Location, location, unique static mesh.

Here are a few ways I think the player can be coerced into caring for their environment in-game.

Environmentally memorable - there must be iconic visuals to remember the location by. The Hollywood sign represents the ostentatiousness of rich LA, perhaps also it's desolate, sprawling scale.

A feeling of ownership over a place or property. This can be cultivated with potential for individuality. Static, museum-like abodes, ala San Andreas don't cut it. In Vice City, owning the mansion broke down to long walks between the essentials like cars and save points.
Home, to me, was a little place in west Balmora, Morrowind - Caius Cosades' house after he kindly lent it to me for the duration of the game. That tiny single room apartment became a clumsily organised base of operations for my epic questing. Expensive tools, magpie-esque trinkets, weapons and collected books stacked up during the 120 hours I inhabited Vvardenfell. Every time I went to someone else's house, I'd steal their candles to brighten up the place, even eye up their vases and decorations, always thinking of my own four walls Back Home. The extent to which the current location differed from my flat only increased the sense that it was my flat.

People. The inhabitants of the environment have to share a quality that links them appropriately to their surroundings. If they don't have any character, then they don't have any impact on the identity of the place, and may as well not be there. Evidence of this personality can be en mass in the form of news stories or linear plot happenings, but there should also be player-witnessed 'street level' personal experience with the populace. Player governed experiences are always the most memorable. Easier said than done? This can boil down to minor writing changes for NPC responses, etc. Of course, how complicated this would be to implement varies according to whether speech is voiced, blah blah.

Effect. The player must feel some responsibility for at least one aspect of the location's make-up. If he/she cannot alter the world, then there is no emotional inclination to preserve (or change) it. *

Respect. There has to be a sense of something larger or more powerful than the player at large. A lot of players follow a specific desire to rule, or be the best - for them to retain this urge, something or someone must be the object of their desire. This also provides a opportunity for mixed emotion for the environment - ownership of a private property, ability to complete missions etc are all actions that empower, awe or fear for the same place in different ways provides a palette for more complex feelings in the player, (always a good thing, yet almost exclusively MIA).

My (real) experience of America has been one far richer than games have presented me with, naturally. But a lot of what I think has taught me most about the States is stuff that wouldn't be that hard to implement in-game. The first thing I thought of as we left in a taxi from LAX was "wow, this really in San Andreas". The comparison extended barely any further than the road architecture, but authenticity and identification with a virtual equivalent, or any fictional environment, I think, could be increased through the cultivation of the mentioned factors.




New York from the Empire State Building a couple of days ago. Wouldn't that be an amazing set piece? The NPC character who shows you up here could be an enthusiastic engineer, loves skyscrapers - dies falling from one - bittersweet association with the location is created.




* Of course, a want to have effect when it is impossible can be equally emotive - killer leaves to find your wife leaving you tied to a chair, etc. Perhaps a taste of both could prove the robustness of the world and its ability to cope with the player's presence, and narrative quality in sections when you feel most strongly and have no power to act. (More emotive when power to act is allowed? Hmm)

Second World

When I reviewed Second Life for VGL, I rated it at 93%. Re-entering the Second World today - a year or so later - reminded me why I placed it so highly. First there's the glee of exclaiming "Look! Look guys, I'm buying clothes in a game. Omg look, industrial themed roller disco lottery night in a game! R0FL to the max, cosplay! In a game."

The depth of this virtual world is so uncannily life-like, that the lines begin to blur to the point where you wonder what the purpose of your being there actually is, referencing that real life has the noticeable benefit of soft shadows. First Life food also tastes better.

Today's italics inducing experience was actually the reason for my visit: the newly opened Always Black library, a 3D extension of an excellent site showcasing people's mainly gaming related writing. Even lil' 'ole me has a submission there somewhere. I entered the co ordinates supplied by Rossignol into the teleporter/mapscreen, and followed a red marker from the point I spawned at, some 800 meters away. The UI made it obvious exactly where I was going, but to humour myself, and to get a sense of the local inhabitants of the Furness region of SL, I paused as a green dot came into view on the mini map. The human player was standing on top of an enormous glass dome, someone's ostentatious mansion, or perhaps an up-market car sales room, I floated down to her level and perched near, floating on the glass tiles. Yonke Ming was a large, tubby cat with a feathery tail and blue shoulder length hair, she looked at me as I descended.

