Land Ownership Wednesday, January 30, 2002 - 1:54 PM [Filed by Herok]
Serafina stepped into IRC a few days ago and gave everyone some insight into Land Ownership.
Here's a snippet:
Why Ownership? {Synon|FoA} Why do you need land ownership at all? {Serafina} Synon|FoA... it makes it a lot easier for a program to recognize official borders {Serafina} besides, most wars, conflict, etc are all about borders of some sort or other {Synon|FoA} yes, but they are lines that can be drawn on a map {req} indeed, borders are artificial. {req} look at West Africa ... it's nothing like what your pretty little globe delineates {Synon|FoA} why make them a physical entity in the game? {Serafina} yes, borders are artificial... sorta... they are real in our minds... we make them real {req} but I think Serafina has a point. It'll probably make gameplay better to have coded borders {Serafina} Synon|FoA... since building a structures in Atriarch will take time, I would think that it would be best to not allow another player to build up something in the middle of your half built structure {Serafina} If we allowed that, we would have semi-built structures covering almost everywhere. {Synon|FoA} so, once land is claimed, nobody else can build on it? {Serafina} Synon|FoA... claiming land isn't as easy as you think. {Serafina} We were grappling with the whole concept of not allowing land ownership. We could leave borders out completely, but there are many "real-life" solutions that we dont' have in "virtual life" Having borders was the only way I could think of making up for that. Serafina wont it be easier to make it so big structure's foundations be an outline of no build zone? {Serafina} Speranza... I'm sorry, but I did not understand your question. {Serafina} Structures will require foundations. {Serafina} And the way it is designed is that only certain foundations will work on certain soil and ground types. {req} Serafina's: He's suggesting that one shouldn't be able to build upon another's foundation {req} Instead of having a land ownership system... {req} But then again, that's more of a "foundation claiming" system {Serafina} req... right, they won't be able to
Since some foundation issues are still not set in stone (pun unavoidable), check out some of the ideas in this thread on possible land/building ownership solutions.
Thanks to req and DQ for passing along the log.
We've Got...Personality Wednesday, January 23, 2002 - 9:59 AM [Filed by Herok]
If you've ever wondered to yourself what type of drink or Simpson's character you might be, this quiz is right up your alley. Answer a few questions to match yourself against one of the 5 playable Atriarch species.
Thanks again to req and the APDT. This is sure to be a hit!
Actors are World Shakers Monday, January 21, 2002 - 9:17 PM [Filed by Herok]
Serafina stepped into the chatroom tonight to discuss the implications of Actors in Atriarch. As mentioned again recently (though revealed quite a while ago), World Fusion plans to use Actors to help along world-plots and watch the development of Atriana from within the game. These people would be separate from a CSR division.
Here is a teaser:
{Serafina} What interests me is that fact that everyone thinks they won't have an affect on the world because Actors are playing in it.
You can read the rest of tonight's log and then comment or question what you've read.
Hello Unarra Sunday, January 20, 2002 - 8:19 AM [Filed by Herok]
In a bizarre twist of reality, DavidQuick of ATVault infamy scooped an exclusive look at a possible Unarra redesign choice. Its worth the visit to see the latest look! If that works for you, here's a game you will probably enjoy.
In related news, Scrudge submitted the latest Atriarch Askew. He's continuing "The Species" series, this time looking at the feisty Cavolon.
The CSR Division Friday, January 18, 2002 - 1:58 PM [Filed by Herok]
DavidQuick pointed out that the fun doesn't stop over at P2P. Today Serafina spoke about GMs, Actors, and CSR in general. (Oh, and she replied to a few other concerns as well!)
In my opinion, GM's (game masters) in most games are expected to take on too many different roles. They are like everything rolled into one... customer service representative (CSR), technical support, help desk, corpse retreivers, quest givers, special event coordinators, judge, jury and executioner. I think we, meaning game companies, expect a single person to be able to turn twenty directions at once, which is just unrealistic for most GMs.
