DOCSLIB.ORG

The Norrathian Scrolls: a Study of Everquest

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Norrathian Scrolls: a Study of Everquest The Norrathian Scrolls: A Study of EverQuest (Version 2.5) Nicholas Yee, 2001 http://www.nickyee.com/eqt/report.html “My husband played this game every night. Every. Single. Night. When he wasn't playing, he was talking about it, and I grew to despise it. Night after night of him being on the damn computer, while I sat downstairs watching the History channel. Out of sheer boredom, I'd go get groceries at 0100, or run to WalMart for something to do, someone to interact with, whatever. When a storm blew out my computer, and the grasping-tail simians at Best Buy took a MONTH to get the right part, I used my husband's computer. He encouraged me to at least check out the game, and I did. I didn't like it, but I played. It gave us something to talk about, and when I finally got my computer back, he asked me to start my own account. I gave in, and did, so that we could spend time together. This was in August of 99. It's February of 2001, and we spend hours - HOURS - every SINGLE day playing this damn game. My fingers wake me, aching, in the middle of the night. I have headaches from the countless hours I spend staring at the screen, and EQ works it's way into many, many more conversations than I'd like. I'm officer/coordinator of a modestly sized guild. I've designed and maintained a website and bulletin board for said guild. Sometimes things happen in game, i.e. being KS'd or dealing with some d00dspeak-spewing infant, and my heart begins to POUND, and I literally shake with anger. This scares me. I'm 30 years old, almost 31, and I'm a registered nurse. I take care of terminally ill patients, and I'm an EQ addict. I hate this game, but I can't stop playing. Quitting smoking was NEVER this hard.” [f, 30] 2 Table of Contents Notes...................................................................................................................................................5 Thanks.........................................................................................................................................................................................5 Copyright and Attribution .......................................................................................................................................................5 Quotations ..................................................................................................................................................................................5 Statistical Notes..........................................................................................................................................................................5 Personality Notes.......................................................................................................................................................................5 Contact ........................................................................................................................................................................................5 Methodology and Design......................................................................................................................6 Overview.....................................................................................................................................................................................6 Participant Recruitment............................................................................................................................................................6 Exclusion Criteria ......................................................................................................................................................................6 On Representativeness.............................................................................................................................................................6 Brief Lexicon and Game Basics.............................................................................................................8 RL Demographics .............................................................................................................................. 10 Age and Gender...................................................................................................................................................................... 10 Occupational Categories....................................................................................................................................................... 10 Marital Status........................................................................................................................................................................... 11 Do you have children?........................................................................................................................................................... 11 Annual Household Income.................................................................................................................................................. 11 Hours of Play-Time Per Week............................................................................................................................................. 12 Playing EQ with a romantic partner................................................................................................................................... 13 Playing EQ with a family member...................................................................................................................................... 13 Experience with traditional table-top Role-Playing Games........................................................................................... 13 In-Game Demographics...................................................................................................................... 14 Have you ever tried playing on a PvP server?................................................................................................................... 14 If you have tried playing on PvP, how enjoyable was the experience?........................................................................ 14 Visual Perspective................................................................................................................................................................... 15 Kunark Expansion ................................................................................................................................................................. 15 Velious Expansion ................................................................................................................................................................. 15 “Shadows of Luclin” Expansion ......................................................................................................................................... 15 Dragon Raids and Plane Raids............................................................................................................................................. 15 A character above level 50.................................................................................................................................................... 16 Leader of a Guild.................................................................................................................................................................... 16 Meta-Game ........................................................................................................................................ 17 Why does EQ appeal to you?............................................................................................................................................... 17 How much satisfaction do you get from … ?................................................................................................................... 19 How much does it bother you when … ?......................................................................................................................... 19 How appealing/unappealing would these changes be?................................................................................................... 20 Is EQ the best computer game you have ever played?................................................................................................... 20 Do people learn anything from EQ?.................................................................................................................................. 21 The Play-Nice Rules............................................................................................................................................................... 21 Would you hack the game if you could?............................................................................................................................ 21 Trust: Environment and Gender......................................................................................................................................... 22 Meta-Character................................................................................................................................... 23 What matters in character creation?.................................................................................................................................... 23 Level of most often played character................................................................................................................................. 23 Would you
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Planning for Non-Player Characters by Learning from Demonstration
    University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2018 Planning For Non-Player Characters By Learning From Demonstration John Drake University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Computer Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Drake, John, "Planning For Non-Player Characters By Learning From Demonstration" (2018). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2756. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2756 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2756 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Planning For Non-Player Characters By Learning From Demonstration Abstract In video games, state of the art non-player character (NPC) behavior generation typically depends on hard-coding NPC actions. In many game situations however, it is hard to foresee how an NPC should behave to appear intelligent or to accommodate human preferences for NPC behavior. We advocate the creation of a more flexible method ot allow players (and developers) to train NPCs to execute novel behaviors which are not hard-coded. In particular, we investigate search-based planning approaches using demonstration to guide the search through high-dimensional spaces that represent the full state of the game. To this end, we developed the Training Graph heuristic, an extension of the Experience Graph heuristic, that guides a search smoothly and effectively even when a demonstration is unreachable in the search space, and ensures that more of the demonstrations are utilized to better train the NPC's behavior. To deal with variance in the initial conditions of such planning problems, we have developed heuristics in the Multi-Heuristic A* framework to adapt demonstration trace data to new problems.