You: hey
Yonke Ming: Heyas.
You: how goes?
Yonke Ming: Fines.
You: I'm looking for the Always Black library, seen it around?
Yonke Ming: Nope...
You: oh, ok.
You: Do you have a place round here?
Yonke Ming: A place?
You: yuh
Yonke Ming: No, it's in Munro.
You: Oh ok. What do you do?
Yonke Ming: Make avs and stuff. Fatfurs, roleplay, that stuff.
You: cool,
You: roleplay? Like, act? Are there SL stages?
Yonke Ming: Nope.
You: oh,

...pause

You: Well, hilarious talking to you.
You: I'm gonna go look for that library.

It was only 200 meters away, a tall, white, airy building with spacious windows and open-plan interior. Swanky. I waited for the geometry to load, (everything loads on the fly in SL), wanting to get the full effect before I went in. When it had done, I fell to the entrance steps and sauntered into the high ceiling main room. Alice, Kieron Gillen, Jim Rossignol, John Walker and others were all up on display. Downstairs, a door to what seemed like a private office (almost felt like trespassing) had two laptops on the desk. One invitingly titled with a pop-up "blog from here!".



"Guys, guys! Come look at this! I'm blogging, in a game.

Roller-coaster

Faith in gaming is a like a sport for me. Read the news, be wowed, hear about a publishing fallout, this indie developer goes down, predictable sequel announced, free content replaced by retail expansion pack, EA get bigger, Facade gets released: it's a roller-coaster. A low point came today when UK Resistance parody 360 launch list that came out a few days ago was replaced by a real one. The hilarity of the former becomes more prophetic than perhaps is comfortable. Lets compare some of UK:R's joke ones with real (approved by actual respiring human publishers) game names:

War of The Wars
Super Robot Wars

Elite Men Troops
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter

Storm Commanders: Ultra War
Dead or Alive: Xtreme 2

The first of each are fake, but it wasn't all that obvious, was it?

Perhaps its the beer talking, but re-reading Always_Black's Jedi Knight 2 piece, mentioned on Wonderland today, filled me with hope for the potential of Gaming. I use capitals to emphases my reference to everything the industry has to offer. All too often, I'll express to someone what Gaming could offer, it's black hole depth and starry potential only to find that when I've finished berating a poor listener, it's frustratingly clear how few examples I have to reference. The JK2 piece shows just how effectual gaming can be, and it reminds me of a handful of (mainly multiplayer) moments in which I felt like more than a player. A leader, a comedian, mystic, hero: times when I've felt like I haven't wasted time.

Its the designer's job to make that amount of wasted time hopefully, eventually, become as rare as the good moments are now. W00t, lets make artful games, everyone!

Slow Burn

Not too long ago, I saw Stalker for the first time, (Tarkovsky, 1979). The film is truely on another level of cinema, so beautiful that it makes me happy just to know it exists. We actually drank to it's brilliance at a pub a couple of weeks ago. There's a slow-burn, highly visual theme to the film, you are immersed in the setting just through the immaculate, gentle pacing. Its a story about a place where people have to leave behind their selfishness in order to survive, and learn an ultimate truth about themselves, that may be their undoing.

Vector Park is about the joys of exploration. The unexpected discoveries of a world that obeys unusual sets of laws. It responds to your input in rewarding ways. It also looks and sounds delightful. Welcoming, but also subtly unsettling: lonely. It is, in fact, an excellent gaming equivelent to Stalker.

I'd love to see a more substantial 3D furthering of what Vector Park does so eloquently, combined with a sense of majestic atmosphere Stalker evokes.

