Focus group testers play Gaia Online's forthcoming casual MMO, 'zOMG,' at the company's headquarters in San Jose, Calif. The new game, which is scheduled to go into public beta in a couple of months, is an adjunct to Gaia's existing casual virtual world, which has more than 7 million users.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)SAN JOSE, Calif.--How do you fine tune a game that has been long in the making and is just a couple of months from going public?
That was the central question behind a focus group I sat in on Tuesday, as the developers behind the wildly popular casual virtual world Gaia Online invited seven devoted players to put zOMG, their new massively multiplayer online game, through its paces.
During the session, which lasted about two hours, the seven players--five women and two men ranging in age from 19 to 25--were asked to pound away at zOMG in a bid to help the designers see just what was working at this point in the development process, what wasn't and to discover whether the players would recommend the game to friends.
Already, the Web-based Gaia Online has more than 7 million unique monthly users, and an auction system with more than 100,000 transactions per day. Gaia is mainly a social environment without a deep goal-oriented gaming element, but now, with the planned launch of zOMG, the company is adding an MMO that will be a separate, but adjunct, gaming environment that will essentially have direct paths into the company's larger virtual world and which will be peppered with references to the original environment.
The Tuesday focus group wasn't the first Gaia has held at its offices, and it won't be the last. But it was the first time the company had allowed a reporter in the room to witness the proceedings, a risky move if the testers said they didn't like the game.
In the end, I'd say that the testers I watched were generally pleased with the game. They liked its mechanics and the way it tied into the larger Gaia Online world, but they did have some sobering comments for the producers about why they would recommend it to their friends.
But more on that later.
Gaia Online co-founder Derek Liu looks on as the focus group testers play the new MMO.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)The session was hosted by Kate Pietrelli, an account manager at TriplePoint, Gaia's outside PR agency, and was attended by several members of the game's development team, as well as Gaia Online co-founder Derek Liu. Throughout the two hours, she directed the players through the game and peppered them with questions about what they were experiencing.
She began the session by asking the testers how they felt about using the trackpads on the PC laptops they'd been given, rather than mice.
One tester, 25-year-old Crysta Coburn, said she was happy with the trackpad, and that she tended to be using it when moving around from place to place in the game, but reverted to using keyboard commands when fighting.
But four other testers said they wanted mice for a better experience, and the producers handed them over a minute later.
At one point, the players were all in what is known in the game as the "Village Green," and Pietrelli asked them how difficult it was, particularly when they were engaging with "the gnome," an enemy non-player character.
"When you get out of the sewers, it's kind of challenging," said 21-year-old Alex Lapin.
"How do you deal with that," Pietrelli asked.
"Run," Lapin joked.
"You hope that there's nice people around" to help out, added Sara Newman, a 24-year-old tester.
Pietrelli wanted to know how the social elements of the game were working, so she asked how many of the testers had joined groups, rather than playing solo.
Most of them said they had.
"As soon as I signed in," said Coburn, "I was like, 'Who wants to join a group?'"
A scene from 'zOMG,' the new casual MMO from Gaia Online. This is the null chamber, the place where players go if they die in the game.
(Credit: Gaia Online)A 19-year-old tester who called herself Malo added that one of the benefits of being in a group is that players can see the attributes of everyone else they team up with, which is helpful for collectively combining skills and talent.
Malo also said that she liked that it was easy to see a symbol that identified which player had initiated a group.
And Desire Lyon, a 24-year-old tester, said that she felt that being part of a group was beneficial when the game gets complicated because "you kind of need someone around to help."
One of the main tools in zOMG is a series of rings, each of which bestows on its wearer different skills and powers.
Pietrelli asked the testers if they found that the game made it easy to switch rings when they were in the "Null Chamber," the place they go after they die in combat.
Lapin responded that, "Maybe (the producers) should make it so you can't switch rings for a minute after you die."
But others didn't like that idea.
"I don't know about that," Coburn said, only half-joking. "You need to pipe down a little bit over there."
As with any MMO, an important part of zOMG is the accumulation of treasure, or "loot," and Pietrelli asked the players what they felt about the system for accruing loot.
Coburn said, "Honestly, I'm paying absolutely no attention to loot...I can't figure out what it does."