    [Show full text]
  • Adapting Game Content with a Player Typology
    Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology LUT School of Engineering Science Software Engineering Master's Programme in Software Engineering and Digital Transformation Mika Savolainen ADAPTING GAME CONTENT WITH A PLAYER TYPOLOGY Examiners: D.Sc. (Tech.) Jussi Kasurinen Prof. D.Sc. (Tech.) Kari Smolander Supervisor: D.Sc. (Tech.) Jussi Kasurinen Prof. D.Sc. (Tech.) Kari Smolander TIIVISTELMÄ Lappeenrannan-Lahden teknillinen yliopisto School of Engineering Science Tietotekniikan koulutusohjelma Master's Programme in Software Engineering and Digital Transformation Mika Savolainen Pelisisällön mukauttaminen pelaajatypologialla Diplomityö 2019 54 sivua, 3 kuvaa, 13 taulukkoa, 2 liitettä Työn tarkastajat: D.Sc. (Tech.) Jussi Kasurinen Prof. D.Sc. (Tech.) Kari Smolander Hakusanat: pelit, pelaajatyypit, pelaajatypologia, pelinkehitys Keywords: video games, player types, player typology, game development Tämä diplomityö tutkii pelaajatypologian käyttöä peliominaisuuksien suunnitteluun ja kehittämiseen. Tätä varten toteutetaan kirjallisuuskatsaus ja kartoitetaan eri pelaajatypologioita, jonka avulla luodaan uusi pelaajatypologia. Tämän typologian perusteella suunnitellaan peliominaisuuksia, jotka lisätään toimintaseikkailupeliin. Pelaajatyyppien ja peliominaisuuksien välinen korrelaatio testataan tapaustutkimuksessa ja tulokset analysoidaan Pearsonin ja Spearmanin korrelaatiokertoimilla. ii ABSTRACT Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology LUT School of Engineering Science Software Engineering Master's Programme in Software Engineering and Digital
    [Show full text]
  • Player-Character Is What You Are in the Dark the Phenomenology of Immersion in Dungeons & Dragons
    Player-Character Is What You Are in the Dark The Phenomenology of Immersion in Dungeons & Dragons William J. White The idea of role-playing makes some people nervous – even some people who play role-playing games (RPGs). Yeah, sure, we pretend to be wizards and talk in funny voices, such players often say. So what? It’s just for fun. It’s not like it means anything. These players tend to find talk about role-playing games being “art” to be pretentious nonsense, and the idea that there could be philosophical value in a game like Dungeons & Dragons strikes them as preposterous on its face. “RPGs as instruction on ethics or metaphysics?” writes one such player in an online forum for discussing role-playing games. “Utter intellectualoid [sic] bullshit … [from those] who want to imagine they’re great thinkers thinking great thoughts while they play RPGs because they’d otherwise feel ashamed about pretending to be an elf.”1 By the same token, people who don’t play RPGs are often quite mystified about what could possibly be going on in a game of Dungeons & Dragons: There’s no board? How do you win? No winners? Then why do you play?2 Making sense of D&D as Dungeons & Dragons and Philosophy: Read and Gain Advantage Copyright © 2014. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated. All rights reserved. & Sons, Incorporated. © 2014. John Wiley Copyright on All Wisdom Checks, First Edition. Edited by Christopher Robichaud. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 82 Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy : Read and Gain Advantage on All Wisdom Checks, edited by Christopher Robichaud, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2014.
