3D Virtual Worlds vs. MMORPGs

I have spent 9 years exploring 3D Virtual Worlds, and 8 years playing MMORPGs.  For the longest time they felt like two different experiences.  3D Virtual Worlds are a creative outlet, while MMORPGs are a mostly cooperative gaming experience.  It seems that recently they have been merging.

I have not been adding many new virtual worlds to my master list lately.  While I am probably missing some, the main reason I have not been adding new ones is because there haven’t been any.  This is probably due to good old capitalism.  The potential market just isn’t as big as people thought, and the market that is there is covered really well by Second Life, IMVU, and OpenSim.

In the last couple of years, the growth in 3D gaming has been in free to play MMORPGs.  Not only do they attract a crowd with new gaming experiences, they have co-opted the social model of the 3D Virtual Worlds, creating central meeting places, and free “bases” you can decorate and host private gatherings.  They also have special interest groups you can join in game to meet like minded people.

Basically, everything that makes 3D Virtual Worlds popular, can now be found in MMORPGs too, except user created content.

This is why I now believe that if a complex “Metaverse” like OASIS in Ready Player One is  ever built, it is more likely to be in the form of an MMORPG rather than a 3D Virtual World.

We then must ask the question: How important is “user created content”?  Well, I learned early on during my 9 years of exploring that “content” is vitally important, in fact it is THE most important factor in the success of a 3D Virtual World, and in truth it is also one of the most important factor in MMORPGs, too (“playability” slightly trumps it however).  Allowing user created content is the fastest way to get content, but it is a two edged sword, because the vast majority of user created content is junk.  That user created content has to be loaded on the fly via asset servers which slows down and weakens the user experience.  So if a 3DVW or MMORPG can provide enough “content” without resorting to the user created variety, it is a better experience for the player.

On the other hand, creating the “user created content” is in and of itself the thing that attracts many to 3D Virtual Worlds in the first place.  It is one of the things I have enjoyed most about Second Life and There.com.

The truth is that content creators are seriously outnumbered by both socializers (especially since most content creators are also socializers), and gamers.  Now that MMORPGs are working to appeal to both of the latter groups, it is only the content creators who feel that 3DVWs are the better way to go.  For everyone else, there is simply more things to do in an MMORPG.

As far as “content” goes, competition between MMORPGs is fierce enough that the newest ones are constantly raising the bar on the amount (and quality) of the content they offer.  The thing that triggered this post is my exploration of “Lions Arch” in Guild Wars 2.  I have posted a lot of reviews of 3D builds, but I would say without question that the new “Lions Arch” is the most beautiful 3D build I have ever seen in any game I have ever played, regardless of genre.  It is a true masterpiece of the art form.

As I stated in a previous post, 3D Virtual Worlds are in a slow decline.  It is the competition with free to play MMORPGs that is doing it.  The MMOs are incorporating the stuff that makes 3DVWs popular.  If they are to survive, the 3DVWs need to start incorporating what makes MMOs popular.  They are just starting to do that.  The merging of the two genres seems inevitable.  I for one am looking forward to that, because it is only going to get more awesome.

A Quick Peek at Guild Wars 2

There are a lot of MMORPGs out there.  Three new major ones are coming out this summer Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, and TERA.  They all claim to be very different from the MMORPGs that came before.  I cannot tell you if that is true of the latter two, but with Guild Wars 2, it is very true.

I’m a long time player of Guild Wars, and have written about it some on this blog.  I wasn’t sure what to expect with GW2. I heard it was radically different from Guild Wars and it is.  Except for the lore, the beautiful scenery, and the fact you are only limited to a few powers at a time,  GW1 and GW2 have very little in common.  There are too many differences to discuss, and other people have already.  So I’ll just focus on my own experience.

This beta weekend, they only had 3 of the 5 races to choose from.  Humans (which is the only playable race in GW1), Narns (which are just taller and more tattooed versions of Humans), and Charr.  Looking for something completely different, the first character I created was a Charr.  The character creator part seems to be broken for the Charr, but I rolled a female Engineer. After a brief introductory cut scene, I was handed a pistol and thrown out on a mission with dozens of other players fighting off dozens of bad guys.  No wandering around looking for NPCs to give you tutorials before you finally get to kill some lowly level one skale, like the first few minutes of GW1.  In GW2, you are handed a weapon then thrown into a battle.

