The operator of the upcoming adult-oriented Age of Conan MMO intends to establish strict rules about role-playing on designated servers, according to an official community bulletin. This might be great news for role-play enthusiasts, but I have to wonder if AoC's operator has a plan to police and enforce its own proposed rules. Any such plan must involve human moderators at some point along the chain (software isn't smart enough for the job), which is an awfully costly investment in role-playing, if you ask me.

Names from outside the 'Conan' universe (as in, from another fantasy universe, such as Pokemon) are not allowed. Names from inside the 'Conan' universe (such as Conan) are also not allowed. Neither are derivatives or sound-alike names. Out of character chat is to be "avoided." Making fun of role-players is not allowed. Using role-play to justify immersion-breaking actions and exploits is not allowed. Interfering with in-progress community-driven role-playing events (such as a wedding) is not allowed.

These rules are setting the game operators up for major headaches. A good rule is one which doesn't need to be discussed--it's simply incontrovertible. These are bad rules. Not only do they require human supervision, they are open to interpretation. Who's going to moderate player names, and when will that moderation occur? How much out of character chat is acceptable, and when is it acceptable to speak OOC. What if the sight of weddings drives my character into a berserker rage--isn't it about my immersion, too? What if my entire clan of players has an in-character grudge against that wedding?

Unless the rules are tightened up, enforced transparently, frequently and consistently, the whole system's going to spiral out of control. Transparent enforcement (i.e. we see who was busted for what, and how the policing or punishment was carried out) and frequent enforcement are expensive. Consistent enforcement is sure to be a joke--I can't even go to a bank and get the same answer about the same question from 5 different tellers.

• Personal Narrative In WoW [Pop Cosmopolitanism]
  As I mentioned during a recent SXSW panel, one of the shortcomings of MMOs is a lack of meaningful personal history (i.e. the world doesn't remember you). Sean Duncan provides earlier thoughts on a similar note, quoting a piece by a WoW Insider writer.
  (tags: game games narrative research storytelling history mmog worldofwarcraft)
• Game Art: Game Faces
  Matteo Bittanti: "There is a growing interest in capturing the essence of gameplay as a performance, gameplay as it is manifested on the faces and bodies of 'those who play'..." I'm thinking about game-faces as unconscious storytelling devices...
  (tags: storytelling people society culture groups emotion expression)
• City Folk Creates Community Space For GLBT City of Heroes/Villians Players [GayGamer.net]
  Handsome, fit men in brightly-colored tights. What's not gay about 'City of Heroes?' Blurb about indie forum catering to CoH's GLBT community (a community officially recognized and supported by the game's publisher).
  (tags: game gaming gamers gay comics superheroes cityofheroes cityofvillains culture sexuality)
• Command Lines (Jeremy Douglass. Ph.D. Thesis. 2007)
  From the abstract for Jeremy Douglas' dissertation on Interactive Fiction: "...aesthetic and technical developments in IF... are analyzed in terms of language... narrative theory... game studies / ludology... and filmic representation..."
  (tags: academic design fiction gaming hci research thesis abstract analysis interactivity)
• Vside Jail [vSide Forums]
  Imprisonment and in-world punishment as a recurring story in MMOs. Proposition: Let's put troublemakers in prison. Response: I'd do crimes just to see what prison was like. See: Second Life cornfield .
  (tags: crime griefing society narrative mmo vside secondlife)
• What’s the Subtext of your Game? [Pag on Games]
  Garneau: "What’s the subtext of your game? What is it really about?" A good question for designers, but a better one posed to players. An easier question to answer for simpler video games--Pac Man is easier to explain than Paper Mario, isn't it?
  (tags: games gaming subtext analysis criticism narrative)

I can't wait to try Champions Online, the MMO adaptation of Champions, my favorite superhero role-playing game (the kind you play sitting around a table). It looks like Cryptic, the developers behind the excellent superhero MMO City of Heroes, is using everything learned from developing good heroic character-creation and game play and fusing this with a time-tested, highly-flexible rules system--City of Heroes Evolved, if you will.

Continue reading: The Retro Roots of ‘Champions Online’

• Study Reveals Significant Entertainment and Technology Spending Amongst Gamers
  No surprises here. Gamers are trend-setting technology enthusiasts who consume lots of music and movies. Preferred movie genres: Comedy, Action/Adventure, Sci-Fi. No word on preferred game genres.
  (tags: groups data statistics gaming culture technology trends music motionpictures genre consumption)
• Five people leading the industry into the future
  The Hollywood Reporter says Reuben Steiger, founder and CEO, Millions of Us, is a driving force behind major brands and properties in Second Life and other virtual worlds. Kudos, Reuben!
  (tags: business marketing places synthetic.worlds secondlife article list)
• Here come the clones--- AGAIN! [The Central Nexus Blog]
  Interesting observations about fan/infringement culture in CoX. Seems the game admins are quite quick to quash too-close-for-comfort character imitations. Which is a good thing, considering the earlier legal quandary with Marvel Comics.
  (tags: synthetic.worlds law ip fandom comics administration policy)
• Terra Nova: Two Releases: Arden I and Exodus
  Ted Castronova says his virtual world based on Shakespearean works was no fun because there were no monsters. I don't get the impression he's using "monsters" metaphorically, which is a real shame. Surely there are more fun things to do in a virtual world besides kill monsters.
  (tags: synthetic.worlds games gaming play places history)

The Central Nexus Blog gives us an inside look at various types of player-populated "supergroups" in the comic-book game City of Heroes. Supergroups, known as "clans" or "guilds" in other games, are teams established and maintained by players, often with a central theme in mind. These groups range in purpose, focus, and activity, for example a "Taxibot" supergroup's sole purpose is to assist other players by teleporting them around the game world.

