FPS by numbers
I finished Call of Duty 4 today, which was sort of surprising as I thought I had ages left to play through. Turns out ‘Act I’ was the longest of the three, so without even trying hard, I suddenly came to the end.
Probably took me about 10-12 hours to play, which I know these days is seen as “Too short” but for me it’s just right. (I like to finish stuff, and preferably not over a period of months and months – unless we’re talking some super-engrossing strategy game, and those don’t often appear on console.)
Overall experience? Pretty good, but I came away thinking it wasn’t the breakthrough FPS experience I thought it might well be, judging by some reviews. Perhaps that’s because it’s not that up-to-date (it did come out in 2007) but actually, I think it’s because I felt like I’d seen it all before:
- The ‘hold off the bad guys for X amount of time’ mission
- The ‘escape under heavy fire’ mission
- The ‘fire on people from a flying thing’ mission
- The ‘shoot from the back of a moving vehicle’ mission Continue reading
This side of the morning
Although of course, it’s afternoon as I write this. (TTBM Points for anyone who can identify the subject title without Google.) Really hard to put things into words today, but I’m a writer, dammit, so I’m going to try my best. Continue reading
What a difference…
… a day makes.
Yesterday I had two things confirmed: my redundancy payment (yay!) and my last day at NCsoft (boo!). What I didn’t have was any immediate work coming in and not much to keep me busy.
Today I got hired for a month-long freelance job, and offered potential consulting work for a to-be-specified period as well. So I know now what I’ll be doing come Monday morning, and it’s not lying around in bed. (I won’t spoil it yet either, but it is games related, it does involve an event… but it’s nothing to do with NCsoft. Puzzle that out.) Continue reading
The gold bar theory of community
Thinking about this today for reasons that might become apparent, might not.
A community manager once told me this theory he had about MMO communities, which I often quote when we’re left scratching our heads at the fact that despite our best efforts, a game’s community (or some part of it) is still screaming for our blood – even though we’re firmly of the opinion that surely, this time, we’ve given them all they want.
The theory goes as follows. (This works best when you think of a US context, by the way – where a mailbox can often be a short walk from someone’s house.)
If you mailed a solid gold bar to every player of your MMO game… they would complain that it was too heavy to carry back to their house from the mailbox.
In other words, you can please some of the people some of the time; but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.
Or if you’re being more blunt… people will always find a reason to bitch about something, no matter what you do.
The secret reason we do events
I know you all want secrets from me. I hear you whispering to me in the night while I’m trying to sleep.
(Incidentally, can I have my spare key back? Thanks.)
Well here’s a secret for you. Here’s a hidden truth. Here’s why we do events – shows like Memorabilia, or the UK Games Expo, or the Omega Sektor MiniCon this last weekend. Here’s why we spend all the time and the money organising these things, and thinking up new ways to separate you from your cash (either for us, or for charity). Sure, we do it to spread the word about our games. Sure, we do it to get our brand out there and known. Sure, we pick up a few new players here and there.
But there’s a deeper, darker reason than that. Are you sure you want to know?
Alright… then I’ll tell you. The secret reason we do events is…
… we want you to come to them… and meet other players.
Oh yes. That’s it. It’s about community, people.
The truth is selling games is great, and raising money for charity is great too, but what we really want is for you… Continue reading