Rich facial customization is key to Aion’s appeal
I can’t deny that that games like WoW have tremendous amount of
item customization. But I think it lacks one key customization
ingredient that would allow us to truly “bond” with our avatar: the
face. Aion is great for that.
Lets face it (no pun intended), our God given mug is the most important thing to us on . Look at any group picture that you
are in. What is the first thing that you do? You look for yourself. (Its
the same with our names: pick up a new pen, chances are that the first
thing you script to test it is your name)
It’s okay to admit it. We are all guilty of such shallowness, albeit
some more than others. The collection of BMWs and Porches in any plastic
surgeon’s garage banks on this very human trait.
So if we are so in love with ourselves, then it only makes sense that
it should be a feature that more game developers would put more time
and thought into.
I hate to keep referring back to WoW, but I must since it is the
leader of the pack. I have always hated how you were never given more
than a couple of facial structures when creating your character. There
over 7 billion humans on earth, and excluding the small number of
identical twins, the rest of the population of the world all look
different. So why is it that every person in Azeroth has to look like
they came out of the Kamino cloning station ?
It can be argued that one of the main reasons why people love MMORPG
based games is because it allows you to create an alter ego. While many
like to create avatar completely different from thier real life persona,
a large portion of the population still try to mimic avatar to its real
life version…albeit, a bit thinner, more muscular, taller and with more
hair. Generally a slightly better looking version of the real thing.
So why not also let us create a better looking version of our face
too? It would be much cheaper and less messy option than visiting MJ’s
plastic surgeons. I am sure you have already seen the version of Obama
in Aion. If not, here it is again :
to read more :
http://wherearemyshoes.tumblr.com/post/80711964060/rich-facial-customization-is-key-to-aions-appeal
The Matthew Effect : How WoW is Like Bill Gates
One theory in MMO’s games says : « Given the choice between similar games at similar cost, the majority of players will play the best game ».
For
exemple, in 2004 the fans of Everquest claimed that World of Warcraft
won out against the nearly simultaneously released EQ2 due to better
marketing.
But Wow might be the standard by which they measured that new game (specially if they buy wow gold
to progress…), obviously they were willing to try something else, and
would have staid if that something else had had sufficient quality.
This
theory is applying a version of meritocracy to MMOs and equating a
games success in the marketplace with its artistic success. On his
website many people challenge him regarding the second assumption. The
whole art verses popularity argument seems to me to be based too much on
subjective aesthetics to be susceptible to debate.
But the first point also has its flaws.
Will the “better” game always succeed in the marketplace ?
In his book Outliers, Malcom Gladwell tackled this question from the standpoint of individual success. In Outliers,
Gladwell examined the factors that contribute to high levels of
success. He looked at, for example, how two people with exceptional
intelligence, Christopher Langan and J. Robert Oppenheimer, ended up
with such vastly different fortunes. Gladwell notes that in most cases
outside factors were as important – or even more important – than the
intrinsic characteristics of each individual.
For
example, early in the book Gladwell examined why the majority of
professional Canadian ice hockey players are born in the first few
months of the calendar year. He noted that if you look at list of the
best players you’ll see that most of them are born sometime in January
through April — with the highest concentrations in the earliest months.
Why is that?
He
argues that the answer is that youth hockey leagues determine
eligibility by calendar year, so that children born in January play in
the same league as those born in December 31. Since adolescents born
earlier in the year tend to be more developmentally advanced than the
others, they are often identified as better athletes. This leads to them
being “bumped up” to the better leagues and in turn receiving extra
coaching and a higher likelihood of being selected for elite hockey
leagues.
Gladwell
observes that under this system “the rich get richer and the poor get
poorer” through “accumulative advantage.” It is called the “Matthew
Effect” after a bible verse that reads: “For unto everyone that hath
shall be given, and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath not
shall be taken away even that which he hath.”
Was
there a similar “Mathew Effect” that benefitted WoW over WAR or other
MMOs? I believe that there was. In this case, the effect was based on
timing.
