Sunday 30 June 2002

Pic of the day: Don't mess with the heroic female! From the Freedom Force demo's character generator. Wonder how long before someone creates a MindMistress skin ...

We co-create worlds

Something I did not point out yesterday in my report on the superhero game Freedom Force. They released a free mesh & skin editor some weeks before the game, so that when the game came there were already lots of new skins to download. Some of these are of course depicting copyrighted characters from DC, Marvel etc. But that's not something Irrational Studios has done, oh no, they are as innocent as newborn snow white lambs. And to the best of my knowledge, none of the major labels have so far chased down the fans who made likenesses of their characters, even though it's printed in every issue that you just don't do that.

But wait, there is more! A while later, when people had played through the game, they released a campaign editor. Yes indeed, thanks to the eagerness of fans, you are no longer bound to the 22 or 23 original scenarios that constituted one campaign. Now you may have new maps, new scenarios, and new campaigns. The sky is the limit – or rather the size of your hard disk is.

This is actually a rational move by Irrational. They release the game with enough action to get you started – reviews say 25-30 hours, but those are professionals – probably a couple weeks of fun-filled evenings for the casual player. Then the fans are doing the rest of the work for free, and they love it. That's pure genius, if you ask me.

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Nor is this the only game that is user-expandable. One of my recent favorites, Morrowind, comes with a free editor included. This tool is the same as the designers used to finish the game, and lets you add anything from a single object in an existing house, to entire new cities on an entirely new island, if you so desire. There are already new classes and astrological signs, houses to live in, and a teleport ring that takes you to any of a dozen or so cities in the game. And of course the occasional adult-themed add-on, not that I have tried any of those.

This reminds me of good old days when online multiplayer games were text-based, and were called MUD or MUSH or MUX (where MU stood for Multi-User). There are some of them yet, but they are kinda less intuitive and accessible than graphical games, if you can afford those. Anyway, any self respecting MUD had builders who added new areas, while the game was running. You described the place, room by room, and connected the rooms (which could be outdoors, for that matter). Finally you connected it all to the main game and let the fans in.

Civilization II and its sequels, Alpha Centauri and Civilization III, were also expandable. There are a lot of scenarios for Civ2, though sadly there are so many versions of the game that you're not sure they will run. MicroProse released a couple add-ons themselves, my favorite being "Fantastic Worlds". So again, modification and expansion is not something new and suddenly invented. But there has been way too little of it for my tastes. I think some companies are kinda jealous. They want to release an add-on or two, but they won't let anyone compete with them. But in the long run, I think we will see that letting the fans work for free is good business.

And besides, we like to create worlds, too.

(The expression "We create worlds" was a trademark of Origin, a now long gone games developer. I think they were bought out by Electronic Arts, who may still own the rights to that phrase. While I'm driving by, let me add that the concept of trademarking everyday remarks is ridiculous. I urge you all to show this suppression of free speech the respect it deserves, that is, none.)