Curmudgeon Gamer
28 April 2009
Gamer Labor: City of Heroes
City of Heroes recently allowed gamers to create their own questlines. I've only played CoH briefly, and my impression apparently was, "Tired engine, bland missions, and large headaches means they likely won't be getting my dough."
Having gamers pay for the privilege of providing free labor has always fascinated me. I've got AWB (Another WoW Blog) myself, and have posted a bit on Thottbot and WoWWiki. I guess you'd have to add Player vs. Player as another sort of gamer labor.
But CoH has taken this free labor to another level by letting players create in-game quest lines. It can't be that hard; heavens knows the quests in WoW and my recollection of CoH are usually pretty boring. "Kill X of Y and get Z from their corpse" just about sums up the typical quest experience, somewhat reminiscent of Matt's and my critiques of a number of games being little more than variations on the "find key, eliminate enemies, exit level" theme.
Which is why a comment like this one from the City of Heroes' news site seems self-deflationary:
What does such a comment tell us? I understood why I'd buy Quake -- for the engine -- and then play mods released for free. I'm not so sure why I'd spend a monthly fee to play user created content. More interesting, though, is figuring out why players would give this content to CoH so freely and why CoH would say it's the equivalent to years of their own work. I wonder why Second Life or an equivalent doesn't play engine to these sorts of adventure construction set games. We've obviously gotten to the point where quest creation is a franchiseable process, easy to reproduce by almost any french frying knucklehead.
Having gamers pay for the privilege of providing free labor has always fascinated me. I've got AWB (Another WoW Blog) myself, and have posted a bit on Thottbot and WoWWiki. I guess you'd have to add Player vs. Player as another sort of gamer labor.
But CoH has taken this free labor to another level by letting players create in-game quest lines. It can't be that hard; heavens knows the quests in WoW and my recollection of CoH are usually pretty boring. "Kill X of Y and get Z from their corpse" just about sums up the typical quest experience, somewhat reminiscent of Matt's and my critiques of a number of games being little more than variations on the "find key, eliminate enemies, exit level" theme.
Which is why a comment like this one from the City of Heroes' news site seems self-deflationary:
We did some data mining of our own, and 3,800 surpasses the amount of content that we, the developers, have made for all of City of Heroes and City of Villains combined. In just one day our users did more than we could in almost five years.
What does such a comment tell us? I understood why I'd buy Quake -- for the engine -- and then play mods released for free. I'm not so sure why I'd spend a monthly fee to play user created content. More interesting, though, is figuring out why players would give this content to CoH so freely and why CoH would say it's the equivalent to years of their own work. I wonder why Second Life or an equivalent doesn't play engine to these sorts of adventure construction set games. We've obviously gotten to the point where quest creation is a franchiseable process, easy to reproduce by almost any french frying knucklehead.
Labels: construction kits, developers, ethics, MMO, modding
--ruffin at 11:18
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[ 1 ]
13 June 2008
Civ MMO, please no.
From a Q&A on Gamedaily.com:
Please heavens no. I realize there are people who play Civ against each other, but it seems to me that "chess by mail" is the better metaphor for how Civ should be played than, well, Quake or an RTS game or, for the sake of picking a non-video game activity, basketball.
Perhaps there could be a Firaxis social network (though I hate the catchphrase) that encourages folks to find buddies that'll play Civ by email, but much more than that and you're creating a substantially different game. MMO does not lend itself to "the fun addictive experience Civ players expect".
And I'll not resist adding this tidbit, which anyone who wrote a post titled Civilization -- should be part of the curriculum five and a half years ago is nearly forced to share.
Quick Update: After reading through Bob's latest silent Sterno on that older post I linked to, above (even though I believe I've now managed to convince him to stop commenting on my posts), let me just clarify that the most intriguing defense for putting Civ into the classroom is that it is the perfect means of introducing the topic of circularity in the development of social mores on the grand political scale. That is, the history of *this* world is reflected in Civ's design, which then seems to "accurately" recreate that which inspired the game. Capiche? Maybe zakk was on to something when he mentioned SMAC? Nah. ;^D
4. I've read about your interest in possibly working on an MMO. What is your next genre of game going to be? Are you going to be making a new kind of game in the future?
[Sid Meier's Answer:] I'm exploring lots of exciting ideas right now. A Civ MMO is a really intriguing idea and we're spending time thinking about how we could make it the fun addictive experience Civ players expect...
Please heavens no. I realize there are people who play Civ against each other, but it seems to me that "chess by mail" is the better metaphor for how Civ should be played than, well, Quake or an RTS game or, for the sake of picking a non-video game activity, basketball.
Perhaps there could be a Firaxis social network (though I hate the catchphrase) that encourages folks to find buddies that'll play Civ by email, but much more than that and you're creating a substantially different game. MMO does not lend itself to "the fun addictive experience Civ players expect".
And I'll not resist adding this tidbit, which anyone who wrote a post titled Civilization -- should be part of the curriculum five and a half years ago is nearly forced to share.
8. What is the most interesting 'story' you have heard from a school that is using Civ to teach students about history?
[SM's Answer:] It is pretty amazing how many teachers around the world are using Civ in the classroom to teach everything from history to communications to economics. We were hearing from so many of them that we decided to create a section on Firaxis.com called the Educator's Exchange which provides a place for teachers to share stories and ideas about using Civ in the classroom...
Quick Update: After reading through Bob's latest silent Sterno on that older post I linked to, above (even though I believe I've now managed to convince him to stop commenting on my posts), let me just clarify that the most intriguing defense for putting Civ into the classroom is that it is the perfect means of introducing the topic of circularity in the development of social mores on the grand political scale. That is, the history of *this* world is reflected in Civ's design, which then seems to "accurately" recreate that which inspired the game. Capiche? Maybe zakk was on to something when he mentioned SMAC? Nah. ;^D
Labels: Civilization, MMO, multiplayer, online
--ruffin at 18:59
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