The only console hooked up at home is a slim PS2 that the kids got for Christmas last year.  They’ve enjoyed various games on it but the two in the current rotation are Guitar Hero 2 and SSX Tricky.  Coincidentally or not, I bought both of them. 

 

These two games illustrate two approaches to a pretty common game design ‘problem’… keeping track of a player’s advancement through the game.  GH2 is designed to track multiple players’ progress through the game with discrete ‘bands’ that are created.  Within this band is saved songs completed, scores, phat lewt purchased with gig money, etc.  On the other hand, Tricky has no individual player tracking besides entering your name when you get a high score or record time.  You don’t have to change your player profile in order to select a different ‘toon’ to run a race with and advance. 

 

Guitar Hero is not an RPG by any means… but the ‘band advancement’ aspect of it lends itself to a RPG-ish grinding mentality to the game.  My friends an I have, in the past, adopted the same gamestyle to Tricky by ‘calling dibs’ on particular toons and only playing them.  My room-mate would always board with Kaori and I’d always board with Eddie.  Handing the controller back and forth, we’d trade off on runs, putting our respective handles in when we would nail a high score.  It’s a lot like a classic arcade game, taking turns popping quarters into Pacman or Double Dragon.  Conversely, when taking turns in Guitar Hero, you have to back out of the menus up to the ‘select band’ level.  This can be annoying sometimes.  There may be a quicker way to back out to select a different band, but I don’t know what it is.

 

‘Back in the day’, we followed the same pattern with other video games.  You take your turn, play until your guys are all dead, then it’s the next person’s turn.  Super Mario Brothers was, arguably, a kind of RPG.  The game was action/adventure, exploring a world.  Legend of Zelda was more of an RPG, but you still had ‘lives’.   You had ‘save games’ in Zelda…  Metroid had ‘save codes’. 

 

Games like World of Warcraft are more glorified versions of Zelda.  You pick your ‘save game’ and then run around gathering loot, advancing your story, etc.  From this perspective, WoW is little different than Diablo with more people and ‘better’ graphics.  The more immersive, non-arcadey nature of these games, however, lend themselves to PC gaming more than console gaming.  How often do you see people ‘hot seat’ while PC gaming, taking turns playing?   Meanwhile, how often are there multiple versions of the same console in a household for gaming?  Halo multiplayer is nice with multiple Xboxes but is still a poor-man’s LAN party. 

 

Of course… most games these days have at least two play modes… single-player and multiplayer.  One could argue that games like WoW or Eve Online are always multiplayer but of course, one would be wrong.  You can play for years of your life in those games without ever chatting with another human or playing ‘with’ them. 

 

There are many examples and none of them work everywhere.  The two fundamental questions to be answered are ‘When does the game need to know who you are?’ and ‘Why does the game need to know who you are?’  Depending on the game, ‘who you are’ may vary from  defining your ‘high score handle’ to a fully-customized UI and game experience.  The ‘why’ drives the ‘when’ which helps define the ‘how’ of learning the ‘who’. 

While going through my daily web comic routine, I actually read the news posting on ctrl+alt+del... apparently he's been dreaming about how he'd design an MMORPG. 

 http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/news.php?i=1377

 It's an interesting read, I think... if only to get another voice and opinion, but if I've learned anything from six sigma (and college study habits), it's that there's a diminishing rate of return on investment in time.  When you've heard ten people tell you what their ideal MMO would be like, chances are very good that the 11th person you talk to isn't going to have anything new to add.  To that end, I didn't see anything new in his vision... mostly just a tweaked version of the MMORPGs that are out there now. 

Speaking of MMORPGs, I recently crafted my sweet ax in WoW... and have had no motivation whatsoever to log on to the game ever since.  It's been an impressive deflation... to the point where I don't even feel like going to my guild's forums at work anymore.  This week I picked up Guitar Hero 2 for the kids, theoretically.  I think I just needed some instant gratification.  Also, I'm a child in a man's body and still dream about being a rock star. 

I generally have the TV on when I'm on the computer.  In the back of my mind, I kind of listen to what's going on... when I'm riding the bat from the Undercity to Kargath, I'll spin around and watch what's on.  The history channel is 60 here... which is a nice, round number, so I usually start out there.  61 is TLC and above that is garbage like MTV and the Spike channel... below it is the Discovery Channel... so I hang out there a lot. 

