I had the privileged opportunity to speak with a young man who was thinking about becoming a game designer. What follows is an interesting exchange regarding Mount&Blade which I felt had value to other folks who read this blog. The young game designer graciously gave his permission to allow me to post our conversation.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
About my thoughts, I guess I will start with Mount and Blade since I've been thinking about it recently and the fact that we are on the site. I'm pretty sure lots of people would agree with me when I say that one of Mount and Blade's biggest flaws is its AI. Although the AI itself isn't anything terrible, its just that in a game like this, AI-only opponents, can make the even most emersive combat boring after a while. It eliminates the need for dynamic strategies and makes battles tedious and unrealistic. Although Warbands will include a multiplayer mode I still feel a bit unsatisfied as that doesn't really give any long term gameplay rewards. I don't really know how to get around this but maybe if the AI implements some kind of detection algorithm that will replace their apparently omniscient sight so that they react more like a human and maybe implement a collection of general strategies for them for each kind of situation (outnumbered - try to take on little parts of enemy at a time or hit run, player out numbered - stick together and attack at once or attack enemy from two sides etc...). The AI leader unit's tactics skill level determines how many different strategies they can use and how effectively they can pull them off.
On another matter, I believe that the Mount and Blade combat experience, although innovative and fun, is far from perfect. If the horses behaved better, the combat's experience will be a lot more fun. I was thinking of the horses in assassin's creed which were a blast to just ride (although assassin's creed's combat wasn't fun at all). I think that horse behavior from Assassin's creed combined with mount and blade's ragdoll physics would make the horse combat the most realistic and fun ever introduced in the industry. Also i think that the riding skill shouldn't increase the speed of the horse because that should solely depend on the horse itself but rather, the things the player can do on horseback (more effective attack animations, allow to use more weapons on horseback, more responsive horse and later on, warhorse tricks such as levade). As for unmounted combat, i think that proficiencies should also unlock more effective attack animations (faster swings, lounge attacks, jump attacks etc).
Anyways those are just my ideas to make mount and blade less repetitive and more emersive. I have no idea how possible those features are to implement because I have no experience or knowledge to evaluate the difficulty of those features. They sound pretty feasible (especially horse behavior since its already been done in a mainstream game)
-------------------------------------------------------------
My reply:
Thanks for opening up this dialogue. I find your insights interesting and insightful and look forward to where this goes.
When we look at a product such as Mount&Blade we have a natural tendency to look how to improve it.
We can list out many issues with the AI, models, strategic elements, story, and dialogue, which the list can go on for pages. This is both the blessing and the curse of being a game designer. When your work becomes your play, playing always then becomes work. We cannot enjoy an experience without at some point engaging our analytical game-designing mind. I digress however, my apologies.
The difficulty with fixing any game is to determine what is important to fix and why.
While I agree that the AI is not at the best it could be… is it the most important thing to address? The answer to that is up to the product owner and what they are trying to do with this product moving forward. This is an undeniable fact in our business, is that the business owners make the decisions on what to do, not the designers. We are given tasks to design out something that someone else has had the vision for. I know that this is depressing, but it is the way of things. For our conversation let us assume that we have the ability to make the overall design and vision decisions.
With this base assumption we have to embrace and understand what is happening in the market place and what is worth doing. This is the business aspect of gaming, which we need to comprehend and with which have some measure of fluency. When we make design decisions on this level we have to understand that if we spend 200K on development, it has to bring back at least 500K in revenue. If we fail at this target, then we have not done our job.
With all this in mind lets address the original intent of your thoughts.
I know that Armagan is going to work on the AI in Warband. This is good and one reason I have stayed completely out of this part of the code. Could the AI be better? Yes, but if I were to stack rank the problems of Mount&Blade, improving the AI would not be near the top. It would be in the top 10 things to do, but not critical.
Technically to your question: it is completely doable and it can be done in side the module system and outside of the game engine for the most part. It is just work to determine what we want to do and make it happen.
Your comment of “Although Warbands will include a multiplayer mode I still feel a bit unsatisfied as that doesn't really give any long term gameplay rewards.”, is your most important insight.
All technology, entertainment experiences, game design, etc always revolves not around the nuts and bolts of technology, but around people and their perceptions. It is about satisfying need. You have to think in terms of providing satisfaction. The question back to you is, does improving the AI, animation and battle improve the offering’s satisfaction level to the point you really want? My feeling is it does not.
In this case, and what I consider the most lacking piece of this offering in it’s native form is lack of context. The wrapping of why we are doing the things we are doing are paper thin and lacks the ability to suspend disbelief. In playing the game at this level, there is a definite lack of what we call immersion.
What happens then is very quickly we have engaged all of the possible enemies, and know what to expect. The game degenerates into a repetition of serial battles in order to “win”. The battles vary in terrain, as well as taking castles and towns, and we have to learn some elementary tactics that is challenging; and it is challenging to learn how to really fight in the game. But in the end, you are right; it is an exercise in repetition.
You are left focusing on the act of the conflict, the battle, since this has become the most salient aspect of the game and it follows then that we start looking to improve this most obvious aspect. The trick and power of the game designer is to see past what is obvious and ask questions about, you likely guessed this, what provides satisfaction.
Again I draw your attention back to your original question. Does improved animation, improved AI solve for this repetition and ultimately provide higher level of satisfaction? The answer I feel is no. It helps, but it does not give us the long-term replay value that we as players want from a product. All it does is make the repetitious battles better repetitious battles. The key is not the visual experience of how you fight, but what, why and the manner in which you fight.
The vast vast majority of games on the market today have this very same problem. Most offerings are much worse than Mount&Blade in this regard which by the way, is one of the reasons that Mount&Blade is so popular with the elite and hard to satisfy customers.
The key, as I mentioned before is a combination of identifying satisfaction factors and envisioning what is not present rather than working on what is already there and improving it.
For example: Imagine a mount&Blade game where you cannot see the entire game map, as only the places you have “mapped” are visible to you. A whole new dimension to the game has been introduced: exploration. Now add a variable where the game map is slightly randomized every game, making each game unique. We have just added strategic variance as well as a factor of uncertainty. Between these two factors and with literally just a few hours of work we have managed to improve the replay value of the game greatly.
I will stop here on this note regarding your initial thoughts. I am fairly certain this was not the expected direction you were looking for when you engaged me so it is ok to redirect the conversation in your reply.
----------------------------------
More later..
best,
Jim
Monday, May 25, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
The future and Mobile Gaming
A few days after my last post, a long time associate emailed me with some comments and a thought provoking query. He asked "Why is there no mention of Mobile Games in your analysis?".
I thought it worthwhile to add my response here as it is very relevant.
I am very glad you enjoyed and found value in my ramblings. I have been lax in responding to you as I wanted to think about and do some research into, your query regarding mobile gaming.
In my research I found that I had to adjust some of my thinking regarding psychological needs in gaming to account for the mobile casual game scenarios. It was an interesting discovery.
First, the US I believe, lags behind Europe a year or two in regards to the implementation of communication technology. The US does not have a central communication or nationalized communication company. The primary players are Verizon/ALLTELL, AT&T, and Sprint/Nextel. A year ago I was working for a software company positioning their mobile workforce automation software and selling them through the various wireless carriers. There are differences between the various carriers in terms of their market strategy, market focus and what technology is available to 3rd party vendors. For example, Verizon which is the leader in the consumer market, does not allow third party vendors to access the GPS chips in the phones on their network.
I see mobile gaming being developed in three primary forms.
#1: Casual Amusement games: As a casual gaming platform with offerings that provide amusement to the consumer. This is short term Nagara type offering that are designed to provide humor as well as some minor short lived strategy game that takes no more than a few minutes to complete. Competition is against a high score or against other folks score in what I call "Serial competition". There is a "game" and the competition is chalked up in a series of games which provide performance metrics that are compared against the players past performance metrics or against other players performance metrics. The "Serial Competition" becomes the "hook" for this type of offering.
#2: Information Extension of Persistent Games: Imagine playing a MMO where as a guild member or leader you can get information updates and a "light version" of the MMO client where it is possible to make administrative decisions. This would be a secondary client to a game that is played via console, web or PC.
#3 Proximity games. We have not seen this type of offering to my limited knowledge, but this very unique design aspect could trigger a social explosion if it is done correctly. In this concept we blend the proximity of players to each other to create unique interactions that either are scored and stored in a serial global competition and/or give unique tokens that have ramifications to a persistent game world that is played on a global basis. The ramifications of this concept is enormous in terms of the amount of players, psychological hooks, and revenue stream.
The overall conclusion is that Mobile Games fit well into the future and will be with us a very long time. It has untapped potential, that is not being addressed at this time by what I can determine.
The basis for this analysis is that all technology is rushing towards the sovereign individual, which is that state where no matter where a person is, they can work and play using technology. National Borders dissolve and the concept of "web services" that apply to today's enterprise applications will apply to individual people, a "loose coupling" of a persons expertise and services to a larger project.
Best regards,
Jim
I thought it worthwhile to add my response here as it is very relevant.
I am very glad you enjoyed and found value in my ramblings. I have been lax in responding to you as I wanted to think about and do some research into, your query regarding mobile gaming.
In my research I found that I had to adjust some of my thinking regarding psychological needs in gaming to account for the mobile casual game scenarios. It was an interesting discovery.
First, the US I believe, lags behind Europe a year or two in regards to the implementation of communication technology. The US does not have a central communication or nationalized communication company. The primary players are Verizon/ALLTELL, AT&T, and Sprint/Nextel. A year ago I was working for a software company positioning their mobile workforce automation software and selling them through the various wireless carriers. There are differences between the various carriers in terms of their market strategy, market focus and what technology is available to 3rd party vendors. For example, Verizon which is the leader in the consumer market, does not allow third party vendors to access the GPS chips in the phones on their network.
I see mobile gaming being developed in three primary forms.
#1: Casual Amusement games: As a casual gaming platform with offerings that provide amusement to the consumer. This is short term Nagara type offering that are designed to provide humor as well as some minor short lived strategy game that takes no more than a few minutes to complete. Competition is against a high score or against other folks score in what I call "Serial competition". There is a "game" and the competition is chalked up in a series of games which provide performance metrics that are compared against the players past performance metrics or against other players performance metrics. The "Serial Competition" becomes the "hook" for this type of offering.
#2: Information Extension of Persistent Games: Imagine playing a MMO where as a guild member or leader you can get information updates and a "light version" of the MMO client where it is possible to make administrative decisions. This would be a secondary client to a game that is played via console, web or PC.
#3 Proximity games. We have not seen this type of offering to my limited knowledge, but this very unique design aspect could trigger a social explosion if it is done correctly. In this concept we blend the proximity of players to each other to create unique interactions that either are scored and stored in a serial global competition and/or give unique tokens that have ramifications to a persistent game world that is played on a global basis. The ramifications of this concept is enormous in terms of the amount of players, psychological hooks, and revenue stream.
The overall conclusion is that Mobile Games fit well into the future and will be with us a very long time. It has untapped potential, that is not being addressed at this time by what I can determine.
The basis for this analysis is that all technology is rushing towards the sovereign individual, which is that state where no matter where a person is, they can work and play using technology. National Borders dissolve and the concept of "web services" that apply to today's enterprise applications will apply to individual people, a "loose coupling" of a persons expertise and services to a larger project.
Best regards,
Jim
Monday, April 20, 2009
What tomorrow may bring..
Hello all,
It has been too long. I have been very busy with the second version of Prophesy of Pendor 2.0 and it should release inside of a few short weeks.
Several important things are happening in the game industry right now.
I will say this: The only constant is change, and in any tech industry, those who embrace change will win over those who refuse to admit that change is happening.
Last month a paradigm shift was introduced into the gaming world. You may not realize it yet, but it changes everything. The name of the company is OnLive.
http://www.onlive.com/
Think of this as Cable Television except for games. You pay “X” $ per month and receive games to your computer and/or television from the game providers, which right now look to be the bulk of the high end game publishers such as EA among others.
I have talked to several folks, including some game designers, who apparently do not get it. So, let me illuminate the dark shadows for you.
The consumers of games want amazing products, great graphics, total immersion. Blah blah, blah.. You have heard this for dozens of years.
So.. how? How do they get this? For years it was "Computer" or "Console".
Previously it has been either they fork over $150 to $500 for a base system, then spend $59.95 or $49.95 for top games and $29.95 to $39.95 for last years great games or this years “B” list games. So, roughly on the average I am going to pay $500 in a year, for base system and a handful of good games.
Or.