Central Nexus writer Omnitron discusses several types of supergroup, ranging from the kinds that form simply for in-game benefit (a.k.a. "rules play") to others which are firmly rooted in story (a.k.a. "role play"). You may recognize these types, as they're not entirely exclusive to City of Heroes. Of particular interest to me:

• "STRICTLAND": A group run to a strict, narrow set of social and metagame rules, such as mandatory costumes or specific kinds of chat behavior. As Omnitron puts it "In a game like City of Heroes where you can be so unique, conformity doesn't come easy to some players."
• "(RP)": The role-players. Great description by Omnitron: "Some of them don't know when to stop. And it can become confusing when you have to know what you should know (or not know) about the characters and/or the roles they are playing, and they story they are doing... [Separation] of player knowledge and character knowledge within the confines of the group can become at times tedious and at other times impossible."

Several other types are described in the original (short) article. Worth a read for descriptions of the "Villain Wannabes" and "nAmeZ" types.

I had a conversation just like this two weeks ago.

Wow, kudos to the makers of the massively-superheroic online game City of Heroes for endorsing a "Rainbow Prom" which honored the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender player-base while including all others. The game's official newsrag The City Scoop sent a reporter to transdimensional disco Pocket D, where attendees such as "Gaycicle" and "Captain Pride" partied hard and competed for the best outfit. It seems my previous underwear-party comments weren't far off the mark.

An employee of NCSoft (publisher of City of Heroes) showed up to hand out an event-specific "Golden Title" to prom guests--a coveted temporary status-symbol. The Rainbow Prom was reportedly well-received by attendees, who were happy to have official acknowledgment for their lifestyles. One guest told The City Scoop "I think Rainbow Alpha made history in gaming, especially with developer support. I thought the music was great, the company was wonderful, and it made me proud to be a bisexual gamer."

A couple of years ago, superhero-comic publisher Marvel sued superhero-game makers NCSoft and Cryptic for copyright and trademark infringement. Marvel felt that NCSoft/Cryptic's game City of Heroes induced infringement by giving players tools to create facsimiles of proprietary characters such as Spider-Man and The Hulk. The issue was settled amicably the same year, and Cryptic Studios is now officially on board for the development of Marvel Universe Online.

Elsewhere in the metaverse, the sandbox-style social world of Second Life has been wall-crawling with bootlegged superheroes for about as long as City of Heroes. Using Second Life's tools, it's not only possible to re-create a Marvel character's appearance more accurately than in City of Heroes, but to sell these facsimiles like Halloween costumes for a virtual currency easily convertible to real dollars. So why was City of Heroes threatened by Marvel while Second Life has been ignored? I asked attorney Benjamin Duranske, author of the blog Virtually Blind, for his informed opinion.

Continue reading: Bootlegged Superheroes Safer in ‘Second Life’?

Fabric of Folly's Dan Taylor summarizes NBC's cross-platform offerings for its TV series Heroes, which extends well beyond standard "show site" material into genre-appropriate graphic novels and user-generated content. According to Taylor, "huge swathes of unofficial audience created content" outstrips official show content by over double (not sure how he's measuring"volume of content" though).

At least a few user-generated ideas seem to feed back into the series as series creator Tim Kring says in an official video clip. The fact that fan input is captured and responded to (even if not in an obvious way) is probably one reason why the levels of user-generated content are so high (this seemed to work for LOST, too). Another reason has to be that NBC is actually permitting fan fiction and other derivative works to flourish rather than fire a barrage of lawyers across the community's bow.

Continue reading: Why ‘Heroes’ is a ‘360 Experience’

Users of the virtual world Second Life may now order the He Is Just a Rat comic book series, written and drawn by Tony Walsh (that's me, you fool), exclusively through SLBoutique. Buyers receive not only a virtual T-shirt for their avatar, but 5 real-life comic books delivered to their door--and I'll optionally sign the comics in each package for the first 50 orders. Ordering details here.

Although I plan to test out virtual-item sales in 2007, this effort is mostly about clearing out my house of boxes of real comic books. Even though I sold thousands of the comics back in the mid-1990s, there are still a few hundred left of the various issues. I'm charging L$2000 for the comic orders, which covers postage, the envelope, and my time preparing each package. The He Is Just a Rat bundle is one of the few real-life items offered by SLBoutique.com, a service I've found to be very well designed and implemented.