First off, I’m sorry for not having posted in so long. It’s that time of the trimester where midterms and projects are coming about, so I’ve been keeping myself busy with those and work. I had originally intended a different post than this, but that the content of that original post required some extreme non-linear thinking, so I’m still working on it. Maybe sometime in the future I’ll post it. And now to my post. This may sound like a rant, but it isn’t. Well, it sort of is, but….you’ll get the point after reading it.

Everyone knows the phrase “the horse is dead.” It’s said when a joke has been recycled so many times that it no longer is remotely funny. A current example would be any joke involving some innovative spin on the phrase “brokeback mountain.” This can be applied to pop-genre MMOs. The horse isn’t dead yet, but it is getting there at an exponential rate. Go back four years and the only pop-genre MMO you could play was Star Wars Galaxies. I hope that last sentence was able to define “pop-genre MMO” for you. If not, then let me give you the definition; after all, I am coining that term. A pop-genre MMO is an MMO based off of some sort of culturally successful and popular icon, theme, or franchise that has a significant following in modern day society. Examples of such icons, themes, or franchises include Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, and The Matrix.

It used to be that for every five MMOs that would come out, one (if you were lucky) would be pop-genre. Today, it has become a 50/50 deal. More and more pop-genre MMOs are getting the green light for development. Star Trek Online, Stargate Worlds, Lord of the Rings Online, the DC Comics MMO from SOE. Even rumors of a Firefly MMO are floating around. I’m not liking this one bit.

In online gaming world dominated by fantasy-based MMOs, originality is a rare token when it comes to success. For new MMOs, a sure way to penetrate the market is to have elves and orcs in the game. If you chose to make any other kind of MMO, then you need to spend extra time and resources to ensure that your game will pack a big enough punch to stand out like a diamond in the rough to players. Take a look at the ten most popular MMOs by player ratings and subscription estimates. The top ten ranked MMOs by players, (Guild Wars being represented solo, instead of having the expansions count as separate entities) are all fantasy except for two according to MMORPG.com. In terms of market share estimates by MMO, eight of the top ten are fantasy based according to MMOGChart.com. And to wrap it up, MMOGChart.com estimates that the total market share by genre is almost entirely dominated by fantasy.

So what’s the solution to taking on the fantasy genre behemoth? Pop-genre MMOs, of course. They’re cheaper than original non-fantasy MMOs because they already have a universe and content to work with. Furthermore, they already come with something original MMOs don’t: a fan base. Even if your pop-genre MMO is a complete clone of another successful MMO, it still will have a solid player base. The people who play pop-genre MMOs don’t play because it is an original new MMO with amazing features; they play because it carries the name of a genre they love. However, this can be a double edged sword. By catering to a certain group of people (aka, you’re icon-specific fanbois), you are driving away the people who have on interest in the theme or franchise you’re representing. There are people who love Star Wars but hate Star Trek, and therefore will not play Star Trek Online even though they played Star Wars Galaxies.

Let’s take myself as an example. Up until 2004 I had never played an MMO before. I had been gaming online since 1997 and had been doing text-based RP since 1999. I always wished for some awesome game that would someday combine RP a video games into one package. I knew about Everquest and Ultima Online, but ew, why would I want to play a stupid elf game? The closest my dream ever came to becoming true was in the game Star Wars Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight. There was a mutliplayer modification to that game called JKRPG – Baron’s Hed. It pretty much was a very watered down version of an MMO, but it still accomplished the overall roleplay aspect in games. By late 2003, I was getting tierd of Jedi Academy. A friend in the clan I was part of told me about Star Wars Galaxies. He really didn’t describe it as an MMO. He pretty much said that you were part of the Star Wars universe and could do almost anything in it, including be a bounty hunter. I asked if I could be a chef and start a chain of fast food joints called Dagobah Fried Yoda (DFY was a concept I created in mid-2003 while my clan was making a map. My gaming alias was Fried_Yoda since late 1997). He said that it was possible. So I went out and got SWG and that was my very first MMO experience…and it blew me away.