 Today, they're talking about Freemasons.  There's an ominous undertone to the show... they're talking about the founding fathers. 

 Now... I fully expect there to be Freemasons reading this board.  I know you're out there.  I don't want to offend anyone and their secret clubs, but I'm also not going to exhaustively research all of the history and current events around Freemasonry in order to make a blog post. That said....

People are idiots.  The concept of historical context escapes them.  The purpose of this asinine show is not to inform, it is to spread fear.  They are painting the Freemasons as a devil-worshipping cult and saying that Washington DC was designed to be a temple to their beliefs.  I'm not exaggerating and I'm sure there are others who have heard this.  My problem is that I'm not reading this on some wackjob web site, this is on the fucking HISTORY CHANNEL.  If you want to see a parallel with modern times, look at the Masons as a political party like the Democrats or Republicans.  They were a large group of people with some common goals and beliefs... and members of the group were key players in the formation of this country.  This show is painting them all as devil worshippers which makes modern folk think of the devil worshippers that we are familiar with... baby sacrifices, witchcraft, black masses, eternal damnation, etc.  This sensationalist bullshit that is designed to make people think that America is built on a foundation of evil pisses me off.  None of it is about providing facts and educating, it's about emotional control.  I'm not saying that the Republicans are behind it... it's the History Channel producers.  In a Machiavellian way, it's smart... you see what gets people to watch your channel and you run with it.  We love to be 'informed' as to what we need to be afraid of, we're conditioned for it.  Watch the news any night... find out why your salad might kill you!!!  We're trained to zone in on what we need to be afraid of... and that is fucking bullshit. 

 I'm not going to live in fear.  I'll eat the salad.  I still eat at Taco Bell.  I'll take a cruise during the hurricane season.  I'll drive across town in winter without a survival kit in my car.  I don't lock my doors because there's a black person walking down the street next to my car.  I'll use the terms 'snowman' and 'mailman' rather than 'snowperson' or 'postal worker'.  It's this kind of cowering compliance to passive-aggressive oppression and fearmongering that makes me want to move to Switzerland. 



 

...though I have never been there.  One could say that it could just as well remind me of Seattle... and sometimes it does.  However, I've been conversing with Brits quite a bit lately, so that probably skews my thoughts. 

I don't want to go to work.  I spent the past three days in an offsite meeting at the Embassy Suites hotel in St Paul, in a close, warm, stuffy room with the 'leadership' people on my project team.  The idea was that we would be determining the process for our project... with is refreshing since usually we are the bitches to the process, not the other way around.  In truth, though, none of what we discussed really matters.  Robert (my project manager) would disagree on principle... mostly because he has to herd this abortion... but he knows where I'm coming from.  Whatever process we can conceive of that would effectively get this product done is secondary to the ponderous and conflicting mandates of our managerial organization.  Not to mention we've been inflicted with that all-pervasive and productivity-sucking disease that is Six Sigma. 

I'm ostensibly the 'product engineer lead' for this project.  It's refreshing, since I was the only project engineer on the last version of the software... but the two guys I have 'under' me are not... well, they don't have near my background in the familiarity with our controls, how they work, what needs to be done to get them to work, etc.  At least Matt has past experience with his area of 'expertise', but Dan was just assigned a huge bucket of shit and told 'you're the expert'.  That's the way things go around here a lot... it happened to me, too... but you either dig into it and learn it or you founder.  IMHO, Dan's been foundering. 

It doesn't help that my real 'boss' considers Dan to be the product engineer lead for the project... since he was technically work in on it for the past year and a half, while I was testing and writing defects on the steaming piles of shit-code that we got from Mumbai every couple of months.  So we have the guy in charge of my raise and career path thinking that Dan should be the lead contact, rather than me who knows what the fuck is going on. 

The idiocy is arm-gnawingly infuriating.  This Indian company has NEVER delivered to us what we expected or what we were promised... but we're still using them.  Why?  WHY???  There is no realistic reason for it... I suspect that our engineering manager was delivered a mandate from our lords in Piscataway that we SHALL outsource our development.  Fuck that.  We're to the point where our 'architects' here stateside have to review every line of code that we get from offshore anyway... simply because we don't trust them.  We can't.