My philosophy is that we should try to separate the gameplay & story support from the customer service. Therefore, our plan is to have two different types of World Fusion representatives in the world: Actors and CSRs (Customer Service Representatives).
The CSRs are totally out of character and deal strictly with CSR issues, like bugs, like your Avatar getting stuck half way through a polygon (which would never happen of course in Atriarch *whistles innocently*) It can't get much more annoying than a GM greeting you with a "Hail and well met!" while you are trying to tell him that your character had 55 points of experience when you logged off, not 45! In-character dialogue, quests, and events should be taken off the plate of CSRs so they can focus.
The Actors are the ones who would be in the world in character playing out major story personalities as well as everyday residents. The purpose to this is two-fold.
One, it allows us to keep the world fresh with quests and events while deepening the immersion of the experience for players. A Native (npc) will not be anywhere near as realistic or interesting as a real-life person controlling a character.
Two, it allows us the option to address problems arising in the world from a second front... that of an in-game character or group of characters.
Another benefit of having Actors is that although CS easily tracks what people complain about, Actors will be experiencing the world first-hand. They will get a feel for what is going on. They will be experiencing, watching and interacting. The Actors will keep tabs on the "culture" or the "temperature" of the world. This is one of the ways we plan to monitor griefing and watching out for problems before they become rampant.
No, you will not know who these Actors are. We are not distinguishing them in any way. Well, some of them you will, but not all of them.
on SirBruce's desire to know how we can make money with 5k subscribers or 100k subscribers...
A long time ago when we began Atriarch, we knew one thing for certain. We were certain that if we decided not to work with a publisher or partner that World Fusion would publish Atriarch itself. Keeping this in mind, we have alternative business models to support this. Obviously, we knew if we launched this ourselves we would probably have a much smaller launch and grow from there. Our focus was on making everything scalable, the engine, the gameplay, even the story.
Of course, I'm not going to tell you how we are able to make everything so scalable and why the business model works for us. Why would I make public such a large competitive advantage? We have enough working against us already being a small team doing and "alien" game.
Also, there are lots of topics I'm just not at liberty to talk about publicly.
On another topic, I agree with Geldonyetich that the first step to preventing pk-ing from becoming rampant and meaningless is to make pk-ing less fun or less profitable than the alternatives.
In my opinion, the best thing I can do to help minimize (eliminating is impossible) griefing is make the game fun.
Addressing another quick point... whoever said that our biggest hurdle is the fact that we are alien... I agree with you. On the other hand, it has also been one of our most distguishing features and one reason we grab the curiosity of so many people. We are building a new world, a new culture, new creatures and basically a new way of living online. It isn't for everyone, but it is for more than say, 2000, like some people have mentioned.
Hype-notic Thursday, January 17, 2002 - 6:23 PM [Filed by Herok]
Serafina continues to watch and reply to the thread over at P2P. For those just joining, the topic focusses on Griefplay specifically with Serafina's recent post here at Atriarch Watcher. However, other ideas have popped up (as is often the case in active threads), and Serafina responded to one of them.
Hype is a double edged sword. Personally, I would love to have no hype and just put a game out there and have it succeed or fail based soley on its merits. Unfortunately, no hype at all really hurts sales, because no one knows about it when it comes out. The trick is when to start talking about the game publicly. Do you start hyping when you start developing or a few months before release or when? There are advantages and disadvantages to all of it.
In Atriarch's case, we did not go public with our game; someone else did. It was a complete fluke that our game was made public by someone who was not part of our team. Next thing we knew, we were all over the game sites. At that point, we made the decision to stay public with it. If we had a choice, we would have waited longer to go public with Atriarch.
I remember seeing the vote to create an alt.games.atriarch on USENET but no confirmation on whether that was the leak.
