Mister Cinders Talks a Good Game

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Brad McQuaid recently resurfaced with an "itch" to return to MMOs. His first substantive entry recalls his fabulous triumph Vanguard:Saga of Heroes and explores what went wrong with that colossal disaster.

According to Brad, he wants to post-mortem Vanguard to "to learn from the past and share what I’ve learned here in the hopes that this information would be helpful not just to me going forward, but also to anyone else working on an MMOG."

Helpful Brad is helpful.

Not one to disparage others, Brad assures us that "the finger pointing is mostly going to be at me, not at our partners" -- e.g., Microsoft and SOE. Excellent, so what protips does McQuaid have for us?

"Part One: Get Everything in Writing"

According to Brad, his first error came early when he began the project under a "verbal agreement" under which Microsoft promised that Sigil would "get the funding we needed to compete with other AAA MMOGs, and that we would periodically evaluate the competition and adjust Vanguard’s budget and/or release date if it made sense to us and Microsoft." But then "there was a regime change at Microsoft, and the people with whom we had this understanding and commitment were no longer there." The new Philistines at Microsoft did not understand that Sigil needed more money and time to make Vanguard, and saw these needs as Sigil's "screwing up management-wise." Brad's pro-tip? Get a written contract with "more open terms" that allows the developer to get more time and money.

Really? Did Microsoft engage Sigil to make a AAA game with nothing in writing? Of course not.

Did that writing somehow omit a budget and timetable (making it unlike any development deal in the history of everything)? Of course not.

Instead, did Brad ignore the most fundamental elements of his development deal (i.e., time and money) and take development wholly off the rails? Seems more likely to me. Was that "screwing up management-wise?" Of course it was. What else did Brad have to manage beyond time and money?

The most absurd part of this is Brad's takeaway. Not "pay more attention to budget and schedules." Not "maintain close contact with funding sources to address needs early on before they de-rail your project." Rather, get a written deal that allows you to ignore any budget or timing limits, so your publisher cannot hold you to them.

Way to step up, Brad. Glad to see you are not pointing fingers at your partners, except to accuse them of dishonoring your verbal agreements on time and money in favor of the written budget and schedule.

Do you hear that? Do you hear the thunderous approach of venture funding and publishing resources clamoring to give Brad McQuaid a bottomless ocean of money to make another MMO?

*crickets*

I cannot wait for "Part Two: Don't let the dog eat your homework" or "Part Three: B-b-b-but players love the challenge of buggy software."

Mister Cinders

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May 19

As you were, Bastille Day

So the launch date for Champions Online has been pushed back to September 1.

After my experience in the CoV beta, I refuse to participate in those exercises. So I don't have any first-hand views on whether Champions needs the extra time it is taking. All things being equal, I would much rather see a more polished game in September than an incomplete game in July.

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May 08

Mothers Day Video

For your Mother's Day weekend:

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May 05

fo fo fo fo First Amendment

Turns out there is some federal legislation brewing to criminalize "Cyberbullying."

There isn't much to the statutory language or supporting findings. The problem at hand?

Congress finds the following:

(1) Four out of five of United States children aged 2 to 17 live in a home where either they or their parents access the Internet.

(2) Youth who create Internet content and use social networking sites are more likely to be targets of cyberbullying.

(3) Electronic communications provide anonymity to the perpetrator and the potential for widespread public distribution, potentially making them severely dangerous and cruel to youth.

(4) Online victimizations are associated with emotional distress and other psychological problems, including depression.

(5) Cyberbullying can cause psychological harm, including depression; negatively impact academic performance, safety, and the well-being of children in school; force children to change schools; and in some cases lead to extreme violent behavior, including murder and suicide.

(6) Sixty percent of mental health professionals who responded to the Survey of Internet Mental Health Issues report having treated at least one patient with a problematic Internet experience in the previous five years; 54 percent of these clients were 18 years of age or younger.

So kids are on the Internets, using Facebook, etc. and other (usually anonymous) people are mean to them. These mean people harm their schoolwork. What should the United States government do? Send the Justice Department after these anonymous mean people, of course. For that, Congress needs this law:

Sec. 881. Cyberbullying

`(a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

`(b) As used in this section--

`(1) the term `communication' means the electronic transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user's choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received; and

`(2) the term `electronic means' means any equipment dependent on electrical power to access an information service, including email, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones, and text messages.'.

This is pretty absurd. "Communications" and "electronic means" are defined broadly. No surprise there. What would make a communication illegal is the "the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior."

What does that mean? Eugene Volokh has some frightening possibilities . Those are more consumer complaint and journalism examples, but what about in-game griefing? Give me ISK or I will blow up your spaceship? Withdraw your spaceships from the war or we will destroy your space empire. This sort of bluster goes on in MMOs all the time. Sloppy statutory language would criminalize this sort of play (assuming that it got past First Amendment challenges).

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April 24