The thing I least like about most MMORPGs is the repetitive button pushing:  Push button 1 then 2 then 3 then 4, then back to 1 then 2 then 3 then 5 because 4 is still recharging, then heal yourself by pushing button 6, then repeat.  GW1 has a lot less of that because once a bad guy is targeted, your character will continue to fire the weapon until the creature is dead, or until you stop it. You only push buttons for additional skills.  GW2 does the same thing, only you push the 1 button instead of the space bar to fire (the space bar is now the jump button, there was no jumping in GW1).  Not only that GW2 allows you to fight while moving.  No more just standing there and firing like in some 19th century battlefield, you get to use guerrilla tactics, if you can figure out how.

Also gone are the old “Go to NPC, get mission, run a long ways to mission, do it, run along ways back to NPC” time sinks.  The mission giving NPCs are right where the mission takes place, and you get credit and rewarded upon completion immediately.  But that is not all.  As you travel from place to place, there are “event” missions randomly starting up around you.  These have big rewards, involve a lot of players in the area, and are usually a lot of fun.  Even though GW2 is mostly played in an open environment, things like kill stealing and reward grabbing do not happen. Everyone who helps in a kill or a mission gets credit and is similarly rewarded.

The level at which you play at also varies by where you are.  I was doing a neglected low level mission, and noticed my hard earned 700 hit points were reduced to around 500.  Because I was playing a level 3 mission, my character was lowered temporarily to a level 3 player.  That might seem bad, but it means you play all missions at the level they were designed for and everyone in the area who is doing the same mission is on a level playing field.  No more taking your level 20 Krytan character to Ascalon to do The Northern Wall mission designed for level 5 and having it feel way too easy.

Underwater combat is fun, though this weekend did not have much of it.  When the full game comes out there is supposed to be a whole continents of underwater content.  When I discovered the underwater stuff, I was playing a ranger with a cat for a companion.  The cat was not very happy with the underwater swimming, but I found an amphibious drake to train.  When I’m above ground, I can use my trusty bow and cat companion.  Underwater I have a harpoon and drake companion, and a breather so I can stay down as long as I don’t take too much damage.

Probably the biggest change between GW1 and GW2 is character development.  Like GW1, there are multiple professions, each with their own unique talents.  In GW2, there are no secondary professions.  Instead, character variation is done by choice of weapons.  I always liked the longbow, which is a Ranger weapon.  In GW1, any character could wield a longbow by taking ranger as a second profession, but they usually weren’t very good at it.  In GW2, Warriors can use longbows natively, and they have a unique skill set when they do.  I’m not a fan of melee combat, but now that I can build a Warrior with strong armor and give the Warrior a longbow (or a Rifle) and have it do ranged combat, well that is just awesome.  A thief can act like an assassin with two daggers, or like Lara Croft with two pistols.  However you want to play.

Beta weekend is all about trying stuff out and enjoying the beautiful scenery.  Knowing full well that any characters I create will just get erased after this weekend, I did not concentrate on building any up.  I’d play the early levels, then roll a new character, trying all the professions and races.  At the early levels, Ranger is the most fun, but I suspect that will change at the later levels.  Engineers are kind of boring until they get turret access, light armored professions are a bit squishy.

Death in GW2 still needs work.  You can try to revive yourself, but if you succeed, you are often one shot killed rather quickly.  Players can all revive each other, so if you do die where other players are, hopefully they will help you up.  If you don’t want to wait, you can teleport to any wayport you have been to before, but that costs in game gold.  Death penalty, like many other games, involves armor damage which costs game gold to repair (and if you don’t repair it, eventually your character will start running around in their underwear). In other words, dying will cost you.  The death penalty in GW1 was a reduction in max health and energy that went away at the next village you went to.  I kind of like the GW1 version better, but it will not work in GW2 because towns do not work the same way.

Beta bugs aside, Guild Wars 2 is an awesome new MMORPG that is perfect for the MMORPG fan who is tired of the same recycled D&D/WoW model of game play.  Looking forward to the full release.

On the Madness of Crowds

I thought I’d post about a common problem in 3D art, and what I have done to solve it.  It is called the “crowd problem” and has been a difficulty with all 3D animation.  The first 3D animated movie Toy Story solved it by never having any crowd scenes.  AntZ, the second 3D animated movie had hundreds of ants doing the exact same thing which is easier than in A Bugs Life which had dozens of identical ants doing completely different things.