    [Show full text]
  • Magicrealm.Net Forum Archive
    WWW.MAGICREALM.NET FORUMS ARCHIVE This archive contains a complete record of all messages posted on the forums at MagicRealm.net The last message posted here is dated 14 Feb 2004. The archive is organized in the same manner as the forums were: two main sections, and seven subsections. Each discussion topic is linked to a bookmark. The discussion topics are sorted from oldest to newest within each subsection. This is the opposite of how they were sorted in the original forums, but it was easier to build and maintain the archive in this way. Known problems: The polls in the “Software” subsection could not be archived. Many of the URL’s came through as blank lines. The forum software had a flaw: at the start of each discussion topic, it lists the topic name followed by “started by [name]” – but instead of using the name of the person who started the topic, it used the name of the last person to post to that topic. MRNet Forums [Powered by Ikonboard] http://www.magicrealm.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi... Printable Version of Topic -MRNet Forums +--Forum: Expansions and Variants +---Topic: New Characters started by fiscused Posted by: fiscused on Sep. 04 2001,07:28 Thought I'd throw up the beginning of a new character idea here. Monk: A quiet, dedicated man, the monk is master of dealing damage, either with his bare hands or with weapons. advantages: Poverty: The monk begins with zero gold and may never gain gold in any way. He can barter with others using the gold value of items, but he may never acquire gold.
    [Show full text]
  • In- and Out-Of-Character
    Florida State University Libraries 2016 In- and Out-of-Character: The Digital Literacy Practices and Emergent Information Worlds of Active Role-Players in a New Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game Jonathan Michael Hollister Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION & INFORMATION IN- AND OUT-OF-CHARACTER: THE DIGITAL LITERACY PRACTICES AND EMERGENT INFORMATION WORLDS OF ACTIVE ROLE-PLAYERS IN A NEW MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE ROLE-PLAYING GAME By JONATHAN M. HOLLISTER A Dissertation submitted to the School of Information in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2016 Jonathan M. Hollister defended this dissertation on March 28, 2016. The members of the supervisory committee were: Don Latham Professor Directing Dissertation Vanessa Dennen University Representative Gary Burnett Committee Member Shuyuan Mary Ho Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii For Grandpa Robert and Grandma Aggie. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you to my committee, for their infinite wisdom, sense of humor, and patience. Don has my eternal gratitude for being the best dissertation committee chair, mentor, and co- author out there—thank you for being my friend, too. Thanks to Shuyuan and Vanessa for their moral support and encouragement. I could not have asked for a better group of scholars (and people) to be on my committee. Thanks to the other members of 3 J’s and a G, Julia and Gary, for many great discussions about theory over many delectable beers.
    [Show full text]
  • Money Cheat for Champions of Norrath
    Money cheat for champions of norrath PS2 Cheats - Champions of Norrath: This page contains a list of cheats, codes, Easter eggs, tips, and other secrets for Champions of Norrath. Game Boy · Dreamcast · DVD. Champions Of Norrath: Realms Of EverQuest . Sell the duplicated inventory items for money, then repeat. Improved character. Champions of Norrath Cheats. Champions of Norrath cheats, Tips, and Codes for PS2. Also see GameShark Codes for more Champions of Norrath cheat codes. Jump to: Tip . Item and Money Duplication. You need at least one memory card. Champions of Norrath: Realms of EverQuest Cheats and Cheat Codes, PlayStation 2. items, infinite attack points and getting extra items and more money. I found this out by accident, but it was so funny I had to do it more. In the Beginning of the game load up on explodeing potions, then throw them a.., Champions. Champions of Norrath: Realms of Everquest Cheats Unlimited Money & Items The idea behind the cheat is to import your own character into a map you. Copy Items and Money; Start a two player game then press Start and select "Add/Remove Player." Import your first character to the player two. Champions of Norrath PS2 Cheats. Champions of Norrath PS2 Level 20 Character: While your character is still at level 1, hold L1 + R2 + Triangle + R3 to raise. i hope that i have helped u^^ thxx 4 watching and please leave a comment! Champions of Norrath: Realms of Everquest cheats & more for PlayStation 2 (PS2). Cheats . Sell the duplicated inventory items for money, then repeat. Sorry for the squeaking of the camera.
