March 31, 2005
Posted by Andrew Phelps
Everquest, it appears, still has a thing or two to teach us about online worlds. It has begun the process of, if not dying, then at least no longer growing. New games such as EQ2, World of Warcraft, and others have taken significant chunks of the player-base away from Norrath. New technologies make EQ1 look tired, and dated. Even with the new graphic updates, people’s avatars still look old, the community is tired, and somewhat jaded, compared to the original sense of wonder that I remember on my first run from Freeport to Qeynos (the name of which is an inside joke from the original development at 989 studios, the likes of which don’t seem to appear anymore).
So with all that, you get the sense that perhaps people aren’t as invested in their digital personas as they once were. But then something happens that awakens the tiger, that releases the pent up angst of people that have long since seemed to lie still.
Sony is merging the servers together, and the social lessons are.. shall we say, unexpected in their intensity…
...continue reading.
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March 7, 2005
Posted by Andrew Phelps
Well, it is Spring again, and with it another GDC. This year the whole thing picked up and moved to San Francisco - so everything seems a little bigger, and a little grander than the old haunts of San Jose. I’m sitting here in the press room as lots of folks are checking in, among them Justin Hall from over at Game Girl Advance. Several familiar faces.
Ben Sawyer opened the Serious Games Summit today with an interesting exercise: everyone take a sticky that has on it one of about a thousand government agencies, along with the mission statement for that agency. Come up with a game that helps describe the purpose or mission of that organization. Easy enough, perhaps, for the CIA or the Department of Transportation : but how well can you make a game that describes the purpose of all of the government officies? There were things on that list I don’t think anyone even knew existed…
There aren’t any huge public announcements on anything yet, as the ‘real show’ (ie the tradefloor) doesn’t open until Wednesday - Monday and Tuesday are tutorials and training, except for the SGS. If anything pops up though, I’ll post it here.
More to come as GDC continues!
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Andrew Phelps is an assistant professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, in Rochester, NY. He is the founding faculty member of the Game Programming Concentration within the Department of Information Technology and his work in games programming education has been featured in The New York Times, CNN.com, USA Today, National Public Radio, and other publications. Email: amp-at-it.rit.edu