The above picture has 35 3D people in it. It serves as the background picture for about 4 or 5 pictures where things are happening in the foreground.  Here is what I did to solve the “crowd problem”:

In the Date Ariane game, this was the biggest crowd scene in the game, consisting of 8 high resolution characters.  The giant gap in the middle was filled in with Ariane, and that creepy guy who tries to fondle Ariane on the dance floor.  The absolute maximum of high res characters I can produce at one time is five, and I have already posted a few pics from Something in the Air with five people in it.  The above pic was produced by rendering the four people on the left and the four people on the right seperately, then combining the picture.  This is a very time consuming process however.

Date Ariane supposedly takes place on a weekday when places are not so busy, SITA takes place on a Saturday, and every place is crowded. I need ways to shortcut.

The solution is a tool that generates generic crowds for you called M.O.M Crowd Generator.  It throws in flat panel images of people walking or standing which can fill in a background crowd fairly easily.  The primary issue I have using it is that all the people have a white outline around them like older movies when they did green screen effects.  A little blurring makes the outline less noticeable, and since they are background characters, I can hide them with high res foreground characters.  Notice that the front characters I’m using are the exact same I used in Date Ariane (even the exact same poses).  Much of this crowd will be hidden by 4 to 5 characters in the immediate foreground.

One of the places you can take a date in SITA is the amusement park.  The same amusement park in Date Ariane.  If you compare this picture with the Date Ariane one, you will find the main difference (besides the obvious different character in the foreground) is the M.O.M generated crowd in the background to make the place look a lot busier. The props and the high res characters are identical in both.

Another crowd scene is the above mentioned house party scene.  This requires a better crowd than the M.O.M tool can produce.  Especially since I wanted most of the crowd to be holding the traditional red Dixie cups you see at all of these house parties.

I also wanted a dance crowd where everyone is actually dancing.  The solution is to use low rez male and female characters.  While I can only manage 5 high res characters in a scene at a time, I can easily manage 30 low res characters in a scene at a time.  They can do pretty much everything that high res characters can do except look good close up, so I throw some high res people into the foreground to make the crowd look better.  There are some major flaws with these low res characters, especially the females.  Someone decided to add ambient lighting to the skin to make them look better in daytime, but my crowd scenes are set at night, and it took a bit of effort to get rid of that ambient lighting (hint: pp2 files which tell how to texture and light characters are just text files that you can manipulate in Notepad using find and replace.)

I still have two more big crowd scenes to create, one on a beach during daytime, and one in a ComicCon type setting with a lot of costumed characters.  So back to work.

Date Ariane aka Date Simulator 7.2 The Final Update

I knew after doing the 7.1 update that I would do one more update to Ariane’s Dating Simulator, or as I am now dubbing it Date Ariane.  This update consists of three or four minor changes, mostly updates of the home store and the dress shop.  Also the “Date Experience” code shows up at the end of the date.  The date experience is a 1 to 5 digit hexadecimal code that you can enter into the Something’s In The Air sequel game (when it finally gets released) to unlock some custom content related to the first date you had. I explain more here.

You can get the full 79MB new version via links here, or if you already have a stand alone 7.1, you can download the 1MB update file here.

This is a screenshot of the new dress shop.  It is designed to match the one in the sequel.  The old dress shop was made from a screen shot of The Sims 2.  Above is a picture of the new “Home Place” store, an IKEA like box store, the old pic was a screen shot from a furniture store in Second Life,  the new is a bunch of assorted furniture and picture props I have thrown together, which looks a lot nicer.  The two photos over her left shoulder are the options to choose from for Ariane’s living room wall.  The painting over her right shoulder is the one hanging in my real living room wall (the real one is hanging in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York).  The “New Poster” section are posters that show up in SITA.

With these updates, I have now eliminated all video game screenshot backgrounds from Date Ariane, with the exception of one location: the grass and trees from the park scenes come from Second Life.  It’s all freebie library grass and trees and all the park foreground is 3D models so I don’t feel obligated to update.

This will be the final version in HTML format.  The 800 x 500 graphics are too small to bother with better graphics, and making larger pictures would use up too much bandwidth.  One of these days I may release a stand alone version with HD quality graphics, maybe for the 10th anniversary which isn’t for a couple of years yet.  Meanwhile, I still have the sequel to finish.

Book Review: “Ready Player One”

So far I have only done one book review on this blog.  I read more than that of course, I just stick to talking about books that echo the themes of this blog.  The novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline does just that.