Notice, there were other MMOs already out there that were hailed as revolutionary and some of the best games of our time, but it was the Star Wars name in the title that got me to play Galaxies and fall in love with MMOs. My experience is similar to a huge chunk of current and former SWG players. They played SWG because it had the Star Wars name, not because it was an MMO. This, in turn, is the same reason why so many people chose not to play SWG, and instead put on their wizard hats and go play Everquest.

It can be argued that pop-genre MMOs are gateway games. Like marijuana is a gateway drug for harder substances, pop-genre MMOs open the doors to the MMO experience and lead the player to more hardcore and original MMOs. My gripe is this: why must we need sub-par pop-genre MMOs to introduce players to bigger and better games? Let’s face it, with the exception of SWG, the only thing that shines about pop-genre MMOs is the title they carry. They lack originality, content, and a fun gameplay experience. There is nothing about them that makes them stand out in the MMO community, at least enough for members of other MMOs to switch. Their subscription base relies heavily on the fan base of the franchise they’re representing, which is why innovation and originality are lacking in these games. The mentality used to create pop-genre MMOs is linear: the fans will buy and play it because of its name. That is why The Matrix Online failed. That is why Lord of the Rings Online was a major disappointment.

Why can’t there be more pop-genre MMOs that capture the attention of all gamers, and not just those of the fan base they represent? Take World of Warcraft as an example. It had the Warcraft fanbase to go on, but it was able to be original and innovative enough to attract players who had never played a video game before. It is these kind of pop-genre MMOs that need to start emerging. Unless developers start taking the pop-genre MMO project seriously, expect many MMOs brandishing your favorite titles to be major disappointments.

The other day I was reading James’ post on twinks and gold farming in MMOs, and I made a comment regarding my foresight on what MMO companies would end up doing to combat farmers. Is my comment worth a blog entry of it’s own? As of today it is, thanks to Raph Koster and his blog entry regarding credit farmers creating a trade association.

It appears that a band of gold farming “companies” in Korea have united together under a single entity called the “Digital Asset Distribution Promotion Association,” or S.M.A.C.K.T.A.R.D.S. Their purpose is to continue their businesses “legitimately” in the eyes of the Korean government. What does this mean for the player? More toons with game-generated names who band together in groups and everyone has the leader on follow but never talk to anyone in game. They’re an annoyance to players who want to actually play the game instead of purchasing everything online to make their in-game life easier. And it’s not like MMO companies are actually doing anything to combat this (sorry Blizzard, banning accounts for seemingly automated play style or having suspicious third party programs running doesn’t cut it). Something needs to be done.

As far as Ebay goes, I have no clue what the MMO companies are doing about that. I would have guessed that they would have come up with some sort of deal by now to prevent the sale of accounts, in game items, and in game currency on that auction site. However, I’ve seen no visual steps taken towards this, so I can assume that the companies are not caring enough to expend resources on this sort of issue. It’s one of those issues where a company asks, “do I ban a hefty chunk of paying subscribers cause they’re bad for the gameplay environment, or do I take actions that will improve gameplay and satisfy my game’s player and fan base?”

When it comes to the point where MMO companies will actually take active measures to combat credit and loot farmers, I think that there are three possible paths they can take. None of the three are solid solutions, but only one of the three is most likely to yield the most positive effects.

1. Restrict foreign IPs from accessing domestic servers – OK, so the first solution is by far the wackiest. MMO companies can pretty much forbid anyone with a non-domestic IP access its servers. For example, Star Wars Galaxies is focused primarily in North America and Europe, as well as Japan. Sony Online Entertainment can make it so that Korean or Chinese IP addresses cannot connect to any of their game servers. Of course, there will always be downsides to this, since there are ways to hide or even broadcast a fake IP, but this is just one of the solutions, and the most extreme.
2. Cut deals with auction sites and get the law on your side – MMO companies can also do something they should have done a long time ago: make an agreement with Ebay and other major auction sites. There isn’t a day that goes by where some sort of game account is being auctioned off for hundreds of dollars, or massive amounts of credits are being given away at bargain prices. This is an MMO companies best way to combat domestic farming. Ebay is a hotbed for former players to sell their accounts, items, or credits. However, cutting off auction sites is just detouring the seller for about five minutes, as he or she loads up some Asian account-buying website and sells it to the company or another player for the same price. This is a one-sided solution that won’t accomplish much except maybe get rid of some clutter on Ebay.
3. Launch your own credit and loot farming superstore – As crazy as this sounds, it already is in existence. SOE’s Station Exchange program allows players to buy and sell items, currency, and accounts without worrying about dupes, delays, or bans. SOE does this with Everquest II, but only on a select number of servers. Regardless, it was a smart move by SOE: if you can’t beat them, penetrate their market.

