WCG 2008 @ Suntec

Finally got a chance to visit World Cyber Games 08 at Suntec City level 4. I missed the first two days due to heavy work commitments. The event is held from 7th to 10th August 08. Well, the admission is free and I actually expect a much larger crowd. I guess the smaller turnout may be due to the National Day Parade, which is a huge crowd drawer.

Nonetheless, it is still fun to see fellow gamers engaging in competition with adrenaline pumping excitement. The event is not all about cyber games, since there are also booths for the WoW TCG competition. In fact, the goodie bags came with a few WoW TCG cards thrown in! The goodie bags also came with magazines like Playworks and EGM.

The big events are held at the end of the rooms, where a stage with two huge displays are mounted. Players and visitors could look at the game play, and there were much cheering and clapping as the games proceed.

Due to the nature of the event, there are plenty of sponsors, e.g. Samsung, Microsoft, and Intel. You could see the list of sponsors, as well as the prizes for each game category at this WCG site. The site only shows the prizes for local category, but navigate around and you see the related Open Category site.

Surprisingly, accompanying the car racing games are booths selling actual car accessories. Hmm I thought booths selling games, and related merchandise like magazines, toys...etc would make more sense.

Freedom on the Internet - S. Koreans & Beijing IOC

It is quite weird how governments treat the boundaries of Internet use. Apparently the S. Korean government is going to impose some sort of Cyber Defamation Law because the President felt that:

"We have to guard against 'infodemics,' in which inaccurate, false information is disseminated, prompting social unrest that spreads like an epidemic," Lee (S. Korean President) told parliament early in July.

I guess the S. Korean got too passionate about the earlier US beef import incident. It is true that earlier this year there have been incidents of Internet abuse for the S. Koreans, including cases of cyber-bullying and serious incidents of privacy loss.

On the other hand, the Beijing government finally agreed to relax their Internet sites control after IOC president had a chat with the Beijing government.

Somehow these government actions all seems reactionary, and I wonder if they would take a more long term approach of 'internalising' the concepts that Internet boundaries are not practical. People will want to look at news that interest them, and there are simply too many ways to get around any 'blocks' or 'laws', for example there are these tools to get around the Chinese Web censor.

Education and public awareness of the advantages and pitfalls of the Internet are still (in my opinion) the best approaches. Costlier and take a longer time, but such long term solutions are more ideal.

Gold Farming Academic Analysis

Found a 87 pages academic analysis of gold farming in virtual worlds from Richard Heeks from University of Manchester, and I've done a 'points' form summary of the conclusion. This summary is very long, and I do think the paper is worth a detailed read.

General Statistics:

• rough guess is that 400,000 gold farmers in 2008 earn an average US$145 per month produced a global market worth US$500m;
• there are probably 5-10m consumers of gold farming services. The main uncertainty of estimation relates to the gold-farming market in East Asia, which appears much larger than that in the US/EU;
• guesstimated 80-85% of gold farming takes place in China;

Historical Development:

• "pre-history" of gold farming dates from the 1980s, and we can structure it in terms of capitalist development, starting with "subsistence" production and moving through barter, commoditisation and monetisation until it reach the petty commodity production of the 21st century;
  
• gold farming proper started in earnest in 2001-2002, really took off in 2003-2004, and entered something of a black hole phase in data terms during 2007-2008. This can be structured as a move from petty to capitalist commodity production involving wage labour, automation, and globalisation/offshoring, particularly to Asia;
• From mid-2005 to mid-2008, however, in-game currencies devalued an average of 75% against the US dollar. The continuing survival of the sub-sector probably relies on a disappearance of those super-profits, increased productivity, and disintermediation so that many firms now sell direct to consumers. As a result of these plus new entrants and the anti-gold-farming actions of game companies, power within the gold-farming value chain has in recent years become more dispersed, and has shifted somewhat away from brokers and somewhat towards game companies.
• Thirdly, continuing survival of gold farming relies on dealing with the many threats it faces and an important threat that is much more serious such as game company substitution or legal action by governments or game companies. Continuing survival of the sub-sector also relies on overcoming some severe information failures – absence, uncertainty, asymmetry, and communication problems.
• gold farming helps reduce unemployment and poverty, and improve national balance of trade and income equity. It may help reduce crime and provide a model for telecentre and cybercafé financial sustainability;
• gold farming seems to represent an efficient use of capital in job-creation terms
  

Market Structure of Gold Farming:

• entrepreneurs (almost all men) who start up gold farms are pulled into the sub-sector by some mix of existing game- and/or gold-farming-knowledge plus the lure of profits. They have created tens of thousands of enterprises, principally micro-enterprises employing less than 10 staff, and they are informally-financed.
  
