Novoking, the China Second Life ? is a decent overview of yet another Chinese entrant into the “metaverse” scene. Visually, it looks good, but there’s a price — an over 300MB download to get in, and high system requirements.
I am not sure the “metaverse” market has learned the lesson that WoW taught about accessible hardware requirements. For that matter, the huge lesson taught by the casual games industry about maximum download sizes before you start losing trials.
Peter S., you should feel very very happy right now. Thom Robertson is one of the most badass devs I know, and he took up the challenge and prototyped your drywalling game design. 🙂
Thom Robertsons Personal Blog – Drywall: The Game!
You can play in a browser, or grab the downloadable version. 🙂
So, now everyone needs to post what the refinements are, since you’re getting to see a prototype. Peter, given your audience’s feedback, what are you going to change?
Quite a lot of the mail I have gotten recently relates to the quickie design outline I did for Penny Arcade… a few of them were pretty interesting, so I am just reprinting them here.
Dear Raph, I am a huge fan of the SimCity series (worried about the loss of technical details in the new Socities) and read your words on Penny-arcade.com. PLEASE BUILD THIS. I know, i know, you are busy writing the code to run an actual world like this, but as someone who is both a DIY homeowner and a lover of constuction, the game you propose would be fabulous. Thanks for your time, Fred
I can assure you that I have no intention of rushing off to make this game, anymore than I did when I tossed out the Healing MMO as an idea. Sorry! Besides, the real point is to make Tycho do it, not me. 🙂
Now, this one, I thought was really fascinating:
I just finished reading a rather entertaining book, and it reminded me of a word I had not heard in some time: goety. No doubt now I will have dozens of links from weird occult websites, wondering what spells I am about to write out. Or else sites from the holier side, adjuring me.
The fascinating thing to me, of course, is that so many things we see as different had the same root — the basics of mathematics, the principle of zero or the concept of bases, somehow becoming a root of alchemy and numerology. The very fact of writing became prosthetic memory and thence the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The ghosts and demons of the misunderstood world became elaborate and frankly silly rituals that led to the deaths of thousands. The act that we do everywhere around the world, of blogging, the child of a mysterious art that once was deemed powerful and dangerous.
Goety
When summoning demons, a grammar’s required,
A grimoire, a ponderous tome of desires.
Arsenic, candlelight, horsehair and fires,
Upside-down symbols and unholy choirs.
For those who don’t know, the Metaplace Forums are live now.
It’s nice to see familiar faces from SWG and even UO popping up in there. 🙂
