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Crafting From Your Phone: A Convergence of Worlds
By Cameron Sorden | September 30, 2007
Gamers, like any other enthusiast, don’t just focus on their hobby while they’re actually doing it. They think about it while they’re in the shower or driving to work. They talk about it with their friends at social functions and online. They blog about it, read about it, and sometimes even dream about it. Any time that they’re sitting around bored, waiting for something, odds are good that they’re wishing they could pop onto their favorite game and kill some time. Too bad it’s not practical to carry a heavy-duty gaming laptop with a satellite internet link-up everywhere you go.
All the posts lately about Metaplace and cross-platform gaming have gotten me thinking about the accessibility of online worlds. Fans of MMOGs often spend disproportionate amounts of time playing these games due to the time-intensive and value-invested nature of the genre. Frequently the activities that are performed in these games which contribute to character advancement are repetitive, relatively simple, and time-consuming (intentionally so). Consider crafting in most games, or perusing merchandise in auction houses. Neither of these activities are nearly as complex as the process of finding, engaging, killing and looting a mob, and yet we still have to be actually logged into the game client to perform them. Do you really need to render all of Ironforge and the multitude of players standing around the auctioneer to query the auction database and display the results? (Hint: The answer is no. Rhetorical questions 4tw.)
Some games, like EVE, already allow players to continue their game advancement while not physically within the game client. Imagine if that were taken a step further and you were actually allowed to interface with portions of the game itself through secondary clients. Lets examine this idea using crafting.
In both EverQuest II and Vanguard, crafting is a mini-game unto itself. Assuming a player has the necessary items in his or her inventory, the process of taking an item from start to finish merely requires a number of simplistic decisions involving micromanaging limited resources and responding to unexpected and variable outcomes throughout the process. It’s a game within a game. But it doesn’t need to be a game within a game. What if you could place all the necessary crafting materials on your character in-game (or load them into a special crafting station) and then work on your crafting from a web browser which had you log into the game server? The end result is exactly the same. It shouldn’t matter whether you’re standing in the middle of Kelethin or whether you’re sitting in your office on an exceptionally tedious conference call. You’d still be playing the same simplistic mini-game.
You could also apply this to auction houses. Auction houses are basically just a list of items for sale at X price. Assuming you could place a certain amount of money into a special “offline browsing” fund (or just access money that’s on your character), why shouldn’t you be able to browse auctions and make purchases via a web client? Both the web client and the game client can access the same tables on the server, with the right code. There’s no reason why you need 10-20GB of game files to perform a simple yet essential activity like this. How many times have you wanted to check your auctions during the day and couldn’t because you were stuck at work?
Cell phones are becoming an increasingly attractive medium for this kind of interactivity, as well. Many of my friends already enjoy simple programs, games, internet access, and web browsing, all through their cell phone. Again, there’s no reason why SOE can’t develop an application to let me look at market sales via an internet-connected cell phone. Crafting would be a great way to kill some time on a lengthy bus ride or while you’re waiting for a meeting to start. Instead of being a barrier to interacting with more “fun” parts of the game, the tedious and simplistic nature of crafting mini-games actually becomes an advantage when you consider creating a cell phone application for them. Cell phone games are often simplistic anyway. VG’s crafting system, for example, would be right at home on a phone.
I usually don’t pursue much crafting while at home because of limited time. If I only have three hours to dig into a game, I’m typically not going to spend my three hours staring at a crafting station, playing a repetitive button mini-game, while there’s a beautifully rendered world chock full of things to kill right outside the door. I’m going to be doing the things that adventuring is supposed to be all about: seeing new lands and slaying dragons. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be a crafter, though… I like the idea of being able to make my characters items and equipment. I’d just be a lot more inclined to craft if I could do it at times when I can’t play the real game, but could get away with a cell phone or browser game.