I was in a netmeeting chat with two of my buddies in the meeting... I said 'FUCK' at least fifteen times.  Occasionally I would try to inject something to the 'process' that was being laid out that would... oh, I don't know... HELP.  But it fell mostly on deaf ears, it seems.  If I heard the term 'self-describing metadata' one more time I was going to turn around and choke Eero right then and there. 

So I busied myself with downloading 3DBlender and trying to work through the tutorial.  Faith excites me... my 9-5 frustrates the hell out of me. 

And today it's raining.  It's been raining since yesterday afternoon... the air has the damp chill of autumn and all I want to do is make another pot of coffee, play around with 3DBlender and make a building and a Giovanelli handgun. 

I have a meeting in 12 minutes.  I guess I should shower. 

Fabricio paused as they approached the doorway to the tavern, allowing his bodyguard first entrance.  Adamo pulled the canvas curtain aside and stood in the doorway, allowing Fabricio time for his eyes to adjust to the lighting inside.  After a quick check around the room, Adamo stepped inside, followed by Fabricio. 

 

The tavern wasn’t quite near full.  The early evening hour guaranteed that there was sufficient crowd noise and traffic to afford some anonymity but not so much that the pair would be likely to miss anyone following them.  Though comprised mostly of rough laborers in their drab and sturdy garb, enough merchants and businessmen moved through the establishment to keep the Italians from looking too out of place. 

 

Adamo stepped up to the bar, turning his back to it as he continuously scanned the room, paying extra attention to the patrons nearby.  Fabricio placed both manicured hands upon the scarred planks of the bar, his attention pointedly on the nearest bartender.  The young man glanced at Fabricio quickly and did a double-take.  He turned and pulled at the sleeve of a thick, middle-aged man pouring drinks nearby.  The man nodded without looking, finished pouring and stepped over to Fabricio. 

 

“Vudkah,” said Fabricio, smoothly placing a gold coin on the bar. 

 

“Da,” said the man, pulling a smudged glass from under the bar and pouring from the bottle still in his hand.  He pushed it to Fabricio and took the ducat, squinting at him pointedly. 

 

“Spasiba, tovarisch.”  Fabricio tossed the drink down his throat quickly, swallowed with a slight grimace and looked the man in the eye.  “Mikhailiyev?” 

 

The man nodded and walked past the young man, barking orders and boxing his ear on his way.  Fabricio turned to look at the crowd quickly, noting a slight brawl that had broken out on the far side of the great room.  He stepped past Adamo, knowing the bodyguard would be close behind him as he followed the bartender to a private booth.

 

The hallway behind the bar was dark and open, more like a long room.  Along the right-hand ‘wall’ was a series of curtained booths.  The bartender led them to one with a bull of a man standing beside the curtain, arms hanging at his sides, knees bent slightly.  He looked at the bartender, who nodded.  The bull nodded back and looked appraisingly at Adamo, squinting slightly.  Adamo snorted and took up position several feet away as Fabricio slid into the booth. 

 

His contact regarded him carefully, a sneer on his lips.  Mikhailiyev was dressed much like the peasants in the great room, though his gray garments showed considerably less wear.  Though dressed in a subdued fashion according to his usual tastes, Fabricio’s fine black woolen cloak and silvered clasp spoke to his wealth and breeding.  He held Mikhailiyev’s eyes  and nodded carefully.  “Greetings, my brother,” he spoke in English. 

 

Mikhailiyev chuckled, shaking his head.  “Mother expects you for dinner,” was his reply, also in English. 

 

“I’ll be there next month,” Fabricio concluded.  “You are well, my friend?”

 

The Russian shrugged and in the same movement his arm leapt forward, a thin blade in his hand.  Fabricio didn’t flinch as the blade stopped within an inch of his collar, his eyes holding Mikhailiyev’s calmly.  “I am better than you, I think,” spoke the Russian.

