Generally after an article is published with this view of Second Life (it being a dull hole in the ground with nothing to do), pretty much every savvy Resident points out how wrong they are.
Dilbert characters are by Scott Adams and ©2009, United Feature Syndicate, Inc. Mashup created under the Collaborative Content License of The Official Dilbert Website terms, from where the above images originated.
The last couple days I’ve been thinking about how various Studio Ghibli films could be adapted to MMOGs, which would work, which wouldn’t etc.
If Lupin III were adapted as an MMOG, I don’t imagine it would be more than a generic Crime MMOG with the Lupin III label slapped on the side. However, given the large amount of source material for Lupin III, I think if the rights were given to a decent studio, it’d be more suited to an episodic single-player game series (with optional small-scale multi-player)- the kind of thing suited to distribution on Steam.
Now we’re starting to get somewhere. The world of Nausicaä is a post-apocalyptic world, with warring nations vying for control of resources. There’s also the flora and fauna that have developed- giving great possibilities for PVE and PVP content.
The film demonstrated the presence of ground & flight mounts, as well as game professions analogous to herbalism, engineering & scavenging. Siege warfare could possibly be squeezed in too.
One word: Steampunk.
A Laputa MMOG would fit nicely into the Steampunk genre, since aside from the “lost technology”, the world seems to be nicely in the era of the Industrial Revolution. If the lore is tweaked in only the tiniest way- e.g. the events of the film didn’t take place, leaving Laputa intact (or perhaps keep Laputa destroyed but acknowledge the existence of other flying castles around the world). Given the size of Laputa and other castles like it, they’d make great end-game content.
Imagine working up your level & resources to the point where you could get a flying vehicle capable of making it through the outer storm (whether it be a small dirigible for your party or a large airship for your guild). Landing on a castle would be one thing, but you’ve got to take into account the other people trying to find their way there, as well as their plans for the castle. Plunder or attempt to take control ?
Ideally, a Laputa MMOG would be structured such that the game could be thoroughly enjoyed without ever having to go searching for a flying castle. Rather than a guild trying to take over Laputa or another flying castle as their player-run settlement, what about player-run settlements on the ground ?
Not suitable for MMOG adaptation whatsoever. Grave of the Fireflies is a great work of animation, but I have very little desire to watch it again due to how emotionally disturbing the film is.
I don’t particularly consider this film to be suitable for adaptation, though at a push it could be developed as a casual title aimed purely at the tween crowd.
Kiki is a troublesome property to adapt. As discussed on twitter, there’d be some trouble reconciling the lore of one witch per town- though I’m not sure if that was just Kiki’s personal preference as opposed to a rule set in stone (I’ll have to re-watch the film ^_^). Given that the core of the film is a coming-of-age story about a young witch going off to train for a year, a Kiki MMOG would likely be aimed at tween girls.
Personally I feel that a Kiki MMOG would be best suited with each town being a personal instance for each player- though it would be nice if they could invite friends in to hang out (said friends wouldn’t be able to do any game-advancing quests, though social activities would be available). If towns were instanced for individual players, it might be interesting to have a shared overworld area- afterall, Kiki did meet another witch in the early part of the film, so it’s a possibility.
This is another film not suited for MMOG development- the film is about an individual journey, and the film is very grounded in the “real world”.
Whether Porco Rosso could be adapted to an MMOG is debatable. I suppose it could work as a small-scale MMOG; There’s certainly PVP & PVE content available within the story (sea-plane pilots for hire), but I think this would just be a generic flight-sim MMOG with the Porco Rosso label stuck on the side.
Like My Neighbor Totoro, Pom Poko would be suitable for the tween crowd, given the craziness of “transforming raccoons”, though the western release would probably try to erase all references to “pouches“. I don’t imagine there’s much room for PVP in a Pom Poko MMOG, though as the film demonstrated, there’s definitely room for PVE- gathering food & resources to assist in the “plan”, playing tricks on the human developers & construction workers, even the possibility of annual events where large numbers of players take part in really big pranks like the parade, or grand illusions requiring the co-ordination of large numbers of players to maintain.
/ The Cat Returns
Pyrii recommended the stories of the Baron from these two films as candidacy for MMOG adaptation- I believe there are certainly possibilities to explore, though I’m not entirely clear on possible gameplay mechanics.
