EVE Online’s economist, Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson, has issued a second macroeconomic report of the game, this time for Q4 2007. After reading through the report, it seems like there are some neat things being researched at CCP regarding various indicators of economic performance and growth. Much of the report’s analysis focuses on the impact of the introduction of the latest EVE expansion, Trinity.

The most notable addition in this second economic report is the introduction and explanation of a macroeconomic indicator for player production within the online economy. Called GUP (Gross User Product), this indicator measures the value of all goods and services produced in a period of time, minus the goods and services consumed by that production. Analyzing GUP, much like its GDP (Gross Domestic Product) counterpart in the “real” world, may give us some insights into the amount of growth an entire economy is undergoing. The explanation of where that growth is coming from and the means by which it may be maintained, however, are not necessarily illuminated by such a number. Hopefully future reports will illuminate more component-based (rather than aggregate) data on capital supply and depreciation rates so that some of the more popular growth models may be applied to the growing EVE market. The more detailed charts near the end of the report are great starts, but it would be nice to have even finer detail. Considering that this gentleman has access to everything, the marginal cost of producing such data should be low after the initial investment of researching the proper formulae.

One of the things I find most silly about this economic report is the fact that there is “a practical difficulty of not being able to reliably discern between a newly produced good sold on the market, and an old good re-sold on the market”. This is definitely a problem in real world economics; in online games, however, I have trouble rationalizing why this would be a problem. Presumably, every good possesses some form of unique identification (if for nothing else than to easily recover from a duping scheme). Well, if it possesses unique identification, why shouldn’t it also possess a relative timestamp or sale counter? Surely there is room in the database for at least one of these fields. That seems like a relatively simple solution to so great a problem. Regardless of whether such a feature was originally implemented in the game world, I doubt that it would be hard to add such a feature to all goods in the future.

In the introduction to the report, there is extensive commentary on what effect the struggling global markets will have on virtual world markets:

Will an economic recession cause decreased participation in the online world, or will the reduction in work hours (voluntarily or not) encourage people to spend more time producing virtual items in their online environment?

Excellent questions, but the following contains assertions that I do not completely agree with.

In the case of fixed monthly subscriptions, the marginal cost of spending another minute in an online environment is zero when measured in monetary terms. Hence, people with more time on their hands might contribute more towards their online environment, stimulating growth in virtual economies.

It is indisputably true that when a fixed monthly charge is incurred, the marginal cost of another minute is zero. It is also indisputably true that when marginal cost is zero, rational agents will consume until their marginal benefit is equal to their marginal cost. What’s not so clear, however, is that the opportunity cost that this agent faces for one unit of his time is zero.

Put another way: the monetary cost of an additional unit of play is zero, but the true cost may be far greater than that. A rational agent will play until his marginal benefit of additional unit is equal to his marginal cost. Thus, if we agree with the implicit assumption that struggling global markets lead to a recession, which in turn reduces the opportunity cost of everyone’s time, which in turn causes people to substitute toward the now relatively cheaper additional unit of play, we might agree that a struggling global economy will necessarily lead to a booming virtual economy.

In some respects, if recession is characterized by higher unemployment, then this might well be true. It’s still too early, however, to conclude anything.

Read the full economic report here.

This is why I can’t understand why more MMOs don’t have these same capabilities in-game. Even EQLive had a media player capable of playing mp3s, if rudimentary. EVE is capable of playing the same, and I know that there are several other games with similar capabilities, but what about the big players? There’s not the slightest semblance of a media player in EverQuest 2 and World of Warcraft, and the former is one of the biggest resource hogs known to man. Alt+tabbing EQ2 is like playing russian roulette.

To the game’s credit, though, after logging back in recently I was pleasantly surprised with the addition of a browser window. Given the open source nature of the Gecko browser engine and the prevalence of the firefox browser, I’m completely at a loss for why in-game browsers don’t come standard in games. I don’t want to imply that it would be a walk in the park to add that kind of capability, but clearly the tools are there. Standards-compliant browser rendering engines are available, for free, to whomever wants to use them. My cell phone has a browser, why not my game?

Being a student of economics, I realize that specialization of programs independently of each other will result in better software (that is, if a game company writes their own browsers and mp3 players in game, they’re taking time away from developing features in the game, etc), but in a world where music and the web are two of the most important components of daily life (ipod, iphone anyone?), I hardly see the harm in providing these to gamers. Maybe the innovators behind xfire will expand their aim to the media/browsing world in the near future. At least that’s my hope.

