Post note: This presentation was made to the Miller Freeman Online
Games 97 conference, held at the Cafe Royal in London, November 97.
I proposed a few topics of discussion; an interactive 'test the business model' session - shout out
the plan and I feed it through a complex spreadsheet I'd been developing, a history of MUDs and the
aggregator barbeque mentioned below. They preferred this proposal, though not without changing the name
in the promotional material (see below). The conference was good, with notable presentations from
the eclectic Clem Chambers (once more trying hard to discourage
retail publishers from fouling Online), the solemn Steve Cooke
(telling us how it is with small drop-in games vs. persistent games and stealing my thunder quietly on
anti-aggregation), the venerable Richard Bartle (with bad
ideas for online games), the learned Douglas
Crockford (first look at Habitats, which I might have used for my Tolkien project) and the down-beat
Colin Duffy (who managed to evangelise Wireplay whilst sounding a
funeral dirge for the current Online Games market).
At the time I was pretty hype on Ultima - I thought they'd get it
right, given that they'd hired some very cool people from LegendMUD.
I think that, since, my assertion here has been neatly validated by the demise of TEN, Mplayer and
Heat. Likewise the success of UO, EverQuest etc.
Let me know what you think.
Good afternoon
My name is Daniel James. I've been playing Online games for about 15 years, since Essex MUD days.
Avalon is an independent commercial MUD that's been operating for 7 years or so, via dial-up in the UK, location based for a while, and for just over 3 of those on the Internet.
I'm last up today.
I am between you and the free drinks.
I will be brief. I want to talk about some things that have been bothering me since E3 in 1996.
If you want to ask questions, raise your hands.
Before I proceed, in the tradition of great software publishers the world over, I'll have to point out that by sitting here you to agree to this here license.
Later on, if you see me scuttling off to certain
companies, cap in hand, you can all have a good giggle.
This presentation is about games networks and MUDs.
It is written from the developer's perspective.
It's not intended to offend anyone or be otherwise libellous.
I freely acknowledge that I could be wrong.
I am going to make some pretty gross generalisations.
All statements do not apply to all companies that might fall under these generalisations.
Some are better than others.
Some are very clever indeed and I like them lots.
OK?
Especially if you're EA.
The title of my presentation was changed
by the nameless one to the somewhat misleading 'Bin the boxes'
because it was thought that the audience might not understand
'Aggregation'.
I am using Aggregation to describe the new 'game centres' or 'networks' whose principle business model has been to collect together the facility to play 4-16 player retail games online.
One of the first ideas for my presentation
was;
In which people from certain networks would get asked some questions that they don't want to answer. Unfortunately this wasn't possible, but some of the questions were;
The last question is most pertinent
as it appears to me that the whole thesis of aggregation is pretty
much contrary to what works well about established massively multi-player
games.
It seems to me that the answer to the last question has to be either;
and that this indicates either;
Possibly a consequence of hiring
staff from the retail, video and cable trade.
Whether the retail trade deserves
leveraging is worth a whole conference in itself.
Of course the latter is true, but there is a bit
of the former too.
I believe;
LAN games, those designed for 4-16 players, over a single game session, do not provide the kind of compulsive, repeat-visit attraction that a real online game provides.
Real online games …
So what do you mean, 'Real Online Games?'
( Gemstone III, a MUD, is the highest (online) grossing online game ever. )
( Quake might just make the top ten, TEN. )
What I am fundamentally saying is this;
'We used to have a front end on Avalon, when we started as a dial-up service. You had to log in, select Avalon on a menu, and then the sword came up and you started playing. We had a couple of other games but nobody played them. Then the machine died horribly and before we replaced it, we though 'Why have the menu? Why not just go straight to the sword?' and so we did. And we looked around at other people's servers and wondered why they had so many menus when all people wanted to do was play one of their games.
If you look around today, you'll find that only
one or two games on any aggregation network receive the great
majority of playing hours.
I am assuming we are all game developers or publishers here. You might not fall into this category. You might be an aggregator, bear with me.
Now I will give you my secret recipe
for a great MUD-style online game. Actually I think this has been
covered already, so in brief here are the relevant points here;
This has something to do with lots
of flashing lights