 

An oiled, ponderous “click” sounded beneath the table and Mikhailiyev’s chuckled, slowly backing away from Fabricio’s neck.  He slid the blade back up his sleeve and smiled at the Italian.  “Just checking, you know.  Yours is a storied reputation, my friend.”  Fabricio’s expression remained carefully neutral.  “Your friend, I think,” the Russian nodded to the curtain, “he could not have saved you.”  He peered at Fabricio.  “But then, perhaps you do not need saving, hm?” 

 

Fabricio shrugged vaguely and rolled his eyes.  “These things, they do not relate to our business, Mikhailiyev.”  He tilted his head and raised an eyebrow.  “You have a sample, yes?” 

 

Mikhailiyev paused, unmoving.  He considered the Italian for a moment and sighed,   “very well.”  He reached into his tunic and stopped, looking playfully at Fabricio.  When he saw no reaction, he chuckled again and pulled out a small package of waxed paper.  He set the package on the table and pushed it over to Fabricio, casually rapping his knuckle twice on the table.  “Vudkah!” he shouted, lounging back on his bench. 

 

Fabricio reached for the package carefully with his left hand.  He lifted it to his nose and sniffed gently as the bartender pulled the curtain aside and placed two clean glasses and a bottle on the table.  A sharp, cloying scent came from the package which was as expected.  Once the bartender was gone, Fabricio pulled his right hand up from under the table, revealing the elegant Giovanelli handgun that he had been pointing at Mikhailiyev’s groin.  He set the silvered weapon on the table and carefully uncocked the action, a faint wisp of sulfur in the air as it clicked laboriously to ‘safe’. 

 

Mikhailiyev whistled softly as he regarded the gun.  Elaborately inlaid, the heavy weapon’s thick barrel made a ‘thunk’ as it touched the table.  Fabricio rotated the gun so the muzzle pointed to the wall and pushed it across the table.  The Russian picked up the gun and grunted appreciably.  “Heavy, no?” 

 

Fabricio grunted.  He unwrapped the paper package and examined the contents carefully.  The cheese slice was small and a sickly yellow color with a thin skin of orange mold.  Pulling a small silvered blade from his tunic, he cut a tiny piece of cheese, taking care to include a small amount of the orange mold.  He primly placed the cheese on his tongue with the blade, careful not to swallow.  A numbness began to grow from the spot on his tongue where the cheese was placed.  Within seconds his vision began to waver in the periphery, as if he were looking down a tunnel, surrounded by water.  He spat on the table, quickly washing his mouth out with the vudkah.  He carefully wiped his mouth with a silk cloth and regarded his business partner. 

 

Mikhailiyev was holding the Giovanelli in one hand, pointed at the ceiling as he gazed expectantly at Fabricio, a small smile on his thin lips.  “Good, yes?”  Fabricio shrugged and the Russian laughed, aiming the hangun at the wall and thumbing the action. 

 

“Careful,” Fabricio cautioned mildly. 

 

Mikhailiyev laughed.  “It is beautiful!”  He safetied the action and peered closely at the weapon. 

 

“This one is special.  For you.  A gift.  The others are less beautiful but no less deadly.”  Mikhailiyev was nodding appreciably.  “The cheese… I expect one pound for each of the hundred weapons.” 

 

“Of course, of course.”  Mikhailiyev slid the weapon beneath his tunic, concealing it.  “You know where?” 

 

Fabricio nodded as he carefully repackaged the cheese and pocketed it.  “Tomorrow night, yes?” 

Mikhailiyev nodded, slumping back into his corner.  “This business, my friend,” he reached for his vudkah, “it is good, yes?”   Fabricio nodded.  “Ah.”  The Russian drank his vudkah quickly.  “Such things, they are dangerous for men such as you.” 

 

“Even for the Faithful, there is danger, tovarisch.”  Mikhailiyev’s eyebrow raised.  “Or so I’ve heard,” added Fabricio. 

 

Mikhailiyev paused and then laughed loudly.  “Borislav will meet you tomorrow,” he said as he levered himself out of the booth.  “Walk careful, my friend.”  He nodded and left the booth. 

So... we ride horses and have to eat.  Where do the horses and food come from? 

Any believable system of farming and production needs a believable system of land ownership/use.  We don't want to be dropping harvesters in the wilderness or doing 'factory runs' of quarter horses.  To this end, we can use our localized legal systems and extend them to land ownership and rights therein. 