Ready Player One is one of the latest young adult dystopian books, though not as sick and twisted as the highly overrated Hunger Games.  It is set in the 2040′s when gas is so scarce that everyone abandons the suburbs for the big cities, but the cities don’t have room.  Oklahoma City comes up with the idea to build highrise trailer parks.  The books protagonist 17 year old Wade lives in the laundry room of a double wide, occupied by his aunt, her latest boyfriend, and two other families.

But Wade spends most of his time hiding in an abandoned van in a junk yard which he powers with a bicycle powered generator.  He jacks into a 3D Virtual World called OASIS, which thanks to technology allowing thousands of players to play in an area lag free, OASIS has become the 3D internet.  Wade attends a virtual high school, getting a better education than he would in an overcrowded school he lives in.

You can probably understand why I like this book so much.  The world is very similar to Snow Crash in that there are two worlds, a dystopian stink hole called the real world, and a utopian paradise everyone prefers to live in.  Ready Player One has a distinct advantage over Snow Crash, however, 20 years of hindsight.  Many of the conceptual ideas of the “Metaverse” in Snow Crash seem rather dumb with today’s technology.  OASIS, on the other hand, seems plausible if you take today’s technology and project it forward three decades.

A major theme of the book is the difference between the online world and the real world.  Our avatar personification vs. who we really are; Living in a fantasy world vs. dealing with the real world.  I have delved deeper than the novel has on these topics, but the novel does a good job dealing with them.

The central plot involves the creator of OASIS, a game designer turned multibillionaire  who upon his death wills nearly the entirety of his estate, including control of OASIS to whoever can solve the hidden puzzle he left behind hidden somewhere in the OASIS world.

With such a huge prize everyone goes out looking for it, but the puzzle is so well hidden, that 5 years go by before anyone manages to discover the beginning of the puzzle (which has 6 parts, 3 keys and 3 gates).  The person who discovers it is Wade.

I have mentioned a couple of times how different the world will get once energy starts to get scarce, and how gaming will become a welcome escape from that reality.  Here is a book that echoes that theme in a very entertaining way.

There is another interesting part I have yet to mention.  It seems that the mad gaming designer grew up during the 1980′s, and is obsessed with the books, games, comics, music and movies of that decade.  Solving the central puzzle requires expert knowledge of this material, and the players dedicated to solving the puzzle have to become experts on the 1980′s pop culture.  Lots of this novel is filled with references to  the ’80s.  Being someone who grew up in the 80′s as well, I got all the references and knew all the songs referenced in the novel.

This unfortunately may be the biggest negative of the book, there is too much 80′s references which are likely to get lost on kids who grew up in later decades.  Since this is a “young adult” novel aimed at teen audiences, I’m not sure how well it will go over with the target audience.  But it did go over well with me.  Ernest Cline created an “official soundtrack” here if you want to hear many of the songs referenced in the novel.  You might also want to familiarize yourself with the movies WarGames, Ladyhawke, Blade Runner, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail if you don’t already know them (If you don’t then shame on you, they are classics).  There are major references to the games Pac Man, Tempest, Joust, Adventure, Black Tiger, Dungeons of Daggorath and Zork, too.

Since this book seems like it was written specifically for me, I ran through it in a few days time.  General audiences may not be as well versed in these subjects as I am, though the author does spend a lot of time explaining things for the general reader’s benefit (mostly unnecessary in my case).

The book is currently available hard copy and e-book via links at the Official Site, paperback and cheaper e-books coming in June.

Lessons Learned in Alpha Testing

I ran a 24 hour alpha test on a Something’s In The Air Demo I was thinking of releasing, and it was good that I did.  Feedback was decidedly mixed, so for those that keep asking when will I release it, the answer is, “When it is ready!” and it is not ready.

As a novice visual novel author, I learned a couple of things about writing during the alpha test.  Lesson #1 is I need to work on the stuff I’m not good at just as hard as the stuff I am good at.  I have a talent for visuals and plot, and a weakness for dialogue.  So I have been writing serviceable dialogue quickly to fit with the terrific visuals and plot, and as a result I have been losing the characters. In other words I got a lot of rewriting to do.

Lesson #2 is I need to trust my instincts more.  If I can’t get excited about a plot or a scene, then it will suck, and it either needs to be rethought until I do get excited about it, or dropped completely.  On the other hand, I need to stop ignoring those feeling of “Wouldn’t it be cool if I…” moments because as it turns out: yes it would be cool, and it is exactly what I should do.