As a hardcore gamer, I get really involved in the games I play. I spend a lot of time playing and thinking about the games, and I like to advance my character. I get frustrated when I’m playing a silly solitaire game on my phone while I’m waiting between classes, since I know that if I were at home I could be killing a few mobs or checking auctions quickly. Time is a limited resource in our busy lives, and I think that we’d be happier as players if we were given options like this to help us effectively manage our game time to get the maximum enjoyment out of our real, graphically-intensive play sessions.
The fact that some activities in game are simpler than others make them no less essential to the overall experience, but there’s also no reason why the simpler activities need to take place within a needlessly resource-intensive client. You don’t need a full toolkit to tighten a single bolt– you just need the wrench.
Topics: Random |
October 1st, 2007 at 6:34 am
Exactly. This is part of what I find so intriguing about Metaplace, and a big part of what I’ve been wishing some other titles (EQ2, Vanguard, I’m looking at you) would start experimenting with.
Interacting with the auction house(s) from your cell phone/pda… I mean, why the h*** not?
October 1st, 2007 at 11:18 am
It seems like if anyone is going to do this for a traditional MMO, it’s going to be SOE. Historically, they’ve been the company most willing to experiment with cross-platform applications: The station exchange, the much ridiculed /pizza command, in-game tools for browsing and chat in EQ2, etc…
October 2nd, 2007 at 6:08 am
Agreed. There was talk at more than a few sessions at AGDC about this topic, and SOE always came up as one of the places to watch.
Even I thought the /pizza command was a bit over the top, tho.
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:09 am
This is one of this areas that MMORPGs are bound to enter into. And I’m looking forward to it. As long as I don’t have to pay extra for it. Raph’s Metaplace will be cool to watch for this reason, but I’m really hoping one of the big upcoming or currently existing games considers adding browser or cellphone interactivity.
I’d love, when I get bored at work (like now) to be able to go browse the AH and skill up some crafting. But alas… it remains a pipedream for now.
October 2nd, 2007 at 10:52 am
I can see the value of it, but I can’t say I want my game following me around and calling me on my cellphone.
I would like to see real world experiences tied into a game’s fluff somehow. In other words, where you go in real life, what you see, what you do, and all can somehow be represented in-game in a symbolic way. If you’re setting your vendor’s prices or crafting a helmet on your PDA, then you’re basically playing the game without being in the game. What I’m talking about is doing things other than play the game which have in-game effects; tying real-world experiences to the experiences of your virtual character.
Of course, I’m racking my brain for an example and can’t come up with one. But try to imagine an experience like sitting at the beach or going to a rock concert and being able to translate that real experience into part of your character’s story.
October 4th, 2007 at 11:39 am
With the new one shot download of the AH every 15 minutes in 2.3…
Two accounts in WoW. One at AH one at mailbox. Mod pulling AH data to MySQL on PC. Local App on PC beaming to Blackberry. Blackberry app receives, browses, purchases internal to client app. Users of your service have predeposited gold with your AH proxy buyer. Buy for customer and mail it to his character. You could user outside game fee and/or in game gold fee.
Tell me how Blizzard shoots me down with the EULA or add me to the team building this service so I can make some money.
October 5th, 2007 at 12:17 am
Hey guys I would keep your eye on a game currently in devlopmet called Agency. Being devloped by… you guessed it SoE. I went to thier preview at the last Fan Fair and they are infact talking about doing the very things you are talking about, though in the context of that game.
Bascly, in that game part of your “loot” is sientists and other experts that do the “grunt work” for you and the plan is to have these NPCs keep in contact with you about events in game while your not on-line(you opted in ofcourse).
October 5th, 2007 at 12:33 am
Hm. I knew about the Agency, but I didn’t realize SOE was planning on integrating these types of features into it.
January 7th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
[...] and Steefel hadn’t actually announced the same thing for Turbine games in the future. Oh, and me. Hell, if pointing out this kind of thing is all it takes to make business predictions, maybe I [...]
January 25th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
[...] are virtually limitless. Being able to send tells to your friend’s cell phone from in-game. Crafting from your phone. Mini-games on the bus that earn you money. I could keep going all [...]