In Outliers ,
Gladwell observes that a significant majority of the world’s richest
people were all born within the same 10 year window in the mid 1800s.
This period also happened to coincide with the industrial revolution.
You could be an exceptional entrepreneur born either before our after
this window but in order to have the best shot to become among the very
wealthiest in history you needed to be born during this time period. So
the timing of your birth played as much into your success as your own
efforts. (He noted a similar pattern among tech entrepreneurs with the
richest and most successful, such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, all
being born in roughly the same year.)
I
believe that WoW also had a lucky birth. At the time that wow launched,
the biggest MMO in the space had just made a critical blunder : it
launched a new version of itself that was incompatible with the old
version. This basically served to give many in its player base their
pink slip. This message – intended or not – was “this game is ending,
its time to move on.” Everquest 2, the game that was intended to replace
Everquest was not yet ready for primetime. WoW was the direct
beneficiary of this blunder.
At
the same time, people’s access to the internet had dramatically
expanded. From 2000 to 2004 broadband adoption had increased from less
than a million homes to over 60 million homes in the United States. In
Asia, a culture of internet cafes had emerged around RTS games like
Starcraft. Suddenly, there was a new and massive market for MMOs where
none existed before.
Labels: matthew effect, sociology, Wow
sociologie du journalisme Gonzo en ligne ?
petit retour sur ce blog à la base dédié à la loufoquerie de HST Thompson.
Depuis on a découvert que ses écrits et dérives en avaient inspirés plus d'un parmi les journalistes fraichement immigrés sur le web, jusqu'à donner une sociologie du journalisme web échappée de la
sociologie de la télévision et des médias classiques.
Et les pratiques pour suivre : journalisme de liens, curatoring, crowdsourcing, API scientifiques ... tout un ensemble d'usages inventés pour une nouvelles
sociologie de la communication.
Cependant qu'est-ce qui fait le journalisme ? Et ici qu'est-ce qui fait un journalisme gonzo ?
Bachelard disait dans son ouvrage "Epistémologies" : "l'instrument fait la science".
On pense que cet axiome ou adage n'est pas à appliquer à la pratique du journalisme en ligne car il parait justement trop dominé par l'outil, aussi esthétique soit-il, de communication, plutôt que par la production de sens, le transport d'idées. Le web journalisme féru de techno n'a quasiment rien à dire qu'à enrober un flux d'informations...
Là n'est pas le bonheur du lecteur à terme et là n'est pas le journalisme Gonzo qui est avant tout un état d'esprit dde gens passionés par l'essence de leur travail, qui n'est pas technique.
En oubliant cela ou plutôt en n'ayant jamais vécu cela, les journalistes-geek qui fomentent les billets des plate-formes de médias en ligne, vont vite se faire rattraper par la vielle garde traditionnelle de la presse papier qui déboule sur le web, ou par les "lois du marché"...
HUNTER S THOMPSON
Permettez-moi de me présenter...Je suis un homme de bien et de bon goût.De passions pour la vie sociale, de rêves de conquêtes d'une génération, de conversation avec "les gens de l'arrière", d'autoroutes, de compagnonages chimiques, de Tacos à 50 cents, "d'hommes du Président " et autres Hells Angels...Il sera grandement question ici car ils furent scandés par le Docteur GONZO et nous concernent encore et maintenant.
J'étais affalé sur mon lit au Flamingo et je me sentais dangereusement déphasé par rapport à ce qui m'environnait. Il allait se passer quelque chose de pas beau. J'en étais sur. La chambre ressemblait au lieu de quelque expérience zoologique désastreuse mettant en scène des gorilles et du wisky.
Mister DUKE a jetté les bases d'un style qui ne demande qu'à furieusement se réveiller depuis que nous avons - tous autant que nous sommes - passé la barre de l'an 2000.
La seule manière de se préparer à un voyage est de s'attifer comme des paons humains puis de traverser le désert en un long cri aigu.
Et comment.
Introduction à la pensée sociale du bon Dr Thompson