The so-called village green, in 'zOMG,' the new casual MMO from Gaia Online.
(Credit: Gaia Online)That seemed like a useful bit of feedback to senior producer Dave Georgeson, as he responded, "Well, that's a good note right there."
A few minutes later, the testers were asked what level their rings were at, and most answered that they were still just at the first level.
Coburn, however, had a different take.
"Whenever I have a choice of rings, I'm like, 'Where's the selfish bitch option?'"
And Lyon added, "I like the 'Improbability' ring, but only because I like the name."
She was referring to the obvious allusion to the Improbability Drive from Douglas Adams' series, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
To which Georgeson added, "You can tell by the descriptions (of the rings) that we like the books, too."
Then, Pietrelli asked the testers about their thoughts on the balance between areas of combat and other areas.
"I think it's really well done, actually," said 19-year-old Sierra Payne.
"The mobs aren't so bad if you have people with you, for sure," said tester Stephen Welch, also 19.
Georgeson started to explain that the mechanics of the game were such that players were rewarded with more loot by working in groups than they would be by working alone, and asked if that meant that the testers would be more motivated to join groups.
Around the room, the testers echoed out, "Oh, yearh."
And Lapin joked, "Join my krew or I'll break your arm."
Face-to-face encounters
A little later, the discussion turned to the balance between using the in-game communications system and talking face-to-face. Lyon said that she thought talking face-to-face was less likely.
"We're all in the same room, within three feet of each other," Lyon said. But "it's easier to talk on the Internet than face-to-face."
To which Lapin added that he'd like the game to feature hotkeys that would produce battle cries and taunts such as, "Fear my leet skills."
Soon, the discussion between the Gaia team and the testers got very interesting.
Pietrelli asked the testers whether they would recommend zOMG to friends who don't already play Gaia Online, and if so, why.
"Probably (I would)," said Coburn, to "the ones who play (World of Warcraft) but can't afford (that game's $15 a month fee)...It's free. That's the only sell (of zOMG)."
"Wow," said Pietrelli, clearly taken aback.
Lapin seemed to try to change the subject slightly by adding, "I'd probably get some of my friends from Magic: The Gathering and say, 'Instead of kicking your butt there, you can help me out here.'"
Later, I asked Pietrelli about Coburn's comment.
"I think she probably didn't explain herself very well," Petrielli said, "and I moved on from that quickly (because it's a large group). I can follow up with her later."
But before letting the testers leave, she did return to the subject with the group still in the room to ask Coburn to elaborate on her comments.
"I think that's the biggest selling point, that it's free," Coburn confirmed, adding when I asked her to say more that zOMG would be competing with many other casual MMOs, and that its game play alone wasn't setting it apart as much as the fact that there was no charge to play.
She tried to soften her comment, but only slightly.
"It looks nicer, too," she said, "and the game play's better. And it's free."
While the testers broke for a quick pizza lunch, I pulled Petrielli aside and asked her about the value to Gaia of this session.
She explained that it was just one of several such focus groups the company had held with players, and wouldn't be the last. But she said that every bit of feedback the development team could get from players, especially as the game is just a couple of months from being opened for its public beta, is worthwhile.
"I think it's very helpful," she said, "especially for the development team, because they've been so heads down...So getting feedback from uses is a priority for Gaia in the development of the game."
As the testers returned from their pizza break, Pietrelli put a few more questions to them.
And before she finished, she asked if there was anything else the players wanted to say to the development team.
"We love you," said Welch. "Now work faster."
And with that they all dove back into zOMG, and didn't look like they had any plans to depart, despite the end of the two hours allotted for the focus group session.
"It's gong to be difficult to get them to leave," Petrielli told me. "They won't stop playing."
'World of Warcraft' publisher Blizzard Entertainment is embroiled in a legal dispute with a man who it says makes a bot that automatically replicates many in-game actions.
(Credit: Blizzard Entertainment)We've long known that publishers of massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft don't like it when players mess with the purity of their games.
That's why they routinely issue stern warnings that anyone caught gold farming or buying accounts or using bots that automate various processes will be punished in some way, including being banned from the game.
But now, it seems, WoW publisher Blizzard Entertainment is taking its enmity toward this kind of behavior to the courts.