Community Event: Clarification Thursday, January 17, 2002 - 6:13 PM [Filed by Herok]
Serafina updated the Atriarch homepage to mention a clarification in the points:
oops: We made a typo in the Atriarch Community Event. No, we will not be giving 1 Atrios point for terms and definitions. We will be giving 25 Atrios points for each. Thank you to Synon of the APDT (Atriarch Player Development Team) for bringing that to our attention.
We've already adjusted the information down below for your convenience.
Gameplay movie...Humming along Thursday, January 17, 2002 - 4:19 PM [Filed by Herok]
DavidQuick captured a few moments of IRC conversation with Serafina regarding the Atriarch Gameplay movie mentioned in December. While the promotional movie is geared toward publishers (to show existing publishers they are and possibly gain new publishers) the fans will get to see something as well. As stated last month, the movie will be a combination of pre-rendered and in-game gameplay and will last approximately 2 minutes.
You can read the news over at ATVault for more information.
Thanks DQ!
All your shap are belong to Us! Wednesday, January 16, 2002 - 9:31 PM [Filed by Herok]
Over at ATVault Serafina re-entered the jovial Umano discussion.
This has been one of my favorite threads.
There is no public definitive answer to whether or not Umano (humanoids) will be inhabitants of in Atriana.
I have always wanted to have a human looking character in Atriarch, but actually make them another species with a different background, for example, Umano. I think the whole issue was dealt with brilliantly on the sci-fi series, Farscape. The one human on the show is constantly being mistaken for another species that looks human as well. (For anyone who hasn't seen the series, it is awesome... go now, watch it, stop reading this!)
There have been so many great ideas here. I'm sure you are bound to see some of these ideas implemented in one form or another *evil grin*
I look forward to continuing to read this thread.
oh ya, and everyone knows the Unarra rule all! I will brainwash Herok soon to that fact, right after he gets his Vagueness 101 certificate.
So continue your discussion of the possibilities, and you might make Atrian history!
ps. the brainwash references the fact that Cavolon are the slave-masters to the rest of the species...in case you didn't know already. ;)
Everyone who participates will receive Atriarch and Atrios Points redeemable for Prizes. Extra Atriarch Points will be given as prizes for special categories, for example, most obscure, yet relevant, Atriarch term and definition.
Event Rules: To participate email an Atriarch-specific term and definition that is already officially in use to herok@atwatcher.com. Atriarch terms are all over this site, on discussion boards and fansites.
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Send one email for each term.
Put in subject of email: "AT Glossary {term}".
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Community Event Inspiration: The book, The Professor and the Madman, is the about the origin of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The massive compilation of words and definitions that comprise the more than 20 volumes of the OED were gathered by volunteers from all around the world. Millions of words and definitions were mailed on index cards and sorted through by Professor James Murray, editor of the OED. The single largest contributor was, Dr. Minor, a retired American army surgeon and Civil War veteran, who was locked up in an Asylum for the criminally insane after murdering a man in London.
This story of the OED inspired me to begin our own Atriarch Dictionary Compilation Event. The current Atriarch Glossary is incomplete. So what better way to bring it up to date than through a community event?
Have fun and thanks for participating!
Target Umano Sunday, January 13, 2002 - 12:59 AM [Filed by Herok]
Scrudge returns from the holidays with his latest in The Species themed series for the Atriarch Askew, this time dealing with the possible 6th playable species of Atriarch: The Umano.
Atriarch Watcher Forums dev-christened Saturday, January 5, 2002 - 8:41 PM [Filed by Herok]
Serafina joined our boards for the first (but not last) time since our new incarnation. She writes a nice long piece on design decisions regarding "grief" players.
Probably No Plugins Required Thursday, January 3, 2002 - 2:13 PM [Filed by Herok]
MRI, World Fusion's musical genius, answered the concern about Atriarch and user-chosen music. Given the recent DAOC plugin that has emerged, its refreshing to see a company plan for the users needs rather than dictate them.
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Land Ownership
We've Got...Personality
Hello Unarra