Quest to Nowhere » Impressions

Facebook Gothic: Why are people playing FarmVille?

Michael Moore — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:24:08 +0000

With so much talk about FarmVille, I felt like it was something that I needed to play to understand why it was popular. I had my own theories for why people played FarmVille, especially after reading A. J. Partick Liszkiewicz article a few months back, but figured that I probably wouldn’t understand it without actually trying it out. So about two months ago I started playing, and recently I started playing Zynga’s new Facebook game FrontierVille, and I think I’ve got an understanding now of what gets people to play these games.

As Liszkiewicz says in his article, what gets people to play is social obligation. People get pulled into playing by their real life friends that are already playing. FarmVille requires you to have more neighbors, or friends, connected to your farm in order to open up access to more items and crops. This incentivizes you as the player to get your friends to play the game, and they join because as a friend they wish to help you in playing the game. They then turn around and do the same thing with their friends, ad infinitum.

This social obligation also can keep them playing once they start due to the gifting system in FarmVille, where neighbors are able to send each other gifts that can give them new animals, or objects for their farms. Again this plays on people wanting to help their friends by sending them things that will help them with their farm, and by playing and leveling their farm player’s gain access to better gifts that they are able to give.

Now because of the popularity of the game there is also a social currency aspect involved as well. By which I mean people use their familiarity in playing the game in social situations, such as over hearing people talking about FarmVille and then using that to introduce oneself or showing off the rare new object you found on your farm to your other FarmVille friends. The latter is one of the things that helps drive people to spend money on the game, since most of the items in the game (especially the cool looking or limited edition ones,) can only be acquired by spending real money.

This third reason for why they play is related to gratification, both in the short term and the long term. What I mean is that the game is built around you feeling gratification for what you are doing, whether it’s leveling up, or earning a ribbon (their form of achievements,) or mastering a crop. It’s all about making you feel rewarded you for playing.

Initially when starting you receive a lot of short term gratification in the form of levels, and ribbons. Which comes rather quick and easy, but as you play more and more there are fewer and fewer short term gratifications and more and more long term ones. For instance with the ribbons they have four levels to them. The first level for one is to harvest ten crops, the next level is 1,000, then 5,000, then 25,000.

It is set up this way to interest players during the early portion of the game, while they are figuring things out they feel as though they are achieving a lot. But then as the game progresses it goes away, because when you have constant gratification like that it can get old and stale. While long term gratifications mean that you have been working on something for a while in order to achieve it, and in doing so you get more of a feeling of accomplishment then you would with a shorter term one since it was something you had to do more work for.

Overall it’s a very narrow and shallow game experience, so much so I’ve debated calling it a toy instead of a game. This isn’t to say that there isn’t enjoyment to be had with it, but that there isn’t much in the way of thinking involved in the game. The most thinking involved seems to be determining which crop will have the greatest experience and money yield for the amount of time it takes to grow. If the game had more depth to it, and required more critical thinking , it could be a more enjoyable experience. This, in turn, could attract people to play it with an interesting experience rather than preying on a person’s real world relationships for players.

In Which I Talk About Mass Effect 1 & 2

Michael Moore — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:48:27 +0000

I never finished Mass Effect 1, at least until the day Mass Effect 2 was released. I picked up ME1 on PC during Steam’s holiday sale intending to finish it so I would have a save to import into ME2. I played ME1 on 360 originally but never finished it, so the Steam sale provided a nice way to play the game over again, and get the save to import.

With only a few days before the release of ME2 I finally buckled down and decided to finish the first game since I had barely made a dent in it since I had picked it up. This caused me to finish the game the day of the release of ME2, so I finished ME1 then went straight into ME2. Which looking back on it now was maybe the best thing that could have happened.

Going right from ME1 to ME2 like that proved to be a really great experience, since you are playing with your same character from ME1 and it picks up right at the end of the last game so it almost felt like I wasn’t so much starting a new game as I was continuing onto the second disc of an epic game (I guess you’ll only get that reference if you played some of the long ass RPGs from the PS1 days when games like Final Fantasy VII came on 3 discs; I think FFIX came on 4.)