Between the releases of DoF and KoS, I somehow managed to get my Wizard from 50 to 57. My gear was pretty stacked from raiding and the crafted legendaries from old world EQ2, so I haven’t really actually upgraded anything since DoF save my cloak (which is a horrible color- why the hell would they make a bright red cloak when all of the t4 caster robes are a deep purple color? I’ll be rational and blame Brad McQuaid for that one). I’ve still got the Enchanted Maj’Dul carpet that was available to level 30 guilds before DoF, but it seems less impressive now compared to the guild level 60 mounts that are, wait for it, 2% faster. Also the fact that they gave everyone a carpet in DoF (although it’s a different color) sort of steals whatever thunder the status carpet had to begin with.

Anyway, I did my rounds exploring all of the KoS content that I could in order to get some AA experience. Other than that, I’ve been grinding solo in the Tenebrous Tangle and catching up on the ~9,000,000 collection quests that SoE added. I have maybe 1 piece in each collection and I’m convinced that they didn’t even finish them since no one can actually find all of the no-drop pieces on their own. The solo experience is slow, but it’s not as bad as I remember it being. I grinded up to 58 and got about halfway through on the droag and insects in TT and it got monotonous really quickly.

Being without a guild is excruciating; I’ve never had so little social interaction in an MMO in my life, so it’s a really weird adjustment. There’s only one person still playing since I quit, so he’s probably getting annoyed with my bombardment of tells! I don’t own Echoes of Faydwer (yet- I want to see if I stick with it for more than a couple weeks before I drop $40), so finding a group is damn near impossible. I did get invited to a Meeting of the Minds raid yesterday, which was incredibly nostalgic despite the complete lack of teamwork displayed by the raiders. It must be very easy to solo to high levels now, because I’ve never seen so few cures dished out by healers or so many people standing so near an ae. I felt like I was humping a doorknob in an Upper Blackrock Spire raid.

Anyway, I’m hoping it stays fun; I think once I get to 60 I’ll go ahead and buy EoF and see if that’s entertaining enough to sustain me for 10 levels and then see where it goes from there. I would love to start at cap when the new expansion comes out!

If you’re ever bored or wandering around in the Kingdom of Sky on Kithicor server, drop me a line! I’m the dorky looking guildless wizard on a white carpet, Novitiate Galois of the Shard (LFG). I’m in their world now.

I myself have inherited several EQ2 accounts with high level characters on them (well, high level at the time; this was before DoF), WoW accounts with high characters and valuables and, most recently, a high(er) level character in a MUD. In each of these cases I’ve felt empty and unclean at the prospect of reaping the benefits of someone else’s time. It doesn’t matter whether the thing in question cost money, either; there’s always the opportunity for anyone to log on to ebay or playerauctions and walk away with a “pimpin’ toon”.

Is there any sense of accomplishment felt after doing this? Even if you were to play that character for the rest of your days, is it truly yours? When people mess up in raids or act uncharacteristically in game, they’re often asked if they are from ebay, or if they just bought the account. Maybe the reason they get asked this is because everyone in their guild is a douchebag, or maybe it’s because it’s extremely difficult for most people to achieve a decent level of play with a character that isn’t their own. I feel rather strongly about this, because every time I’ve been given a character it’s always felt empty and pointless, more like a joke than a legit “transfer”. I feel more like a circus clown who’s learned a new trick and never really expect other players to take me seriously. Sure, you can transfer the character, but you can’t transfer the experience itself.

On the flipside, my view on RMT (real money transactions) in games (that is, buying in-game items for out-of-game money) is completely opposite. I really think there’s something fundamentally different between buying a character and buying something for your character, though.

I’m sure there are success stories of people switching characters. I’m also sure that there’s a difference between buying a new character to play permanently versus buying a new marginal character. I suppose my main personal gripe lies with buying a character to play as a main when that character is higher level than you’ve achieved yourself (meaning you skip content, the closest thing you can really do to cheating in an online game). How does everyone else feel about this? This seems like one of those taboo topics that everyone’s on the hush-hush about.