I am going to purchase a PC with great graphics (that I will have to replace every 3 to 5 years), low end systems gaming systems are $1200. High end are $3500. Great games are a bit less, as they lose their shelf life quickly. So, figure that the average PC gamer will spend the same $250 a year in games.
In three years, with Option “A” I spend $1000.00 and with Option “B” I spend $2250.00.
Now with On-Live I can spend say $19.95 a month, have better graphics and performance than with any system or box I can purchase, and am not limited to 5 games a year.. but 20 or 30. What I spend in three years? $720.00.
So the value to the player is more games, better performance, and lower cost.
That is just the economic side of the equation. The real question to be answered is “How does the game company or game publisher get paid?” If it is based upon “time spent” or any form of a player usage model, then my friends, the corner in game development will have turned.
As I have talked, seemingly endlessly before, about product and service based game design, the usage model highly favors offerings that are service based. This means that those offerings that are eye candy, quick to grab attention but not hold it for a long period of time will not be cost efficient to produce.
It will take a few years of operation for those people who are making the decisions for game development companies to to come to terms with this concept. By then, it may be too late for them.
The other innovation is creeping up on America from Europe. More and more gamers in the United States are following, (yes following), the lead of gamers in world-wide markets. They are jumping to low cost “free” web based browser games.
They are innovating quicker than the larger established companies. Already they are nearly caught up with good, albeit not great as of yet, graphics. The game play is just a tad lower than most “AAA” titles. However, it is just a matter of time before they hit on the right game formula and then another shift in how games are designed, produced and delivered will take hold. It is almost to the level of critical mass. Again the emphasis is not on quantity of offerings, but on single service based offerings that engage and hold players for years.
Just this week I was out looking at “Free browser based games”, and was stunned to find multiple sites of 100+ entries keeping track of the best and most popular etc.
I predict, and you can quote me back on this, that within 5 years these two forms of gaming will be the predominant methods of how gamers try, consume and pay for their interactive entertainment.
When our children are grown, they will be engaged with interactive entertainment offerings that from start to finish will last years. Purchasing a game for $50.00 will seem absurd, and if it does not offer a free trial for a week then they will not even give it a second glance. Those titles that they engage with will reach across to them no matter where they are or what they are doing. Player Guilds will be similar to fraternities and will be both in and out of game, and will reach to social-cultural, economic and political circles. It will be a lifestyle and a way in which people interact with the world much as we do now, taking our news of local, regional and world events and organize our lives around favored programs on television.
Enough for now.. I am off to enjoy spring.
Best,
Jim
It has been too long. I have been very busy with the second version of Prophesy of Pendor 2.0 and it should release inside of a few short weeks.
Several important things are happening in the game industry right now.
I will say this: The only constant is change, and in any tech industry, those who embrace change will win over those who refuse to admit that change is happening.
Last month a paradigm shift was introduced into the gaming world. You may not realize it yet, but it changes everything. The name of the company is OnLive.
http://www.onlive.com/
Think of this as Cable Television except for games. You pay “X” $ per month and receive games to your computer and/or television from the game providers, which right now look to be the bulk of the high end game publishers such as EA among others.
I have talked to several folks, including some game designers, who apparently do not get it. So, let me illuminate the dark shadows for you.
The consumers of games want amazing products, great graphics, total immersion. Blah blah, blah.. You have heard this for dozens of years.
So.. how? How do they get this? For years it was "Computer" or "Console".
Previously it has been either they fork over $150 to $500 for a base system, then spend $59.95 or $49.95 for top games and $29.95 to $39.95 for last years great games or this years “B” list games. So, roughly on the average I am going to pay $500 in a year, for base system and a handful of good games.
Or.
I am going to purchase a PC with great graphics (that I will have to replace every 3 to 5 years), low end systems gaming systems are $1200. High end are $3500. Great games are a bit less, as they lose their shelf life quickly. So, figure that the average PC gamer will spend the same $250 a year in games.
In three years, with Option “A” I spend $1000.00 and with Option “B” I spend $2250.00.
Now with On-Live I can spend say $19.95 a month, have better graphics and performance than with any system or box I can purchase, and am not limited to 5 games a year.. but 20 or 30. What I spend in three years? $720.00.
So the value to the player is more games, better performance, and lower cost.
That is just the economic side of the equation. The real question to be answered is “How does the game company or game publisher get paid?” If it is based upon “time spent” or any form of a player usage model, then my friends, the corner in game development will have turned.
As I have talked, seemingly endlessly before, about product and service based game design, the usage model highly favors offerings that are service based. This means that those offerings that are eye candy, quick to grab attention but not hold it for a long period of time will not be cost efficient to produce.
It will take a few years of operation for those people who are making the decisions for game development companies to to come to terms with this concept. By then, it may be too late for them.
The other innovation is creeping up on America from Europe. More and more gamers in the United States are following, (yes following), the lead of gamers in world-wide markets. They are jumping to low cost “free” web based browser games.
They are innovating quicker than the larger established companies. Already they are nearly caught up with good, albeit not great as of yet, graphics. The game play is just a tad lower than most “AAA” titles. However, it is just a matter of time before they hit on the right game formula and then another shift in how games are designed, produced and delivered will take hold. It is almost to the level of critical mass. Again the emphasis is not on quantity of offerings, but on single service based offerings that engage and hold players for years.
Just this week I was out looking at “Free browser based games”, and was stunned to find multiple sites of 100+ entries keeping track of the best and most popular etc.
I predict, and you can quote me back on this, that within 5 years these two forms of gaming will be the predominant methods of how gamers try, consume and pay for their interactive entertainment.
When our children are grown, they will be engaged with interactive entertainment offerings that from start to finish will last years. Purchasing a game for $50.00 will seem absurd, and if it does not offer a free trial for a week then they will not even give it a second glance. Those titles that they engage with will reach across to them no matter where they are or what they are doing. Player Guilds will be similar to fraternities and will be both in and out of game, and will reach to social-cultural, economic and political circles. It will be a lifestyle and a way in which people interact with the world much as we do now, taking our news of local, regional and world events and organize our lives around favored programs on television.
Enough for now.. I am off to enjoy spring.
Best,
Jim
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
The story continues
I have told you of my last encounter with my friend, Vance. His funeral was three months ago and I still have a hard time believing that there can be no answer if I call him. Loss is funny like that. It sneaks up at odd moments and tangles up your thoughts in a net of sorrow.
Much had happened of late that helped keep my mind off Vance, and my grief at his death. I lost my job as part of a sweeping layoff due to the bad economy, and was frantically trying to find work to pay the bills. Christmas was fast approaching. During that time, in accordance with Vance’s last wishes, I created a “Module” for a game called “Mount&Blade” as a way to bring Vance’s story to life.
Vance’s story, and my approach to it as a game, has been well received. I felt that my work on Vance’s legacy was done.
Then, Vance’s sister, Jenny, knocked at my door and dropped a small bombshell on me. Jenny was the executor of her brother’s estate, and, while she was clearing out the house preparatory to selling the property, came across several boxes of notes, interviews, half written manuscripts and drawings. She decided that Vance would want me to have them, and brought them over. I numbly accepted them, said a few lame words of condolence and, after several awkward moments, we said goodbye to one another.
It upset me a bit that Vance had obviously done an amazing amount of work on this project but had never even mentioned it to me. Vance and I were very different in temperament, even though we were good friends. He liked to live in the moment, and was “people smart,” whereas I was what he called “book smart”. I suppose I was berating myself for not knowing my friend as well as I thought I had, and was saddened at knowing him better after his death.
There was a time a few years ago, when Vance disappeared on a business trip for about six months. We never discussed it. He rarely talked about his life, and I had a feeling that he liked to live on the edge, perhaps even a tad nefariously. Even though he often vanished for a week at a time, that extended hiatus, with 20-20 hindsight, sticks in my mind as a turning point. Vance was different after that journey. He seemed slightly more introspective and just “different” after that particular trip. After he returned, I saw him more often.
Recalling my wife’s allergies to mold and her probable reaction to having our living area turned into a storage facility, I began exploring the boxes with an eye to organizing them. In one of the very first boxes I inspected, I found a very thick book with old, cracked leather bindings. The pages were hand hand-written, and very fragile, and reeked of mold. It struck me as interesting, so I opened it and began to read.
I was not prepared for what I found. Pendor was not Vance’s invention. I spent the next two hours reading and re-reading this journal dated 1888, transcribed by someone named Jonas. The more I read, the more confused I became. Jonas had received it from an ex-Benedictine monk, who lived as a hermit in Landes, France.
Jonas had apparently met this hermit regularly, both before and after he left his Order, and had received the story of Pendor, bit by bit, over several years’ time. The initial notes were in French, which Jonas had translated into English. In one entry Jonas wrote that the monk was convinced that he had been “directed” to go to Landes, and to dictate his knowledge to Jonas.
The story itself was fascinating, but seeing my own last name in the journal more than a hundred times set me reeling. I did not know if it was coincidental, but it was certainly unsettling. (Your change is better.) Where had Vance acquired this journal? Why did I end up with it? A prudent man would have taken the boxes, unopened, to the dump without delay, but curiosity overcame my caution.
I put the journal aside, and went through the rest of the boxes, to see what I had. I found maps, drawings and many stories, tantalizing snippets, disjointed pieces of a very large puzzle. I stored all the boxes in my garage, where I spent a great deal of time over the next several weeks. I began piecing the jigsaw puzzle into a timeline, using the unfinished manuscript, which Vance had given me. Had Vance shown me the entire collection at once, I would have thought him insane, and told him so on the spot.
Vance had done a good job on Pendor, and his transcription served me well to determine that most of these manuscripts dealt with events before and after the timeline of the Pendor manuscript. I became more and more drawn to the story of Pendor and want to share with you what I know. I warn you, some of it is unsettling.
I have pieced together only part of the puzzle of love, life, tragedy and sacrifice that made up the history of Pendor, altogether human stories, but alien in many ways. Because of its “other-ness,” some parts of it are difficult to understand. I have transcribed less than half of the story, concentrating on the earliest parts, with an eye to relating the story in a logical progression.
Many years before an event the Pendorian Historians call “The War of the Titans”, humans were organized into tribes and clans, living as hunter/gatherers. There were several elder races, the most prominent being a race that today we call “Elves”. I found vague references to the fact that these beings had come from “elsewhere,” but those references are obscure at best. Apparently, they inhabited a fairly large island far to the Southeast of the lands now called Pendor.
There were other races native to Pendor, Giants, Trolls, Dragons, Furies and Gryphons. These races did not use tools, and their artifacts did not endure as long as those of the Elven race, but they were strong, somehow magical, and very long-lived. Extreme longevity and the use of magic seemed to be the hallmarks of all the elder races. The stories examine the “Elves” to a much greater degree than the other races are described.
These beings lived on an island called Gwythdarian. Their society was organized into Houses, which were ruled by Lords and their families. These houses were both social and political entities; there were five major houses and many minor houses. Their social structure was interesting, as it was divided into distinct social classes. Class was determined early in an elf’s life by a demonstration of personal power, what we would term “Magic.” Elves who demonstrated and could maintain a high level of personal power were called Sindari, and those who failed to do so were called Noldor. The latter lost status in their respective houses and became a servant class. Often members of minor houses would align themselves with the greater houses to provide services and receive a measure of preference. The greater houses were fairly competitive, both amongst themselves and with the lesser houses.
Of particular note is the fact that Elves had children infrequently, so when someone gave birth, the entire House celebrated. For the most part, Elves were scholars and explorers of the use of personal power. Elves did not bother with the race of men, because men did not use Magic, and thus were deemed of lesser status even than the Noldor. This is of interest, as the Sindari often referred to the Noldor as the “invisibles”.
Most of the stories began on Gwythdarian, where there was a disagreement between one of the major Elven Houses, and the rest of the Elven nation. Whilst the event is not explicitly described in my papers and stories, apparently the Sindari of one house did something forbidden with magic power.
At this point, the stories become more detailed. I have paraphrased the hundreds of pages of dialogue and descriptions, which I have uncovered thus far.
The story begins with two young elves born twins, which was exceedingly rare in Elven births. The twins, a boy and a girl, Avaldain and his sister Althea, were unfortunately destined to become Noldor. The Sindari Lord of their house, Lord Gaelrandir crafted a sailing ship and embarked upon a quest to find a reclusive “Oracle” living in the far north. His goal was to seek help to counter the renegade Sindari who were bending their power towards forbidden ends. The twins stowed away on the ship to be close to their father, who was House Under-Steward in the service of Lord Gaelrandir.
After many trials and tribulations they found the “Oracle” and tragically, along the way, the twins’ father, the Under-Steward, died. What happened next is where the story takes strange turns.