It’s also a testament to how well designed this series is. While ME2 does have better visuals then the original, everything still felt familiar, and looked consistent with ME1. It’s a great game, and I think that anyone who hasn’t played or finished ME1 should probably go and play that first, because you’re experience in ME2 will be all the better for it.

My one possible complaint with the game, although I’m not sure if it is, is that the ending doesn’t seem as fulfilling as it does in the first game. But as I noted I’m not sure its a problem with the game, but perhaps more a problem with Act 2′s.

See with ME1 it’s basically the first act of a larger trilogy long story. As such it’s more about introducing the player to the world of ME, as well as introducing the the overarching story. It did this through your pursuit of Saren and his goal of finding the conduit so that he can call the Reapers back to the galaxy. Thus the crux of the story is chasing after Saren to stop him, which serves as a very understandable goal.

ME2 though is Act 2 of this trilogy, so although it delves deeper into the world of ME, it also has to serve as a vehicle for mainly moving the overarching story of the games. Although the story feels somewhat less focused then in ME1 where you were set about stopping this one person who you could understand the motivations of, while in ME2 you are trying to stop the Collectors who you don’t really understand at all.

But even though you are trying to stop them, the missions you go on are generally not in pursuit of them. They are typically about building up your team so that you can fight them and win. Then when you do pursue them, or go to fight them, it’s generally on someone else’s terms and not your own. You generally seem to only have control over how you go about constructing you team.

As I was saying I’m not sure that this is so much the fault of the game, but more about where it falls in the overarching story, since they need to start setting the stage for the final battle while also trying to tell you an interesting story. So regardless of what you do I think that it no matter how you try and end an Act 2 game like this, you are going to end up leaving a lot open and leaving it feeling like you are just setting up Act 3 (the last game,) because that is what you have to do.

I have one more things I want to talk about in regards to Mass Effect, but I think I’ll save that for a separate entry, as I think this one is long enough, and that it can stand on its own.

Quick iPad Impressions

Michael Moore — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:30:39 +0000

I’ll keep this quick. I kind of don’t care about the Apple iPad. It looks neat, but I’m not about to pay $500 for one. Maybe if it were $250 I’d be more interested in the thing, but I guess I don’t really need a screen for my living room to use while watching TV. Granted I have an iPhone and a computer technically in my living room, but even if it wasn’t I still don’t think I’d want it.

I could see maybe getting on in the future as a laptop replacement, or something like that where I don’t need something powerful for travel. Just like an email and web browser computer, or something like that. I can’t really see playing games on it since any place I would play games on it, I would already have either my iPhone or be near my consoles or PC.

Valve, this is an intervention

Michael Moore — Mon, 25 May 2009 19:38:14 +0000

Valve, this is an intervention.

Valve, first off I love your work. Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead, and Team Fortress 2 (at launch,) all amazing games which I have spent more time then I want to think about playing, but every moment was great and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Which is what brings me here today, having this intervention for you, you need to realize Valve that you are hurting Team Fortress 2. I know you guys love it as much as I do, and you think you are doing the right thing, that’s it’s, “for its own good,” and that you “are just making it better.” But you guys need to take a step back an really think about what you are doing.

I’m speaking specifically about the new weapon procurement system you’ve added to the game, and I can understand why you would want to put in such a system. It prevents everyone on the night of new updates from playing that single class for the next few days, knocking the balance of the game off for those days. And perhaps more importantly it makes it easier for more casual TF2 players, and new players to pick up the game and get rewarded with these weapons just for spending time playing.

Which is all well and good for them, but what about people who have already played the game for over 100 hours, it doesn’t feel like a reward for us when we are playing and randomly pick up a weapon that we already got during one of the previous class updates. I know you’ve said that you are working on an infrastructure to allow players to trade these extra weapons, but here is the thing. People don’t want to trade weapons in a first person shooter.