• gold farmers typically work alongside managers, researchers, technical support and customer relations staff. The apparent lack of domination by medium- and large-scale firms means, though, there must also be scale diseconomies, such as the costs of "being noticed" by government and game companies. These two stakeholders, alongside ICT suppliers, fansites and regular players, sit outside the main gold farming value chain.
• The sub-sector has taken off because a demand with more money than time met a supply with more time than money.

Social Perceptions:

• Perception outranks reality in the discourse on gold farming, and – at least in the West – those perceptions have been largely negative, serving to homogenise, alienise, criminalise and moralise about gold farmers. That this has happened supports the idea that racial stereotypes and views about immigrant labour are remapped into cyberspace. It also supports the structuralist argument that institutional forces in the real world are reproduced in new, virtual fields like gold farming.
  
• There is some contra-flow, suggesting the sub-sector's virtuality has produced new outcomes; for example in relation to intermediaries. While this falls short of an argument that technology has transformed social structures and behaviours, it means the mix of technology, structure and agency is unpredictable.

Cabal Online / Granado Espada Soundtracks

With higher expectations and competitions among the different online games, many developers have tried enhancing the online gaming experience by improving the background music. Two such games that come to mind are Cabal Online and Granado Espada. The soundtracks from Cabal Online have a faster pace, which suits gaming fine. The tracks from Granado Espada are even better, with pace and theme that could be used for own leisure listening.

Here's the soundtracks from Cabal Online and Granado Espada. Both soundtracks are from Imeem.com, which may take a while to load. For Granado Espada the soundtracks could be purchased in games and some music shops (4CDs). Music4Games had an interview with Granado Espada people about the soundtracks used in the game.

Cabal Online Soundtracks:


Granado Espada Soundtracks:

Wii - THE Next Console for all things?

Just read that Nintendo Wii has become the top selling console in the states, with 10.9 million units sold so far which beats XBox and PlayStation 3. It is actually not that surprising that Wii has such great popularity, simply because Wii targets a much much bigger market that includes the non-traditional gamers.

With Wii's easy to use interface and easy to learn games, anyone can get hook onto the Wii, and that includes UK's Queen Elizabeth II! If you can attract even the Queen to play console games, you are set to be the industry leader. :)

Other than the rich and famous, others are also using Wii beyond its traditional gaming purpose. For example, folks have used Wii for re-habilitation for patients recovering from strokes, broken bones, surgery and even combat injuries. The fun element of it adds variety to an other-wise borign re-hab process.

I've considered buying a Wii Fit for fun exercise at home, but the thought of me battling for the use of the TV unit sort of put this thought on hold. Another reason why the Wii is less atractive is because of the less than desirable online experience. Some users have commented that Wii's online interfaces and games variety could be improved further. Below is a picture of a Wii Fit demo.

Oh well, maybe I'll try to entice my family about the attractiveness of Wii and Wii Fit, and tout it as a console for everything, including exercise, gaming, online surfing...etc. Lolz.

MIRALab - Prof Magnenat-Thalmann & Virtual Worlds

I chanced upon an article in the NTU '@NTU' magazine that described the works of MIRALab. After I visited their website, I'm impressed. The main reason is the amount of research they have done for CGI and Virtual Worlds. From their website, here's a brief description:

MIRALab was founded in 1989 by Professor Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann. She chairs around 30 researchers coming from as many different fields as Computer Science, Mathematics, Medicine, Telecommunications, Architecture, Fashion Design, Cognitive Science, Haptics, Augmented Reality, etc. This truly interdisciplinary group works in the field of Computer Graphics, Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds. Since 1992, MIRALab has participated in more than 45 European Projects. International conferences such as CASA and CGI are often organized in Switzerland by MIRALab. Actually, Prof. Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann leads 3 ongoing European Research Projects: INTERMEDIA NoE, HAPTEX and 3D ANATOMICAL HUMAN, a Marie Curie Research Training Network. Moreover, MIRALab produces displays for museums, galleries, such as fashion shows or cyberdances with virtual models and clothes.