Solution 3 is what I believe to be “an integral part in the future of massive multiplayer online games.” Because the threat of credit/loot farmers is increasing at an exponential rate, MMO companies will be more or less forced to use solution 3 to deal with this issue. Furthermore, the player will feel more secure and confident in buying or selling his or her item through the actual game host, rather than a big promising question mark halfway around the world. This is the opportunity for MMO companies to not only make an extra buck, but also help eradicate the in-game and out of game annoyances MMO players are exposed to on a daily basis. Of course, this solution isn’t full-proof (hence why EQ2 has Exchange Servers, and why farming sites still cater to the other servers) but it is better than nothing. It at least takes a swing at farmers and with the right investment of thought, it can be further perfected to hopefully make the annoyance from the East go away for good.

History was made today as two black NFL head coaches have made it to the Super Bowl. The first was Lovie Smith of my Chicago Bears, and the other was Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts. Regardless who will win the Super Bowl, both coaches will come out as winners. Furthermore, both Lovie and Tony are long-time friends. It was funny to see the Bears pre-game show where the sportscaster asked Lovie and Sean Payton, the New Orleans Saints head coach, who would win the AFC Championship Game: The Indianapolis Colts or the New England Patriots? Lovie didn’t even take a split second to think. He quickly said with a confidant smile, “The Colts!”

For the first time since the 1985-1986 season, the Chicago Bears have advanced to the Super Bowl. And they’re going to win. Although I hate the Colts, I was rooting for them since New England is a much better team….and because the Bears have lost to the Patriots before this season. Just take a look at how the Colts have played the last seven games. Each time they win, it is by a very close call at the last minute. Even today, the Colts won by a game winning touchdown in the last minute. Sure they were down by 18 and managed to perform the biggest comeback in conference championship history, but the Colts are a shaky team. You can say the same about the Bears, but the Bears’ monkey wrench is only one person: Rex Grossman. And if Rex plays in the Super Bowl like he did today, Chicago is sure to come home with the trophy.

What the hell am I talking about? Of course the Bears will win. Urlacher, Benson, Hester, Moose, Tank, Jones, Tillman, Hillenmeyer, Kruetz, and the rest of the team led by Lovie will be unstoppable. After all, defense wins Championships and we’re the #1 defense in the league!

It is interesting that James just posted at Is it Skill Based Blog an article about his opinions and theories regarding skill-based MMOs. Just after I read it I saw a news clip pop up on the Yahoo! front page called Video game playing may fulfill innate human need. It is quite an interesting read, with studies showing that gaming can have a positive impact on a person in the short term. The study showed that players can boost their self esteem by gaining feelings of accomplishment by completing game challenges. The sentence that stuck out to me the most was “Players’ enjoyment of games depended on whether the games made them feel competent and independent, and, in the case of multiplayer games, connected to other players.” I purposely bolded two terms in that sentence because I believe that those firmly describe a skill-based MMO.

Sure, they can also describe level based MMOs, but the more independence the person has in the game, the better the effects on his or her overall well being will be. Veterans of MMOs may relate to this. We see this effect happening right now with World of Warcraft. The launch of The Burning Crusade expansion has put a queue back on my server. I haven’t seen a queue in over a year. Players who were previously burned out or just bored with WoW have come back. I’m one of those players. How many of you can vouch that by the time you completed your set of BWL armor you were just tired of the game, and didn’t feel as happy and fulfilled as you did when you first started playing?

