For example, the Facebook change. People hated it, I made a blog post about it, but I don’t think I went into enough detail. I said why I thought it was expected, and while that has a general meaning, what does it say about game development in general? Well, for one, change is bad. People aren’t fond of it. Whenever you see a patch for an MMO, you inevitably see one thing: a whole lot of complaints – at lest if you change anything significant to the game.

Does that mean that the changes were bad? No, not necessarily – although they might be. It just means that people dislike it when you change something familiar to them. Added functionality is one thing, but this really speaks to usability and familiarity in UI design specifically. If you have an MMO with a certain UI, and you decide to revamp it entirely… People are likely going to be resistant if they are use to the old one. The new one might be better, but that doesn’t mean people will like it immediately.

That goes for gameplay changes too. Heck, just look at Star Wars Galaxies for a change from something familiar to something new. The New Game Experience was hated by many players, even though you could certainly argue that it made for a better game — not that I necessarily am, I like skill-based advancement, but I will admit the original combat system was pretty terrible. If the game was originally designed with the NGE in mind, it would have likely gone over just fine. If it came out within a few days of lunch (unlikely as that would be) it also would have been fine – except for the bad press it would likely generate. Yet, people would probably have taken to it fine and might have even considered it better.

Basically, the reason why I am looking closely at social networking sites is because they’re basically the same thing as online gaming when it comes to community on certain levels. Not all levels, but in some ways, we can see parallels between services like Facebook and Twitter, and what we see in online game comunities.

For example, the Facebook change. People hated it, I made a blog post about it, but I don’t think I went into enough detail. I said why I thought it was expected, and while that has a general meaning, what does it say about game development in general? Well, for one, change is bad. People aren’t fond of it. Whenever you see a patch for an MMO, you inevitably see one thing: a whole lot of complaints – at lest if you change anything significant to the game.

Does that mean that the changes were bad? No, not necessarily – although they might be. It just means that people dislike it when you change something familiar to them. Added functionality is one thing, but this really speaks to usability and familiarity in UI design specifically. If you have an MMO with a certain UI, and you decide to revamp it entirely… People are likely going to be resistant if they are use to the old one. The new one might be better, but that doesn’t mean people will like it immediately.

That goes for gameplay changes too. Heck, just look at Star Wars Galaxies for a change from something familiar to something new. The New Game Experience was hated by many players, even though you could certainly argue that it made for a better game — not that I necessarily am, I like skill-based advancement, but I will admit the original combat system was pretty terrible. If the game was originally designed with the NGE in mind, it would have likely gone over just fine. If it came out within a few days of lunch (unlikely as that would be) it also would have been fine – except for the bad press it would likely generate. Yet, people would probably have taken to it fine and might have even considered it better.

Basically, the reason why I am looking closely at social networking sites is because they’re basically the same thing as online gaming when it comes to community on certain levels. Not all levels, but in some ways, we can see parallels between services like Facebook and Twitter, and what we see in online game comunities.

After popping on Facebook the other day, I noticed there was a poll asking if users liked the redesign or not. apparently 94% said “no.” My first reaction to this news was “great, Facebook really is looking for feedback on their changes now,” followed by “and the result is exactly as expected.”

The result was expected, but not because I hate the redesign. I don’t find it to be terribly speical, but I don’t really hate it. I’m rather ambivalent. However, I’ve noticed soemthing after having a Facebook account for a while. They’ve changed the theme numerous times in the past, and the result is always the same: people complain about it. They always hate the new theme and they always claim that the old design was far better. They claim the new one is not usable and it will make using Facebook harder, etc…

Then suddenly they love it when the next redesign comes around, and talk about how much it was better than this latest one. I remember the last time Facebook did a redesign, and it was largely the same: people frickin’ hated it. Now, I do think that there are some issues with the new design, certainly, but the problem isn’t actually design issues. The problem is change. People don’t like it.

Every time Facebook changes the design, people have to relearn it. By the time the next design comes around, they’re all very happy with the current theme they had been using for so long, because they’re simply use to it. They know how to navigate it and do what they want. With the new design, they get confused. This is just a basic part of Human nature – I know, I feel the same way often.

So, I suspect that with the next update of Facebook, unless it gets rolled back, people will complain again as usual, and this current theme will be praised as superior.