The world of Princess Mononoke has strong possibilities for Asian Fantasy MMOG adaptation; There’s plenty examples of PVE and PVP content in the film. Player races would likely be limited to humans, though there’d be the choice between working against the Gods and working with them. However, as demonstrated by the character of Lady Eboshi, not everything is black & white- it should be possible to have your “alignment” change, based on decisions you make.
Certain areas of a Mononoke MMOG’s PVE content would be less focussed on the humans vs Gods/spirits and more on the various factions found in the world. Inter-faction quests/combat could be mixed in nicely with PVP if player-run settlements/business were thrown into the mix.
I believe this film would be impossible to adapt to a game at all, never mind an MMOG. If follows the lives of the Yamada family- not really MMOG material.
Now here’s a definite candidate for a fantasy MMOG. A fantasy world of spirits hidden alongside the human world. As discussed on twitter, there’s the possibility of either working for Yubaba, or being an independent. Race-wise, the film demonstrated the possibility for humans coming into the fantasy world, and being forced to work for Yubaba (an interesting gameplay element there would be the player character names being forcibly changed by the server (Yubaba).
The name-changing mechanic opens up quest lines to enable the player to get their original name back. Given the scope of the film, this mechanic doesn’t seem to serve much purpose unless you drastically expand the scope of the world beyond the bath house & surrounding restaurants. I suppose the purpose of the name-changing mechanic would be to keep the bath-house area as low-mid level gameplay, with them being unable to leave until they get their name back.
Once independent, players could of course return to the bath house to spend their hard-earned game gold to relax in the baths- the various bath salts giving different types of buffs.
Of course, it would be nice if players weren’t forced to leave the bath house, and were given the opportunity to remain and rise through the ranks, or try out all the different types of jobs. Mini-games along the lines of Puzzle Pirates & Free Realms could come in handy here.
This is a bit of a difficult matter. Certainly the world of Howl’s Moving Castle is ripe for fantasy MMOG gameplay, but I think you’d have to work very hard to make this more than just a generic fantasy MMOG with the Howl label slapped on the side.
There’s certainly strong PVP possibilities (warring nations employing magic as well as non-empowered soldiers), though there appears to be little possibility for PVE present, unless you drop in some entirely NPC factions.
I’ve not given thought to Studio Ghibli’s two most recent films- Tales From Earthsea
I would have to say that the three Studio Ghibli films most suited to MMOG adaptation (in no particular order) are Laputa, Monoke and Spirited Away. If any of these were released, I think I’m more likely to go for the Laputa- mostly because I’d like a change from the general fantasy-fare churned out by the MMOG industry in recent years. As I mentioned, a Laputa MMOG is likely to fit more into the Steampunk genre, and I’m eagerly awaiting access to the Gatheryn beta (I’m hoping it’ll be different than the let-down that was Neo Steam).
Dilbert characters are by Scott Adams and ©2009, United Feature Syndicate, Inc. Mashup created under the Collaborative Content License of The Official Dilbert Website terms, from where the above images originated.
So I’m working on the notes for my presentation at SL6B on Second Life’s history- here are the items I’ve got so far:
Any other events you all would like me to cover ?
Okay, I know oldbies hate it when something floats around about “firsts” in Second Life, but I do think its rather nifty that Metaverse ID is the first plugin for Second Life listed in the official WordPress Plugin Directory!
Currently at version 0.5 (yay incremental improvements!), I’ve decided to push the code to the public SVN server over at google code. I’ve also created a wiki page describing Metaverse ID, that’ll I’ll be keeping up to date with the supported Metaverses etc.
Please file any bugs you discover in the plugin on the Google issue tracker- same goes for feature requests for other Metaverses!
So I’ve decided to retire the swslr project.
I’d like to thank Pyrii, Zai and Gwyn for the feedback they’ve given me on various aspects of the project, and I’d like to thank Ina for hosting the database the last several months!
There are a few reasons I’ve decided to retire the project- some of them are more obvious than others- with the global recession it’s hard to warrant maintaining a project that chews up so many resources (the project db has been disabled several times over it’s lifespan due to excessive resource usage), especially one that doesn’t generate any profit.
Some of the less obvious reasons: I think I’ve learned all I can from working on the project, and there’s not really much more I could do with the swslr project without making it suffer from kitchen-sink syndrome. I’ve not actively worked on the code since the end of last year (aside from any bug fixes that needed committing), so I’d rather not let the project stagnate. The recent changes in adult content would also require some jiggery-pokery in the backend (though not that much to be honest) in order to make sure everything is correctly marked up.