    [Show full text]
  • Modelling Player Understanding of Non-Player Character Paths
    Proceedings of the Fourteenth Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference (AIIDE 2018) Modelling Player Understanding of Non-Player Character Paths Mengxi Xoey Zhang, Clark Verbrugge McGill University Montreal,´ Canada [email protected], [email protected] Abstract enable an exploration tool to better understand and experi- ment with what information becomes available to a player, Modelling a player’s understanding of NPC movements can given specific NPC routes, level geometry, and incomplete be useful for adapting gameplay to different play styles. For observation. We thus define a baseline system that allows stealth games, what a player knows or suspects of enemy movements is important to how they will navigate towards for exhaustive modelling of possible NPC positions, con- a solution. In this work, we build a uniform abstraction of strained by the gap-time and filtered by knowledge of level potential player path knowledge based on their partial obser- geometry. Players may also attribute movement character- vations. We use this representation to compute different path istics or make assumptions about NPC behaviours as well. estimates according to different player expectations. We aug- Our design naturally incorporates different constraint mod- ment our work with a user study that validates what kinds of els that reduce pathing possibilities to better represent player NPC behaviour a player may expect, and develop a tool that expectation. can build and explore appropriate (expected) paths. We find Algorithmic and representational design is supported by that players prefer short simple paths over long or complex a non-trivial experimentation and visualization tool built paths with looping or backtracking behaviour.
    [Show full text]
  • Acquisition of Innova Q4 Investor Presentation – February 2021 Eg7 in Short
    ACQUISITION OF INNOVA Q4 INVESTOR PRESENTATION – FEBRUARY 2021 EG7 IN SHORT 2,061 EG7 is a unique eco-system within the video games industry consisting of: SEKm REVENUE 1. An IP-portfolio consisting of world-class brands with both own IP’s such as P R O F O R M A 2 0 2 0 Everquest, PlanetSide, H1Z1 and My Singing Monsters, as well as licensed IP’s such as Lord of the Rings, DC Universe, Dungeons and Dragons and MechWarrior. o This Games-as-a-Service (“GaaS”) portfolio accounts for the majority of the revenues and profits with predictable monthly revenues. 2. Petrol, the number one gaming marketing agency. o That is why Activision, Embracer, Ubisoft among other repeat clients use 652 Petrol. SEKm ADJ. EBITDA 3. Sold Out, our publisher that has never had an unprofitable release. P R O F O R M A o That is why Frontier, Team17 and Rebellion among other repeat clients use 2 0 2 0 Sold Out. FY2020 PRO FORMA FINANCIALS (SEKm) CURRENT EG7 GROUP INNOVA TOTAL NEW GROUP 32% Revenue 1,721 340 2,061 ADJ. EBITDA MARGIN Adjusted EBITDA 512 140 652 Adjusted EBITDA margin 30% 41% 32% Number of employees 635 200 835 Net cash position 568 30 598 835 EMPLOYEES Total number of outstanding shares (million) 77 +10 87 EG7 PLATFORM VALUE CHAIN – WE CONTROL THE VALUE CHAIN DEVELOPING MARKETING PUBLISHING DISTRIBUTING WE TAKE THE COMPANIES WE ACQUIRE TO A NEW LEVEL PORTFOLIO OF WORLD-CLASS IP RELEASED 1999 RELEASED 2012 RELEASED 2015 RELEASED 2012 5 RELEASED 2007 RELEASED 2011 RELEASED 2006 RELEASED 2013 SELECTION OF GAME PIPELINE 10+ 40+ 5+ 10+ UNDISCLOSED MARKETING CAMPAIGNS REMASTERED / PROJECTS PROJECTS AND RELEASES NEW VERSIONS OF PORTFOLIO HISTORY & FINANCIALS +302% Revenue per Year SEK 2,061.0 (Pro-forma Revenue) Revenue Growth per Year +573% SEK 512.4m Contract worth Consulting in SEK 40m with (Pro-forma Revenue) Development Leyou +52% -3% +586% SEK 7.5m SEK 11.4m SEK 11.1m SEK 76.1m 2015-08 2016-08 2017-08 2018-121 2019-12 2020-12 1) Changed to calendar year.
