart enough. Alot of players do loose themselves to stats and equipment and forget they are playing a game. But usually that is a young man that is going to school or college and has alot of time on their hands. I play casually because I enjoy the game.
Another poster spoke about the arm animations and I am one of those players that has arthritis and going down that road is not a good thing. I would prefer an open ended animation editor where a play could add customized animations. But really I am not there to use my arms and greet everyone all the time and wave when I can type hello.
Personally I feel some of her Ideas posted in her papers are not for gamers, but more based on her pschoanaylsis of things she wants players to do in a game. I do agree with her and all of you trhat MMORPG's need to change their flavor and design so as some folks state it is not a second job!!
I highly doubt that this project will be a success in changing anything. simply because the whole idea of making a girl based or should i say female kid based game is going in the wrong direction of MMORPG. besides alot of her so called "new" or "creative" ideas have been used in alot of other games, and they are professionally done but still not working very well.
this is not a new project that is trying to change or improve the current situation of MMORPGs in any sense, but more like a project that represents the things a middle aged woman want to see in MMORPGs for her kids.
I don't think the game is too skewed towards kids or females in general. Sure its got mermaids and such but it also has many other cool and somewhat evolutionary things to it. I'm looking forwards to playing as a mermaid AND I'm a 15 year old guy. Cheers
how do you play this type of game im no hacker but how its the year 2010 and i can not find a way to get on please give some advice
11111111 0 1
11 1 1 1
11 1 11111
11 1 1 1
11111111 0 1
11 1 1 1
11 1 11111
11 1 1 1