What it really is is that with the old system, even though we complained about it a lot, it wasn’t a bad system. At least it felt like when you got a new unlock that it was some sort of an accomplishment, it was a reward for playing. But with this new system you are turning the game into an MMORPG, with loot drops. Random loot drops at that, that will more often then not provide duplicates which players really can’t do anything with. So getting these these random drops doesn’t feel like a reward for playing, if anything it makes it bothersome to play.

A loot system doesn’t work if there isn’t some sort of accomplishment tied into the looting. It works in MMORPGs because for the high end stuff at the end of the game it takes a lot of time, and effort to defeat the big things that drop the good loot. Even in the lower levels of an MMORPG grinding for loot still requires some effort by the player in the game, where they feel that they are actually active participants in getting the loot. Here its only a matter of time, it doesn’t matter how good or bad you are at playing the game, you are going to randomly be handed things just for playing.

TF2 needs to have a reward system, where players are rewarded for playing a class, learning a class, and becoming more skilled in it. That’s why the Medic update was really a success, even though the unlocks were really hard to get, it got people to play Medic (which no one really was at the time,) and it showed them that it could actually be a really fun class to play.

You need to reward players for their time playing, but you need to reward them for trying new classes, or becoming more skillful at the game. The best solution for this seems to be to do something like Call of Duty’s leveling system, where players receive experience for kills, completing map objectives, and whatnot. That experience then goes towards unlocking levels, and by leveling players are able to access new weapons, and abilities.

For TF2 this could be done on a class by class basis, with levels and experience being tied to each class independent of the others. The achievements then could be used as personal objectives for teh player that give them more experience then just killing other players, and capturing things. This then gives skilled players a chance to quickly level by completing the achievements, while also giving more casual/unskilled players a chance to level just by getting experience from playing, even if they aren’t able to unlock any of the achievements. Then as they level they are able to unlock the new weapons.

So please Valve, you don’t have to take my idea (I honestly don’t expect you to,) but you at least need to realize that what you are trying to make the game into isn’t what it is. Square peg does not fit into the round hole. Please just take a step back, take a breath, and realize that sometime you guys can be wrong.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go play some Left 4 Dead instead.

Dedicated Servers: Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Michael Moore — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 15:33:43 +0000

I was listening to one of my normal podcasts recently, called In-Game Chat, the show’s hosts ended up talking about the differences between console multiplayer and PC multiplayer in games. Specifically talking about their problems with matchmaking systems in console multiplayer games where the game tries to find people of similar skill for you to play against. As compared to what you find in PC multiplayer, which are dedicated servers run by players that act as sort of hubs or places for people to gather.

“We find that what we miss most in the otherwise very respectable world of online console gaming is the dedicated server – but as a function of community, instead of performance. Peer to peer systems work well enough for the business of matching player to group, but the “Cheers” dynamic is largely unknown.

Visiting a named server is alike to visiting a known locale, with all of the rules and idiosyncrasies and (most importantly) personalities found to apply in that sovereign space. We’re not offering suggestions on how to migrate a generation of hardware away from peer-hosting, of course. We’d just like to give a nod to the differences, and to point out how nice it is when everybody knows your name.”– In-Game Chat episode description for The Dedicated Server Episode.

The idea of dedicated servers as places for community was something I hadn’t thought of, but once they started talking about it I started to think back about my own experience in team based first person shooters, where I would find a server or two that I liked, and as I frequented more I got accustomed to the players that played there and their reputations while also building up a reputation of my own.

The dedicated server community though should not be thought of as something like a facebook, or even a twitter or message board. It’s not a place where you go to meet and talk to people and establish new connections (intentionally.) Rather goes along more with the In-Game Chat guys’ analogy of them having a “Cheers” dynamic, and being more like a bar. It’s a place made up of people from all walks of life, but where what you do outside of the game is of no importance. What’s important is that you play the game, and work together with your team.

So as one visits the server more and more over time, the other players that frequent the server begin to take notice of you, especially if you are a good player, or if you are helpful in helping the team win. And all the social interaction that takes place was, until recently, done completely through text in the server’s chat window where you are able to communicate with either everyone, or just say something to your team. But even recently with games adopting the use of voice chat within the game, the chat window still seems to be the main place of conversation during these multiplayer games.

