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Long-Distance Collaboration

November 1, 2010 in Methods

With my Second Life exploits now quite far behind me, I’m surprised to find myself still learning from the experiences sought there. I’ve been reflecting on the way I work today, volunteering my creativity and time towards game projects at CodingConcept and Psychoavatar Games. As I’m still not yet under the employ of a physical studio, I have come to rely on such projects as a way to realise my ideas, expand my portfolio and keep busy. The problem is that there are still many challenges in working remotely.

I’ve often been sceptical of efforts to promote Second Life as a viable working platform, partly because of negative attitudes laid at Linden lab’s feet as its developers, but also because virtual world technologies remain very virtual. Note that I usually refer to them as “online worlds”, because I believe that not all aspects of such platforms are mere virtue, but in this case I refer to that very real disconnect between face-to-face and online collaboration.

Online technologies certainly allow us many freedoms, not least of which the fact we can work remotely at all – I could not help contribute to two start-up companies in geographically remote locations without wiki, email and Skype – but they’re no replacement for a round-table discussion of ideas, the pressure of obligations to somebody sat across your desk or the partnership of social and productive growth amongst peers and friends. It can be a struggle for me to justify work (on something I should be doing in an office) at the desk in my bedroom amongst other concerns around my physical world. I feel that something in the human condition leads us to prioritise those problems in our vicinity quite a lot higher than something constrained within the box upon our desk, and battling that in order to keep working takes a great deal of effort.

I realise that in this day and age, there has to be a field of study devoted to long-distance working, online collaboration and the management of a life around that. Given the challenges this presents to people in a wide variety of fields, not all of them reliant on technology themselves, I wonder if in fact such knowledge should be taught in schools. It may sound pretty wild, but I for one would be glad of the reassurance.

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StarCraft II Achiever

October 16, 2010 in Methods, Reviews

A handful of zerg Roaches recover under an escort of terran Vikings.

A handful of zerg Roaches recover under an escort of terran Vikings.

My game du jour is still StarCraft II. As I mentioned in my recent review of the game, I tend to play co-operatively; “Linithiari” and I have a run of around 150 games logged now, almost always playing against the AI. It continues to be an exciting, amusing and educational experience for both of us, having played with each race in turn.

While the single-player campaign teaches players how to play with Terran forces, the Zerg and Protoss are left largely to individual experience. Co-operative play really helps in this regard, as two players can easily share new insight and support each other when exploring new and dangerous tactics, all within a social environment. Toying with the game and its rules is a much more frustrating experience when playing alone. Given my overall lack of skill with RTS (real-time strategy), this is why I consider co-operative modes to be a must in this type of game.

Events during our 4-hour play session last night shed some new light on the way I play this game: uniquely, because no other RTS has offered me achievements in the same way StarCraft II does. “Lini” and I are well-accustomed to achievements, having played World of Warcraft together for over a year too (I reviewed his achievements as his “Coffindodger” alias back in August). We’re as guilty as any other ‘achiever’-type player when it comes to chasing these achievements down. Why else would we subject ourselves to ‘/hug’ emoting on every critter we see, or gathering countless cooking recipes in order to be declared “Lunch Lady”? This sort of behaviour continues in StarCraft II, but in such a way that it literally keeps us hooked.

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The Price of Research

July 6, 2010 in Culture, Methods

"Mafia Wars" asks for access to my name, gender, university, friends list and email address.

Though I am now working on a couple of ‘social web’ game designs, I’m not an especially well-practised player of the genre; this is one reason why. It’s a much-touted complaint, but it does seem faintly ridiculous for a game to require so much information. I can see that profile pictures allow me to appear inside the game, and that my name will help personalise its greetings. Gender too might help the game address me coherently, but I even keep that information from Facebook, so it does Mafia Wars little good to ask for it here.

‘Accepting’ these applications always comes down to trust. I’ve trusted a game as large as FarmVille not to abuse my information, and likewise had few qualms about enabling Sony and Metaplace’s Facebook games. I don’t know the first thing about Mafia Wars however, other than the fact my friend and colleague plays it.

  • To whom am I sending this information?
  • Is it really only there to help personalise my gaming experience, or is it put towards market research and other such ventures to help the company make money?
  • Does doing this help to fund the games industry directly?
  • Is my personal information now some form of currency to help pay for a game which does not ask for other means of payment, such as cash?

These are the privacy concerns I would like to see dealt with in future; whether or not my photographs appear on other websites is of a lesser concern to me. My relationship with a game and its developer through the Facebook medium are so enigmatic as to leave my imagination filling the gaps in, and I simply do not have these worries when considering a console title. I’m only asked to pay for those with money.

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Spiral-bound

July 4, 2010 in Methods

I wrote before about my alarming tendency to archive anything of interest on my PC. As I try to clear my room this weekend I’m being confronted by my physical archives, and I have no idea what to do with them.

I’ve already disposed of clippings and magazines from my fanatical hoarding days, most of which have been scanned and stored somewhere on an external hard drive anyway. All that remains is a nice-looking collection of Edge magazines, some tutorials I’d printed off the internet, and a collection of spiral-bound partworks.

I collected these some time ago: a childhood fascination with model cars led me to subscribe to A Century of Cars, but I’m not sure what possessed me to collect a warship factfile like Warships Maxi-Cards. Perhaps that was down to impressionable advertising. These folders are simply packed with information, however.

The warships are presented as large postcards, sorted into class (e.g. frigate, aircraft carrier…) with information about their scale, weapon capability and campaign histories on the reverse. The photos also make for a handy visual reference.

The cars are more detailed still, sorted by date of manufacture. There are photos, unique features, Top Trumps-style performance statistics and often a write-up about the model’s history and cultural impact.

I have never used this information in a game design, but I cannot bring myself to throwing these fact-files away, just in case. I’m the same way with books, as I have never parted with one no matter how often I have read it or ignored it. Sometimes that has paid off, as I suddenly develop a keen interest in classic sci-fi or need an atlas nearby as reference for some illustration.

My problem is that physical archives take up space, and I often had to leave this sort of thing at home while I went away to uni. It’s hard to imagine myself being a transient game designer if I have to lug this sort of thing around, but keeping this sort of thing gives me confidence in my ability to write flexibly.

Does anyone have some boxed-up archive horror stories of their own to shame mine?

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