Land is owned or unowned.  On highly populated planets, there won't be any unowned lands.  On 'outpost' worlds or colonies, there may be 'open' land.  'Open' is a loose term, however.  Owned land with extremely lax law enforcement could be considered 'open' for all intents and purposes, depending on the players use of the land. 

Owned land exists under the authority of a government of some sort. Depending on the nation/culture it may be a local authority or it may be a central authority.  The Russian Diktat, for example, will have a centralized agrarian ministry that controls and regulates all land ownership transactions, records and disputes.  For a player to legally purchase land under the Russian system, they would need to submit the proper documentation to the central authority.  Other worlds my have a 'land grab' situation like Oklahoma where you just have to come back to the local office with a stake from the wilderness to get your land... (how fun would that be for a world event?)

As with all legal issues, we need consequences.  Trespassing will probably be illegal everywhere, but with varying levels of severity.  If Farmer Ted cultivates illicit flora in the middle of a vast government-owned nature preserve... there's a chance that it will be found and destroyed.  And if Ted's there (or evidence pointing to Ted is there), then authorities will be after Ted... for tresspassing AND the cultivation and possession of ilicit flora.  In the case of privately owned land, players would need to report to local authorities that someone is tresspassing or squatting on their land.  NPC-owned land would be the same as the above scenario, with a probability of detection.  Crashing for the night (logging out) in the bushes behind a merchant's house might result in the player waking up in a jail cell (log in, you're in jail... oops).  Each NPC would need to have defined 'tresspassing response levels' or something similar. 

In some legal systems, you would be legally justified to open fire on anyone tresspassing on your land.  Same for the NPCs. 

What does all of this have to do with farming?  It's not directly related to it, but it's a system that forms a basis for it. 

We’ve discussed consequences to breaking the law.  For example:  “Can I shoot someone in the face if I want to?”  I’d like to examine this mechanic in a little greater detail.

 

Let’s say l33tdOOdrz shoots Ivana Skalinsky in a tavern because she doesn’t respond to his amorous advances.  Ivana is an NPC… sadly now Ivana is dead.  L33tdOOdrz flourishes around the bar, shouts “I’m Rik Jaymez beeyotch!!!!” and runs out the door. 

What happens? 

 

Assumption:  There is consequence to this action in the form of law enforcement.  Granted, if this took place in a location outside of any civic enforcement like a non-incorporated settlement somewhere (Deadwood model), then there isn’t any civic response. 

 

Scenario 1:  as soon as duder shoots at Ivana, X number of cops spawn.  If he kills them all, more spawn, maybe, depending on the civic resources.  I’m going to call this the SWG model, just because it it’s lack of reality. 

 

Scenario 2:  Duder is ‘flagged’ immediately by the authorities.  If he wanders within detection range of the authorities, they go after him, then following Scenario 1.  This is the GTA model.

 

Scenario 3:  Static law enforcement personnel are notified of the event automatically and will start looking for Duder.  They don’t spawn on him but they also don’t wait for him to walk past them.  Personnel will chase him to the limit of their jurisdiction… or maybe beyond, depending on the personality of the sheriff.  This is the Sheriff model.

 

I would hope that the SWG model is dismissed outright.  People come from somewhere, they don’t just appear because you did something.  Not in a realistic world, anyway. 

 

The GTA model I like for a lot of reasons.  I don’t like it as-is… it needs work to be realistic.  But the compounding consequences of your actions is good.  If you’re in a capital city, murder someone and then kill the cops that come after you, that should not be the end of the consequences to your actions. 

 

The Sheriff model works for a lot of situations as well.  Remote settlements may have a sheriff, but no real connection to any Interpol-ish organization of criminal records.  Deadwood might have a sheriff… but if Duder mudered Ivana in ‘Moscow’, the Deadwood sheriff probably won’t know and even if he did he probably won’t care, as long as Duder behaves himself in Deadwood. 

