I’ve never been so pumped to perform an upgrade!

In the film Fight Club, the real name of the protagonist (Ed Norton’s character) is never revealed. Many believe the reason behind this anonymity is to give “Jack” more of an everyman quality. Do not be deceived. “Jack” is really Calvin from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. It’s true. Norton portrays the grown-up version of Calvin, while Brad Pitt plays his imaginary pal, Hobbes, reincarnated as Tyler Durden.

It was definitely a good read. You can check it out here.

The latter only seems to warrant disdain.

What does this mean? Well, play testing is the version of Quality Assurance that most people get excited over. Glorified in such movies as ‘Grandma’s Boy’ (holy crap, they get cubicles?!) you tend to view this job as eight hours of playing video games, and getting PAID for it! The harsh reality is that the glitter and joy of this will wear off within the first week when you find yourself playing level 3-b for the hundred and forty-second time making sure that the A-B-A-A-Up-Down-Up-Down-R2+R1 combo doesn’t launch the player out of the level.

On the upside, if you can view the position as a job, and something to learn, then there’s definitely the possibility of improvement. With the amount of turnover that play testers experience, within a month you could be training new hires, and have moved onto level 4-a in your own testing. A large amount of people who join a company as play testers, don’t anticipate burning out but a conscious effort has to go into the job, as the repetition involved could soon have you wishing for a pneumatic hammer to the temple. If you don’t end up going to pneumatic hammer route, this can often be viewed as one of the gateways into the game development industry.

Now, it seems to be a leap to go from playing video games to making video game, but you will notice that you don’t have other industry insiders in your basement game room when ‘pwning’ on Xbox Live. At a game development studio, however, you may occasionally bump into one in line for the bathroom. As such, this is the perfect time to begin making your contacts (though standing at the urinal may not be the best place).

You may get the chance to work with programmers, developers, and even the games producers. If they want your opinions on the game, though it may cause some strife in the short-term, and terrify the hell out of you, it’s always best to be honest about any flaws or problems you’ve found in the game. While programmers may abhor the extra work-load, people will begin to notice your effort, and once a quality product is released everyone will be happier.

In addition to some key skills, such as patience, patience, and calloused thumbs, play testers develop a deeper understanding of the game than others may. In smaller companies (such as I’m familiar with) you can notice the difference between just fixing something, or programming and then fixing something. You gain a larger appreciation for the mechanics that go into creating something, and an even greater appreciation for how easy it is to break everything else while trying to make a mob not get stuck.

Of course, aside from the burnout, how can you screw up a job in play testing? It depends on how in depth the mechanics go. Introducing something entirely new into the game can tend to horribly break something else. If you happen to have the pleasure of being the developer, programmer, and QA department yourself, this tends to be less of an issue, as you can work out where the problem originated with debugging code, and a little imagination. In a larger environment where the developer creates and idea, a programmer programs it, and it’s up to you to work the kinks out, don’t be surprised when the blame falls on you for missing something that fifty players and an infinite amount of curiosity don’t.

Do you have any Quality Assurance, or play testing horror stories? Or were you one of the lucky ones?

In the past year or so I’ve developed some skills that are imperative, and often lacking, in quite a few developers. Let’s call these ‘social skills’. As I’ve worked on finishing up a degree or two, and settled myself into the I.T. Help Desk lifestyle, it has been brought to my attention that unless you are either a million dollar developer, or run your own independent game company, you can’t (as a rule) be a smartass to the customer. Social skills actually become an important part of the job as you find your lips glued to someone else’s ass for the majority of the time.

Let’s break this down with an example. We are going to look at exactly how important these skills are, no matter where you apply them.

Person A claims that Service B is Something C.

I.T. Sector:

The Client claims that their blade server is running slow.

Game Development:

The Player claims that their super rare +20 Orc-Raper is missing on the FluffyLoveKiss server.

Now, on the surface, these statements look quite different. However, upon slightly close inspection we can note two things:

1) They’re both probably lying.
2) You have to pretend they’re not.

This is where those aforementioned social skills come in. When working within customer service, the main goal is going to be the extraction of information. The difficult issue is getting this information without calling the user a liar.

In situation A some of the questions may look like this:

• What servers are you accessing that are having the problem?
• What users are experiencing this problem? Is it just you?
• When did the problem first present itself?

In situation B the questions will be similar, depending on the auditing your game has in place.

• Where was the item when you lost it? Vault? Bank?
• Are you missing any other items?
• —Internally you can check if this is a global problem…
• When did you last see the item?
• Did the item have any special attributes?

In both cases, while these questions allow you to gather more information, they more importantly allow you to exclude things. If the user says that their Orc-Raper was purple, and you know for a fact that the only purple Orc-Raper is on a different server, you can now determine that the user isn’t being truthful.