The list of projects could be found on their website. While they are not in the business of creating virtual worlds per se (not like Linden Labs), their works will feed into the greater community of how virtual worlds are created. I'm impressed mainly because the demo movies and images are of high quality for the technology of that time. For example, here's a YouTube upload of animation done in 2002, 'Virtual Life in Pompeii.

The work is not just in animation; they are now researching on textile and how cloth behaves in virtual world. Well, here's the YouTube about the research in this area. For more info, pop by their website for more videos and descriptions. I like the 'hair dance 2006' too but I guess we have enough videos for now. Enjoy!

More pictures of Myminicity

Myminicity is addictive! This is true for those people who like to build cities and watch them grow. My Myminicity has grown to a size of 352 population. This pales in comparison with other cities of 6 digits size population, but nonetheless there is some level of satisfaction to watch the city grows. I'm looking forward to the day when there are skyscrapers in my minicity.

Over the course of the game, I've also collected pictures of various 'disasters' that could happen for cities that are not well maintained. Here's a list of the different 'disasters', including the population leaving for more jobs (they will leave even if the unemployment is less than 2%), pollution, crimes / arson, and riots.

In order to avoid these disaster, the owner of the city will need to monitor and build more amenities. Sometimes, with the building of amenities, new buildings will appear, e.g. here is a picture of the police station. These are in addition to the earlier mentioned 'church upgrades' and 'factory development'.

There are many other 'graphics' present in the game, some of which do not have an apparent purpose. For examples, the 'mountains' and lakes. It will be interesting if someone could find an explanation for these 'features'. Ok, I guess I've bored my readers with these descriptions of Myminicity, and I'll try to move on to other virtual worlds / games.

Related Posts:
- MyMinicity Mechanics & Pictures
- MyMinicity reaching 51 population
- Simple Review of Myminicity

ExitReality - simple review

I was reading the Virtually Blind blog about the ExitReality '3D Internet' pluggin and decided to give it a try. The pluggin from ExitReality of about 3.7 MBs provides users the ability to view and navigate any 2D website in 3D. The signup is relatively easy:

After you downloaded the pluggin, the installation is also fast and without fuss. However, there is about where the nice experience ended. Using the pluggin I was first brough to this page:

There is no immediate tutorial, and the interface is not that intuitive. It took a while to learn how to navigate around. If you clicked on the tutorial, there will be instructions to help one start out. I'm also not sure why would people want to view a 2D website in 3D. ExitReality's own site is nice and pleasing but other people's sites may be less so in 3D. The pluggin also crashed my system once. Compared to other new 'Virtual Worlds' like SmallWorlds or the Amazing Worlds 's mirror world, there is much room for improvement. Oh well I guess it's all in beta stage and it is unfair to write it off so soon.

Here's how this blog looks like in ExitReality. The pluggin managed to detect that the general theme is in black, and painted the background correctly. Hopefully it will look better the next time, when the product is fully ready.

Lunar Festival, Haris Pilton & Zangramash in WoW

There are lot of blogs and websites on World of Warcraft (魔兽世界) with reviews, guides, discussions ... etc and I shall not add to the information abundance. Instead, let me just put a few pictures of the interesting (I feel) events of the game.

One such event is the Lunar Festival, where players in WoW can celebrate by doing simple quests. One of the quests requires the players to shoot fireworks into the air. The fireworks are quite pretty actually. Here's two screenshots of the event, where the heart shape fireworks could be seen in the lower picture.