Lesson #3 is I need to forget about this ever becoming a commercial success.  In an effort to do something different, I have taken many different genres, threw them in a blender and hit “puree”.  One of the comments I got was along the lines of, “Is this supposed to be a comedy? or a slice of life drama? or a plotless sex romp, or what?”  My answer is yes to all.  Like the Date Ariane game, there is enough “adult” content to keep it out of the mainstream, but not enough to interest the adult gaming market.  It’s sort of a romantic dramedy with some mystery and speculative fiction thrown in. By design, it defies categorization, meaning it will not be marketable.  Make the story that I want to make, and let the chips fall where they may.

So, for not the first time, and probably not the last, I have a new plan of attack. My original plan was to have 6 stories, all of approximately the same length and content.  Well one of those 6 stories, I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make it good, and in the spirit of lesson #2 it needs to just be cut.  So now it is 5 stories long.  Another story is good but very short, and I have been thinking how to “balance” it and make it longer with no good ideas.  In the spirit of lesson #3, “balance” is a marketing concept, and therefore it can be ignored.  So, the stories will be exactly as long as they need to be, no need for lengthening short stories, or editing long ones.

This has greatly simplified the master plan.  I’m finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.  Post production is going easier than I expected, thanks to finding some decent free and cheap royalty free music and sound effects which adds a whole new dimension to the game.

Good feedback, even though some of it was negative, has made me more excited about working on, and eventually finishing this project.

Moving to Zindra

In SL, I have lived in the same mainland spot for 6 years. In RL, I have moved twice during the same span.  I used to like the quiet sim I was on, and the access to Governor Linden land right next door, basically my own personal sandbox.  But then Linden sold the space, and it was bought by the same person that owned the land on the other side of me.  I don’t like being completely surrounded by ban walls, and I recently stopped selling anything, so no need to keep the same spot.  The upshot with being surrounded is that I have a motivated buyer for my land, that means I could sell the lot at a high price and get it, which I did.

So with new found wealth of Lindenbucks, and 512 sqm of free tier to use, I went looking for a new place to call home.  I found it in another overpriced water bordering lot on the Zindra continent.  I have written about Zindra a couple of times, the “adult” rated mainland continent.  I bought the lot and started going with a “tropical” theme that has caught on with my neighbors on either side of me.  May as well blend in.  Got my boat dock, found a low prim Tiki Bar in the market place, a few free palm trees from the library, and a reggae/ska streaming station to set the mood.  Then dubbed it home.

The last time I visited Zindra 3 years ago, this was my reaction:

In the June essay, I mentioned two possible scenarios of where Zindra will head: 1.) A sanctuary away from alt griefing and kids pretending to be adult, or 2.) an adult oriented ghetto.  Many of the more established successful businesses have relocated to private estates rather than Zindra. Because of this, its looking more and more likely that the second scenario will prevail.

A quick tour around Zindra today is like a big mall of mostly crap. A good 90% of adult merchants do not know how to make a good store build. Lots of bright tacky colors, or way too big textures that cause load lag. I went to some of the busiest businesses and either found a lot of bots / camping chairs, or builds in private skyboxes.

That to me is a virtual ghetto.

There is still a bit of that ghetto feel.  Picking a random hot spot called “Whore Street”, turned out to be a clever red light district build, but the large population I saw on the map was nothing but camping spot campers.  None of the promised tawdryness the name suggested.

The whole idea of an “adult continent” has (ironically) matured in the last 3 years.  Some of the crap I mentioned from 3 years ago is still there, but there also can be found some beautiful builds.  Especially around the riverbanks I now cruise in my old prim boat.

Except for people that specialize in “adult” items, merchants have found that stores on “general” rated land get more traffic.  That means Zindra has a lot fewer places to shop, which is in my opinion better as most stores in SL tend to be rather tacky looking places.  What is mostly found in Zindra are clubs, and residences, and an “anything goes” attitude.  Something that is also found on Zindra that is missing from the rest of SL is people.  I put up the mini map and I see green dots everywhere I go.  My old place I rarely saw any green dots.

Some other surprising things about Zindra:  Even though avatar sex and nudity is allowed, I don’t see it, at least not in the open.  A much more common occurrence is erotic wall art, rarely visible from the outside though.  The two most popular spots on Zindra, are the two Linden operated visitors centers in Arapaima and Oritz, the two places where nudity is off limits.  These are the gathering spots to meet “adults”.

