1. Apps (especially games) targeting a specific device could be coming to an end soon. Google’s announcement of Chrome being able to run native code in a sandbox (caution: really dry technical presentation) is a game-changer. Bye-bye OS-specific applications that you buy on (ugh) physical media. Hello things that you open in a browser, which have full web connectivity and presence, and which will run on any platform supporting it. Yes, I’m well aware of the less-than-illustrious history of thin-client network computing. What I think makes this different is that Google have already got the platform in the hands of tens (if not hundreds) of millions of customers. For free. All they need to do to enable it is flip a switch. Oh, and they’re about to release an operating system based on this technology.
2. Games are about to get big. By this, I don’t mean that people will buy more copies of games, nor that mainstream game devices will become more popular (though both are a given in the short term). No, I mean that more people are about to start making games. There are a couple of things that are bringing this about. The first is the massive ubiquity of platforms that can play games, and the second is the emergence of content-creation tools that don’t require computer-science or art degrees to use. Unity3D, which coincidentally was announced as an early launch platform for creating content which runs under Google’s Native Code system, is just such a platform, but there are many more with similar aims, such as MIT’s Scratch.
3. Which brings me to: the next big software revolution will be in the creation of interpreted content. What I mean by interpreted content is content that the user does not have to create in painstaking detail. Instead, the user sets guidelines and parameters for what they want, and the software interprets the user’s intention and generates content. Procedural content has gotten us most of the way there, and there are some fantastic (though limited) examples such as Spore’s creature creator, the MakeHuman project, and LaDiDa available right now. However, the next wave will seamlessly intermediate between clumsy, inexact humans and the rigorous demands of content creation. I’d really like it if the interface to such software sounded like Jarvis from the Iron Man movies.
4. Driving is an under-utilised platform for gaming, and could make roads much, much safer. Think networked vehicles with sensors that score your driving according to how safe and green it is, with high-score tables, local and national leagues, full social media connectivity, etc. Quite why the full extent of car manufacturers’ use of game mechanics so far is a tree that lights up green in one eco-friendly Honda remains an utter mystery to me.
5. Talking of people that don’t get it… copyright reform has got to happen now. When everyone can make content, and content can go everywhere, people will be remixing and creating on a scale that utterly dwarfs the current Big Content industries. We need to ensure a strong creative commons and a legal framework that enables people to draw from the rich tapestry of our collective culture without fear of prosecution.

So that took a lot longer than expected, mostly due it turning into a stream of consciousness that I had to edit down from about 11 different ideas that suddenly occurred to me. More on points 2 and 3 coming soon.

I thought at the time that I had a pretty good idea of what I was letting myself in for. It’s a games console, I told myself. How hard can it be?

As it turns out, the answer is very hard indeed.

Wii Fit features a very wide range of games and exercises, far more so than I exepcted. There are Yoga Exercises for posture, strength and balance, Muscle Exercises for strength, Aerobic Games for burning off the calories and building endurance, and Balance Games for balance and swearing loudly at the TV. With a dozen or more varying activities in each category, and several levels of difficulty for each, there’s an awful lot to keep both mind and body occupied.

I spent the first couple of days gently easing my way into the new regime with an hour or so on the aerobic and balance games, and after a shaky start started racking up decent scores on the easiest levels. The yoga and muscle exercises looked just a little too boring (and frankly, intimidating) for me to get into them until yesterday.

I assumed that the yoga and muscle exercises would not involve the Balance Board (the handy peripheral that makes Wii Fit possible in the first place). Again, I was proven wrong when I loaded up the first Deep Breathing exercise. Asked to stand as still as possible whilst maintaining an even breathing rhythm, I found myself swaying slightly with each breath, a little indicator of my centre of gravity weaving from side to side as I over-compensated trying to keep it within the target area.

I’d write more, but right now a skinny virtual woman is needs to kick my ass with some impossible yoga poses.

Originally found here

Of course, since I’m working on an entirely new system, that meant digging out the old CDs and reinstalling from scratch.

I didn’t mind waiting half an hour whilst 2.5GB of data was copied from the antiquated 4CD install set. I was pretty much expecting a major patch process afterwards, so I resigned myself to the 450MB automated download.

Two hours later, ready for some old-time noob-zone smiting, I clicked on “Play”, and the game started.

Then it stopped.

Apparently the 450MB it had just downloaded wasn’t the most recent patch, so it started the patching process again, upgrading to the magic “version 2.0.3″.

Only… 750MB to go.

Another 4 hours passed, with not much more to do than watch a progress bar. So, I left it running and got some work done, had lunch, watched a movie, did some more work, and went shopping.

Finally, 6 hours and 40 minutes after first clicking on “install”, the patch finished, and I was ready to play.

Logged in. Agreed to stupid click-wrap license of dubious legality. Clicked “play”.

Loading… loading…

Patching?

Yes, after 6 hours of downloading patches, WoW needed more electrons from the internet

At this point I left the computer entirely for the next 6 hours, because having downloaded 1.2GB of patch data, WoW was now automatically downloading another 1.25GB. That’s a total of 2.45GB on top of the four 700MB CDs originally installed.

It’s now about 12 hours after I started installing, and I’ve just watched the introduction movie for Burning Crusade. Logged-in, full of anticipation and desperate to start rolling a new character. Maybe spend some time playing this game that in the course of the last two years I’ve spent some £230 on.

But no. It couldn’t be that simple. Because after downloading and installing that whopping 1.25GB patch, showing me the introduction movie, letting me log into the game for the fourth time, WoW needs another patch.

This time it’s 219MB. Almost nothing in comparison to what’s gone before. Another 45 minutes and it should be here.

But after nearly 13 hours, I’m not particularly sure I want to play WoW any more.

Maybe I’ll just uninstall it again.

Update: 15 hours in and — you’ve guessed it — another patch. That’s five separate patches to install this game.

This one’s only 19MB,  but once again there was no warning whatsoever until I’d actually logged into the game. Seriously though, what would it take for Blizzard to implement a simple version check on the game launcher that states what version you are currently running and compare it to the latest patch?

Players in a persistent virtual world inhabit two states — two parallel lives.

When not active in the world, players take on the role of NPCs, their bodies under the control of basic AI routines that go about daily life in any of the towns and villages that scatter the world. The fulfil the roles of members of a community — undertaking production, vending, civic duties that players would for the most part find unsatisfying.

When a player becomes active in the world their character undergoes a transformation from their mundane life into an agent for change in the world. It’s the player’s choice what form this agency takes — they could choose to fulfil their role in a society actively undertaking tasks that the game’s AI would otherwise perform — or they can act out an alternative role beyond the boundaries of normal life and follow the course of hero’s journey that the game allows for.