The swslr project was started to demonstrate how SL-centric data could be marked up semantically, and in this I feel I’ve succeeded, largely because (at the time of writing) search engines tend to list content on the swslr project higher than the same content on Linden Lab’s site.
As for what I’m going to work on next ? I’ve had something in mind that I’ve been working on a design for the last few weeks, and with the decision to retire the swslr project I’ll be able to dedicate more time to it.
To anyone out there who does make use of the project (and the related stuff like the region indexes), feel free to contact me if you’d like some tips on how to obtain the data to run a similar project yourself!
Dilbert characters are by Scott Adams and ©2009, United Feature Syndicate, Inc. Mashup created under the Collaborative Content License of The Official Dilbert Website terms, from where the above images originated.
So a friend of mine sent me a link to one of Prok’s latest blog posts- “The Evils of OpenID“-, probably expecting me to agree that Prok is being a raving loony.
Unfortunately, there are some things in the post that I do agree with.
I won’t be responding to all of Prok’s points, just the first few:
1. OpenID is hard to use and misleading in its claims.
I have to agree here. And I’m not talking from the end-users’ perspective. I’m talking from a developer’s perspective.
My SLOpenID project- using OpenID to allow Residents to authoritatively log in as “themselves” has been through three different versions in it’s history. SLOpenID v1 was a heavily modified version of a now discontinued “standalone server”. SLOpenID v2 was a slightly tweaked distribution of WordPress MU. SLOpenID v3 totally abandoned the concept of attempting to be an OpenID provider (which is something that Linden Lab should really be doing themselves).
I abandoned the idea of trying to be the OpenID provider for Agni, mostly because there wasn’t enough demand for it, and partially because some changes in the WPMU platform “broke” the modifications I’d made that were necessary in integrating things in-world.
Operating software that accepts OpenID logins (a “relying party”) is almost as complex than operating an OpenID provider.
The problem lies in that you have to use some beefy math libraries (GMP or BCMath- at least on the PHP platform) in order to bring support for OpenID out of “dumb mode”- some 3rd party providers won’t log in if the relying party is stuck in “dumb mode”. In order to get these installed, you have to either contact your web host and ask them to make the libraries available- or make them available yourself.
For a total beginner to compiling software, the prospect of compiling PHP from scratch just so they can use this one feature will scare them off. For myself, I’ve had persistent problems getting the compile to run on this blog (though rarely is it a problem on SLOpenID/swslr), so even if you know how to get the libraries available, it doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be able to use OpenID.
2. OpenID is decentralized and therefore not the same everywhere.
This has caused me persistent problems on swslr. Not because of OpenID in general, but a specific, optional feature that’s touted as a means of “making it easier for end-users”- directed identity- the idea that you only have to put in “yahoo.com” anywhere you see an OpenID login.
Because of the existence of this single feature, I can’t currently rely on the OpenID data to allow people to quickly switch between their accounts, since it would allow anyone with a yahoo account to login and take control. I’m sure if I delved into the specs and libraries, I could figure out a way of supporting it, but given that the XMN stuff I’ve been working on allows people to “opt-in” with regards to linking their accounts (with the OpenID method, they could accidentally tell the server they own another account without meaning to), I don’t really have the inclination to go investigate too deeply.
Another issue I came across that Will Norris helped me out with was that the various libraries used didn’t treat URLs the same way. Some OpenID providers accepted the URLs, while others reported a vague error (to which I never received any useful help). The fix was relatively simple- just use rawurlencode() instead of urlencode(), and add in some mod_rewrite rules to enforce “+” for spaces instead of “%20″.
3. OpenID accepts other services’ log-ons, but would I give my email password to everybody?!
The system isn’t at all immune to abuse by geeks who might like to track you if they hate what you say. Christiano who raged at me for criticizing his IP captures and captures of email addresses as they came through his system screeched that the former were never used to track people to their actual homes and the latter weren’t saved but discarded. But both those pieces of info, when simply culled out and reviewed and matched against posters you don’t like, can lead you to out alts, for starters (remember the Phaylen scandal), and track people close enough to their homes to be a nuisance
I’ve always had a relatively paranoid approach with regards to the data I accept on my “public” projects- OnXiam for instance, doesn’t provide any means of “proving” that a given person owns a particular account, or is who they say they are etc. If someone wants to say they own two accounts via the XMN data, they have to log in as both avatars and say “hey, that other avatar is mine”. This would then allow the person to log in once, and “fast switch” between the different accounts- without having to log out or use multiple browsers.