As one frequents the server more, they build up reputation based on how they play, but also connections with the other players. These kinds of connections can be from finding another player on the server that you work well with when you are on the same team, or can be a player that you like to play against. The player vs player connection usually derives from games where there are multiple classes, and where certain classes on opposite teams tend to butt heads in one on one combat, rather than in team combat.

The most frequent example of this is the sniper duel, where opposing sniper class players will constantly try and counter-snipe the other team’s sniper by out thinking them so that they are able to get a clear shot on them without the other player noticing them. Between two skilled snipers this can build up a bit of a camaraderious relationship of mutual respect between the players. Plus it adds an additional layer of challenge and enjoyment of the game.

Back to the bar analogy, what is interesting to note is that once a player leaves the game, returning to the real world. There is no further connection with those players. Their connection only exists within the space of that server and that game. Unless they are in a clan with message boards, then it’s very unlikely that they will communicate with each other outside of the game, or possibly communicate at all after that. You may play, and connect with a player on the server one day, but then they never appear again. This seems to be in a similar dynamic to how bars can act as communities, but when people happen to be there at a certain time and place to meet each other, and establish a connection that may only exist within the confines of the bar environment.

1UP and UGO Apparently Do Not Mix Well

Michael Moore — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 04:48:44 +0000

It was really sad to hear about what is happening over at 1up.com tonight. Not because UGO bought them, which had been rumored about for a while since 1up’s parent company, Ziff-Davis Media, has been trying to sell them since although they are profitable they are an expensive opperation. What’s sad is all the people losing their jobs (just who is not there anymore is being kept track of on nicely on Joystiq.)

I love 1up, not for the site really (which I don’t really visit that often,) but for their podcasts and and video-casts which were always great to listen to. The 1up show, and 1up Yours made my weekend. You could always expect to hear something interesting, and they were one of the few places I looked to when deciding what games to get. And with this buyout announcement its been revealed that all those podcasts I loved to listen to are gone, mostly due to the people on them being laid off.

Well I guess its too early to say if it was that they were all laid off, its very possible that some were offered a chance to stay on as 1up and UGO merge, but chose not to. Still it doesn’t seem to make any sense to me why UGO would get rid of the personalities that are the reason for 1up’s success. Heck, UGO even said they were in their post on the site about the buyout,

“First of all, let me come out and say that there is no other gaming site like 1UP. Unlike some of the lumbering, impersonal behemoths out there, 1UP is all about its personalities…”

I can sort of understand it to an extent in terms of financials since you obviously want to cut all non-essential personal to make the merge simplier, but when your site is about the people that work there. When you push the writers out there in front of the audience as 1up does (making them personalities,) to make the audience feel connected to them and engaged. To then get rid of those people is just idiotic.

You are buying a community based gaming website, and basically not understanding that the community isn’t there because of the gaming, its there because of the personalities that work there. I’m sure I could find some relevent in Clay Shikry’s book Here Comes Everybody, which I just read, but I’m not really in the mood right now to. Just trust me in saying that 1up has built up a lot of social capital with its audience over the years thanks to the people that work there, but the social capital isn’t with the site, its the people that work there. UGO doesn’t seem to understand that.

I hope that all these talented people get together, and make a new site together. Regardless they aren’t likely to be out of a job for long. Which is probably the only good thing that can be said about all this.

1GO Awards 2008

Michael Moore — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:47:06 +0000

Figured since I did these last year I should do them again this year, although this year I’ve decided to not make it completely about videogames since the site isn’t completely about videogames anymore. Also I had a hard time coming up with nominees for all the categories I came up with last year. Also I decided to be lazy and not do any write ups for the awards like I did last year, so anyway on with the awards.