    [Show full text]
  • Building a Recommendation System for Everquest Landmark's
    Building a Recommendation System for EverQuest Landmark’s Marketplace Ben G. Weber Director of BI & Analytics, Daybreak Game Company Motivation ● Content discovery is becoming a challenge for players ● Questions ● What games to purchase? ● Which content to download? ● What items to purchase? Daybreak’s revenue-sharing program for user-created content Infantry Gear in PlanetSide 2 Housing Items in Landmark Recommender Goals ● Make relevant content easier to discover ● Recommend content based on gameplay style, friends, and prior purchases ● Improve conversion and monetization metrics Recommender Results ● Offline Experiments ● 80% increase in recall rate over a top sellers list ● Marketplace Results ● Recommendations drive over 10% of item sales ● Used by 20% of purchasers ● Lifetime value of users that purchased recommendations is 10% higher than other purchasers Types of Recommendations ● Item Ratings ● The recommender provides a rating for an item the player has not yet rated ● Item Rankings ● The recommender provides a list of the most relevant items for a player Recommendation Algorithms ● Content-Based Filtering ● Collaborative Filtering ● Item-to-Item ● User-to-User Collaborative Filtering ● Rates items for a player based on the player’s similarity to other players ● Does not require meta-data to be maintained ● Can use explicit and implicit data collection ● Challenges include scalability and cold starts User-Based Collaborative Filtering Similar User ● Users A B ● Items 101 102 103 Recommendation Algorithm Overview Computing a
    [Show full text]
  • Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game Chat Project
    [Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game Chat] 175 Lakeside Ave, Room 300A Phone: (802)865-5744 Fax: (802)865-6446 1/21/2016 http://www.lcdi.champlain.edu Disclaimer: This document contains information based on research that has been gathered by employee(s) of The Senator Patrick Leahy Center for Digital Investigation (LCDI). The data contained in this project is submitted voluntarily and is unaudited. Every effort has been made by LCDI to assure the accuracy and reliability of the data contained in this report. However, LCDI nor any of our employees make no representation, warranty or guarantee in connection with this report and hereby expressly disclaims any liability or responsibility for loss or damage resulting from use of this data. Information in this report can be downloaded and redistributed by any person or persons. Any redistribution must maintain the LCDI logo and any references from this report must be properly annotated. Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................................ 2 Background: ........................................................................................................................................................................ 2 Purpose and Scope: ............................................................................................................................................................. 3 Research Questions: ...........................................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • CS 592: Security Practicum
    CS 592: Security Practicum Lecture 2 On-line PC games and their cheats Popular on-line PC games • FPS (First-person shooters) – You control a gun/crosshair – You shoot and kill other players doing the same • MMORPG (Massively multi-player on-line role- playing games) – You control an avatar – You kill other avatars to gain loot and power • RTS (Real-time strategy) – You control an army – You go head-to-head against another player’s army Popular FPS games • Half-Life/Counter-Strike (1/2), Battlefield (2 & 2142) • Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Call of Duty (1/2) Popular MMORPG games • World of Warcraft, Lineage (1 & 2) • Runescape, Final Fantasy XI, EverQuest (1 & 2) Popular RTS games • Warcraft 3/Starcraft, Age of Empires • Warhammer 40000, Command & Conquer 3 Cheats • Achilles heel of the PC gaming platform (besides crappy integrated graphics cards) – Must be fixed to compete with consoles – Causes legitimate, paying players to quit – Creates bad word-of-mouth to discourage new players – Wrecks virtual economies in MMORPGs Types of cheats • Information exposure – Wallhacks (OGC), Maphacks (Warcraft 3), Chest hacks (showEQ) • Automation – Aimbot (OGC), Troop command macros (Warcraft 3), Auto-looting (WoW QuickLoot), AFK bots • Protocol – Reset cheat (Half-Life), Unit fabrication (Warcraft 3), Item duping (MMO), Speed hack (Half-Life), Hit point hack (Diablo), Disconnect cheat • Game bugs – Game-specific coding errors that lead to unintended behavior Information exposure cheats • Server or peer sends complete information to other client
    [Show full text]
  • Last Children of the Gods
    Last Children of The Gods Adventures in a fantastic world broken by the Gods By Xar [email protected] Version: alpha 9 Portals of Convenience Portals of Convenience 1 List of Tables 3 List of Figures 4 1 Childrens Stories 5 1.1 Core Mechanic ............................................... 5 1.2 Attributes.................................................. 6 1.3 Approaches................................................. 6 1.4 Drives.................................................... 7 1.5 Considerations ............................................... 8 2 A Saga of Heroes 9 2.1 Character Creation............................................. 9 2.2 Player Races ................................................ 9 2.3 Talents.................................................... 11 2.4 Class..................................................... 13 2.5 Secondary Characteristics......................................... 14 2.6 Bringing the character to life ....................................... 14 2.7 Considerations ............................................... 14 3 Grimoire 16 3.1 Defining Mages............................................... 16 3.2 The Shadow Weave............................................. 16 3.3 Elemental Magic .............................................. 16 3.4 Rune Magic................................................. 16 3.5 True Name Magic.............................................. 16 3.6 Blood Magic ................................................ 17 3.7 Folklore ..................................................
    [Show full text]