Blizzard is always very creative when it comes to the naming of NPC and quests. We know the tribute to Zelda, King Kong & Mario in the crafting of Un'goro Crater quests. There is also the 'Haris Pilton' NPC in Shattrath City tavern, with an affiliation of 'Socialite'. She has a pet (of course) named Tinkerbell. Click on the picture to see a larger version.

It is always fun playing WoW, not just for the fantastic gameplay, but also for these little humour along the way. Let me end this blog with a beautiful picture of a sunset taken while I was flying over Zangramash.

Cabal Online Screenshots

There are a number of games where I didn't play enough to do a proper review. Nonetheless there were a couple of screenshots that might be entertaining for some visitors and so over the next few blog posts I'll just put the pictures up.

The first game is Cabal Online and I played in the South East Asia servers. The game website has a host of useful information including videos as demos (which partly explains why there is not much need to write more about the gameplay). For new players, take a look at the forums where the different classes are pretty well explained.

The first picture was taken outside of the towns where players fight the monsters. I was using a long distance attack.

This screenshot was taken after the completion of a dungeon quest. The dungeon quests occured in 'instances' and often have timings as deadlines for players.

After some of the quests, and at particular levels (e.g. aura mode at level 20), the players will be able to gain special abilities.

The graphics is great, and here's a screenshot of player talking to a NPC, Kallua.

Other than the towns, there are also special rooms where the players enter to meet other NPCs. The rooms are quite well decorated.

Here's a screenshot of the town. In towns, players could open shops for trading with each other. Sometimes one could even look at other players doing funny dances, e.g. here's a blog spot about a funny Cabal group dance to the tune of Wonder Girls' "Tell Me".

See also:
- Cabal Online / Granado Espada Soundtracks

IDC - Yahoo Web 2.0 Digital Marketplace

IDC organised a free seminar today (24th June) on Web 2.0 Digital marketplace, with Yahoo! as the big sponsor. The seminar was over-subscribed substantially, such that the hotel staff needed to pull in a large number of chairs from the next seminar room. The fourth speaker actually remarked that there is a large increase in Singapore in the interest in Web 2.0 applications and services, especially for the enterprise community.

All 4 speakers were very engaging, and presented their pitch very well. I guess the 1st two speakers have vested interests to sell their products. Some of the remarks made were funny *in my opinion*. For example there was a comment of 'sponsor the access, and charge the use', which is very applicable for Web 2.0 social sites, but the image I had in my mind was actually the local clubbing scene's 'Ladies Night' where the girls get free entry *access* while the guys pay for everyone's drinks *use*. There was a lot of comments about China and India developments, and how Asia will see the next wave of social networking. The importance lies in 'making the destinations *sites* social instead of making social destinations *sites*' as one speaker put it.

Back to the seminar, the speakers cover broad topics of:

• 'Social Web: Success, Business Models and Emerging Trends'
• 'User Behaviour and Psychology in the Web 2.0 space'
• Web 2.0 Hits Asia' *Interesting is the comparison about whether there is a bubble forming again in the tech sphere*
• 'Social Media Becomes the Social Norm: Web 2.0 in the Classroom and How It Impacts Your Business'

The notes for the seminar could be downloaded from IDC website from 4 July onwards, so I think I shouldn't reveal too much. Nonetheless one of the speaker, Justin Lee, shared this YouTube video which is really funny and yet show some interesting things about Web 2.0. You should watch it!

Communic Asia 2008 - Omnia, Amazing Worlds, Toughbook & Such

Communic Asia 2008 is one of Asia's biggest exhibition and platform for operators, service providers, technology vendors and consultants to network, exchange industry info and discuss the future of technology. I went yesterday and spent 1.5 hours at two of the Halls. Trust me, you need at least more than 2 hours to really walk around the exhibitions at Expo. Make it at least a half-day trip for anything fruitful.

Nonetheless the short trip is good enough for me to experience some gems at the exhibition. One of them is the Samsung Omnia. Right at the front of the exhibition halls is the Omnia advert (pic below). It looks slim (12.5 mm thick metallic casing) and runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 system, so you could have access to the Microsoft Office apps. The screen (3.2 inches) is wide enough for video or photos viewing, and Omnia comes with a 5 megapixel camera as well. The screen is a bit too sensitive in my opinion, which makes navigation a bit tricky. Guess my fingers are too thick.

