I’m writing this during one of my regular trips up to Leeds. It’s not so much that sitting on a train encourages me to write as much as giving me something to occupy my mind. Besides, it makes a change from plugging in to an iPod, closing your eyes and pretending to sleep for five hours. After the amount of caffeine I’ve consumed this morning, sleep is something that would elude me. So, time to fire up the laptop and make the best of it
While we’re on the subject of train travel, I’ve recently discovered that CrossCountry Trains will be removing the buffet car from all their services in the next few months. Apparently this decision has been made by “public opinion”, and that customers would prefer to have additional luggage space instead of a shop to pick up refreshments on their long-distance journeys. Now, far be it from me to fly in the face of public opinion, but it does feel like a rather short-sighted decision. With the shop, you also have an additional member of staff on hand should the situation arise. Besides, I find it difficult to imagine that there would be much space to gain by its removal. Perhaps the public will come to regret expressing an opinion in the future. Time will tell
Anyhow, time to move on to things technical, and on this the subject of projects. The World of Warcraft Model Viewer – a program that allows one to view creatures, items and so on from the game data files – is on the move once again. The machinima community rely on this program for a large amount of their video work, and have been unable to use it since the Wrath of the Lich King expansion released last month. With the original developer on an extended leave of absence, it appeared as if the project was to be stuck in limbo. Luckily, a team of coders have descended on the project and managed to get various upgrades in place, with a new version of the software to be released shortly. Crucially though, the source code will also be made available through the popular Sourceforge service, allowing other developers to provide further updates and hopefully prevent the project from stalling in the future
Next up, further community project development. Earthenring.EU, after an initial flurry of activity, seems to have died down somewhat, particularly on the content front. I’m currently thinking of ways to encourage users to generate more content, partly so that they use the site more often but also so that they feel encouraged to contribute more to the melting pot that is the realm’s backstory. I’m thinking that a Wiki Watch might be a good weekly move, highlighting a couple of new articles each week. Ideally though I want to farm the generation of this editorial or opinion based content out to other people, rather than producing my own lacklustre point of view. It seems that getting this engagement from other users is the hardest part – everyone has a thirst to consume while few have a desire to create. Not that I’m saying it’s a bad thing per se, just that it demonstrates how people behave differently in a given situation
Finally, to conclude, a bit of economics news. I read recently about how the videogames industry expects to weather the economic downturn rather better than others. Executives are currently banking on consumers purchasing videogames as “value for money” entertainment, rather than spending it on other leisure activities elsewhere. The trouble is, while I can appreciate this in the short term, I would disagree with the long term outlook. Sony are still struggling to shift the PlayStation 3 in significant numbers, while the lower-spec Wii is selling like hot cakes. I’m wondering how much gaming innovation and entertainment can be provided on a single iteration of console hardware before titles start to feel repetitive and derivative. It is possible that the industry will continue to generate new titles for a time, but will they be able to continue without new hardware to sustain their development? History is uncertain on this one. I guess the only similar industry to look to is printed media, as the form has gone through little change over the years, yet people still buy new books. But with videogames the story is just one facet of an overall experience, combined with an art direction, sound direction and musical score. Do all of these add to creating greater diversity, or will they lead to a merging mish-mash when deprived of new tech to expand on to? We’ll have to see.
Well, that’s it from me for another week or so. Till next time, thanks for reading.
Tags: earthenring.eu, economics, travel