At first it seemed that the Oracle was a small Dragon, as this was the form in which the Oracle appeared in its first meeting with Lord Gaelrandir. Later, however, it becomes evident that the Oracle is something altogether different. It lives somewhere else and manifests itself through a pool of water on the island. The Oracle takes control of a nearby willing “host,” which allows the Oracle direct interaction with Pendor. One of its favorite hosts is a small Dragon, which has a general disdain for Elves and an appetite for small white rabbits.
The Oracle decided to help Lord Gaelrandir, but stipulated a steep price for his aid: Althea would have to stay on the island and serve the Oracle for her entire life. Even worse, the Oracle would wipe away all memory of Althea so that no Elf would remember that she had ever existed. There was a heartbreaking account of the good-byes between Avaldain and Althea at the conclusion of this part of the story.
It is also not clear what help, if any, the Oracle gave to Gaelrandir, yet the Elven Lord seemed satisfied and returned to Gwythdarian.
Unknown to Lord Gaelrandir, the Oracle had put Avaldain under a compulsion. He was under a “geas” to return to Gwythdarian, gather together what Noldor he could, and leave Gwythdarian forever.
When the expedition returned to Gwythdarian, the situation had worsened to virtually open warfare. There had been bloodshed, and tensions were strong. No longer was Gwythdarian a haven for the learned, with sweet music floating on the cool breeze. It was a solemn place without sound and the air was heavy with foreboding. Lord Gaelrandir hastened to organize a concerted effort to stop the renegade noble house. He called together the heads of many other houses and held a grand council. He and his allied Sindari were so involved in the struggle before them that they did not notice that Avaldain had gathered several thousand Noldor and sailed for the mainland.
When the Sindari conflict reached its full pinnacle, the fury of magic that was unleashed caused the entire island to sink beneath the sea, killing all the Sindari and forever destroying the magic used by the other elder races. This event led to the eventual extinction of the elder races.
The surviving Noldor roamed Pendor for several months, then finally settled down and built a city next to a lake. Avaldain cloaked the city, having apparently some control over magic, (perhaps granted him by the Oracle, as Noldor had no powers of their own), so that no one could ever find it.
A recurrent theme in the stories is Avaldain’s feeling that something important was missing in his life, and his search for that elusive “something”. Althea often watched Avaldain in his struggles by using the power of the Oracle to scry him. In fact, many of the stories were from the Althea’s perspective and told how she watched her brother’s children, and their children’s children throughout their lives, helping them upon occasion, with no one ever aware she had done so.
Whatever it was that the Sindari had done, a forbidden “something” survived the sinking of Gwythdarian. There were very lengthy dialogues between Althea and the Oracle about countering and defeating this influence in the world and about the sons of Avaldain, who, being part Elf and part Human, had a chance to ultimately put an end to the Sindari influence on the world of Pendor. Further, their victory would ensure that many others, in “other places” would be spared great suffering if the sons of Avaldain were successful. These dialogues gave the general sense that whatever those rogue Sindari had done threatened the existence of the Oracle itself. Additionally, the Kingdom of Pendor was center stage to that conflict. Uniting the Pendorian Kingdom was a prerequisite to countering the remaining Sindari threat.
Madigan, a Prophet of Pendor, who may have been part Elf, made a prophecy recorded by the Pendorian Historians, predicting the coming of a great Warrior/Defender to Pendor. I have found what I think may be the Prophecy, written in Latin by the ex-monk, and never translated.
Verba de futuro:
Multis post annis, ex cearulo, Defensor veho a equus et Pendor sub secreto et sub selentio, fortes et liber. Defensor cognoso non est ad astra mollis e terra via. Defensor insisto quo fas et gloria docunt. Defensor laboro est arduum sane munus. Amicus certus in re incerta cernitor, quod latet anguis in herba.Quam terribilis est haec hora! Vae victis! Nil desperandum, forsan miseros meliora sequentur, pax et bonum, vinculum unitatis. Finis coronat opus, et in hoc signo vincis.
In other stories and recorded conversations between the Oracle and Althea, a very different version of reality was presented to her. I am still digesting the ramifications of these conversations and piecing them together with some of the conversations between the ex-Benedictine Monk and the Oracle that shine an enlightening and disturbing light on our reality.
Here are three short conversations and explanations, between the Oracle and Althea where the former is lecturing to the latter.
These conversations I thought interesting enough to share with you, to wit:
“There is order in the universe, from the rotation of galaxies around a central core to the structure of the smallest particles with charged bits of power orbiting their center. There are definable laws governing how everything interacts. These laws govern speed, weight, resistance, attraction, repulsion, temperature and many other concepts too difficult to explain right now. Everything has a natural law that defines what it is, how it works… except life. Life is only partially governed by natural laws.”
“Elves and Humans, have the spark of creation within them. We have talked about this in the past, and the decisions made to yield that spark to them. Higher orders can reproduce themselves, explore, think, and, most importantly, exercise free will. Free will allows them to dream, to bring incongruent facts together and create something new. That spark of creation reverberates through the weave and unfolds countless alternate possibilities. It is from these possibilities that stepping-stones, where we may walk, are created.“
“Infinity is a concept, not a number, too large to define, beyond the realm of what human and elven minds can hope to comprehend. They thus attempt to define that which cannot be defined, creating a “definition’ that is much more than the definition could be. They scoop up a flagon full of water and call it an ocean.
Yes it is a liquid, yes there are similarities, but does it encapsulate the immensity of an ocean? It falls woefully short does it not?”
There were many other stories, not dealing with Althea, which are narrow windows into the world of Pendor. I will share those with you as time permits.
What becomes really confusing in several of these stories, as transcribed by Jonas, is that the unnamed ex-Benedictine monk often had direct conversations with the “Oracle”, about our own world. For example: Jonas recorded one such conversation where the Oracle discusses with the Monk the importance of building the Eiffel Tower.
Another disturbing reference is to the name of the Elven Island, Gwythdarian, and how its name was wiped away from the “weave.” The term “weave” is often used by the Oracle to describe the nature of his existence. I thought this odd so I decided to run a search on the Internet for “Gwythdarian” using various search engines. To my dismay I could not find any reference to that name at all. Nor could I find substantial references to the name “Gaelrandir”. (The only reference was a player who named his character Gaelrandir in Lord of the Rings Online in December 2007. I wonder why these words are so elusive.)
As I continue piecing the Pendorian puzzle together, it has transformed into an enormous tapestry. In my subsequent accounts of its history, more of Pendor and its fascinating inhabitants will unfold before you.
Much had happened of late that helped keep my mind off Vance, and my grief at his death. I lost my job as part of a sweeping layoff due to the bad economy, and was frantically trying to find work to pay the bills. Christmas was fast approaching. During that time, in accordance with Vance’s last wishes, I created a “Module” for a game called “Mount&Blade” as a way to bring Vance’s story to life.
Vance’s story, and my approach to it as a game, has been well received. I felt that my work on Vance’s legacy was done.
Then, Vance’s sister, Jenny, knocked at my door and dropped a small bombshell on me. Jenny was the executor of her brother’s estate, and, while she was clearing out the house preparatory to selling the property, came across several boxes of notes, interviews, half written manuscripts and drawings. She decided that Vance would want me to have them, and brought them over. I numbly accepted them, said a few lame words of condolence and, after several awkward moments, we said goodbye to one another.
It upset me a bit that Vance had obviously done an amazing amount of work on this project but had never even mentioned it to me. Vance and I were very different in temperament, even though we were good friends. He liked to live in the moment, and was “people smart,” whereas I was what he called “book smart”. I suppose I was berating myself for not knowing my friend as well as I thought I had, and was saddened at knowing him better after his death.
There was a time a few years ago, when Vance disappeared on a business trip for about six months. We never discussed it. He rarely talked about his life, and I had a feeling that he liked to live on the edge, perhaps even a tad nefariously. Even though he often vanished for a week at a time, that extended hiatus, with 20-20 hindsight, sticks in my mind as a turning point. Vance was different after that journey. He seemed slightly more introspective and just “different” after that particular trip. After he returned, I saw him more often.
Recalling my wife’s allergies to mold and her probable reaction to having our living area turned into a storage facility, I began exploring the boxes with an eye to organizing them. In one of the very first boxes I inspected, I found a very thick book with old, cracked leather bindings. The pages were hand hand-written, and very fragile, and reeked of mold. It struck me as interesting, so I opened it and began to read.
I was not prepared for what I found. Pendor was not Vance’s invention. I spent the next two hours reading and re-reading this journal dated 1888, transcribed by someone named Jonas. The more I read, the more confused I became. Jonas had received it from an ex-Benedictine monk, who lived as a hermit in Landes, France.
Jonas had apparently met this hermit regularly, both before and after he left his Order, and had received the story of Pendor, bit by bit, over several years’ time. The initial notes were in French, which Jonas had translated into English. In one entry Jonas wrote that the monk was convinced that he had been “directed” to go to Landes, and to dictate his knowledge to Jonas.
The story itself was fascinating, but seeing my own last name in the journal more than a hundred times set me reeling. I did not know if it was coincidental, but it was certainly unsettling. (Your change is better.) Where had Vance acquired this journal? Why did I end up with it? A prudent man would have taken the boxes, unopened, to the dump without delay, but curiosity overcame my caution.
I put the journal aside, and went through the rest of the boxes, to see what I had. I found maps, drawings and many stories, tantalizing snippets, disjointed pieces of a very large puzzle. I stored all the boxes in my garage, where I spent a great deal of time over the next several weeks. I began piecing the jigsaw puzzle into a timeline, using the unfinished manuscript, which Vance had given me. Had Vance shown me the entire collection at once, I would have thought him insane, and told him so on the spot.
Vance had done a good job on Pendor, and his transcription served me well to determine that most of these manuscripts dealt with events before and after the timeline of the Pendor manuscript. I became more and more drawn to the story of Pendor and want to share with you what I know. I warn you, some of it is unsettling.
I have pieced together only part of the puzzle of love, life, tragedy and sacrifice that made up the history of Pendor, altogether human stories, but alien in many ways. Because of its “other-ness,” some parts of it are difficult to understand. I have transcribed less than half of the story, concentrating on the earliest parts, with an eye to relating the story in a logical progression.
Many years before an event the Pendorian Historians call “The War of the Titans”, humans were organized into tribes and clans, living as hunter/gatherers. There were several elder races, the most prominent being a race that today we call “Elves”. I found vague references to the fact that these beings had come from “elsewhere,” but those references are obscure at best. Apparently, they inhabited a fairly large island far to the Southeast of the lands now called Pendor.
There were other races native to Pendor, Giants, Trolls, Dragons, Furies and Gryphons. These races did not use tools, and their artifacts did not endure as long as those of the Elven race, but they were strong, somehow magical, and very long-lived. Extreme longevity and the use of magic seemed to be the hallmarks of all the elder races. The stories examine the “Elves” to a much greater degree than the other races are described.
These beings lived on an island called Gwythdarian. Their society was organized into Houses, which were ruled by Lords and their families. These houses were both social and political entities; there were five major houses and many minor houses. Their social structure was interesting, as it was divided into distinct social classes. Class was determined early in an elf’s life by a demonstration of personal power, what we would term “Magic.” Elves who demonstrated and could maintain a high level of personal power were called Sindari, and those who failed to do so were called Noldor. The latter lost status in their respective houses and became a servant class. Often members of minor houses would align themselves with the greater houses to provide services and receive a measure of preference. The greater houses were fairly competitive, both amongst themselves and with the lesser houses.
Of particular note is the fact that Elves had children infrequently, so when someone gave birth, the entire House celebrated. For the most part, Elves were scholars and explorers of the use of personal power. Elves did not bother with the race of men, because men did not use Magic, and thus were deemed of lesser status even than the Noldor. This is of interest, as the Sindari often referred to the Noldor as the “invisibles”.
Most of the stories began on Gwythdarian, where there was a disagreement between one of the major Elven Houses, and the rest of the Elven nation. Whilst the event is not explicitly described in my papers and stories, apparently the Sindari of one house did something forbidden with magic power.
At this point, the stories become more detailed. I have paraphrased the hundreds of pages of dialogue and descriptions, which I have uncovered thus far.
The story begins with two young elves born twins, which was exceedingly rare in Elven births. The twins, a boy and a girl, Avaldain and his sister Althea, were unfortunately destined to become Noldor. The Sindari Lord of their house, Lord Gaelrandir crafted a sailing ship and embarked upon a quest to find a reclusive “Oracle” living in the far north. His goal was to seek help to counter the renegade Sindari who were bending their power towards forbidden ends. The twins stowed away on the ship to be close to their father, who was House Under-Steward in the service of Lord Gaelrandir.