Channels:
-Digital Clock added to the Wii Menu right under the channel bar
-Forecast Channel now displays the current condition (cloudy, raining, etc.) directly in the Wii Menu in the Forecast Channel box
-News Channel can now show 2 scrolling headlines at a time in the Wii Menu, 3 when you click on the button
-Message Board now has the “Today’s Accomplishments” message as a white message which allows it to stand out from other messages
-Address Book entries can now be shifted around using A+B but only to empty spaces. Not too convenient.
-Calendar in Message Board no longer shows “Today’s Accomplishment” only days as having messages
-Scrolling messages in the Message Board now uses a different sound

Wii Shop Channel Overhauled (Visual aesthetic is the same, changes made to organization and browsing methods mostly)
-New Welcome screen detailing 4 Recommended Titles and the points they cost (gone is the title screen bar that had linkable games). The title bar can be clicked on to bring up a list of 20 recommended games.
-Titles You’ve Downloaded was moved to the main shop menu
-New ways to browse
-Popular Titles (2 pages of 10 and includes launch games so not only based on recent info)
-Newest Additions remains the same
-Search for a title which can use partial names
-Search by Category
-System shows the different systems and how many titles have been released under each
-Publisher showing different publishers and amount of titles released
-Genre (different genres listed and amount of titles under each)

Settings
-Warning added pre-system update detailing that technically modified consoles may cease to function upon being updated. Also the only way to not accept an update is to power down the console by holding the button for 4 seconds (the user can’t back out of hitting I Accept w/o powering down)

Maybe they should focus on keeping the forecast channel up-to-date before they focus on moving it around. One time it was snowing in the middle of June and my Wii forecast channel said it was like 100 degrees Kelvin. It also said the data was from like 3 weeks in the past. Maybe I’ll trust my windows instead of my Wii.

I guess also there’s support for usb wired and wireless keyboards in the wii shop and wii internet channels now. Good, but it reportedly doesn’t work with all keyboards, so we’ll just have to wait until nintendo releases one for $940.

Instead of changing the Wii shop around, maybe they should just add a feature that tells me when I can buy Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask for N64 so I don’t have to keep checking every 30 minutes. What if they release it while I’m sleeping? I gotta get to the end game first.

Also, like many people have probably already said, there’s no new word on Miis or why Nintendo continues to make them suck. There’s also no word on why it takes an act of God to enter a friend code, or why it takes another act of God to even find your friend code in the first place.

Will someone just email me when Majora’s Mask releases for Virtual Console? Seriously.

Single player/console games are known to have some of the most engaging end-game content in the gaming industry. The ability to unlock new modes of play (Chrono Trigger, anyone?) and experience the same content again from a new standpoint (Half-life: Opposing Force) differs from the MMO end-game lineup. In an MMO, you play the same content over and over again. In a single player, you play the same content, but there’s an entirely new twist to it. Whether you’re playing at warp speed, playing from the beginning with all of the weapons you had when you beat it, or playing from a completely different perspective, single player is able to deliver fresh gameplay by barely lifting its metaphorical hand. In addition to this, there is even “MMO”-style end game content in some games out today.

Super Paper Mario. A seemingly simple game, which turns out to be quite long and engaging. A very well-planned and perfectly-paced RPG that doesn’t seem like an RPG. Attack power, health points, experience, item upgrades, and the like; all of the components of a traditional RPG are there, but the gameplay is so well-meshed with the Mario universe that even seasoned RPG veterans might not care to notice. In addition, this game also boasts and impressive end-game itself. Players patient enough to let the credits roll without turning off their Wii are rewarded with a save point at the end of the credits, and an open-ended plot stem as they step back into the starting town, Flipside. From here, the game is totally open. Visits to all of the worlds previously visited for any number of reasons: grinding points (experience), finding new items and powerups, finding ingredients for cooking, finding recipes, engaging in any number of the end-game minigames (mini is sort of a misnomer here, as some of them are quite long). In fact, there’s even a way to go back and fight amped-up versions of most of the bosses encountered throughout the game itself! At the end of the story-based game, the recipe book is left unfilled, and the key-card index is far from complete. The end game consists of completing all of these tasks, a pursuit which would likely take longer than beating the game itself.

So what’s the point in all of this? Well, as yesterday’s article mentioned, I believe that the same euphoric feelings of accomplishment achieved in MMOs can be had in single player games, as well. In that article, I didn’t even acknowledge the existence of any sort of end-game in the single player games, though. Adding this fact into the mix makes the case even clearer: I believe that, even socially, just as much fun and reward can be had from a single player game in all of it’s forms (story and after-story, that is, end-game) as in an MMO.

Super Paper Mario, when it was all said and done, took about 17 hours to beat. Of course 17 hours isn’t really too great a time investment for someone with hundreds of days locked up in MMOs, but I don’t think anyone would disagree that for a console game aimed at a younger audience, 17 hours is about the threshold, at least as far as attention-span is concerned. The game was engaging, witty, and oh-so-loveable for the entire 17 hours, to the point where I didn’t even realize how long I’d been sitting in my chair playing. That, in my opinion, is a good measure of a game’s quality.