If all of the Orc-Rapers on the server are disappearing, and this isn’t an exclusive event, then the user may be telling the truth. Again, though, if the user is claiming theirs was purple, they may just be trying to exploit a bug for compensation.

All too often, non-issues can be escalated due to customer service’s inability, or unwillingness to delve deeper into an issue. A user may simply be having a problem with their internet service provider, but without the proper information time could be wasted ruling out DSN issues in an environment, instead of moving onto more important things.

Additionally, if a representative is unwilling to show an interest a user may sense spite, and if any accusations are made, will become extremely defensive preventing the representative helping them from differentiating the truth from the misconception, or sometimes the downright lies. Never underestimate the power of a pissed off user with a big guild.

Do you have any thoughts on the customer service end game development? Any horror stories you’d like to share?

With innovation, people tend to get bored once they explore all facets of the new feature, and for the average clever player, this takes less than a week. Currently, when playing a game (specifically an MMO) the primary attachment is the time investment put into your character. This can branch out into different subsets, such as your l33t items, or level, but essentially they’re all a factor of the treadmill. Yes, there are other aspects that hold people to games, such as the ‘community aspect’ I mentioned in a previous post, but there’s no real emotional attachment to the game itself.

What this leads to is players who will, on a whim, cancel their accounts. No thought goes into the process; they’ve become bored with the game. The latest ‘innovation’ is now just another aspect that they’ve gamed to death. Creating an emotional aspect to the character or the game is what keeps people coming back. You see people playing Meridian 59 ten years after the fact because of the emotional impact that it’s had on their lives. This can manifest itself in a myriad of different ways, of course, whether they met some good friends in the game, or it was simply their first foray into the world of online gaming, or perhaps it inspired a career in game development.

Now that MMO’s are becoming old hat, the options for innovation are becoming fewer and fewer, so focusing on a different aspect could be the solution. There’s been a lot of chatter about the future, and a few comparisons between Second Life and WoW and this got me thinking why people where focusing so much on Second Life. With the option to buy your own land, build it from the ground up, create content that’s unique to only you, I think this is creating some of that emotional attachment. There’s a personal bond between player and game which is a lot harder for people to leave behind than a hollow game experience. So maybe all the latest rants are right. Maybe it’s time that developers stop waiting for the next innovation, and focus on another way to keep gamers interested.

Being a bit younger than Brian, most of my online gaming and interaction is centered around the time of graphical MMOs as opposed to text based MUDs. In this context, I actually find myself, in games at least, searching for another person’s avatar, and focusing on that while having a conversation. Using City of Heroes as an example, I would widely ignore the chat box and instead read the bubbles attributed to the character speaking. This was just more comfortable for me.

As games progress more and more into the 3D realm I’ve noticed the use of visual emotes coming into play. Users will bow at each other, wave, dance, sit while waiting, or read the newspaper while AFK. With each new round of online games that comes out, the options for ‘emoting’ become more and more vast. Falling back a bit into earlier games, in Meridian 59 the use of simple emotes has always been an important part of conveying messages to other players.

This of course relies on the assumption that the communication is happening in-game, and Brian made several points about normal chat spaces. While I’ve only had limited experience with 3D virtual chat spaces (mainly Worlds Chat back when they consisted of a space station portal which led to some other less populated 3D areas, I think that as communication technology expands, and video chat becomes more the norm, those wanting to maintain their anonymity will come up with digital avatars for discussion. With the social networking of online, having a visual to focus on helps to personify the other person. Even with games like Meridian 59, I can spot a person based on what they look like, occasionally, without even seeing their name.

As for Brian’s question of:

Is there really a business model that makes sense for the avatar service providers?

I’m going to reply by asking, isn’t this essentially what Second Life is?

One of the major factors that drew me to Meridian 59 back in my golden years, aside from being the first of its kind that I’d played, was the other people. After joining with a couple friends it didn’t take me too long to branch off and make new acquaintances, people who I looked forward to seeing on a daily basis. These same people, when they left caused a feeling of disappointment. This was odd, primarily, because I had no idea who these people were. It was a certain creepy magic that I loved.

When other games began coming out, and taking the title ‘massive’ to heart, things started to change. The other MMO that ranks among my first was Everquest, and the difference between it and Meridian 59 was a bit mind boggling at first. Little things like physics first came into play when I realized jumping off a 3 story building wasn’t good for the wellbeing of my character. The areas were a lot bigger, and those friendly NPCs that generally stood in place in my past experiences were now happy to lop my head off if I hit the wrong button. The biggest change I noticed, before I get off on too much of a tangent, were the people I met.