After many trials and tribulations they found the “Oracle” and tragically, along the way, the twins’ father, the Under-Steward, died. What happened next is where the story takes strange turns.
At first it seemed that the Oracle was a small Dragon, as this was the form in which the Oracle appeared in its first meeting with Lord Gaelrandir. Later, however, it becomes evident that the Oracle is something altogether different. It lives somewhere else and manifests itself through a pool of water on the island. The Oracle takes control of a nearby willing “host,” which allows the Oracle direct interaction with Pendor. One of its favorite hosts is a small Dragon, which has a general disdain for Elves and an appetite for small white rabbits.
The Oracle decided to help Lord Gaelrandir, but stipulated a steep price for his aid: Althea would have to stay on the island and serve the Oracle for her entire life. Even worse, the Oracle would wipe away all memory of Althea so that no Elf would remember that she had ever existed. There was a heartbreaking account of the good-byes between Avaldain and Althea at the conclusion of this part of the story.
It is also not clear what help, if any, the Oracle gave to Gaelrandir, yet the Elven Lord seemed satisfied and returned to Gwythdarian.
Unknown to Lord Gaelrandir, the Oracle had put Avaldain under a compulsion. He was under a “geas” to return to Gwythdarian, gather together what Noldor he could, and leave Gwythdarian forever.
When the expedition returned to Gwythdarian, the situation had worsened to virtually open warfare. There had been bloodshed, and tensions were strong. No longer was Gwythdarian a haven for the learned, with sweet music floating on the cool breeze. It was a solemn place without sound and the air was heavy with foreboding. Lord Gaelrandir hastened to organize a concerted effort to stop the renegade noble house. He called together the heads of many other houses and held a grand council. He and his allied Sindari were so involved in the struggle before them that they did not notice that Avaldain had gathered several thousand Noldor and sailed for the mainland.
When the Sindari conflict reached its full pinnacle, the fury of magic that was unleashed caused the entire island to sink beneath the sea, killing all the Sindari and forever destroying the magic used by the other elder races. This event led to the eventual extinction of the elder races.
The surviving Noldor roamed Pendor for several months, then finally settled down and built a city next to a lake. Avaldain cloaked the city, having apparently some control over magic, (perhaps granted him by the Oracle, as Noldor had no powers of their own), so that no one could ever find it.
A recurrent theme in the stories is Avaldain’s feeling that something important was missing in his life, and his search for that elusive “something”. Althea often watched Avaldain in his struggles by using the power of the Oracle to scry him. In fact, many of the stories were from the Althea’s perspective and told how she watched her brother’s children, and their children’s children throughout their lives, helping them upon occasion, with no one ever aware she had done so.
Whatever it was that the Sindari had done, a forbidden “something” survived the sinking of Gwythdarian. There were very lengthy dialogues between Althea and the Oracle about countering and defeating this influence in the world and about the sons of Avaldain, who, being part Elf and part Human, had a chance to ultimately put an end to the Sindari influence on the world of Pendor. Further, their victory would ensure that many others, in “other places” would be spared great suffering if the sons of Avaldain were successful. These dialogues gave the general sense that whatever those rogue Sindari had done threatened the existence of the Oracle itself. Additionally, the Kingdom of Pendor was center stage to that conflict. Uniting the Pendorian Kingdom was a prerequisite to countering the remaining Sindari threat.
Madigan, a Prophet of Pendor, who may have been part Elf, made a prophecy recorded by the Pendorian Historians, predicting the coming of a great Warrior/Defender to Pendor. I have found what I think may be the Prophecy, written in Latin by the ex-monk, and never translated.
Verba de futuro:
Multis post annis, ex cearulo, Defensor veho a equus et Pendor sub secreto et sub selentio, fortes et liber. Defensor cognoso non est ad astra mollis e terra via. Defensor insisto quo fas et gloria docunt. Defensor laboro est arduum sane munus. Amicus certus in re incerta cernitor, quod latet anguis in herba.Quam terribilis est haec hora! Vae victis! Nil desperandum, forsan miseros meliora sequentur, pax et bonum, vinculum unitatis. Finis coronat opus, et in hoc signo vincis.
In other stories and recorded conversations between the Oracle and Althea, a very different version of reality was presented to her. I am still digesting the ramifications of these conversations and piecing them together with some of the conversations between the ex-Benedictine Monk and the Oracle that shine an enlightening and disturbing light on our reality.
Here are three short conversations and explanations, between the Oracle and Althea where the former is lecturing to the latter.
These conversations I thought interesting enough to share with you, to wit:
“There is order in the universe, from the rotation of galaxies around a central core to the structure of the smallest particles with charged bits of power orbiting their center. There are definable laws governing how everything interacts. These laws govern speed, weight, resistance, attraction, repulsion, temperature and many other concepts too difficult to explain right now. Everything has a natural law that defines what it is, how it works… except life. Life is only partially governed by natural laws.”
“Elves and Humans, have the spark of creation within them. We have talked about this in the past, and the decisions made to yield that spark to them. Higher orders can reproduce themselves, explore, think, and, most importantly, exercise free will. Free will allows them to dream, to bring incongruent facts together and create something new. That spark of creation reverberates through the weave and unfolds countless alternate possibilities. It is from these possibilities that stepping-stones, where we may walk, are created.“
“Infinity is a concept, not a number, too large to define, beyond the realm of what human and elven minds can hope to comprehend. They thus attempt to define that which cannot be defined, creating a “definition’ that is much more than the definition could be. They scoop up a flagon full of water and call it an ocean.
Yes it is a liquid, yes there are similarities, but does it encapsulate the immensity of an ocean? It falls woefully short does it not?”
There were many other stories, not dealing with Althea, which are narrow windows into the world of Pendor. I will share those with you as time permits.
What becomes really confusing in several of these stories, as transcribed by Jonas, is that the unnamed ex-Benedictine monk often had direct conversations with the “Oracle”, about our own world. For example: Jonas recorded one such conversation where the Oracle discusses with the Monk the importance of building the Eiffel Tower.
Another disturbing reference is to the name of the Elven Island, Gwythdarian, and how its name was wiped away from the “weave.” The term “weave” is often used by the Oracle to describe the nature of his existence. I thought this odd so I decided to run a search on the Internet for “Gwythdarian” using various search engines. To my dismay I could not find any reference to that name at all. Nor could I find substantial references to the name “Gaelrandir”. (The only reference was a player who named his character Gaelrandir in Lord of the Rings Online in December 2007. I wonder why these words are so elusive.)
As I continue piecing the Pendorian puzzle together, it has transformed into an enormous tapestry. In my subsequent accounts of its history, more of Pendor and its fascinating inhabitants will unfold before you.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
February has come..
Hello Everyone,
It has been a fast and furious month. As most of you know if you have been following this blog, I have jumped into Modding. Specifically a mod entitled "Prophesy of Pendor" for Mount&Blade. Today we are over 14,500 downloads and growing steadily. This is pretty good, way over 5% market penetration within 6 weeks.
Currently I am coordinating a volunteer team of artists, writers, and enthusiasts from six continents and collectively we are producing the next version of this interesting piece of entertainment. The interesting aspect of this exercise is that it has given me a platform to give real examples of the theories I have been discussing for years. The initial piece was to give an example of the entertainment convergence by intentionally blending a game with literature and performance art as well as to sample some rudimentary concepts using chaos theory
The result has been met with a high degree of player acceptance and a thirst for more. The next version we go deeper into the entertainment convergence, so deeply blurring the lines that separate traditional entertainment offerings that our consumers, just in a few pages of literature, feel unsettled and are moved in ways that they did not expect. It is something that they think about when they are not playing, wondering about the nature of the universe and reality and how an act so simple as playing a game, may affect real lives..somewhere else. From a technical standpoint, we will be delving into new areas and evolving some of the basic concepts of game play.
Using chaos theory in an intelligent way it is likely that even the enemies that the player will face during a game will be different in the sense that some games various events will occur, and in others they may not. It will be an example of what we talked about earlier regarding designing for the possibility of something rather than the explicit sense of something happening. I have a feeling that it will be very well received. In addition we are advancing the see-buy-build concept of strategic gaming into one that is dealing more with personalities and skills and loyalty. In most, (all?) games there is a list of components that we can purchase, we know pretty much what those components are and plan accordingly. This new model adds another dimension as we will not control explicitly what options are available to use to build, but rather our steward and his biases and skills will determine what is available at a location to build. This is one of those areas where unless you have seen it, or conceptualized it, it is difficult to explain the model as it is "not like" something else. So we cannot say "It is like Oblivion except this and that".. which gives a frame of reference and an idea which can be conceptualized. Nuff for now.. I will post the next version of the story for everyone to read.
Talk to you all later,
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Prophesy of Pendor - the Designers View
This is the first post on Blogspot, the previous posts were manually ported over to this site from another hosting service.It has been 20 days since the release of Prophesy of Pendor, the mod for Mount&Blade. We have over 7500 direct downloads, and over 1850 patch updates. For those of you who do not know, Mount&Blade is an independent game offering from a development house out of Turkey and more information on their offering can be found on past pages.
The success of Prophesy of Pendor, to date, is interesting to me on several levels. It should be interesting to you as well as it helps support some of the design concepts that I have been talking about.
The strength of a game is not measured in how often you play it. It is measured in how much you think about it when you are not playing. To do this effectively you have to keep alive what I like to call the unanswered question. If you think of your favorite television shows, movie franchises and books, you will see that this is a common trend in those that are very successful. Games are the same way.
One of the keys of course is pattern recognition. When we create a game that has identifiable patterns, and we, as the player, know what, when, how, where and who, then the experience becomes redundant. In MMORPG’s this is the point that social interaction and social ties becomes the bonds that keep us playing. No such social bonds exist with single player games. We go out and purchase the next game. In some cases, if we are savvy enough, we delve into the Mods and play those for a while then move on.
Part of the reason that this Mod is enjoying success is that it was designed to keep alive unanswered questions and uses elementary chaos theory to deliver content. This latter piece will be expanded in a later released to drive events in the game world so that no two games will be the same.
Technically I have created a scenario that simulates a heroic journey. This is a key element, luckily inherent in the Mount&Blade engine, is heavily accented in this mod.
The environment is framed in such a way as things in the game world can be identified to larger story elements that form meaning for the players. Meaning is key here, players are able to extrapolate from what they experience in the game and apply it to the story and to characters in and out of the game. It all ties together to form a holistic experience, and drives discovery, answers existing questions and generates more questions.
Most interestingly, and this will be accelerated in the next release, it blurs the line between reality and fantasy to the point that playing the game itself and finishing it has meaning beyond just the game.
The key concepts here are creating meaning, delivering content and events in ways that are not expected, and keeping unanswered questions alive. A game ends for a player when one of these three elements ceases. If there is no meaning, or if the content is delivered in recognizable chunks which is easily definable, or that there are no more questions to ask, the player realizes that they are done, regardless whether they have driven the game to its conclusion or not.
On another topic close to my heart is to talk again about Product vs. Service and why a product oriented approach fails us as gamers. I had a very interesting experience on the Forums of Mount&Blade recently where some players took offense to the idea of a service-based approach to a game offering. My guess is that they just do not understand the ramifications. That is ok, as I fully am aware that new concepts that are outside our experience are very difficult for folks to understand.
So, lets go over this a bit and do this exercise together.
If you owned a game company, how do you make your money? That is simple right? You make a game and sell it to a publisher and they pay you lots of cash right? That is roughly how it works with of course some royalty payments if you are lucky.
Here is the problem. As the owner of the company you have to keep making new games to stay in business and keep the cash flow positive. Thus as the game company you must intentionally, and pay attention here gamers, NOT CREATE A GAME THAT CAN BE PLAYED FOR YEARS AND DELIVER ALL OF THE FEATURES THAT GAMERS WANT.
In short game development shops will never deliver that ultimate gaming experience. Once they do that, you, the gamer, stop buying new games, and they are out of business.
What this means guys, and I am talking to those gamers who were so adamantly against the concept of gaming as a service, is that you will never see a game that delivers the type of experience that you will enjoy and explore for years as long as it is a product. Yes you will see some Mods and yes you will see some minor improvements, but in the end, the only entity who wins from this scenario is the publisher, the distributors and the retailers.
The guy with the short end of the stick is you, the gamer.
The development houses historically have competed like this for many years, and this was not ever an issue as the central theme of generational improvements was based in graphics. Much better graphics, very little improvement on game play and you had a hit. That is what everyone talked about right? That is what the gaming population today is conditioned (and I use this term in the true behaviorist sense), to accept.