In Twilight Princess, however, I’ve already spent a good 35+ hours adventuring non-stop (my gameplay says 44 hours, but I’m not sure if it counts up while the game is paused, etc, so this is adjusted a bit) with the strategy guide. I mention the guide just because I’ll finish the game with every heart piece, poe, bug, and special item, so this may be a fairly bloated number. Just running through the temples and everything may be fairly shorter. Sitting down and playing for 5-6 hour sessions in Twilight Princess doesn’t seem weird at all. The game is so fluid and continuous that I hardly flinch when presented with a new series of temples to grind through at 2-3 hours each.

My conclusion, and the point of this article, doesn’t really have anything to do with these two games in particular. The reason I wrote this article is because I’m high on that feeling, the one you get after you beat a really long game. To me, it also feels a bit like the feeling you get when you loot a really freakin’ sick item in an MMO that you’ve been playing 40+ hours just to get. The thing that intrigues me, though, is which feeling is stronger? Which feeling has a more lasting effect? Maybe the answer to this seems obvious to a lot of people reading this. I wonder, however, how many people would continue raiding and playing MMO games full time if they realized that the feeling that comes from multiple days of raiding and the feeling that comes from playing through a single-player game are similar?

In an MMO, you are rewarded with a permanent upgrade to your character (permanent, at least, until the next expansion comes out). In a single-player game, you’re rewarded by being “released” from the game itself. You probably no longer have the urge to play as much. In addition, you’re rewarded socially to, in my opinion, a greater extent than you are in an MMO.

Think about it this way: when you hear people talk about EverQuest, or any MMO they’ve played in the past, there are many people who can relate, because there are many people who played. At the same time, even people who never breached level 20 in EverQuest are still able to talk nostalgically about the game, simply because playing and getting somewhere was an achievement in and of itself. Even if the person talking spent years raiding, they can still level with you on some topics: “omg jboots quest”. Here, so many years later, the newb is on the same level as the pro raider in terms of their endearment toward the game. In a single player, game, however, people can talk about their experiences with beating the game. It seems like there’s a far greater difference between someone who’s beat a game talking about it and someone who hasn’t. “dude, ocarina of time was so awesome, remember how hard the ganondorf fight was when we were little?”

Maybe part of it is that the likelihood of a person beating 10 single-player games is higher relative to the likelihood of a person playing an MMO for 10 times as long as it takes to beat a single-player game.

So, and this is the essence of this article, why would you spend the same amount of time achieving a marginal upgrade for your character when you can get the same social feeling from beating a game on your own? I wouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean that everyone shouldn’t. I’ve done both, and don’t regret either choice. It does give an interesting, new interpretation of time, though.

The game is incredibly in-depth and intense so far (we’ve been basically handed characters which were well established in the world and have been expected to learn the ways of the masters in a remarkably short amount of time) and has been the source of much enjoyment over the past week and a half. I forgot how much more realistic and immersive a MUD can be compared to a graphical game. I’ve (over)used the joke that my brain has a superior rendering engine compared to anything that’s come out in a game so far (and I suppose that will be true forever!).

Anyway, one of the minor annoyances that I have with the MUD is that it’s very hard for new players to orient themselves with the maps of the myriad towns and adventuring areas in a timely manner. You have to read the descriptions to get an idea of where you actually are, and start thinking in terms of north, south, east, and west and really wrack your brain to remember the paths to and from certain areas (obviously, the fact that most MUDs are very easily scripted helps in this regard, but you can’t script everywhere). Compared to how great the combat is, and how much control you have over your every move in combat, the disorientation experienced by new players in the MUD realm seems almost trivial, or at least negligible.

Naturally, in friendly discussion, this raised the question of whether it would ever be feasible to create a 3-D world and environment in a game while still keeping the very appealing MUD-style combat. Is it possible to create a beautiful landscape and keep it free from the spoils of pathing errors and buggy aggro radii? Imagine a world where the player can walk around in 3-D, and once they enter a (displayed, or inferrable) aggro radius of a certain mob, the game switches modes to a different combat screen. So far, it sounds very familiar to a Final-fantasy-type combat situation, but what if you could have complete control of your battle in real time with the kind of accuracy afforded by a MUD? Once the battle is over, then, 3-D play resumes until the next battle. Of course, it would have to be possible for new enemies to enter the battle (among other things, there are always tons of complications).

Now, what I’ve described does tend to sound a bit like EverQuest, but compared to the complexity of combat in a MUD, the combat in EverQuest (with it’s limited hotkeys and actions) seems daunting.

