Serious Games & Game Design Lecture 3 – MMOs & Notation Jay Crossler Senior Software Engineer

Unforeseen artifacts in complex systems It’s not a bug, it’s a feature!

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World of Warcraft World of Warcraft 4 Million world-wide players It takes approximately 240 hours of play time to make highest level People buy WoW gold on eBay - $20 can help you save 40 hours of work “ Chinese gold farmers” Villagers in China are working out of internet cafes… doing the boring, repetitive work and selling the profits for $5/day One farm-leader made $120k in the last year

World of Warcraft

4 Million world-wide players

It takes approximately 240 hours of play time to make highest level

People buy WoW gold on eBay - $20 can help you save 40 hours of work

“ Chinese gold farmers”

Villagers in China are working out of internet cafes… doing the boring, repetitive work and selling the profits for $5/day

One farm-leader made $120k in the last year

World of Warcraft Extensible User Interface XML/Javascript based “mods” Allows links to external DBs Thottbott, Auctioneer, etc. Plague runs Amok One “instance” has a monster that gives you a blood plague Kills in a minute A line of players ran it back to a city, thousands infected Game masters had to quarantine entire cities

Extensible User Interface

XML/Javascript based “mods”

Allows links to external DBs

Thottbott, Auctioneer, etc.

Plague runs Amok

One “instance” has a monster that gives you a blood plague

Kills in a minute

A line of players ran it back to a city, thousands infected

Game masters had to quarantine entire cities

Case Study: Second Life Some people actually make their income on SL

Second Life Not quite a game, more a programmable VR platform

Not quite a game, more a programmable VR platform

Second Life Scripting http://secondlife.com/badgeo

Object Scripting in SL

XML-RPC in game objects You can attach an XML-RPC listener to an object It will wait for requests from the outside world, and respond

You can attach an XML-RPC listener to an object

It will wait for requests from the outside world, and respond

XML-RPC in game, cont. Why not have objects initiate XML-RPC calls? This would be a denial-of-service mechanism… that would ultimately cause the SL site to be blocked

Why not have objects initiate XML-RPC calls?

This would be a denial-of-service mechanism… that would ultimately cause the SL site to be blocked

The XML-RPC Call

The XML-RPC response

Calling XML-RPC from ASP Active Server Pages is an easy-to-use server-side scripting language that works natively on IIS

Active Server Pages is an easy-to-use server-side scripting language that works natively on IIS

Calling XML-RPC from Java

Calling XML-RPC from PHP

Beware! If you’re online, you’re not safe. http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v =5H8hNXWgOoE Page

If you’re online, you’re not safe.

http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v =5H8hNXWgOoE

Game Notations