Well, we have reached or will shortly reach, that point of realism in our graphics engines that will exceed the capabilities of our eyes and brains to determine a significant difference between generations of graphic improvements.
What happens to the product paradigm then?
Food for thought.
Peace out,
Jim
Response to Commentor December 29th
First, thank you for your comments. It is gratifying to know that I am not speaking into the void. While I know that we have folks visiting this site, there is always a wonder as to who they are and is any of this soliloquy finding a home in someone’s thoughts. It is doubly rewarding to find out that not only do I know you in a past life, but that that you have the market savvy and business acumen to engage in a meaningful dialogue.
“ While I personally have a need for the “better game design / system” you describe, I wonder if the gaming masses have the same need. This is the business quandry that I believe current gaming developers are in (and a problem investors may see as well). Also, if the audience is large enough – what is the realistic path for this type of “product/service” to come to market? “
I believe that the gaming masses do not have the same need. They do have the need and desire to consume content, be entertained, and receive value for their entertainment dollar. I believe, and the literature world substantiates this, that there are hundreds if not thousands of niche markets and sub-cultures in our target market. There are those folks who are avid Flash Gordon fans, any number of Japanese anime series fans, vampire fans, Gothic fans, Arthurian Legend fans etc. The list is as long as our imaginations will take us. One of the powerful aspects of this type of offering is that it allows folks who are part of these niche markets to create offerings that are of interest to themselves and their niche market and bring forth creations that otherwise would never see the light of day.
Regarding the product and the service and charging a license fee for the toolkit. This is not the first time I have this proposal and would like to explore this concept a bit. One of the main goals here is to lower the barrier to entry for high-end gamers to participate. If we charge for the toolkit beyond the $15.00 per month game service charge, we lower the amount of high-end gamers who would participate. I ask then, what is the net gain? The company makes a little more up front, but will reduce the amount of “Game-crafters” who are providing offerings, thus reducing the innovation, and volume of offerings which in turn will reduce the total subscription base. Now an argument can be put forth that by charging for the toolkit we increase the quality of the game offerings as we likely will engage only those who more successful and able to make these games. My counter to this is J.K. Rowling: An unemployed mother who had a vision and a need to tell a story. If she had to purchase a license costing a hundred dollars or more to or more to have the chance to publisher her story, I wonder if it would have happened? For every success like hers, there are a dozen that never got past the various barriers to see the light of day. Besides all of these, if we engage more people who are trying the toolkit rather than are playing games (or both), we effectively are charging a monthly service fee for using the toolkit.
I think you are right on the Game-crafters that are out there that are manifesting themselves in the modding community. Even then we are not hitting the cream of the potential providers as to be a modder, you must know how to program and/or script and be pretty good at it to be successful.
I agree that if the company started out with some decent content, it would be a slam dunk. In regard to your comment of “ This audience appears to be there, but they do not appear to demand this more dynamic game and they are still willing to buy junk.“, I bet I could easily find over 250,000 (I did an analysis a few years ago and postulated that there are closer to a million) posts in the various game forums alluding to the need for dynamic content or asking for features that would be supported by this type of offering. One by-product that the game service brings, which I have not discussed yet is that once we have a low barrier to entry, a game-crafter creates his/her creation, then they will not just sit there. They will tell their friends, and their gaming-buddies about it and actively try to get them to join. This means, in effect, that we have created a channel sales force selling the service. This is a departure from the social “I am here and lets go hang out”, to “I have created something you will really like and come check it out!”
Pathway to success:
You have a solid grasp of how to bring ideas to market in the software and gaming world and I am appreciative that you bring this experience to this discussion.
We attempted the investor approach when we first tried to peddle this idea back in 2003. We had a great deal of interest, in that Angels wanted to invest 100K for a proof of concept. That was the major stumbling block for us, as how do you provide a proof of concept of this type of service? Some of the objections we encountered were listed above, as well as many folks did not believe that the on-line game industry was more than maybe 1 Million total subscribers. Remember that this was 2003-2004 and the top dog was still regarded as Everquest. Did we have some credibility issues? To a point we did, and I am sure that hurt us as neither of us were currently employed in the on-line gaming industry.
Check out the history of MMO http://www.mmogchart.com/analysis-and-conclusions/
This is a site that I consider one of the most important overviews out in cyberspace.
Today, you are spot on in that investment would be a hard sell. The only saving grace is that entertainment sales are growing, which has been my experience that in hard times, folks tend to consume more offerings that take them away from the problems of their real world.
The Hobbyist approach I believe you are correct, unless it were a socialized network of folks working on a concept of open source. Even then, the organization of something like this would be a long shot at best.
The indie approach is interesting and one that I had not fully considered. Maybe this is something we should discuss with the folks at Taleworlds? The trick is that they have to be large and/or connected enough to be able to fund it, and small enough to be willing to listen to a proposal.
The corporate developer is an avenue we considered, but once you hand someone the idea, prove that it works, you have lost all rights to it. One painful lesson I have learned over the years is that your legal rights only matter if you have the economic resources to fight for them.
Besides this, Bioware was the originator of this type of community, but amazingly, they refuse to either hear any idea that does not originate with them, and their goals are aimed at becoming the top tier gaming studio, not a publishing service. Their super secret Austin studio has recently revealed they have been working on the new Star Wars MMORPG for the last two years.
The two major competitors whom I mentioned who were thinking along these lines in 2003 were Kaneva and Multiverse. Both have transformed themselves in different directions, perhaps for the same reasons: To provide some proof of concept or meet some objective before they received funding. Last time I checked, Kaneva is now a social game world, and Multiverse is focusing on bringing “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” to market while still otherwise plugging along aiming at the low end developer, with limited success.
Yes, this project would be long term as any MMORPG is these days. Years of development work, likely around 36 months and a cost of around 15 to 20 Million if you are careful and prudent.
I am glad you liked Mount&Blade, it has a strong appeal. Regarding popularity of this blog: yes, my hope is, and the blog stats bear this out, that I have a significant spike in interest since releasing the Prophesy of Pendor mod for Mount&Blade.
I have no idea who you could be. Time and experience change us all. I know that my experience and knowledge has expanded exponentially since I stepped out of gaming in 1994. I know a score of folks who could hold this conversation based upon their experience and education at that time. Since then I am sure that I can add a few hundred more to that list. I look forward to when you get in touch with me and solve this mystery.
Best,
Jim
“ While I personally have a need for the “better game design / system” you describe, I wonder if the gaming masses have the same need. This is the business quandry that I believe current gaming developers are in (and a problem investors may see as well). Also, if the audience is large enough – what is the realistic path for this type of “product/service” to come to market? “
I believe that the gaming masses do not have the same need. They do have the need and desire to consume content, be entertained, and receive value for their entertainment dollar. I believe, and the literature world substantiates this, that there are hundreds if not thousands of niche markets and sub-cultures in our target market. There are those folks who are avid Flash Gordon fans, any number of Japanese anime series fans, vampire fans, Gothic fans, Arthurian Legend fans etc. The list is as long as our imaginations will take us. One of the powerful aspects of this type of offering is that it allows folks who are part of these niche markets to create offerings that are of interest to themselves and their niche market and bring forth creations that otherwise would never see the light of day.
Regarding the product and the service and charging a license fee for the toolkit. This is not the first time I have this proposal and would like to explore this concept a bit. One of the main goals here is to lower the barrier to entry for high-end gamers to participate. If we charge for the toolkit beyond the $15.00 per month game service charge, we lower the amount of high-end gamers who would participate. I ask then, what is the net gain? The company makes a little more up front, but will reduce the amount of “Game-crafters” who are providing offerings, thus reducing the innovation, and volume of offerings which in turn will reduce the total subscription base. Now an argument can be put forth that by charging for the toolkit we increase the quality of the game offerings as we likely will engage only those who more successful and able to make these games. My counter to this is J.K. Rowling: An unemployed mother who had a vision and a need to tell a story. If she had to purchase a license costing a hundred dollars or more to or more to have the chance to publisher her story, I wonder if it would have happened? For every success like hers, there are a dozen that never got past the various barriers to see the light of day. Besides all of these, if we engage more people who are trying the toolkit rather than are playing games (or both), we effectively are charging a monthly service fee for using the toolkit.
I think you are right on the Game-crafters that are out there that are manifesting themselves in the modding community. Even then we are not hitting the cream of the potential providers as to be a modder, you must know how to program and/or script and be pretty good at it to be successful.
I agree that if the company started out with some decent content, it would be a slam dunk. In regard to your comment of “ This audience appears to be there, but they do not appear to demand this more dynamic game and they are still willing to buy junk.“, I bet I could easily find over 250,000 (I did an analysis a few years ago and postulated that there are closer to a million) posts in the various game forums alluding to the need for dynamic content or asking for features that would be supported by this type of offering. One by-product that the game service brings, which I have not discussed yet is that once we have a low barrier to entry, a game-crafter creates his/her creation, then they will not just sit there. They will tell their friends, and their gaming-buddies about it and actively try to get them to join. This means, in effect, that we have created a channel sales force selling the service. This is a departure from the social “I am here and lets go hang out”, to “I have created something you will really like and come check it out!”
Pathway to success:
You have a solid grasp of how to bring ideas to market in the software and gaming world and I am appreciative that you bring this experience to this discussion.
We attempted the investor approach when we first tried to peddle this idea back in 2003. We had a great deal of interest, in that Angels wanted to invest 100K for a proof of concept. That was the major stumbling block for us, as how do you provide a proof of concept of this type of service? Some of the objections we encountered were listed above, as well as many folks did not believe that the on-line game industry was more than maybe 1 Million total subscribers. Remember that this was 2003-2004 and the top dog was still regarded as Everquest. Did we have some credibility issues? To a point we did, and I am sure that hurt us as neither of us were currently employed in the on-line gaming industry.
Check out the history of MMO http://www.mmogchart.com/analysis-and-conclusions/
This is a site that I consider one of the most important overviews out in cyberspace.
Today, you are spot on in that investment would be a hard sell. The only saving grace is that entertainment sales are growing, which has been my experience that in hard times, folks tend to consume more offerings that take them away from the problems of their real world.
The Hobbyist approach I believe you are correct, unless it were a socialized network of folks working on a concept of open source. Even then, the organization of something like this would be a long shot at best.
The indie approach is interesting and one that I had not fully considered. Maybe this is something we should discuss with the folks at Taleworlds? The trick is that they have to be large and/or connected enough to be able to fund it, and small enough to be willing to listen to a proposal.
The corporate developer is an avenue we considered, but once you hand someone the idea, prove that it works, you have lost all rights to it. One painful lesson I have learned over the years is that your legal rights only matter if you have the economic resources to fight for them.
Besides this, Bioware was the originator of this type of community, but amazingly, they refuse to either hear any idea that does not originate with them, and their goals are aimed at becoming the top tier gaming studio, not a publishing service. Their super secret Austin studio has recently revealed they have been working on the new Star Wars MMORPG for the last two years.
The two major competitors whom I mentioned who were thinking along these lines in 2003 were Kaneva and Multiverse. Both have transformed themselves in different directions, perhaps for the same reasons: To provide some proof of concept or meet some objective before they received funding. Last time I checked, Kaneva is now a social game world, and Multiverse is focusing on bringing “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” to market while still otherwise plugging along aiming at the low end developer, with limited success.
Yes, this project would be long term as any MMORPG is these days. Years of development work, likely around 36 months and a cost of around 15 to 20 Million if you are careful and prudent.
I am glad you liked Mount&Blade, it has a strong appeal. Regarding popularity of this blog: yes, my hope is, and the blog stats bear this out, that I have a significant spike in interest since releasing the Prophesy of Pendor mod for Mount&Blade.
I have no idea who you could be. Time and experience change us all. I know that my experience and knowledge has expanded exponentially since I stepped out of gaming in 1994. I know a score of folks who could hold this conversation based upon their experience and education at that time. Since then I am sure that I can add a few hundred more to that list. I look forward to when you get in touch with me and solve this mystery.
Best,
Jim
Tying it all together
We talked a few posts ago about dynamic environments, and about focusing on guilds, and recently about the vision of a game publishing service.
Let us tie all of these together into a single bundle and discuss how they play together. What I am describing to you is Digital Lore, and the Lore Crafting Game System I worked on for several years with Dr. Paul Sincock.
The offering was initially a MMORPG game, much like about a hundred other offerings out there at first glance. But with a big twist. The twist was in addition to the game offering, the player also received the Lore Crafting Game System and was encouraged to delve into their creativity to develop additional offerings.
There were three interfaces. The first one was the one you played the game with, the second was the one you developed your game world with, and the last one was the GM interface that allowed the player to interact with the live offering they had created and published.