Repeating geometry

I don't know if these cacti are normal mapped, but the Joshua Tree desert region of eastern California certainly masters the tesselation of sand texturing.

CA

Blogging on the move.

LA is full of wireless networks, you can hardly move for them. My mail client just sent some outbox items while I was typing from a moving car. Just like 24, California is comprised of wavy heat haze and rusty chain link fences. Sharp desert shrubs and melting auto garages also feature. The relentless glare, July Sun, pelts softening tarmac and scalds pedestrians who slave up and down the metric boulevards. The Flag is also everywhere. Outside people's houses, in front of high schools, little ones protrude from porch doorways, faded strips of white and red loll from fast food joint roofs. Underneath, SUVs rumble across desolate highways. Everything is larger here, and somehow, more easy going. Less assuming.

London

I got there at about 1pm.



People watching from one side of Russel Square.



"Ripped open like a sardine can", they said: the bus wreckage outside the BMA.



















Kings Cross station, obscured by fire engines.



















City workers with no transport home, resorting to Viz.



Westminister Cathedral - a service to mourn those lost.

Media

Today, I am consumed with a love for what I can watch, hear, or play: virtually any artistic media I wish to. I am hugely greatful for the opportunity to experience the imagination of a incredible wealth of creatives in such a wide range of platforms. I realise it's something that cannot last, warez won't be around forever.

Leadership

I mentioned once the importance of the torch to Pandora Tomorrow multiplayer. To the spy, watching the guard's mouse driven flashlight is an opportunity of voyeuristic intimacy - you are acquainted with the enemy's every wrist action. It's a means of detailed expression in communicative gameplay - multiplayer.

Battlefield 2 too, purely through design rules, channels meaningful communication for players.

I was commander of half a 64-player server, a position that I hesitated before taking on. Squads one and two were full, I assumed fully operational. Eager to prove my worth, I commanded my Alpha (unit one) to the nearest hostile point. The leader, one 'Snake_007' accepted the order immediately. I watched as the green blips of his crew drew together, ploughed out to the location through the flooded paddies, killed everyone and took the point in 30 seconds. He requested a supply drop - I obeyed. Chinese killer ants Alpha had proven themselves to be, I selected 'commend' from the response list: "You're the best damn squad I've ever set eyes on!" (Woah, not like that, why are these macros so enthusiastic?)

Bravo and Charlie (units two and three, full and almost full) were lacking attention, I decided. I sent them to some adjacent points along the front line, cunningly governing my lovely Alpha more intricately, planning a pincer around a critical junction at which they'd meet Bravo and Charlie. I ordered in radar and supplies for my men as they converged on the enemy base. Rag tag units five and six are summoned to defend a disputed zone of our defence. The flags turn blood red, victory.

The game is near. I lay the groundwork for a direct assault on the final points down the road. Real, human loyalties and relationships were already established. Alpha, my white knights, Bravo and Charlie, my workhorse steadies, and five and six - half full units I considered unreliable. The dreamy 'Snake_007' and his men would lead the operation. I issue commands and offer radar and artillery assistance to the relevant parties. Ready. Alpha, go! ...Did he hear me? Alpha? Alpha squad! What are you doing? Suddenly angry, I macro "Start following orders!" (woah, that sounded harsh.) Necessary though, Bravo and Charlie are requesting assistance and Snake_007 is skirting the no-fly zone in a boat, half the map away. His men are scattered. I hail him again. Nothing. I have been betrayed.


Communication, right there. Well, it was the lack of it that brought this particular match to life. In quite a different way to the low level, one way, strip tease dialogue of the watchful spy and the projecting enemy torch, Battlefield 2 offers player communication that makes multiplayer meaningful. It’s in the delegation of power. Very quickly, squad members see their leader's ability to lead, leaders see their commander's, commanders see the leader's ability to obey, and the leaders see members. The cogs of functionality for this system are greased by the easy macro commands and balanced class roles, but essentially, it's a system that perhaps inadvertently, is built to quickly illustrate a quality in other players.


Leadership down. Next I'd like to see sense of humour.