There are more than 10 sets of it available for visitors to try it out. For those with no patience to queue for a hands-on, Samsung has also done up a mock huge-sized functional version which sort of looks cool.

Other than Omnia, I took a quick look at the other exhibitors. Guess this is Communic Asia and there are plenty of exhibitors from around the region, including China and Korea. What is surprising is that there are also European companies (I saw Norway companies).

Another gem I found at the Communic Asia 2008 is a Singapore / US company, Amazing Worlds, that builds and maintain 3D mirror worlds! It was only in April 2008 when I remarked that Mirror Worlds will come to Singapore one day (earlier blog here)! Watched their demo and even played with the system for a while. Impressive. There is still a lot that Amazing Worlds need to do in terms of populating the servers with content, but it will be interesting to monitor their development. Here's a demo of their product on YouTube:

The exhibitions also have other products but well this is not PC Show so the focus is different. I find the display of Panasonic Toughbook interesting, and Yahoo! also provided some demo of their mobile content platform. It is also interesting to experience the demo by DoCoMo on the Osaifu-Keitai mobile wallet that StarHub Mobile will bring to Singapore soon.

For those who wish to visit Communic Asia 2008, Friday 20th June is the last day and the event closes at 4pm, so better hurry!

World of World of Warcraft?!

Saw this in the news and I wonder if it's real? Anyone knows? Afternote: Ok, just found out that these folks are satirists. Well, guess I didn't know that earlier. Sorry.

World of World of Warcraft allows Warcraft gamers to do what they like to do more than anything else in life, which is, play Warcraft.

'Warcraft' Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing 'Warcraft'

Simple Review of Smallworlds - New Virtual World

With all the rage about interactive social virtual worlds, there are a number of such developments around the (actual) world. One relatively recent development is the SmallWorlds by Outsmart based in New Zealand.

Small Worlds is flash based and that is a big advantage for players since it eliminates the need to download a few hundred megabytes of client files. Moreover, with a flash based platform, a player can enter the world using any other computer and not be restricted to the computer with the client software.

So yes I joined Small Worlds (currently still in beta stage) and it is fun! Firstly, the tutorial or beginning 'missions' are relatively easy, and that smooth out the learning curve drastically compared to say, 2nd Life. A player can have his own pets, and house right from the start with options to re-decor the wall and floor tiles. Game mechanics is easy, including the basic navigation and inventory management. One could also customise the avatar features and dressing with multiple options.

The interesting part of the Small Worlds is that it allows for interaction with other Web 2.0 applications, e.g. a player could get a 'photoframe' to hang on his wall that displays his 'flickr' photos. Players could also link to music applications in the Small Worlds that allow for playing of their song tracks in common area like the Small World Cue Room. I understand that there is also the TV gadget that could be used to link to Youtube, which allows for multiple people to watch 'TV' Youtube together, as well as message board linked to Twitter. So I went in, and played some pool games with a UK player. The games applications like Pool, Checkers, Chess...etc are already available in the common rooms.

The game makes it easy to learn how to interact with these applications by creating quest 'missions that requires players to interact with each other via the games. After playing the pool game with another another player, I 'completed' the mission, which grants tokens that I can use, for example to buy furniture. Other than tokens there are 'gold coins' options which I guess will be bought using real life currency.

There are a number of other 'missions' available, including 'shopping' quests that introduce the basic concepts of items purchase and manipulation.

Below is a pic of the Mary's Antique shop where a player could do some shopping. I bought some chairs, table, candles and a vase of flowers. Guess my house still looks quite empty for now. I want the TV and message board, so ok it's time to complete more quests / missions in Small Worlds.

Related post
- Smallworlds application in Facebook
- Update about Smallworlds

Canyon Defense on MiniClip

I read about this game Canyon Defense on one of the blogs aggregator and decided to give it a try. It is a wonderful flash based game for a short 15 mins play. The game is hosted on Miniclip and has a short learning curve for those impatient peeps like me.

