Virtual Decatur Makes List of "Top 5 Most Disturbing MMOs"
Decatur Metro | May 4, 2009Full disclosure: this story is about two-weeks old. On top of that, Taylor emailed it to me two weeks ago and I lost it in the shuffle. This morning, Lump reminds me.
Along with “Hello Kitty Online” and a couple other truly NSFW MMOs, Virtual Decatur recently earned the dubious distinction of “Most Disturbing MMO” by GameSpy.
After pointing out the proposed game’s unfortunate acronym, the article restates much of what we’ve already discussed…
Specifically, you want to start an MMO where the admins physically live in the same town as the players? Really? Do you have no self-preservation instincts? Have you not seen the Internet? It is a place notorious both for its disproportional rage, and the horrors perpetuated behind its pseudo-anonymity. And nobody is more hated than the people in charge.
Forget fruits and vegetables. Online rage is the elixir of life.
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+1
The MMO aspect of the Virtual Decatur proposal is a mind-numbingly stupid idea.
In the 2000 census, Decatur had a population of just over 18,000 people.
For the community dynamics of a Massively Multiplayer Online game (or whatever) to work, you need tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of users logged in simultaneously.
World of Warcraft has 9 million subscribers and about 900,000 users logged in at any time. Second Life has anywhere between 10,000 and 100,000 users logged in simultaneously, depending on which statistics you believe.
So, if every citizen in the city logged into the Virtual Decatur MMO all at once, it would still be equivalent to the slowest day in Second Life.
Considering both services would be having a busy day if 10 percent of their registered users logged in, the best such a proposal could hope for in Decatur would be 1,800 users logged in at once (based on the 2000 census, which is probably a slightly lower number than now, but will do here). That’s not enough scale for the community dynamics to function, and further, I’d bet $100 with the first taker that the service wouldn’t hit that number in its first two years.
It’s a solution looking for a problem. People should just walk to the damn meetings.
To be fair to the hard working folks at city hall, the examples you have provided are two of the most well-known MMO’s available, with World of Warcraft exponentially outstripping by miles any previous non-Korean based MMO. That’s not to mention the fact that both of the MMO’s you mentioned are pay-for (though I suppose in Second Life it is optional to some extent). Apples to oranges.
No, it’s not apples to oranges.
Community dynamics MMOs (MASSIVELY multiplayer online) only function with large numbers of people participating. Decatur could not possibly provide that many people. The proposal indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of that very basic concept.
The commercial vs. non-profit aspect is irrelevant. User base is what is relevant, and user base is what this project would be unable to provide.
Finally, illumination on the acronym MMO.
I, like writerchad, had no idea what a MMO was before this conversation started – so you can disregard my opinion if you like, but I think that Rusty, you might be missing COD’s point (or maybe I am). This isn’t really just something for the entertainment of our citizen’s is it? This is totally different (yes, apples to oranages) meant to become a useful platform to enhance citizen participation and further enhance economic development in the city. What makes you think that we need hundreds of thousands of people to achieve these goals? They are thinking outside the perverbial box on this – thinking that maybe it’s a tool they can use. No one else is doing it, so maybe it is a bad idea, but I don’t have a problem with them pushing the envelope by throwing out an RFP and seeing if they can find someone to help them make it work. A previous discussion mentioned that maybe it can be done with a Google platform. Maybe so, maybe not. But I think you have to get out of the gamers mindset on this and accept the possibility that maybe they are on to something. It’s the same tool but used for a different purpose. We don’t need it to compete with the other games for users, we need it to work for our community. It doesn’t seem to me that they need the types of numbers that you are talking about to achieve these goals.
Well we have 18000 people but about 40 show up to council meetings. However, just based on this site, we have a tremendous amount of folks interested in what is going on and with good ideas that don’t go to the meetings and probably never will. So here’s an idea – let’s set up a platform to solicit their input in a format that they seem to prefer – the interactive web. And lots of people (or at least a few loud ones) seem to abhor the pending developments on Trinity and Ponce but they seem to me to be perfectly appropriate (not great but appropriate) given the size of the sites, etc. But as discussed in other forums here, it’s hard to really get a feel for them because we are looking at them on paper in 2D. Is the parking deck facing the tracks at the Trinity site really going to be an eyesore? Hard to say. Here’s an idea. Use the available technology to set up 3D models to help us get a better understanding of what we are getting there. That appears to be what they are trying to achieve. Doesn’t seem stupid to me. It may not work, but seems like a logical idea – something that will enhance civic participation instead of just wishing more people would show up to meetings. Or wishing that when we do get overflow crowds to discuss new developments they were all armed with better facts about what is proposed.