From the player perspective they launched the program, signed-on and connected to the game service. The first menu they viewed the various games they could play, a list of recently visited and favorites. Once the offering was in full swing, there would be thousands of offerings. The player selected their choice and one of three things would happen.
!) They are connected to the on-line game choice.( These are games hosted by the game service.)
2) They were taken to a download page to download a single player game.
3) They would begin playing a previously downloaded single player game.
It is pretty straightforward from the player perspective, which is essential for success. The service infrastructure would allow the player to play these games if their account was active, inclusive of the local single player games. The service infrastructure also would record the time the player spent on a given title playing it, regardless if the title was a local offering or an on-line offering.
The second interface is the GM interface, which allows a developer/Game-master to view their on-line offering as the players are playing it. This interface is game-like, and allows them to create or modify spheres of influence, spawn points and well as to perform administrative tasks such as moving stuck players, and to deal with game related customer service issues.
The last interface is the world creation interface that allows the high-end player to create a game world, populate it, create dialogue etc. It is essential that this interface be aimed at, available for and usable by, the high end gamer and not a developer. The goal here is to lower the barrier to entry for storytellers, game designers and creative people who are not necessarily programmers to be able to use this tool to express their creative ideas.
There are many questions and objections folks have at this point so I will address them as I best remember them.
Who owns the intellectual property? This is somewhat of a departure from current thought so please engage me here. The creative intellectual property belongs to the writer or designer of the game. He owns it all of the property and the company owns the actual bits and bytes on the servers which they LEASE to the designer for use to host his designs. The same concept applies to players. A Designer owns the player’s characters data and information which they in turn LEASE to the player, in exchange for monthly fees. The terms of the lease allow the player to change, modify or dispose of the data associated with that character. This approach is designed to head off the future legal issues surrounding the ownership and virtual crime questions that will be bubbling up in the next decade.
What happens if the designers decide to drop the service? Then they drop the service and the game offering is removed from the stack. No harm, no foul.
I can see hundreds of lousy titles being offered, how do you deal with that? The company creates a rating system as well as a usage system that yields both performance data (how much usage a title generates) as well as a rating system (how well the player community likes a given title.. one vote per month.). The rating and performance information are transparent to all players and is used as a search parameter for choosing titles. The company must maintain a given threshold of acceptability, as well as a delineation of “Alpha”, “Beta” and “Release” offerings/servers and time associated with them before they are dropped from the stack. The idea here is that if a designer uploads an offering, it has to meet either acceptability (player community) standards or performance (usage) standards or it will be dropped from the stack.
Do you think that these player designers can create offerings that 50,000 people will play? A few will, the majority will not. Analysis of game communities, guilds and so forth show clearly that a player will generally interact with a few dozen other players on a semi-regular basis. Huge servers with tens of thousands of players are a product of static product based offerings. This service concept promotes many smaller game worlds played on more standard servers. This lowers the cap of the game world player population, and allows less expensive systems to run the servers. It also promotes an encapsulation of the niche markets that would never see mainstream release as only several thousand people would ever play the game.
Who else is doing this? Who are your direct competitors? There are two other company’s that have tried this to date, and they were unsuccessful in their offering in that they had to modify their business plan and work in different ways to stay in business. Both tried to aim at the low end developer instead of the high end player. Both offered a standard interface, but only half the infrastructure. In short, they offered to be the general infrastructure of the MMORPG and gave toolsets, and provide a billing structure. They did not provide art assets (the largest barrier to entry for writers and storytellers and game designers), they did not provide a service model that benefited both the player and the designer. In short they tried to market a service to game developers that provided a marginal value that saved them effort in the short term, but was not a value in the long term.
What makes this different from other on-line games? It is all about the player, and reaching the right market and providing value. Players now spend $15.00 a month (give or take a few dollars), to play a single offering. Compare this to $15.00 a month to have the opportunity to play dozens, or even hundreds of games per month. The value greatly overshadows traditional product based offerings. Besides this, by utilizing the dynamic game environment aspects of this service offering, the designers can offering something now that is completely missing from other traditional titles. That is meaning. The players now have ways to interact with the game world that changes the game world. This will bring back a very large portion of gamers who have stopped playing these types of games because they realized that what they had no point, no value to other people or to themselves and had no meaning. Nothing ever changed.
How do you compete against other large offerings such as WOW?
The model that the product based offerings such as WOW provides are not sustainable. They will fail. They are forced to create a content pipeline and that content is consumed at an ever-increasing rate. You hear stories of people taking time off from work for a two-weeks when a new “add-on” is released and then finishing it in days. Then they face 18 months for the next release, and they will only do this a few times before they “drift” to another offering.
Another large portion of players play WOW for the social interaction with their real life friends. Consensus is high that the game is weak and they tolerate it because their friends play. Yet, WOW yields very few tools in the game that help strengthen and maintain these bonds.
The Game Publishing Service approach solves both of these issues and generates additional benefits as well.
Content: This is perhaps the largest advantage that the Game Publishing Service approach gives. Not only does it create a platform where thousands of offerings can be maintained, these offerings often will create much their own content dynamically. Meaning that the players can create the “situation” of their game word or scenario, and generate the possibilities of what may happen, but most of the time and effort of the game offering is generated by itself. Further, the individual designers and developers will guide the theme and provide additional content with it is needed.
Players: The strong hooks into the game system itself which is part of the tool kit and publishing service can give guilds reasons to band together and perform specific tasks in the various game simulations. In short, it helps give meaning and shared purpose which is non-existent in 99% of the game offerings out there today. This can perhaps be better illustrated in the following manner. Imagine that we have a group of teenagers that go down to the local park and hang out. They don’t do anything in particular, but just socialize, hang out and occasionally perform shared activities that help one member or another. They can hang out at this park, another park, the mall or at one of their houses and have the same effect. Now imagine that when they are at the park, they are a team that has a shared goal. They discuss strategy, are, as a group, competitive against other groups and pay attention to each other, how they are equipped, what they wear how they do certain tasks as all of these are factors to be successful in the park. In short, they not only socialize, but depend upon each other in a larger shared context. The richness of the social interaction is greatly increased. They have meaning and reason to be in the park as opposed to somewhere else.
More soon..
Jim
Let us tie all of these together into a single bundle and discuss how they play together. What I am describing to you is Digital Lore, and the Lore Crafting Game System I worked on for several years with Dr. Paul Sincock.
The offering was initially a MMORPG game, much like about a hundred other offerings out there at first glance. But with a big twist. The twist was in addition to the game offering, the player also received the Lore Crafting Game System and was encouraged to delve into their creativity to develop additional offerings.
There were three interfaces. The first one was the one you played the game with, the second was the one you developed your game world with, and the last one was the GM interface that allowed the player to interact with the live offering they had created and published.
From the player perspective they launched the program, signed-on and connected to the game service. The first menu they viewed the various games they could play, a list of recently visited and favorites. Once the offering was in full swing, there would be thousands of offerings. The player selected their choice and one of three things would happen.
!) They are connected to the on-line game choice.( These are games hosted by the game service.)
2) They were taken to a download page to download a single player game.
3) They would begin playing a previously downloaded single player game.
It is pretty straightforward from the player perspective, which is essential for success. The service infrastructure would allow the player to play these games if their account was active, inclusive of the local single player games. The service infrastructure also would record the time the player spent on a given title playing it, regardless if the title was a local offering or an on-line offering.
The second interface is the GM interface, which allows a developer/Game-master to view their on-line offering as the players are playing it. This interface is game-like, and allows them to create or modify spheres of influence, spawn points and well as to perform administrative tasks such as moving stuck players, and to deal with game related customer service issues.
The last interface is the world creation interface that allows the high-end player to create a game world, populate it, create dialogue etc. It is essential that this interface be aimed at, available for and usable by, the high end gamer and not a developer. The goal here is to lower the barrier to entry for storytellers, game designers and creative people who are not necessarily programmers to be able to use this tool to express their creative ideas.
There are many questions and objections folks have at this point so I will address them as I best remember them.
Who owns the intellectual property? This is somewhat of a departure from current thought so please engage me here. The creative intellectual property belongs to the writer or designer of the game. He owns it all of the property and the company owns the actual bits and bytes on the servers which they LEASE to the designer for use to host his designs. The same concept applies to players. A Designer owns the player’s characters data and information which they in turn LEASE to the player, in exchange for monthly fees. The terms of the lease allow the player to change, modify or dispose of the data associated with that character. This approach is designed to head off the future legal issues surrounding the ownership and virtual crime questions that will be bubbling up in the next decade.
What happens if the designers decide to drop the service? Then they drop the service and the game offering is removed from the stack. No harm, no foul.
I can see hundreds of lousy titles being offered, how do you deal with that? The company creates a rating system as well as a usage system that yields both performance data (how much usage a title generates) as well as a rating system (how well the player community likes a given title.. one vote per month.). The rating and performance information are transparent to all players and is used as a search parameter for choosing titles. The company must maintain a given threshold of acceptability, as well as a delineation of “Alpha”, “Beta” and “Release” offerings/servers and time associated with them before they are dropped from the stack. The idea here is that if a designer uploads an offering, it has to meet either acceptability (player community) standards or performance (usage) standards or it will be dropped from the stack.
Do you think that these player designers can create offerings that 50,000 people will play? A few will, the majority will not. Analysis of game communities, guilds and so forth show clearly that a player will generally interact with a few dozen other players on a semi-regular basis. Huge servers with tens of thousands of players are a product of static product based offerings. This service concept promotes many smaller game worlds played on more standard servers. This lowers the cap of the game world player population, and allows less expensive systems to run the servers. It also promotes an encapsulation of the niche markets that would never see mainstream release as only several thousand people would ever play the game.
Who else is doing this? Who are your direct competitors? There are two other company’s that have tried this to date, and they were unsuccessful in their offering in that they had to modify their business plan and work in different ways to stay in business. Both tried to aim at the low end developer instead of the high end player. Both offered a standard interface, but only half the infrastructure. In short, they offered to be the general infrastructure of the MMORPG and gave toolsets, and provide a billing structure. They did not provide art assets (the largest barrier to entry for writers and storytellers and game designers), they did not provide a service model that benefited both the player and the designer. In short they tried to market a service to game developers that provided a marginal value that saved them effort in the short term, but was not a value in the long term.
What makes this different from other on-line games? It is all about the player, and reaching the right market and providing value. Players now spend $15.00 a month (give or take a few dollars), to play a single offering. Compare this to $15.00 a month to have the opportunity to play dozens, or even hundreds of games per month. The value greatly overshadows traditional product based offerings. Besides this, by utilizing the dynamic game environment aspects of this service offering, the designers can offering something now that is completely missing from other traditional titles. That is meaning. The players now have ways to interact with the game world that changes the game world. This will bring back a very large portion of gamers who have stopped playing these types of games because they realized that what they had no point, no value to other people or to themselves and had no meaning. Nothing ever changed.
How do you compete against other large offerings such as WOW?
The model that the product based offerings such as WOW provides are not sustainable. They will fail. They are forced to create a content pipeline and that content is consumed at an ever-increasing rate. You hear stories of people taking time off from work for a two-weeks when a new “add-on” is released and then finishing it in days. Then they face 18 months for the next release, and they will only do this a few times before they “drift” to another offering.
Another large portion of players play WOW for the social interaction with their real life friends. Consensus is high that the game is weak and they tolerate it because their friends play. Yet, WOW yields very few tools in the game that help strengthen and maintain these bonds.
The Game Publishing Service approach solves both of these issues and generates additional benefits as well.
Content: This is perhaps the largest advantage that the Game Publishing Service approach gives. Not only does it create a platform where thousands of offerings can be maintained, these offerings often will create much their own content dynamically. Meaning that the players can create the “situation” of their game word or scenario, and generate the possibilities of what may happen, but most of the time and effort of the game offering is generated by itself. Further, the individual designers and developers will guide the theme and provide additional content with it is needed.
Players: The strong hooks into the game system itself which is part of the tool kit and publishing service can give guilds reasons to band together and perform specific tasks in the various game simulations. In short, it helps give meaning and shared purpose which is non-existent in 99% of the game offerings out there today. This can perhaps be better illustrated in the following manner. Imagine that we have a group of teenagers that go down to the local park and hang out. They don’t do anything in particular, but just socialize, hang out and occasionally perform shared activities that help one member or another. They can hang out at this park, another park, the mall or at one of their houses and have the same effect. Now imagine that when they are at the park, they are a team that has a shared goal. They discuss strategy, are, as a group, competitive against other groups and pay attention to each other, how they are equipped, what they wear how they do certain tasks as all of these are factors to be successful in the park. In short, they not only socialize, but depend upon each other in a larger shared context. The richness of the social interaction is greatly increased. They have meaning and reason to be in the park as opposed to somewhere else.