As reported by the BBC, Blizzard has sued the creator of a program, or "bot," known as MMO Glider. According to the MMO Glider site, the "tool...plays your World of Warcraft character for you, the way you want it. It grinds, it loots, it skins, it heals, it even farms soul shards...without you."
That is anathema to Blizzard, and the company is trying to get the courts to stop Glider's creator, Michael Donnelly, from selling it.
Blizzard's court filing asserts that "Blizzard's designs expectations are frustrated, and resources are allocated unevenly, when bots are introduced into the WoW universe, because bots spend far more time in-game than an ordinary player would and consume resources the entire time," according to the BBC.
Blizzard also argues that Glide infringes its copyright, the BBC writes, "because it copies the game into RAM in order to avoid detection by anti-cheat software."
But the legal drama doesn't end there. In his legal response, Donnelly retorts that Glide doesn't infringe Blizzard's copyright because the program doesn't create any copies of WoW code.
For now, the two sides are lining up their lawyers and awaiting the next step in what is sure to be a long, drawn-out legal wrangling. One does wonder, however, how an individual like Donnelly will be able to hold out against the formidable resources of an outfit like Blizzard, which is owned by conglomerate Vivendi.
To me, this is an interesting situation. There's no doubt that MMO publishers want to keep players from using cheats like Glider, and there's equally no doubt that people will always be coming up with ways to subvert the system and search out little edges like those to automate tasks that result in performance awards.
Yet this case may not help resolve the age-old game play issues that have engaged many a scholar and player. That's because it may instead revolve around hard-core technical issues surrounding what exactly happens when players use Glider.This, in some ways, is too bad because I think a lot of people are looking for some actual legal resolution of game-play issues. But if the court ends up making a decision that doesn't touch on such dilemmas, we'll just keep waiting for the next situation that will bring these issues before the bar.
After three years of running its own system to let some players of EverQuest II conduct trades of in-game assets for real money, Sony Online Entertainment is turning it over to a new partner, Live Gamer.
In 2005, SOE, the publisher of the groundbreaking online game, EverQuest, as well as EverQuest II, Star Wars Galaxies, and other titles, decided to try an experiment that took its industry's traditional approach to players buying and selling in-game assets for real money and turned it on its ears.
Previously, the industry standard was to scream loudly that such activity was illegitimate and prohibited and that players caught doing so would be banned. Of course, thousands of players ignored the warnings and conducted such trades on sites like eBay, IGE.com, and elsewhere, usually with little or no repercussions.
But with the launch of its Station Exchange service that year, SOE decided to embrace the so-called "real money trade," at least provisionally, and see where it might lead. The company allowed such trades to take place on two EverQuest II servers, and gave players the choice of being on those servers or not.
Over the first year of the service, SOE said it made about $250,000--with almost no costs--and reduced the kinds of customer service complaints that it said came regularly from players claiming they'd been defrauded in under-the-table transactions outside the company's auspices.
Since then, Station Exchange has hummed along, neither making big waves nor disappearing. And for the most part, the online game industry has stayed away. No other big publisher of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) has gotten onboard, though Linden Lab's Second Life--a very different kind of virtual world from, say, EverQuest II--has long allowed real-money trades.
Now, SOE is turning the operation of Station Exchange over to Live Gamer, a start-up that launched in 2007. The move is expected to be complete by the end of March and should mean that the resulting service, to be called Live Gamer Exchange, will be entirely Web-based.
What this means for players is unclear. It also doesn't appear that the move means SOE is abandoning the experiment, though it does mean the company will not have to expend as many resources on Station Exchange going forward.
What isn't clear is where the revenue generated by commissions on trades will go. But one can assume that by taking over the service, Live Gamer will probably be getting a big piece of the pie.
Is this a good thing? A bad thing? I'd say neither. I'd say it's an interesting move on SOE's part. It's probably about them deciding they don't need to run it anymore, but that they liked the experiment enough to continue allowing their players to engage in real-money trading.
As before, the big question is whether any other publishers, most notably Blizzard Entertainment, which makes World of Warcraft, will ever follow suit. And so it will be interesting to see how Live Gamer runs with this. It may set a precedent that would be hard to avoid following.
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