In a virtual Decatur, I’m going to build a swimming pool behind my house on Coventry. Screw the watershed around Peavine Creek!
I can’t wait until they launch this MMO! FYI I’m planning on taking the character class called Retired Guy and then leveling him up to level 65 so I can collect Social Security. Quests could include having Retired Guy visit Herb’s Package Store on Mondays, AMC Theatres on Tuesdays, Publix on Wednesdays for senior discounts and bonus experience points. This is just awesome.
You are comparing commercial games to a not for profit one. Regardless of the user base numbers, which I do agree are an important factor in this project, you simply cannot expect something like WoW to something like Virtual Decatur. Just because they’re the same genre of game doesn’t make them the same concept. Any comparison would be tossed out simply based on the fact that the games are nothing alike.
Thank you, Rusty! I had no idea what we were talking about.
If a certain number of people can’t be relied upon to be present to interact with at any given time, then users won’t come back. That has nothing to do with gaming, or commerce or any of a number of irrelevant attributes brought up in the past few comments. That’s simple community dynamics that transcend all of those attributes.
MMOs were created to overcome, among other things, problems of geography and logistics.
It’s not practical, for example, to cram 1,000 or 100,000 people in a room to play a game against each other. And it’s not likely that even if you had such a space, that you would be able to gather that many people in a small geographic area. So they hook up online to play Warcraft.
It’s not practical for people to attend events in other countries. So they attend virtual events in Second Life as a next-best-thing.
Second Life gives people with disabilities a way to interact with people wouldn’t be available to them otherwise.
No one has yet explained to me what problem the Virtual Decatur “MMO” proposal is supposed to overcome. People live within a couple of miles of each other, so it isn’t geography.
I’m all for technological experimentation. But this idea is just fundamentally stupid, even on paper.
For the online interaction component, they can set up a blog on WordPress.com or Blogger for free in under five minutes or (likely) host one on their own existing servers with only a little more effort and expense.
For 3D models of buildings, they could easily require the developer to provide such renderings, which they’re likely already making anyway, and post images of them on the blog or another area of the city website. If they want to get fancy about it, they can even make movies of a 3D rendering and post them to YouTube.
Not sure why a costly, customized MMO system would be necessary for any of that.
The city is way ahead of ya GAK. The platform you describe is available on the city’s website as Open City Hall.
Also, I have no problem with the 3-D model idea. As I understand it, that’s how the idea of Virtual Decatur began. My problem is taking it farther and creating an online world. I just don’t think there’s demand for something like that. And I’d assume that’s a bit more expensive than just creating a 3-D model.
Well alrighty then. By my admission, I don’t know an MMO from an HMO. So maybe I am not truly understanding. I’m just giving them the benefit of the doubt on staying ahead of the curve in using technology to engage and help citizens. Is this a swing and a miss on their part? I guess we won’t know until it’s tried – or a least until we see what the RFP respondents come up with.
“But this idea is just fundamentally stupid, even on paper.”
I can’t agree with this in any sense. I have worked with MMO companies in the past doing both support and design and for companies that were extremely small (five man team) and for companies with huge teams (Verant who then was absorbed by Sony).
I am not sure that you have the right mindset going in because you seem so dead set against this, but I don’t think they’re looking to overcome any problems. At this point as far as I know only time has been invested and no money. It’s an RFP. Not for a problem, but for looking forward and learning about what is out there. Assuming it will fail without even knowing what it is for is the problem I see with your point of view. You aren’t coming into this with an open mind so you automatically assume it is worthless.
Not sure that anyone can change that for you, but you should at least reevaluate with less judgment in my opinion.
By the way, the largest group of people playing games against each other in the same room is over 10,000 – which if you haven’t seen pictures is quite an interesting thing. Not a LAN party I’d be interested in attending by any means, but an amazing marvel of power distribution and networking at the least.
re: “Assuming it will fail without even knowing what it is for is the problem I see with your point of view.”
Assuming I haven’t read the RFI is a problem I see with your point of view.
It clearly is a request for information about building a self-contained Second Life-like environment modeled after the City of Decatur. Am I missing something?
All of the practical ideas I read in the proposal (videos of meetings, for example) can be accomplished using less expensive, less proprietary methods.
Just because no money has been spent yet doesn’t mean it’s too soon to say it’s a dumb idea. If people don’t criticize these programs when they’re just dumb ideas, they end up being dumb, expensive programs that cost them money and offer little or no benefit later (see: paying for parking meters by cell phone).
Ha!
Even better, just dam the creek and create a giant lake in your backyard.