I finally was able to get the “new Facebook” today, which I was pretty hyped about seeing. There has certainly been quite a bit of hype built up about the new home page and how it would be a great challenge to Twitter and the like.  It certainly looked like Facebook was taking a lot of cues from the popular micro-blogging platform and applying an extra layer to it. But, the question remains, are we looking at some strange hybrid? A… Twitterbook, if you will? Or are the two different  entities entirely?

Well, to begin with, I found the new update to be pretty lacking, honestly. Really, I don’t see that much of a difference at all. It has a new layout, sure, but it still is the same-old-same-old, when you come down to it. There is a feed of everything that your friends are  saying and doing. You have to refresh the page to see new updates, just like it was before. Really, the only difference is that it looks a little bit different, for the most part. That isn’t to say that it sucks, per se. It just isn’t Twitter. It is Facebook – this is a good thing! I don’t really see it as giving me this constant stream of information from everyone I have on my Facebook account, but rather I just see myself opening up the page now and then  and checking out what people are saying and what they’re doing. You know, basically the same thing that I did before on Facebook. It fills a different niche for what I want to do, which has always been the case. Frankly, I’m happy that I don’t see Facebook turning into Twitter, as I really believe the two should be separate entities with  different purposes.

I do admit that it does kind of suck expecting to see something a bit more revolutionary like was hyped, though.

One of the biggest problems Twitter has had in its development as a platform has been monetizing the system. Currently, they run on little more than invested money and actually do not bring in any actual revenue. Twitter has no ads – and the CEO of Twitter refuses to use them. They have been searching for means to monetize the system, and it looks like one of their users has given them an idea. This user is willing to spend up to US$250,000 just to get on the top 20 suggested users on Twitter. These users are recommendations that Twitter provides to new people who sign up to the site, and basically everyone on them has an incredibly huge number of followers.

TechCrunch noted that they had experienced an increase in Twitter followers as well after they were added to the list – they actually quadrupled in followers. Does this mean that paying big bucks for a suggested user slot could be a potential way for Twitter to start making some actual money?

Maybe. TechCrunch also noted in the same article that they gained a huge following through Twitter – but, the major spike in the website’s page views came before they were added to the list. This means that even though they gained a huge number of followers, most of them do not actually visit TechCrunch’s website in any significant numbers, so their revenue has only been increased a small amount due to being added to the list – although Twitter itself has done a lot to help the site in general.

If people are willing to pay for it, Twitter might want to accept the cash, but this might end up being a poor source of revenue in the end.

Granted, I was a hold out on Facebook and a number of other online applications that are used for social networking before eventually signing up. In a way, I find this hugely ironic given my love for online communities and my fascination for such technology. Yet, I suppose it is important to note that I don’t always directly participate in things I find interesting, even if I study them quite closely otherwise.

That said, I broke on the twitter thing.

Personally, I know who to blame.

As an interesting note, I had a small discussion with one of the guests and my host-brother about my future career goals – that is, community management. Neither of them had heard of the concept of a community manager before, but once I explained it to them (rather eloquently, if I do say so myself!) they were quite taken aback with the concept. Apparently the Japanese are absolutely huge in social networking as well, which while I am not really surprised, I am also very intrigued about. Also, this conversation had a few other interesting points as well, such as Second Life in Japan, and why it isn’t very successful here – which is not to say that there aren’t a lot of Japanese people in Second Life, but why the Japanese do not spend much money in it. The reason? They are only there to chat and meet people, what you can do with the currency is largely irrelevant to them.

Even if the night wasn’t a lot of fun on its own, that little discussion certainly made the entire evening worthwhile.

Oh. And I got a cashmere scarf, given to me by a Japanese woman I had never met before. Strange, but neat!

Back in March when I attended the Game Developers Conference, I was able to attend a few sessions which featured a certain game developer of  LegendMUD, Ultima Online, and Star Wars Galaxies fame, took part in. Now, I happen to actually like Raph Koster. I read his book and liked it, I played Galaxies and liked it for a while, and I enjoy reading through his blog. He’s interesting and the sessions he was involved with were also very interesting. Regardless, I am by no means a huge fan of his – which isn’t to say I dislike him or his work, but rather his name on a product isn’t really a major selling point.