I had just left a game where everyone knew each-other and helped out willingly (aside from the occasional player-killer), to another where talking to the wrong person got me branded as a kill stealer. After a few sour n00bish moments, I became withdrawn and began working on my own for a while. It was a while before I mustered up the courage to talk to anyone again. When I finally did, and found out about these ‘groups’ you could join, I ventured into the unknown and gave it a shot. I figured, “Hey, these people are okay, maybe they’ll be my friends!”

The learning curve, I found out, is a bit steeper than I first anticipated and the small group of people I had started playing with was soon a level or two ahead of me. The one person I still sent tells to, after a week, was now 10 levels ahead of me. Once again, I was alone, and EQ had just become another single player game… with a lot of spam.

Perhaps I’m unique in this regard and others don’t hold community quite as highly as me. With newer games, starting with Shadowbane, and working up until WoW, I’ve noticed that perhaps I was too hasty. Communities are still there, they’re just hidden among the thousands of people and situated in smaller guilds. These sub-communities have the potential to become as close as those which started in the dawn of the MMO age, though you can boot someone if they’re being too much of an ass. =)

From what I’ve found out, most guilds start with a group of friends, and build out from there. You have the basis of the guild as an already tight-knit group, and slowly build out from there integrating new people into your little community. The groups tend to be less diverse, as the final say ultimately falls on one of the more high ranking members, and resentment tends to grow if trust isn’t shared equally among the newcomers. Pretty soon, your guild is filled with people similar to you and your original gang, and you lose something from the game, even if you don’t think so.

So, to sum up everything I just made you read through, my point would be this. Without a dynamic community created out of necessity, or circumstance, what factors keep users interested in a game? If you have a group with like-minded people, as a lot of guilds tend towards, there’s a tendency to close ranks once you’re happy. When users begin to leave, as they ultimately do, there’s a lack of fresh blood. Anyone new joining the guild would be seen as more of an intrusion than a valuable asset to the group. More than once I’ve been in a guild when the entirety of it has vanished. I ended up with no one to fall back on except for the occasional random group. Game play experiences can be greatly diminished if this is allowed to happen and then all that ties someone to a game is the investment of time. Now, this can be traded relatively easy for cash through the auction sites becoming ever more popular.

Unlike a single player game which is carefully engineered to produce emotional responses, a lot of MMOs rely on the other players to create this attachment. If you enter the game with real life stigmas, such as being an introvert, you’ll lose a valuable part of the game, and can leave the game feeling unfulfilled. A solution that comes to mind for me is Admin run events. These give users the opportunity to come together for a common goal, creating a temporary bond between them. If you take these events a step further, you can run interactive storylines where groups of players will band together independent of guilds, or social rankings, to rally against the latest villain or threat to the land. Unlike player run events, which can result in favoritism and exclusion, the administrator remains impartial and can create and atmosphere which most of the group will enjoy.

This week’s interview is with Mike Emmons, the QA manager for Near Death Studios, the folks behind the classic MMORPG, Meridian 59.

If you’re not familiar with M59, you should give it a try. It’s the oldest graphical MOG out there, and a lot of fun. The game is perhaps one of the best-balanced games out there, and it’s a skill-based leveling system instead of class-based, something I’ve always liked.

Mike’s a super nice guy, and has a long history around M59. I enjoyed talking with him and picking his brain (especially the parts where he reveals his REAL title is “Company Bitch”). Listen for yourself and enjoy!

I’ve always enjoyed working with Kwip, and this time was no exception. =)

In Honor of M59’s achievements and to celebrate this landmark vision which has cleared the way for a massive industry boom, we contacted Near Death Studios’ QA Manager, Mike Emmons, to pick his brains about the project, the industry, the games and the minds of those dedicated to heart of what we here at GamerGod consider to be one of the greatest games to ever see the light of day.

See the GamerGod article here.

A short while later, I was contacted by MMORPG.com and talked to their Garrett Fuller, who had some more challenging questions, and some more ego-boosting for me.

Meridian 59 under the brand name Resurrection came back to life a few years ago and has run a small, but moderately successful operation ever since. We talked to QA Manager Mike Emmons of Near Death Studios, who currently manages the day-to-day operations ofthe title, about the game and its future.

Check out the MMORPG.com article here.

I, of course, was a bit anxious about the whole interview process, but after milling my way through, I’m beginning to enjoy it… as well as being able to google myself. That’s always a shot in the arm. =) I wasn’t expecting to be working with other people when I signed up to develop games, but now that I’ve been thrown in and learned to swim, I think it’s actually a valuable skill to learn. By no means am I saying I’m the next … erm… ‘Dear Abby’, but I think I’m getting better as I go along.