The basic mission of the game is to protect your people (i.e. lives) by building weapons around the path used by the invaders. Weapons come in different forms, and could be used against ground or air based enemies. After each wave of enemies, you would be rewarded with more gold that could be used to buy better or more weapons. New weapons and buildings are also unlocked along the way for more options, e.g. a new goo gun that slows down the enemy. As the game progress, you could purchase special buildings that allow for 'missiles' (area effect bombing) or 'walls' (obstructions) as benefits.

There are three maps for the player to choose from, and each map has three different difficulties (in terms of attack waves). Here's a few pics of the game in progress. The only thing I don't like about the game is the background music, a tad too noisy I feel.

See also:
- Bomba by Nitrome - Miniclip Flash Game

Ban from accessing Slashdot?!

I was browsing the websites, including Slashdot, when I realised that I'm banned from Slashdot!?

Here's what it says:

...due to script flooding that originated from your network or ip address -- or this IP might have been used to post comments designed to break web browser rendering. Or you crawled us with a rude robot, especially one that doesn't understand RFCs very well.

If you feel that this is unwarranted, feel free to include your IP address (165.21.154.114) in the subject of an email, and we will examine why there is a ban. If you fail to include the IP address (again, in the subject!), then your message will be deleted and ignored. I mean come on, we're good, we're not psychic.

If you think your IP number is different from 165.21.154.114, tell us both.

If you are using a browser with some kind of add-on that crawls or caches pages for you, tell us what it is.

Since you can't read the FAQ because you're banned, here's the relevant portion:

The strange thing is that my IP address should start from 220.XXX.XXX.XXX and not 165 as described. So weird. I did a Google search of the 165 IP address and 'ban' and it seems this address was banned once back in 2005. Here's a pic of the page:

MyMiniCity Mechanics & Pictures

Now that my city has reached population of 100, there are more games mechanics that I have to be aware of . After a couple of search I found a fair bit of information, and surprisingly the info is mainly in chinese and japanese. I guess a lot of players are from China, Taiwan, and Japan. I would use my city name "scraze" as the illustration. For other players, please replace the 'scraze' with the correct city name.

Here's what I could gather from these blogs and sites. Seems like there are 6 milestones. Once a city hits population of 50, there will be unemployment. With this milestone, another option of factory creation would appear, for the player to create factory. This is done via clicking the original url with a'/ind/' behind. For example, instead of 'scraze.myminicity.com', the person should enter 'scraze.myminicity.com/ind/'. Without factory there will be unemployment. Once unemployment hits certain figures, the people will leave the city. Each factory can create jobs for 3 population. Here's a picture of some factory

Once the city hits 100 population, there is need for better transportation. With more population, the 'transport' indicator would slowly drop from 100%. Thus another option would appear, where people can enter 'scraze.myminicity.com/tra' to increase the transport facility. Each facility can provide good transport for 10 population.

When the city reaches 300 population, there is need for social security, else the crime rate would increase from zero onwards. So the fourth option is security, where players click scraze.myminicity.com/sec/ to improve the security features. Each feature can help to decrease crime rate for a further growth of 15 population.

The fifth milestone is parks and recreational facilities. This comes about when the population hits 500, and the url to click would be scraze.myminicity.com/env/. I have seen some parks in other cities which are quite interesting. Here's a list of the different indicators, which could be iewed on the webpage itself.

The last stage is the commercial stage, where there is need for commercial investments. By pressing 'scraze.myminicity.com/com', commercial buildings could be built. So there will be high rise features in the cities. Commercial building can also help to decrease unemployment rates.

While it is a simple game, there is satisfaction in seeing it grow, especially when the buildings upgrade themselves to become something else. It's a pity there is no option to rotate the city, else there would be more fun to look at the city from various angles. Here's a picture of how a small yellow church could grow to become something nicer.

Other than the factory figures, I couldn't verify other figures accurately yet. Nonetheless, the purpose of the game is to have fun, so the mechanics need not be so detailed I guess. It seems after the commercial stage, there is chances of 'accidents' e.g. chemical factory explosion, happening. Well if it happens I guess I would update it here. Not sure at what stage would I decide to let the city stagnant, since to grow a city beyond 1,000 population takes a fair bit of effort. :)