Nuggetty Goodness

Carousels are effective at being able to tell people in Marketing/Senior Management that their latest idea is now on the Home Page.

They are next to useless for users and often "skipped" because they look like advertisements. Hence they are a good technique for getting useless information on a Home Page (see first sentence of this post).

In summary, use them to put content that users will ignore on your Home Page. Or, if you prefer, don't use them. Ever.

The answer seems to be, 'mostly ineffective for site users, but it depends'. Note that I emphasized site users. ;)

The answers are hilarious! Doubly so because they seem to be true.

On the front line in the battle between CCP and its customers over the fate of EVE is the Council of Stellar Management (CSM), a democratically-elected group of player representatives who have been granted stakeholder status in the company's development process. This body, at times, acts as a sounding board, an advocacy group, or in direct opposition to CCP's business plans.ma

CCP has granted the CSM extraordinary power in terms of the access it has to the developers; several times a year the CSM is flown to the company headquarters in Iceland for days of arduous meetings. When a crisis within the game erupts, such as in 2010's "Summer of Rage" or the recent Monoclegate, in which players revolted when the company introduced virtual items, CCP calls in the CSM to attempt to mediate.

Initially written off by some as a PR stunt, the CSM has developed since its introduction in 2008 into a powerful advocate. Mostly the CSM functions as a sanity check for mid-level developers within CCP to bounce game design ideas off of; since EVE is such a complex universe, it's impossible for every game designer to have personal experience with every aspect of the game.

At other times, however, the CSM has been an outside source of pressure against CCP's management when it makes decisions which overrule the desires of their customers and the game designers, marshaling an impressive nexus of contacts in the gaming media and the player base to get that point across.

Because of that, the CSM project seems like a double-edged sword for CCP from a business perspective. At one level, the CSM has improved the quality of the game and the lives of the players -- and thus CCP's bottom line. On another level, it has shown that a player advocacy group will not be co-opted by the sponsoring developer, and can focus player dissatisfaction into concrete action that can impact the company's balance sheet. A little democracy is a dangerous thing.

Yet, on the whole, the CSM project has been on the side of CCP's bottom line since the beginning. The CSM was vehemently critical of the Tyrannis and Incarna expansions before their releases, both of which were duds -- duds which came to threaten the company's survival. The Crucible expansion, on the other hand, is a laundry list of CSM-sponsored changes to the core gameplay of EVE, and the disaffected customer base has responded by re-subscribing in droves. Democracy can be dangerous if you defy it, but profitable if obeyed.

Fascinating stuff - weighs the pros and cons of EVE's CSM. Especially interesting is how it highlights what a double-edged sword this level of customer involvement is in terms of the bottom-line, with examples of both good and scenarios.

I don't play EVE, but I definitely think they deserve kudos for pursuing a model no one else is even remotely close to trying - and succeeding with it against all expectations.

Darnit, I'm not getting a Mac again anytime in the foreseeable future, but this is just so shiny...

Podcast: Play in new window

It's different this time, this is a landmark case.

I suspect the threats of physical violence are what brought it to the supreme court. What's particularly interesting is how the court handled that a thing doesn't have to be translateable into real world currency to be counted as something that can be stolen. Especially since nominally players don't even own their virtual goods, they own the right to those virtual goods in those instances provided by the gaming companies.

The truth is most firms, at least those I've worked at, don't really care about security. They just want to appear that they care. Security is hard, and you have to be vigilant. Pretending to care means you buy some overpriced appliances and software that no one manages. When the sh*t hits the fan, you can say "well we did X, Y, and Z but hackers are evil people". The take away story for most people in the biz and the public is not HBGary got hacked and so their security stuff must suck; it's that hackers are a true menace and wild and crazy and won't someone think of the children? So then business people yell at the government and say "hey OMG! We need lots of money to protect your systems and our systems because hackers are crazy". They do this via media so it becomes news stories. Then the public starts asking "what are you going to do about it, government" and the government says "we'll fund the security people to protect your credit cards!" and in flows the money. It's a part of security theater. There are always "new" threats so you can never stop paying for security.

I just now realized this. There was always something... off about Rift. Even in the betas I saw it, but I could never place my finger on it. Now that I've played endgame some (and gotten a chance to play the game a lot more), I've finally realized what exactly is wrong with Rift: it has no soul.

Rift is what would happen if you told a robot to make an MMO. Technically speaking, it would be near flawless with extraordinary amounts of polish, but it would lack this certain human touch. The places are environments; not landscapes or worlds. The people of Telara are "NPCs"; not characters. Nothing feels like it's wonderful or enchanting or captivating. It's just a stock fantasy story with stock MMO mechanics with no human touches.

Rift is fun and well made, but it doesn't feel human. It feels plastic... like the people who made it were following some kind of MMO textbook to the letter without trying to create art. The game just doesn't have soul... it doesn't have that wonderfully, witty spark that draws you in. I'm not saying Rift is a bad game, but it doesn't have an identity or anything. It's like oil on water... it's just kind of... there.

 

So I downloaded the Rift perpetual trial last night, and after playing for roughly 5 hours I noticed something... odd.

For example, when playing Witcher 2, it's all 'Waoooh - this is a beautiful game!'

In Rift's case, what kept niggling in the background was, 'How come this isn't as beautiful as Guild Wars, despite how recently it was launched?'

Personality! Personality is the problem. While I no longer play WoW, it definitely has a ton of personality.

In fact, I'd say WoW, Forsaken World, GW, and Allods all benefit from art direction that renders them equally unique and charming - just handled differently (though GW is the only overtly realistic one in that list).

Rift is just... bland. It's like cardboard. In all those other games I mentioned, having played it, you'd know where you were. Rift... Rift could be anywhere.

There's nothing wrong with the rendering quality; it's more of the lack of quality in what's being rendered.

Gameplay wise, it's fine - standard rat pellet MMO, and a very polished dispenser at that - so I'll probably get my two trial characters to 20 and sate my pellet cravings in the process.

...I just wish the pellets weren't made from cardboard.

P.S.: I'm reading ALL the quest text, which is not usual for me, in an effort to give it a chance. It's not wooooorkiiiiiing.