Tag Archives: PS2

How to make online gaming a success

I have broadband. I have a PlayStation 2 next to the router and cable modem. I have disposable income. I play video games. Yet, I do not have a PS2 network adaptor, and I haven’t played any online games.

I’ve been thinking about why not. I decided to put together some suggestions for Raph Koster, who’s the big cheese at Sony in charge of online PS2 gaming.

  1. Either charge a subscription, or charge for the game, but don’t ask me to pay twice.

    If I need a subscription to play, I’m very unlikely to pay $50 for the game, because if I decide I don’t like it I’m left with a $50 coaster. Games which are offline or online can get away with charging for the game itself, but it’s still a bad idea if the main point is the multiplayer: A high up-front cost to join a subscription game screams “We don’t think you’ll stay a member for long so we’d better get some cash up front”.

  2. Monthly subscriptions don’t work for me, unless they’re really cheap.

    Your market is people with broadband and significant disposable income. To me, that says adults with jobs. Like many adults with jobs, there are months when I don’t really get any time to play video games at all.

    It seems to me that it’s not technically hard at all to have a “per hour” fee, capped at the cost of a monthly subscription. That would encourage casual gamers and people who aren’t sure they will like the game enough to get really into it and spend hours on it every month.

  3. It has to be co-operative.

    I have zero interest in player-versus-player. If I want a competitive challenge, a computer opponent is better for several reasons:

    • You know they won’t cheat.
    • You know it won’t be a hopeless mismatch of abilities.
    • You don’t have to deal with network lag.
    • The computer won’t camp, sulk, or otherwise behave in a deliberately game-ruining way.

    My motivations for gaming are primarily exploration, puzzle solving, and new experiences. Looking at the top selling games of all time suggests to me that the majority of gamers are the same way: “The Sims”, the “Myst” adventures, “Tetris”, the “Super Mario” games—none of them are about combat. There are a few combat games in the list, but they’re the ones that have lots of exploration and a strong plot—“GTA Vice City” and “Half-Life”.

    Furthermore, the multi-player combat game market is glutted already. People who want that already have lots of options.

  4. It has to be social.

    This is where it gets hard. There’s no point in having other humans involved in the game unless you can talk with them, but on the other hand there has to be a way to get matched up with players who have similar gaming interests, and to keep out the assholes.

    This suggests to me that an essential part of any multiplayer online game is persistence in user IDs, and some kind of feedback or rating system at least as good as eBay’s.

    That doesn’t mean massive censorship. If people want to talk trash all day, just let ‘em go do it with other people who want to talk trash all day.

That’s all I have so far, but I live in hope that someone will take notice and come up with some multiplayer games that appeal to me.

Ratchet and Crack

I went a while without posting anything significant, because I’ve been busy with various things…

First was the PC building project. I’m still tweaking and adding stuff; at the weekend I got S.M.A.R.T. support installed, so the hard drive will monitor its status and the number of underlying errors it finds and corrects. When I log in, I’ll get a summary of the latest weekly report. The idea is that if the hard drive is about to fail, I’ll have plenty of warning and time to get a replacement hard drive and move the data across. I’m not planning any significant backup scheme, as after all I have the CDs as backup for all the MP3s. (No RIAA subpoena needed here, thanks.)

Another big chunk of my time has been spent playing Ratchet and Clank. It’s a gorgeous confection of a game: challenging enough in places to be almost frustrating, but not quite; and the rest of the time it’s a real joy to play. It uses the same game engine as Jak and Daxter, which allows for very detailed 3D worlds and open-ended exploration, with no significant load times.

One thing that makes the game fun is the incredible array of gadgets and weapons at your disposal. As you progress you can buy more and more hardware, from everyday mine launchers and blasters to the more exotic remote guided rocket and taunter. (The latter beams irritating sounds at enemies, taunting them into running straight for you.) Later on you get my favorite weapons—the suck cannon, which sucks small enemies into it and lets you shoot them as missiles; and the morph-o-ray, which turns your assailants into harmless farmyard chickens. You can even use both, sucking up the chickens to fire later…

neGcon

I’ve located a neGcon. It’s a freaky PlayStation controller made by Namco in Japan:

It has pressure-sensitive buttons, and a heavy and accurate rotational sensor in the middle. You twist the device to steer. Although originally designed for Ridge Racer, It is said to be the controller for playing WipeOut. Wip3out 3 addicts have often posted about its amazing effect on their lap times.

The timing couldn’t be better, as WipeOut Fusion’s US release date has been brought forward, so there’s only a couple of weeks left to wait. Hopefully I’ll have the neGcon in my twitching hands by then. Time to stock up on Red Bull.

PS2

Noticed that some PlayStation 2 games were hitting the $20 mark, so decided it was time to get a PlayStation 2. After wasting time trawling every relevant store in the mall, discovered that nobody has memory cards. So no PS2 for me. Bleagh.