I just wanted to get that out there, because what I am excited about is his new project, because it is exactly what I’ve been wanting to see the industry produce. This new project is called ‘Metaplace’ and it is certainly a bit different than what some people may have expected – although I’m personally none-to-surprised. Metaplace is not a game, it is not a virtual world, it is not an MMO, or anything like that. Rather, its a platform that allows the layman to create any of those. This makes me giddy at the very concept of the project.

Why would this excite me? Well, there’s the obvious reason that I enjoy game development and online games – what would be better than mixing the two? I’d have the ability to actually create an online environment on my own, without extensive knowledge of coding. I could also build a rather sizable game with a small team that doesn’t have years of experience behind them in game development, and still manage to (hopefully) pull out a somewhat competent world. I’m planning on doing both of those too.

Yet, there’s more than that. There’s really what it could potentially mean to game development and to the web at large.

As far as game development goes, there’s one very clear thing that I can see coming from this project: game development heading into the hands of the gaming community at large. This could be big. If you happened to play the original Neverwinter Nights, for example, which featured an easy to use toolset for creating your very own DnD adventures inside of the game, you’ll probably know that there were literally thousands of modules created for that game. Also, if you played either Oblivion or Morrowind on the PC, which also had a toolset, you’ll know that the community produced thousands of add-ons for them as well. These are not the only two games to see such modifications, but they certainly ensured easy mod development – NWN especially so.

Of course, not all of these modifications are good. But there were still plenty of great ones among the bunch, many of which were known through the community, and easily found on sites that hosted mods. The average ones still saw some distrobution as well, and the bad ones were usually well noted – but even they could draw in a few interested people.

Those games certainly did one thing though: it allowed people to make what they wanted too – well, within certain limitations presented by the game engine. It meant that there was a whole ton of extra content for people to experience.  This made thesee games fantastic.

This is partly why I am interested in Metaplace, specifically because Metaplace is aiming to take it far and beyond what either NWN and Morrowind/Oblivion did. Instead of allowing players to modify existing worlds, or create their own levels/campaigns (so to speak), Metaplace is offering people the chance to create entire games. Not just RPGs either, but just about any kind of game.

This allows for players to not just make the ‘item of their dreams’ or the ‘campaign of their dreams’, but rather the game of their dreams. This is also without being restricted by the huge cost and development hours normally needed for game creation, that makes games such a huge risk – and thus not worth taking risks. People will be able to develop game ideas that could extend beyond what we normally see in our local game stores. In fact, it is entirely possible that innovation will be a key ’selling point’ for the games people decide to play through Metaplace. Seriously, if I had one complaint about the game industry in its current state, it really would come down to this not being the case.

It would certainly be interesting to see what sorts of creations people would come up with, but this will depend greatly on how, actually, easy it is to create a game and how many people are going to be willing to invest the time to do so – no matter how immense or small their plans and no matter how easy the process is.

Metaplace is aiming to do a lot within gaming, but that isn’t its only focus. Actually the folks over at Areae are aiming it towards the web – which makes sense, since they seem to be setting Metaplace to function very much like the web does.

As such, they don’t expect to just see this used for developing games – which is probably a huge reason why they use the term ‘virtual worlds’. A virtual world could be a lot of things. It could be a game, it could be a social space, it could be an online store front, or it could have educational purposes – who knows. Its broad, just like the possibilities of what you can do with it are (hopefully!).

The focus with the web can be further scene in that the virtual worlds can be placed on the web. Metaplace.com itself will function like a ‘YouTube’ of sorts, letting potential players find potential virtual worlds of their liking. The worlds themselves will be accessible through a browser in a flash window and can even be placed in profiles on sites such as Myspace and Facebook. Yet, they are using open standards on clients, so you’d be free to write up your own if you wanted to do so.

I’m going to be keeping my eye on this one and I’m going to see about getting some people together to tackle on a big project with it, if it does live up to what Areae is hoping the platform will be. I certainly hope so (which I’m sure you can tell), but I will remain skeptical. This is a pretty huge undertaking after all, and it is entirely possible this entire project could fall apart as easy as any other game development or web business. Which is to say… quite easily.