Best Videogame Writing: Jerry Holkins (“Tycho Brahe”) - On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episodes 1 & 2

Best Videogame Art Direction: LittleBigPlanet – Media Molecule

Best Videogame Direction/Director: Hideo Kojima & Shuyo Murata – Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

Book(s) of the Year: The Prince of Nothing series (The Darkness That Comes Before, The Warrior Prophet, The Thousandfold Thought)* by R. Scott Bakker

Movie of the Year: Wall-E

Comic of the Year: Sky-Doll

TV Show of the Year: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Internet Thing of the Year: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

Gadget of the Year: Kindle

Download Game of the Year: Braid

Multiplayer Game of the Year: Rock Band 2

Single Player Game of the Year: ?**

*They didn’t come out this year, but I read them all this year. So that’s what I’m counting.

**This one I haven’t decided on yet. I was torn between Metal Gear Solid 4 and Fallout 3, but I just started playing Yakuza 2 which could (from the 45 minutes I’ve played it,) take this spot instead. So rather then name something now, I’ll finish Yakuza 2 and then decide.

Madden 09 Skill Test

Michael Moore — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:35:57 +0000

I just played a little of the Madden 09 demo. The main part of the demo is the Madden Test, which is basically a way for the game to assess your skill as a player, and in doing so it then tailors the games AI to match up with your skill. Which is a great idea on a ton of levels, the problem is that the test doesn’t really test you. Well it test you, but how it doesn’t isn’t neceassirly the best way to be doing it.

For example the rush offense test is basically a test of can you hit the button above your tacklers head, if so you get by. The fact that I can do that has nothing to do with my ability to run the ball offensively in a game situation. They do a little better with passing offense since they introduce almost a full defensive back field for you to deal with, but in the end I found it arbritarily easy compared to how passing actually is in the game.

The defense I guess is probably the only one that is right-ish. It’s still weird in how it doesn’t really translate, but I think its a little fairer in actually testing your skill as compared to the offensive ones.

I should mention that I got All-Madden (hardest difficulty) in both rush and pass offense. Considering I never played above the medium-ish difficulty in Madden and NCAA football, I find that ridiculous. Which is better demonstrated in my defensive test scores that were both rookie.

So EA, its a great idea, but it needs work. Maybe have players play a test game instead of something like this. That seems like it would be a lot better way to gauge the players ability.

Connecticon 2008

Michael Moore — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 03:39:53 +0000

Got back from Connecticon a few hours ago. It was a lot of fun, as usual. Mostly spent my time at the Staccato/Halolz booth helping Shawn, and occasionally watching the VG Cats’ booth so that Scott could get away from the table for a break. I did pick up a lot of stuff: volumes 2-5 of Hayate the Combat Butler, the Atomic Robo vol 1 trade (post on this soon,) two of the original art pages of Atomic Robo comic (issue 1 page 21, and issue 2 page 10,) Buffy season 8 trades 1 & 2, the Dr. McNinja vol 1 trade, a few figures (because I am somehow unable to not buy at least one,) and Hawk’s Sketchbook book.

The best part of the weekend was Saturday night when I went out to dinner with Shawn, Scott and his fiancee Karian, Hawk, Dave and Jamal (Chugworth Academy,) Jen (Mystic Revolution,) and Brion (Flipside.) It was good times.

I took a bunch of pictures, and put the good ones up on my Flickr. Hopefully I can take a lot of pictures at Otakon too (I’m trying to get into photography more.) Also it seems like just as you are starting to take advantage of what Flickr can do they make you pay. I guess $25 a year isn’t too unreasonable.

I got a Macbook

Michael Moore — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 01:59:13 +0000

I’ve been looking to get a new laptop, and after much research I finlly ended up getting a Apple Macbook which arrived yesterday. I had been set on getting one of those new Dell Studio laptops, but then I remembered that Apple sells refurbished units. So I ended up with a more powerful laptop then what I was going to get in the Studio, for less then the Dell would have cost me.

So far I’m finding it to be pretty neat, I’m certianly happy with the choice so far. Although I needed to hook up a mouse to it, and I am definitely not used to the Apple shortcuts and keyboard yet. I don’t think its going to convince me to switch over completely to Apple, but its nice to have some variety.

I’m sure I’ll have more to talk about it after I’ve had more time to play with it. I also want to do something about that Apple logo on the back, it kind of bugs me. So I want to do/put something cool on the back.