The last skill-based MMO I played was Star Wars Galaxies. I can say I played for a year before getting a burned out feeling from Galaxies. However, the freedom I was allowed in a skill-based MMO to do as I pleased made that feeling go away pretty quickly. I switched professions, explored planets I didn’t visit too often, went on treasure hunts, made new friends, and even turned to politics. Each time I began to feel burned out, I was able to do something completely different and help bring my emotions back up. Up until the NGE that is, but that’s a different story.

Anyway, this study was published in the December 2006 issue of Motivation and Emotion, a worldwide psychological publication. The title of the study was “The Motivational Pull of Video Games: A Self-Determination Theory Approach” and I believe you can download the full text or pdf of that article here. I may be wrong, as I got it through my university’s academic resources. I’m planning on reading it tomorrow on the train as I head to class. I’ll post a follow up if I read anything else of interest in that study.

This is a time of silence for Perpetual, and will be all the way until this summer when the closed beta is scheduled to begin. With no outside contact since November of 2006, it makes the eager fan wonder if Perpetual is hard at work or not. Well, now we know that their web development department is still alive and breathing as a new official site was launched.

StarTrekOnline.com is the new official site. The old perpetual site forwards to the new URL. So far there isn’t much there. It’s Flash operated and features a modified TOS logo. You can enlist so you can receive updates via email. The only “new” part about the site was the About section, which gives you a brief rundown of STO in an inspirational Jean-Luc Picard pep talk kind of way.

So go ahead and take a peek. There’s nothing new, no new screenshots or information, but it gives a small glimpse at the design theme we should expect from the game itself.

OK, so maybe I’m not a doctor. Then again, I’m not a magician either. I’m just a college student on a quest to achieve his dreams and surpass his goals. Currently, I am putting efforts in achieving the realistic goals. I have put certain goals (such as “becoming overlord of the universe”) on hold for the time being. This is where this blog comes in. This blog is to help me achieve my career goals: to get a foot in the gaming industry and pursue a career in gaming. I don’t know how I’ll do it, and hell, I don’t even have a plan on what will be written here. But I’m going to do it.

My history with blogs hasn’t been so bright. I first started web design back in 1999, and my very first experience with any sort of “blogging” was in 2000 when I maintained a small personal site and used a manually updated HTML news page to record site updates. My first “true” blog experience came in 2003 when I launched a Xanga. I then decided to take web design more seriously and launched a paid personal site. To make a long story short, I’ve been doing this for quite a while. However, that’s web design and running blogs. Updating and maintaining them is a whole different story. Since January of 2003 I’ve made a total of 202 blog posts on all my blogs combined. I didn’t have many readers either. At most I had maybe 10 readers, but I figured out why. There was no central focal point in my blog. It was all random thoughts. Which is why I rarely updated, because anyone who wanted to know what I did that day was probably already in my day and knew about it.

So here’s what I will try to emphasize with this blog

• I love video games. I love playing them, I like analyzing them, I like dreaming of ideas for new games and designs.
• I love to write. I read a good story, or watch a good movie, and I get inspiration to write. No, not to copy a plot, but to write something original with the techniques used in what I experience in the back of my head. As a matter of fact, I’ve been brainstorming a fan fiction story based on the Dreamfall/The Longest Journey universe.
• Music is how I express myself. My emotions are best conveyed with music. Any kinds of music. Except country…

So enter It’s Dead, Jim. I chose this title partially because I’m a Trekkie, and partially because I think it captures a greater personal meaning to my life. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet figured out what that meaning is, but I can assure you it is not homicidal or suicidal. However, that’s why I’m here, right? To pursue my dreams and achieve my goals. What better way to find out what your meaning in life is than via your own journeys?

So, I think I’ve written enough even though I’ve made no point as to what this is and what I’ll be doing here. I hope to meet some interesting new people, keep in touch with amazing people I already know, and expand my social network to where it hasn’t gone before. Welcome to my blog.