[MUD-Dev] integrated character webpages ala Black and White creature pages

[msew]

--executive summary version--

People spend days of time creating their characters, getting
equipment, traveling the world, taking screen shots, having wild
experiences, and experiencing a virtual life!  Many of these people
lack the technical skills to create a webpage, upload it, maintain it.

Web pages have become the de facto source for community news and
community archives of the online world.  Even with in-game books,
people still create tons and tons of material on the web.


A goal should be to allow the class of casual non technical gamers
(the biggest untapped creative market) to be able to participate in
the community by giving them seemless integrated tools/methods for
them to generate content and tell of their journeys.  This is not to
say they should be out there on the vault network creating stuff
there, but saying MMP games should provide some method to allow these
non technical users to put information about their character and their
character's experiences on the web.

Being able to show your friend your character on the web at work, or
over at their house, or sending them an email with the url for them to
look at, is a HUGE plus in terms of "spreading" the word about one's
game.

--longish version--

Black and White is going to have web integration in their game in a
very interesting way.  The creature, whom you chose to represent you
in the world, is going to make its own web page!  That webpage is
going to be auto updated by what the creature experiences and tons and
tons of stats about it.

The creature is going to take pictures of things it finds interesting.
And going to detail its exploits and exploration in the world!  (url
to video where Peter Molyneux talks about this idea:
http://tvmedia.ign.com/media/pc/bwects014.mov (top level
http://pc.ign.com/news/25673.html has his 30 min talk in quicktime
format)

To take this a step further, the thought is that ALL future MMP games
should have something like this.  It would be REALLY awesome to have a
web page auto generated for you.  Something like:


  <companyDNS>/<gameName>/servers/<serverName>/<characterName>

  www.verant.com/everquest/servers/rathe/FrazzleFoo

Lots of technically advanced people make their own webpages and have
pictures of their character there and have their items listed out.
They have stories of their character.  And tips on how to play the
game.  These pages are HUGE community building devices.  There is
nothing like going to a page and seeing how others play the game and
seeing the funny things they write about or what items they have or
where they have explored or where they hand out or to see what the
heck this game that john is raving about is.  (ie all suits of the
four types of players can get information from this PLUS the casual
gamer can get info about his pal john)

Yet all of these things are pretty much impossible for the folks that
don't know html (and that seems to be a pretty huge number). Let alone
how to ftp their screen shots and such to a webserver and get that
server set up.  These are the casual gamers and casual computer users
out there.  We want to have some way to include these guys in the
community and have them start contributing.

I have had lots of people come up to my gnome on everquest and ask if
they could take pictures of him in his robe and they have given me
items to hold so they can get that "special" shot.  I asked them what
they are going to do with them and most responded with "you just look
kewl I wanted to get a picture of you.".  c'est la vie!  If only we
could seemlessly allow all these people the ability to just toss that
picture, that they just took, up on a webpage with a comment.

Most people seem to really go bonkers with making their character look
different than everyone else.  Being able to showcase this
automagically would be wonderful.

I can imagine having pictures of the character up on their generated
page.  Listing of equipment, places they have visited, monsters they
have killed, stats, stories, screen shots etc etc.

Yes this is going to take some storage space and logging but I can
imagine wonderful things such as the "Elite rabbit killing club!"  you
must have killed 3000 rabbits to get into the club!  Or some other
silly things.  But it is these semi silly things that players will
spend hours and hours on just to get that "medal"/"badge of honor" :-)
Give the players more data and stats for which they can form
organizations out of.  Such as: you can never have killed a Treant to
be a member of the Druid Circle!

And yes this will require some additions to the UI to allow people to
say: upload this file to my page.  Or make this shot the image of me
on my page.

I think the web is uber community builder.  Many people that play in these 
games make web pages dedicated to their characters.  They make movies and 
tell stories.  They show off their equipment of their characters.  They use 
web pages to show the "pinnacle" of power of specific classes.  Newbies 
flock to the higher level folks for questions and just to look at them and 
see what equip they use. They put a message board up and all the non 
technical people of the guild just come area able to chat and give their 
opinions via the web!

Further, the web allows for people to be "in game" while not actually
being in the game.  You can send email messages to your guild mates,
check out the latest guild news.

Having great automated and seemless interaction with one's game and
the web seems to be a great feature.

msew








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