The thing about this whole “idea” is that it doesn’t seem like a very far stretch to assume that someone out there has done it already. You get the benefit of the graphical movement system with the beautifully rendered cities and landscape, yet the complexity of combat that can only be got in a MUD. Is there such a game?

The game I found myself playing most during the trip was Super Mario 64 DS. I loved the original game (if you’ve read the blog at all, you’ve probably been able to guess that), and spent way too much time playing it when I bought my Nintendo 64 way back when. Well, all of this talk lately about Super Mario Galaxy has gotten me pretty pumped for Mario games in general, and this one seemed like a good diversion for a long car ride. It definitely is.

The game itself is absolutely great on DS. It has all of the original graphics and levels (including some additional ones), and most of the textures have been updated to make a castle which is absolutely stunning on the small screen of the DS. The major change from the N64 version is that players start the game as Yoshi, and must get 8 stars in the castle in order to unlock Mario (who’s been tricked and kidnapped by Bowser). After unlocking Mario, players can switch between the two characters, and eventually unlock Luigi and Wario as well. Each has their own “specialty” moves, but the entire game could probably be beaten by Mario, as in the original.

The thing that really gets me about this game, though, is the fact that you’re playing a game specifically designed for the Nintendo 64’s 3-D control stick on the DS, which only has a four-directional control pad. Sure, you can whip out your DS wand and wiggle it around on the touch screen for sub-part, completely inaccurate (i’m not bitter) movement, but then you spend most of your time looking at the touchscreen instead of watching the gameplay. Even though the control pad is infuriating, it’s, in my opinion, the best control scheme available.

For the most part, the control pad is accurate, but for those who remember the way the camera works (or doesn’t), you can begin to see why the control scheme is infuriating. The camera will swivel to match the terrain of the level, switching the control subtly as it does, leaving the player a difficult task when negotiating turns with thin landings. Another downfall of this control scheme is that there’s barely any precision-adjustment; you press the up and right keys, and mario won’t nudge one direction, he’ll turn almost 90 degrees.

All in all, Super Mario 64 DS is still a great game, and it’s definitely possible to have fun with on the DS once you become acclimated to the controls. The fun that is taken away by controlling a 3-D entity with 2-D controls is not nearly enough to make this game “bad” by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a constant reminder that just because you can put a great game on a new, smaller console doesn’t mean you should.

The game takes place throughout three mythological settings: Ancient Greece, Egypt, and the Silk Road. Characters start out “fob” (fresh off the boat, literally) in a Greek suburb and must fight their way to Leonidas and the spartans, finishing primary and side quests in search of an oracle. This game is so much like Diablo 2 that I can’t tell whether it’s awesome or weird. At the very least, it’s uncomfortable. The graphics, of course, are up-to-date with today’s games, but still give the isometric perspective of Diablo 2. The lighting is brilliant, the gameplay is relatively linear with a few wide-open areas to explore, and the combat is point and click in the same fashion as the Diablos. So, if I love Diablo 2 and Titan Quest is Diablo 2, then why the title?

Well, the game is fun, the plot fairly interesting and, from what I can tell, fairly accurate compared to what I remember from high school ancient history. Also, the stuff about the Spartans seems accurate compared to what I remember from the parts of “300″ that I wasn’t screaming or hiding. What’s nice about it though, is that the game pretty much delivers itself to you on a silver platter. While you can’t always see the edge of the map without a little wandering, the landscape is constrictive enough that you won’t go wandering in places you shouldn’t and miss parts of the plot. It’s also very hard to miss the primary quest NPCs. The primary quest line (and we all know how much I love those) is hard to miss throughout the game. The quest NPCs are marked very well throughout the cityscapes, and even the side-quest NPCs are relatively easy to spot (either that or I’ve missed a ton of side-quests, which doesn’t seem likely since I’m a map-exploring whore).

The battles themselves, like Diablo 2, are largely point-and-click. At the levels and for the amount of time I’ve played, success seems pretty proportional to player level and gear, although there have been several opportunities to advance simply with skill. I recall a certain ogre battle during which the enemy could be kited. The game, however, is balanced enough to provide you with the experience needed to gain the levels and beat the bosses. Not too much extraneous grinding required, at least not in first difficulty setting of the game.

I can’t really vouch for the multiplayer, as I have never played with another person (and probably won’t), but the single-player campaign is an almost relaxing cruise through history. I haven’t played the game all the way through (that’s the story of my life), but what I’ve done so far has definitely tickled my taste buds for an engaging single-player RPG in the traditional flavor. I’m excited to see what the game has to offer in the later levels, as well as what the expansion and its extra act.