 

Thus I propose the Faith model:

 

Duder murders Ivana.  Nothing immediately happens, unless there are bouncers in the bar of course.  Or if there is a cop in the bar.  Witnesses to a crime will respond to said crime appropriately.  NPCs should dive for cover or run for the door or try to subdue Duder per their personalities and capabilities.  If Duder kills a couple of his attackers, those crimes add up. 

 

Everyone that was in the bar when Duder murdered Ivana is either dead, cowering, incapacitated or running down the street.  Duder maybe loots a thug that jumped him and takes a few screenshots of the carnage.  Meanwhile, after a certain amount of time (depending on the ‘civic response time’ of the community), law enforcement personnel are sent to the bar.  If there are patrols on the street, they are sent to the bar.  If there are personnel in a headquarters, they are probably sent from that headquarters to the bar as well. 

 

Note:  If a crime takes place without any witness, the response time is much longer.  A witness can be a human that is within site of the crime or a surveillance device. 

 

While Duder is trying to loot the register, two city guardsmen show up and order Duder to surrender.  Duder promptly pulls out his rapier and rushes the guardsmen.  Being a l33tdOOd, he incapacitates both guards and then runs out the front door, planning to make good his getaway.  Assuming there are still-living patrons in the bar, his ‘wanted level’ goes up after the civic response time has passed as the authorities are made aware of his willingness to attack the cops.  If everyone in the bar is dead, his wanted level does not go up until at witness arrives at the site where he attacked the cops.   

 

So now Duder is on the lam, running down the street… probably heading for his horse.  If he comes across any cops on his way out of town, the situation is the same as when the cops showed up at the scene of his crime, assuming the cops recognize him from his description…

 

NOTE:  Whenever a crime is witnessed, the criminal’s appearance at the time of the crime is taken into account.  If Duder puts on a hat when he runs out of the bar, the probability that he will be positively identified by law enforcement goes down.  This means there’s no on/off visibility ‘flag’, it has to be a probability, depending on the criminal’s wanted level, appearance compared to the witnessed appearances and the detection capability of law enforcement. 

 

Duder rides out of town. 

 

Now clear of the ‘Sheriff’ aspect of law enforcement, Duder may or may not wind up on a wanted bulletin in the next town he goes to.  Assuming the town in which poor Ivana was murdered is connected to regional law enforcement network, after another time delay, his description and wanted level is transmitted to the local authorities of every community participating in the regional law enforcement network.  Thus when he rides into the next town, he may invoke the GTA model, assuming he is ‘detected’ by law enforcement. 

 

Duder decides it’s time to go offworld, so he heads to the docks.  Prudently, he keeps his hat on and changes his coat before heading to the docks.  This lowers his visibility a bit, but the detection skills and awareness of the cops around the docks are pretty high.  Duder is recognized by two watchmen as he approaches the Tidal Dawn, a ship that he knows is available for immediate hire.  Duder disables the watchmen the same way he did in the bar, but three more watchmen come from nearby to join in.  Meanwhile his visibility goes up and his current appearance (new coat and hat) is added to his ‘wanted bulletin’ along with his new alleged crimes.  He takes out the three new guards and runs out of town, knowing that the time it will take the ship to take off would trap him there.  He fights his way out of town.  In this process, he finds himself at the top of the wanted list for this region, making him public enemy number 1.

 

Duder is out of town and out of jurisdiction.  However, his high wanted level results in bounties being placed for his capture and return to the authorities of the region.  Clearly, players can go for these bounties as well as NPCs.  Bounty hunters have no jurisdiction and can chase Duder anywhere.  By the way, assuming civic authority supports bounty hunters and the advertising of them, stories on the Aethernet and in papers appear regarding these events, including descriptions of Duder.  If a player reads the story, spots who he thinks is Duder and tries to subdue him for a bounty… there’s a whole other scenario we need to examine.  Point being, someone doesn’t need to be a licensed bounty hunter going to a bounty hunter contact in order to find out about Duder and the fact that there’s a bounty out on him. 

 

Every civic authority needs a statute of limitations on their crimes… so if Duder stays away from the cops for long enough, he can maybe return to the scene of his crime without the cops caring about him.  This should generally be a long time, however… and could maybe be a ‘give a shit’ factor, so cold-case files don’t mean a beat cop identifies Duder… unless, of course, he got a lot of press. 

 

Thoughts?