Wendelius
01-06-2006, 13:02
For those of you with broadband and who fancy a big change of pace from their usual online games. How about a world where "players" control all the content from avatars to outfit to games to furniture to the landscape and the buildings? I don't really recommend it as a pure game (although there are games within the game world) but it's a great sandbox experiment.
Anyway, I would encourage curious people to check it out and certainly the sim (ie privately owned territory covering 64K square meters) described below.
If I wasn't already playing Second Life (aka SL), I think I would create a free account (http://secondlife.com/) just to go see it for myself! :)
God Game (http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2006/05/god_game.html)
(...)
The result of a year's work, Laukosargas Svarog's island of Svarga (direct portal here) is a fully-functioning ecosystem, adding life or something like it to the verdant-looking but arid pallette Linden Lab offers with its world. It begins with her artificial clouds, which are pushed along by Linden's internal wind system.
"If I was to turn off the clouds the whole system would die in about six hours," she tells me. "Turn off the bees and [the plants stop] growing, because nothing gets pollinated. And it's the transfer of pollen that signals the plants to drop seeds. The seeds blow in the wind, and if they land on good ground according to different rules for each species, they grow when they receive rain water from the clouds. It's all interdependent."
(...)
A two decade veteran of the UK music and game industry, Laukosargas recently left work for family reasons, mostly. "The main reason I stopped is because I had a child," as she puts it, "but I was also getting very disapointed with the lack of inspired work in the games industy." As it happens, she worked for a time on Black & White, the classic "god game" from legendary British designer Peter Molyneux.
"It was an experience that gave me a real insight into how great games can be," she says. "It was a truly brilliant idea but it lacked play testing, I think." She's referring to the constant micromanagement required by the player, acting as a tribe's god, to provide a steady stream of resources to survive on. "It required TOO much attention." She nods to her island. "It's a balance I'm still working on here."
So while she raises a child at home, she takes creative respites to nuture a self-sustaining ecology in Second Life*, adjusting variables here and there, working for the moment when she can stand back like Newton's clockmaking God and let her world unfold on its own. And, well, have her Sunday of rest.
(...)
The article is worth reading. It's on my list of places to visit urgently.
And no, I don't work for Linden Labs nor have any vested interest in the game. But I think that some experiments are worth seeing. This is no doubt a precursor to bigger and better virtual worlds in the future.
Wendelius
Anyway, I would encourage curious people to check it out and certainly the sim (ie privately owned territory covering 64K square meters) described below.
If I wasn't already playing Second Life (aka SL), I think I would create a free account (http://secondlife.com/) just to go see it for myself! :)
God Game (http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2006/05/god_game.html)
(...)
The result of a year's work, Laukosargas Svarog's island of Svarga (direct portal here) is a fully-functioning ecosystem, adding life or something like it to the verdant-looking but arid pallette Linden Lab offers with its world. It begins with her artificial clouds, which are pushed along by Linden's internal wind system.
"If I was to turn off the clouds the whole system would die in about six hours," she tells me. "Turn off the bees and [the plants stop] growing, because nothing gets pollinated. And it's the transfer of pollen that signals the plants to drop seeds. The seeds blow in the wind, and if they land on good ground according to different rules for each species, they grow when they receive rain water from the clouds. It's all interdependent."
(...)
A two decade veteran of the UK music and game industry, Laukosargas recently left work for family reasons, mostly. "The main reason I stopped is because I had a child," as she puts it, "but I was also getting very disapointed with the lack of inspired work in the games industy." As it happens, she worked for a time on Black & White, the classic "god game" from legendary British designer Peter Molyneux.
"It was an experience that gave me a real insight into how great games can be," she says. "It was a truly brilliant idea but it lacked play testing, I think." She's referring to the constant micromanagement required by the player, acting as a tribe's god, to provide a steady stream of resources to survive on. "It required TOO much attention." She nods to her island. "It's a balance I'm still working on here."
So while she raises a child at home, she takes creative respites to nuture a self-sustaining ecology in Second Life*, adjusting variables here and there, working for the moment when she can stand back like Newton's clockmaking God and let her world unfold on its own. And, well, have her Sunday of rest.
(...)
The article is worth reading. It's on my list of places to visit urgently.
And no, I don't work for Linden Labs nor have any vested interest in the game. But I think that some experiments are worth seeing. This is no doubt a precursor to bigger and better virtual worlds in the future.
Wendelius