More soon..
Jim
The 56th hour
There are many things that would like to discuss and share with you. Right now I am involved with a project as discussed earlier, taking some of this theory and putting it into practice to give folks, like yourself, a practical example of what I have been pondering.
Fifty six hours ago I released the Mod to Mount&Blade. At this moment, over 2500 folks have downloaded and are playing it. There is a nice thread on the Mount&Blades forum where there is some great feedback, and more positive and supportive than I could have hoped for.
This is the heavy support phase after a release where all those little bugs that slipped through QA are addressed. I will be in this mode for around a week, then start to work on the next iteration of this project.
There is a fine line here that needs to be acknowledged. While there are some things that I want to deliver to the community that further my own goals, which are part entertainment and part real world demonstration of some of these concepts we discuss on this Blog. As a product marketing manager, it is essential that the community of players be engaged to help drive future features and that the process be as transparent as possible.
One thing I have learned that is a key point. Once you release a product, any product, to a group of people, you no longer control that product. To be successful, the community of consumers must provide the fuel that is transformed by the development team into results to get the product from point A, to point B.
In saying this, we have to acknowledge that this MOD for Mount&Blade is a product, not a service. The whole Mount&Blade business model is predicated on a product orientation, and a MOD, such as Prophesy of Pendor, and many others are just that.. modifications applicable to a product to increase the staying power and revenues of the product offering.
The problem with this approach is that it is not sustainable. You will note that many of the earlier pioneers of the community are no longer with us. They have moved on. There are many reasons for this, but the primary one is that real world life requires time and effort. This type of hobby is extremely time consuming and often to engage at this level is at the detriment of aspects of real life. They had to make a choice, as everyone who mods will eventually make a choice, to continue with their hobby or to pursue real world dollars that solve real world problems.
This is one of the primary reasons I am such an advocate of the game service platform approach as I shared with you folks several posts ago. If this activity paid a modder based upon the the time spent by players playing their creations then you would have much higher quality offerings that were really engaging, and focused on exactly what the players wanted. Further, it would allow modders to make a living or supplement their income which would solve real world problems and they would not need to move on. If you have not read that post.. take a look.
So, you may ask why am I modding? I have the desire to create, as many artists, writers and modders do. But more importantly, right now in these difficult enconomic times, I am between jobs and I have ample time to put into this endevor. The result I hope will be a win-win for all of us.
Peace out.. and I will post more soon.
Why I like Chaos Theory
What is chaos theory?
A very high level scientific explanation can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
Many years ago I went to an art exhibit where the artist had created elaborate fractal art by extrapolating mathematical functions found in chaos theory.
It fascinated me and I began thinking about how to use that concept in game design. I altered my thinking and how I was designing Legends and implemented something that when it was finished, completely surprised me.
What I had done was to create the game map, but not exactly what was ON the map, but a series of overlapping templates of what COULD be on the map taken from different perspectives. The overlays I chose were “RACE”, and “DENSITY”.
“RACE” was an overlay that gave me a geopolitical overview of a fantasy world. I could paint an area and say “This is controlled by the Elves”, or this other area was dominated by “Human Barbarian Tribes”. The racial templates referred back to a probability table that I created to determine the chance of “What” would be there. For example Elves would contain 85% High Elves, 5% Half elves, 5% Fairies, and 5% Wood Elves.
“DENSITY” was what sort of things I expected to see there in terms of structure. Was this a wilderness area, or perhaps a rural area or even the interior of a Kingdom. Each choice referred back to a probability table that I created to determine chances of certain things occurring. For example a template called “Interior” would have say a 40% chance of a village, a 40% chance of a castle or keep, and a 15% of a town, and a 5% chance of a city. Density also had a variable to determine how MANY of these “Places of Interest” would occur.
I had a handful of “Absolute” things that I needed to place in the game world, main cities, key ruins, characters etc. But those were done on another template that just connected them to the game map.
When I generated the game map based upon the “Probability Painting” I had done, the results were both very interesting and very surprising.
First, it worked perfectly. There were things in the game now that sparked my imagination and it was delightful to try to understand and create “Meaning” from looking at the game map. And to my surprise, meaning came. I knew it was random, and had no meaning, but by the places created one could surmise the relationship to other places that were nearby. An Orc Castle close to an Elven village of course meant that those Elves were at risk from raids by the Orcs. I did not plan that, but it was there in front of me. It was almost like reading a novel as you just knew that certain things were going go happen in the game based upon the proximity of the these places of interest.
I tried it again and to my amazement, it painted exactly the same thing again. At first I thought there was something wrong with my code, but then I discovered the key that makes this whole thing really exciting. What I found was that if I could seed the randomization process with any particular number, based upon the number used, I could randomize EXACTLY THE SAME PLACES.
I did some testing and to my amazement I found that at this time at least, and I qualify this statement, as it has been over 15 years since I ran these tests, the results were machine independent. If I send the routine that generated numbers to my friends in England, Austria, and Australia, and they ran the tests, we all came out with exactly the same random numbers in the same sequence based upon the same random seeds.
So, you ask why this is important? Let me tell you what this means in business terms. When we design a game it takes a great amount of effort to create content. Thousands of hours, and millions of dollars paying level designers, artists, and so on to sit at their computers and come up with interesting content to be consumed by the players.
What if rather than creating something “Explicitly”, we create the “Rules and boundaries” of what is “POSSIBLE” then let the computer generate the details?
To give you a sense of scope here, this process can be for all practical purposes, infinite. Infinite is a big number, in fact, it is not conceivable by our minds, and so we have to use abstract terms to understand it. Lets move this down to numbers we can comprehend easily.
An example is in order. Imagine that we want to create a small galaxy, only twenty thousand stars and let the players explore and colonize this micro-galaxy. Most 4th generation games that deal with space exploration cannot handle more than a few hundred worlds, much less twenty thousand. We also want this to be not a stand-alone game, but a MMORPG just to make it interesting.
I desire to create content, that gets down to the cubic yard on these planets, asteroids, and moons. How would I do this? The raw amount of data it would take using traditional design methods would make it impossible. Each world could conceivably be a terabyte in size.
If I gave you, the player, a program that contained the randomization process, all I need do is send to you one single precision number and let the randomization process fill in the rest. The only data I would need to send to you would be what has changed on the world based upon player interference.
So, in this example I just gave, it saves time, money and creates a larger range of possible things for the player to experience.
We use already lower forms of this concept for the randomized processes of “Random encounters” for the generation of NPC’s. in some the games which we play. Yet still, even in this form, the majority of the games out there use static content which is explicitly created.
The difference is that explicit content can be consumed but once. Dynamic content can be consumed over and over again and is what makes it so desirable from a design perspective.
Peace out and happy holidays…
The Vision
Hello all. I would like to give you a vision in this entry. It will likely last several entries, but that is ok.
The vision I plan to impart a few paragraphs down requires a bit of an introduction. It is a vision of the future of gaming, or at the least how I would like to see the future.
To appreciate what I am about to reveal, you may want to consider the source. I am an old guy, who cut his teeth on gaming just under 40 years ago at age 10 playing boxed war games by Avalon Hill. I picked up “Dungeons & Dragons” when it was advertised in an 1/8th page ad in Wargamer’s Digest when I was going through a table top gaming phase in 1974. Likely I have (or had) one of the first printings of the 3-booklet set. In 1980 I started a game company (in the wrong location), and developed computer games for the Atari and Apple microcomputers. It unfortunately failed, not because of the game design (it was called Shadow-Hawk I and it was similar to Elite but 5 years earlier), but because we could not release in time and missed the Christmas retail window. In short, we ran out of money and had to fold. During this time I developed a blue-print for the future of gaming and what phases we would have to go through as a company to change with them. I was about 90% right on, the biggest flaw was that the ability for massively multiplayer games in a shared graphical game world came about 5-7 years earlier than I predicted. Later in the mid 1980’s through the early 1990’s I developed turn based multi-player games played by mail. In 1990 I saw the coming of the internet as a death knell for this business, and tried with the help of several programmers to develop real time games played via the internet through a gaming service. There were lots of real world problems that caused this not to be finished (divorce, disease, lead programmer leaving) and in 1994 I left gaming on a professional basis for nearly 10 years. I tried to return in 2003 with what I am about to reveal to you, but with limited success.
The reason this is important is that I have a track record of being ahead of the curve and being able to spot market trends. As I opened this blog, I revealed that likely I will not see the benefits of what I have inside my head. I have spent years researching this concept and documenting a business case for it’s success. It is my sincere hope that this discussion will help the right person at the right time and this vision will, in some form, be given birth for the benefit of all of us.
The future of gaming is not a game. It is a game publishing service. It is based upon the most successful and proven business model utilizing the Internet today. I call that model a “T” based service model and both Amazon and Ebay use it.
It is a service provided by a gaming company that sits between a provider and a consumer and provides immense value BOTH WAYS.
For the Provider: The game company enables the provider to create games using a standardized platform, tools and extensive provided artwork assets. It provides the infrastructure that enables players to sign up, select games they want to play or download, and then keeps track of the time the player spends on what product. Monthly totals are calculated and part of the players subscription fees are paid to the various providers based strictly upon usage. The “Design tools” are free and freely downloaded by anyone and most importantly they are aimed at the high end player, and not the low end developer. The company provides a rating system which is calculated from the actions or the players and organized feedback from the player community that cuts the poor titles from the offering stack.
For the Player: The game company offers a service where you sign up for $15.00 a month. You have access to hundreds if not thousands of titles that you can play any or all, as you desire. New titles are added all the time, some are good, and some are great and the poor ones are dropped from the offering.
From the Company: This solves so many problems in game design. It eliminates the risk issue that publishers have in investing in new titles, as you only pay for titles that are successful. It gives a constant stream of content that is provided by your game designers and providers. The company focuses on marketing the service, providing solid infrastructure, billing service, and creating artwork.
This situation we see ourselves in holistically in the gaming community is very similar to a situation that occurred in history several hundred years ago. It was in Europe where all knowledge and technology was controlled by the church. In order to create books you had to go through years of training in the monasteries, be subject to rigorous standards and do menial copy work before you could even dare hope to write your own book. Even then, it had to be approved. Then came the printing press and the arguments that the clergy had with allowing non-priests to write books. What could they, the untrained and uninitiated possibly write about?
Today this same flavor of issue is before us and it is strangling creativity, and stopping a renaissance in gaming. The ideas are out there, the writers, storytellers, and novelists abound. What stops them from producing games? They are not trained, are not closely tied to the industry. In order to bring their artistic imaginations alive and be free to create, they have to do years of base work and support business minded people to make money. In short, we stifle creativity for the sake of profit. Yet ironically it is that very creativity that generates profit in the first place. What I am doing as a Modder with Mount&Blade clearly should illustrate that there is talent available out there that can provide professional looking and engaging products. I am not alone.
Some of the market research that I have done shows that there are thousands and even tens of thousands of people who would love the opportunity to create offerings on this system. Just look at what has been done with the games that have decent modding tools out there. Look at Neverwinter Nights who after 5 years after release is still a growing community! Statistically speaking there are hundreds of people who would excel, and a dozen who would be at the J.K. Rowling level at creating gaming products through a service as I described. In addition, there are millions of people who would jump at the chance to play this service, as it would provide immense value for their dollar.
This is the vision. A place where a college student can spend a summer vacation and create an offering that serves as a part time job through the school year. It is a place where a housewife can create a vision of gaming, by women for women when her kids are at school. It is a place where the creative novelists can express their thoughts, ideas and stories in a new medium. It is a place where the creative do what they do best: Create, and the best is consumed and enjoyed by the player community and the company who provides the service takes no risks. It is a vision where hundreds of jobs are created. It is a vision of leadership: Where we enable those who have the talent to succeed with their passion.
Peace out and more later.
Jim
Return to Gaming
Hello there folks, sorry I have been absent over the last several months. Last summer the company I worked for radically downsized (laid off 60% of its work force) of which I was one. Looking for work in this economic environment is not a fun experience.
It has taken most of my waking hours up to about three weeks ago when I decided to get back into gaming. The holiday season is accompanied by hiring freezes in the B2B software sector where I have been employed for the last 10 years. So I decided to try my hand at modding. One of my favorite titles is Mount&Blade, as mentioned earlier and it was a natural choice to explore what was possible.