Requiring explicit action on both accounts leaves out any worries that the user will accidentally expose their private alts to the world. If I were to use OpenID, the process would be more automated- just a simple SELECT/JOIN query. However, if the user associated the same OpenID with their “public” and their “private” accounts, they’ve inadvertently made it possible for me to see the private activities they get up to.
With great power comes great responsibility
. I shouldn’t have to put the people who use my site into the position where they have to trust that I won’t do bad shit with their data.
The major feature that’s been touted about OpenID is that if you own your own domain name, you can run your own server. The average internet user wouldn’t be able to do this- previously because it meant setting up separate software to do the job. More recently, people can install a plugin on whatever blog software they happen to use- but they’d still have the issue of needing to make those math libraries available. This leaves you with the option to delegate your OpenID out to another provider, which actually relates to Prok’s 6th point- that OpenID isn’t as decentralised as it’s made out to be, since most people will gravitate towards a few well known, existing platforms (LiveJournal, Blogger, WordPress.com, even the bane of web design- MySpace), leaving only “the geeks” to utilise the actual decentralised provider features.
In the current sea of login systems, OpenID only theoretically makes things easier. You can enable millions of people to log into your software by using fewer (albeit more complex) software libraries/procedures. The only alternative would be to support the ability for people to log in with their Google account (via AuthSub), with their flickr account via flickr’s authAPI, and I’ve even noticed Facebook login support popping up on nearly every other site I stumble across. While that does mean you need to maintain another set of code for each additional service you want to enable logins for, these “non-standard” methods are typically easier to support- not requiring people to recompile PHP from scratch for example.
OpenID does still have it’s uses- I do still strongly believe that Linden Lab should start acting as an OpenID provider, as it would give 3rd party developers an existing set of tools to work with that would allow Residents to log into a wide range of SL-centric websites, without needing to go through the current paranoid methods of going in-world to prove you own the account you want to use (the alternative would be for Linden Lab to acquire each and every website that’s specifically targeted towards Agni Residents so that they don’t have to :-P)
OpenID is currently very much a double-edged sword, it has good and bad points, though its still very much a pain to learn to wield correctly.
UPDATE
Okay, so perhaps I was a little bit harsh on Trident- the CSS 2.1 portions of the new design for sw.slr work flawlessly in IE8, so with Dean Edwards’ Javascript libraries, the CSS3 portions should work sufficiently as well.
So I’ve decided to rephrase my position as “reducing” support for IE- it is still an inferior rendering engine, and its use is on the decline compared to alternatives such as Firefox, Opera and Safari. I’m going to attempt to get the new design working as best I can in IE (I’ve got the Multi-IE package installed, so I could possibly get it functional in IE 3 :-P), but I’m still going to continue focusing on standards-compliant browsers (which does now include IE8 by the looks of things).
The actual number of people using IE on sw.slr is only in 3-digit figures, whereas other browsers have 4 and 5 digit figures (the majority of IE users are using IE7, which means they’re more likely to use IE8 when it gets a stable release).
I’ve had it with Trident. It’s an obsolete rendering engine. I’ve been experimenting with a new design for my sw.slr project (its a miracle I can make anything look aesthetically pleasing :-P ), only to have it held up by trying to make it work in Internet Explorer.
There’s a tiny part of the CSS specification that has been in there since 1998. Coming up on 11 years, and Internet Explorer doesn’t support it. Its bloody ridiculous.
So, rather than employ a bunch of hacks in order to try and get it working almost the same, or changing the underlying code just to make it work in IE (when it already works fine in every other modern browser), I’ve decided to official drop support for Internet Explorer- at least until a version of it is released that supports the portions of the CSS standard that I’m using.
SignpostMarv Martin - If I'm offline, I'm easily reachable via offline IMs or one of the IM networks listed in my OnXiam page :-)
http://onxiam.com/people/SignpostMarv
Marv in Champions Online by SignpostMarv. Known only as "Marv", this demonically possessed albino hails from a dimension called "Agni", a place where there are no planets, merely an endless expanse of densely populated terrain (which seemingly expands out into void space on a regular basis)
"Axilo the Noble" is a level 71 female Dwarf Hunter, and can be found on the Alonsus realm.
Refugee Apinoob is a female Tryker, who was last seen in the aniro shard on Monday 20th, July 2009.
GuildBad Behavior has blocked 143 access attempts in the last 7 days.