I think that I have missed my natural calling. A friend once told me that I have a soul of an artist. I doubted that for years, but after these last few weeks, I think perhaps she was right. What was most amazing to me was that working on this project energized me and allowed me to work 12 hours a day and still be refreshed and excited over the work I was doing. While it will never be paid, the chance to express ideas and concepts in this medium has been an enlightening experience.
In this case I have been able to give an example of the entertainment convergence I have been talking about for years. As I write this, the module is 90% completed, only some presentation pieces need to be done and some minor tweaks for a release this weekend. Overall, I am pleased and excited.
So.. I will list the intro here for others to read..
-----------------------------------------------------------
Almost a Millennium ago
It has taken most of my waking hours up to about three weeks ago when I decided to get back into gaming. The holiday season is accompanied by hiring freezes in the B2B software sector where I have been employed for the last 10 years. So I decided to try my hand at modding. One of my favorite titles is Mount&Blade, as mentioned earlier and it was a natural choice to explore what was possible.
I think that I have missed my natural calling. A friend once told me that I have a soul of an artist. I doubted that for years, but after these last few weeks, I think perhaps she was right. What was most amazing to me was that working on this project energized me and allowed me to work 12 hours a day and still be refreshed and excited over the work I was doing. While it will never be paid, the chance to express ideas and concepts in this medium has been an enlightening experience.
In this case I have been able to give an example of the entertainment convergence I have been talking about for years. As I write this, the module is 90% completed, only some presentation pieces need to be done and some minor tweaks for a release this weekend. Overall, I am pleased and excited.
So.. I will list the intro here for others to read..
-----------------------------------------------------------
Prophesy of Pendor
Introduction
The hospice hallway was dimmed and there was lingering smell of bleach as I walked down towards Vance’s room. I knew that he was dying and the summons I received from his sister meant that the end was near. It had been a long year and Vance, my friend since college, had struggled with and will finally succumb to, the cancer that he was diagnosed with last Christmas. What a lousy year this had been.
I knocked at the door and entered, pulling the linen drapes aside I saw that he was lying in one of those high end hospital beds, a bright red blanket up to his chest and an IV drip was attached to his left hand. I knew it was morphine. He looked gaunt and tired, his hair was uncombed and he had a pale look to him. Not just pale, but worn, almost translucent. He smiled as I entered.
“Hello champ how goes it?” I bantered as I sat down in the chair closest to the bed.
“Hey! I have been waiting for you slacker.” He said in a strained voice, barely above a whisper. “How am I? I’ve been better.” A small mischievous smile crept across his face. “You see that hot nurse out there? Too bad she’s taken. I can’t talk her out of dumping her fiancée and running off with me to Tahiti.” His smile ended in a slight grimace and a spasmodic cough. “Sorry, the morphine is still kicking in. The pain is not fun.” He said. There was a moment pause where we just looked at each other. Memories flooded me, the times we had shared, and a sense of what this man meant to me as my friend. Dam few friends these days to lose any more, especially ones that were so important.
Seeming to sense my mood, Vance smiled, “I still think you should have bought the Jag.” I laughed as my mind flashed back to a time when I could have bought my dream car for a song. I procrastinated and it was sold out underneath me before I mustered the guts to sign on the dotted line. Vance said that I was a fool and went to some pains to remind me of his ignored advice for going on twenty years now. Never of course, in front of my wife, but when we were alone, it was almost a mantra. Twenty years? Yes, I recounted them; I had known this man as my friend over half my life.
“I have something for you.” He said and he motioned to the table next to him. There was what looked to be a large stationary box. “Open it.” he said.
I reached over and grabbed the box. It was much heavier than I had anticipated and brought to my lap where I carefully opened it. Inside was what looked to be a typed manuscript.
“I have been working on this for a long time”, he said, “and now I want you to have it.” He paused as I took a moment and inspected the pages, several hundred, neatly typed. This surprised me, as I had no inkling that Vance was a writer.
“I don’t understand” I said, unable to contain my confusion.
He smiled, and said, “Read the introduction.” He then closed his eyes and sighed, “I will just take a short nap here while you do. Wake me if that hot nurse comes in. I have to work in her some more.”
I smiled then turned my attention to the box in my lap. The introduction was twenty pages long, talking about of all things, the nature of the universe. Specifically how there are infinite variations of reality played out in alternate dimensions and explained fairly well under the general term of Quantum Physics. It went on to cite references and theories and wove an intricate argument of how every story, every act of artistic creation was a momentary breach between these infinite dimensions bringing that “reality” back into out own. Every story, every novel, every “fantasy world” was in fact, in some other alternate dimension and therefore real. It ended with a question in that do we really pull this stuff from alternate dimensions, or by the act of inspiration do we cause its existence? Do we create infinite universes by our acts of creativity and storytelling?
I looked up maybe twenty minutes later to see Vance watching me. He smiled and whispered, “Keep reading.” then shut his eyes again.
I looked down at Chapter One, and I started reading about the history of this medieval fantasy kingdom: Pendor.
Almost a Millennium ago
The war of the Titans laid the foundation for the ascension of Man. A terrible war, between ancient elder races left the world stripped of magic, and those magnificent mythical people, once so powerful, were now only the stuff of folklore and legends. Only the reclusive Noldor, what since “The Lord of the Rings”, we call “Elves” remain from those times, and their once great cities are all destroyed save perhaps one.
Three hundred years ago – the Founding of Pendor.
It is the time of Man. The story centers on the fertile lands of Pendor and the struggles of the peoples, their leaders and their destiny. Several hundred years ago, a single Kingdom was forged by sword and fire. A peace was maintained and prosperity came to the kingdom and it flourished. Five generations of Pendorian Kings sat on the Silver Throne in Sarleon and for nearly two hundred years they guided the destiny of their land and it’s subjects.
From the Founding of Pendor – the year is 198
The downfall of the Kingdom was as swift as it was and vile. A single month, thirty days, and the empire was in tatters. The irony was it was not by the sword in battle, nor by some dark magic that caused the deaths of the King and his family. But by an unseen killer, a disease, the red plague that ravaged the land and cut down the peoples of the Kingdom, great and small, like an assassin in the night.
The royal family had perished, and there was no King to rule the land. Then came the invasions that seemed to shatter the once proud kingdom into slivers and the glory that was once the Kingdom of Pendor, was now itself the stuff of legend.
With the death of the King and his heirs, there was chaos. Multiple lords laid claim to the throne and nearly every noble of the land began squabbling over succession.
From the Founding of Pendor – the year is 199
The carefully laid agreements, truces and alliances with neighboring powers became suspect. In the North, the mountain tribesmen began raiding the heartlands of Pendor. Embolden by their success and the lack of response from the Knights of the Realm, they struck even deeper and soon this led to the siege to Rane. The Earl of Rane sought help from the nobles of the land, but the schemes of the powerful found reasons not to come to his aid. Many Northern Lords, banded together and formed a small army that marched to defend the city from the onslaught of the northern Mystmountain warriors.. The battle was bloody and fierce, and in the end, the siege was lifted, and the barbarian tribesmen and their shaman leaders, routed back to their mountain homes. The Northern Lords, who fought so valiantly that day, decided to establish a knighthood order, the Order of the Dragon, comprised of the valiant warriors who defended the city. News of this new order was not well received by other knighthood orders or by the nobility to the South. They demanded that the Order of the Dragon be disbanded which in the minds of the proud warriors of the North, was an unforgivable insult to their valor. The scorn of other established knighthood and the lack of support to route the invaders from Rane prompted the Northern Lords to break ties with the southern lords and declared themselves an independent Kingdom: The Kingdom of Ravenstern.
Reeling from the succession of the Northern cities and lords, the remaining Pendorian nobility were not prepared to meet the next challenge that followed within a few short years.
From the Founding of Pendor – the year is 202
From the South, over the southern sea, the great Baccus empire launched an invasion fleet and landed a powerful army on the shores of Pendor led by the war hardened General Oasar. He drove inland conquering cities and castles, and seemed unstoppable. Ironically, within a few short months of campaigning, the general received by messenger that the great Baccus Empire itself was in civil war and that the Emperor had been assassinated. After receiving this shocking news, Oasar established himself, with the support of several Pendor Lords, as Overlord of Janos and officially broke away from what was left of the Baccus Empire. The great Baccus Empire convoluted and fragmented into dozens of principalities, city-states and kingdoms. The greatest and most powerful is the under the dominion of the priesthood of the serpent: a powerful and seemingly mystical religion of warrior priests who worship the unnamed goddess of darkness who manifests herself in the form of a snake.
For the once great kingdom of Pendor, that meant that a large portion of it’s Southern lands, cities and nobility were now either dead or sworn to service under this upstart general who calls himself Overlord.
From the Founding of Pendor – the year is 204
After the establishment of the Northern Kingdom of Ravenstern and the invasion of Oasar, the powerful Lord Alfred, Duke of Sarleon, consolidated the remaining lords of Pendor and declared himself King of Sarleon. For ten years a measure of peace was maintained.
From the Founding of Pendor – the year is 213
To the far north, across the seas lived the hearty warriors of the Vanskerry. Segmented into Jarldoms, they were raiders and traders. With the Baccus Empire gone, many of the Vanskerry mercenaries in their employ were free to return home to the frosty shores of their fathers. A wise man’s musings in the reaches of Vanskerry goes “Death is found in the blade of your enemy and trouble when a warrior has nothing to do.” When word came to the North of the troubles of Pendor, it was greeted with a call to arms and promises of plunder and women. Soon, raiding ships found the shores of Pendor a ripe land full of gold and wealth. Their well-armed and hearty warriors began raided the towns and villages along the coast and met very little resistance. The Knights of the Lion and Lords of Sarleon responded by patrolling the coastal shores. Yet, still the crafty Vanskerry raiders managed to sack village after village. With so little ability to defend themselves, the merchant lords of the Pendorian coastal provinces sent delegations to the Jarldoms to seek alliances and protection. At first they were rejected, but in time as offers included titles and lands many Jarls and their huscarls began to listen. The lands of Vanskerry are rugged and cold, compared with the lush and rich pastures of Pendor. The lure of good weather, and the chance to become a Lord of a castle, or even a well-located mayor of a village, appealed to many of the Jarls. Soon, many Vanskerry households left the shores of their fathers and sought fortune and prosperity along the coast of Pendor. Some entered into the service of the Pendorian lords, others married into the noble families. This changed many things in the Kingdom, as the warrior culture and attitudes of Vanskerry were brought into the noble houses of the coastal lords. Within a generation the culture gap was so great that the coastal nobles broke away from the King of Sarleon and formed a rough alliance of city-states called collectively the Fierdsvain.
From the Founding of Pendor – the year is 204 to 245
The story continued and detailed intrigues, war and heroic actions as well as the great villains of the land. There were stories of the Jatu tribesmen and their flight from the Empire and General Oasar, becoming nomads in the Eastern prairies of Pendor. There are the detailed accounts of the Order of the Lion, a knighthood order of Pendor, and their history and their betrayal by one of their own which had the order declared outlaw for years until their redemption under the current King of Sarleon. Chapters were dedicated to the D’Shar, a nomadic peoples who are evolving into a military and economic force only to find that their own worst enemy is themselves. Just as fascinating was the references to the encounters with the ancient Noldor and their powerful weapons and enchantments that changed the life of more than one adventurer. I was especially drawn to the story of Madigan, a wandering mystic who prophesized the coming of a hero who would unite the lords of the Pendor and reunite the old kingdom. His saga touched me as a hero himself, trying to speak the truth and being condemned to death for his beliefs.
I was startled out of my reading by the nurse telling me that visiting hours were over. It was late, and I had spent most of the afternoon and early evening captured by the amazing story I held in my hands. I skipped quickly to the last pages and found them blank. I realized suddenly that the final chapters were missing.
I looked at Vance, who once again was awake, and watching me.
Guessing my question and concern he said, “I do not have the answer to the last chapters. Those will have to be written. Perhaps when you write them, it will create those dimensions, those realities. I do not know for sure, but I suspect that is the case. I am too tired now to continue. That is why I asked you here today mate. Finish the story.”
He reached over and took my hand and gave it a hard squeeze. “I am tired mate and I have to sleep” he said in a half dreamy voice. It was the morphine I knew, finally giving him relief to the awful pain he must be feeling. I smiled at him and he shut his eyes and went to sleep.
This module is created as the stage to write the end of this story. You play the Hero or Heroine who fulfills the Prophecies of Madigan, and becomes the champion who brings forth the lost glory of the Kingdom of Pendor.
Let me know how it turns out…
----------------------------------------------------------
You can get the game and module from Mount&Blade . It will be released December 17th, 2008.
More updates sooner than later..
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