Zindra reminds me a lot of the way SL used to be when I joined.  Lots of people, lots of experimentation, lots of erotic images posted on walls, and lots of fun to explore.  So in reevaluating Zindra 3 years later, it seems to me more like the “sanctuary” than the “ghetto”.  There are still “ghetto” parts, definitely, but so far I am liking the “sanctuary”.

3D Virtual Worlds Are In Decline

Catching up with the news on 3D Virtual Worlds, has been getting a little depressing lately.  Bottom line: they are all down in traffic.

Lets start with some news on the LL/SL front:  Linden Lab announced two weeks ago that they bought an interactive fiction company called LittleTextPeople. The small company develops 2D interactive fiction for play on mobile phones from what I can tell.  The group will develop new products under the Linden Lab roof, but they will not be associated with Second Life.  In other words, Linden Lab is finally diversifying its gaming line up.  This is what happens when you hire a game developer as your CEO, you start to develop new games.  Not reported anywhere is that one of the 3 developers at LittleTextPeople is Richard Evans, lead AI programmer for The Sims 3 who no doubt worked with LL CEO Rod Humble when he was in charge at EA/Maxis.  The other two are Emily Short, writer/programmer of text adventure Galatea, and Andrew Stern co-creator of a really cool experimental 3D interactive game called Façade.  Both are available for free.

So from the sounds of it, Linden Lab is looking to get into the mobile app market with interactive fiction.  Based on my minimal level of research, the project(s) that LittleTextPeople are working on are pseudo menu driven graphic interactive fiction. (since typing things on a phone/tablet is an annoyance to begin with).  Looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

But that is not all from the Linden Lab front. It seems LL has stopped publication of statistics for Second Life. The unanimous consensus is that the reason for no publication is that the numbers are way down.

Lets put these two items into perspective.  Linden Lab is diversifying their product line towards mobile apps, while Second Life is dropping in traffic, land sales, etc.  Linden Lab is looking to a future without its signature product.  I said before that I believe SL will close its doors when it stops being profitable, and we seem to be close to that point it sounds like.

I decided to take a look at other 3DVWs and see how they are doing.  IMVU is seeing lower numbers these days too.  There Inc is not seeing the huge influx of returning customers it was hoping for when it reopened its doors. It seems that maybe the age of the 3DVW is about up.

Some of the smaller ones are doing OK: NuVera is finally out of beta, and it seems a lot more stable. Avination says they fixed the sim crossing problem for vehicles in OpenSim.  InWorldz is now big enough to start holding a conference in Las Vegas. Onverse is still expanding with new lands and content. Despite some small time success, I am not hearing about any new ones lately, not even new OS grids.

What’s driving people away from the big 3D Virtual Worlds? Probably boredom, social networking, and the influx of “free to play” MMORPGs which are learning to incorporate the social aspects that used to be exclusive to 3DVWs.

I’m not expecting a lot of closures though, just the usual 3 or 4 a year. These things have long tails, and can get by for quite a while with loyal fan bases.  But the “golden age” is behind us.

 

Meet Rachel

I promised earlier that I would introduce some characters of the visual novel when I was done doing their story.  I finally finished story 4, which is the largest of the 6 stories, and the one I needed to finish to get it out of the way, so I could move to the easier stuff.  I am trying to make each story have a different tone and style, but my fiction writing skills are not at the expert level, so I pace myself and think things through.

Story 4, which I dubbed “A Man About Town” is the most “visual novel” like story, the most like the dating simulator (though no where near as complicated).  There are 13 different location sets in the various possible branches of the story, six of them are sets from the original date simulator, four more (the bar, the movie theater, the salon, and the dress shop) are ones I blogged earlier, I’ll talk about another in a future post, the last is a spoiler, so you’ll just have to wait.

Defining Characters

I mentioned before that writing a visual novel is like writing a novel, meaning you have to define your characters and stay in character when you voice their dialogue.  Otherwise everyone starts sounding the same, which is boring.  That means I have to define each character before I start writing them.  That means I had to define Ariane as a character.  Ariane’s online persona is me of course, a science and sci-fi geek and a gamer.  But in the dating simulator she never expressed those types of interest, so I could define her character differently.  Based on her actions in the dating simulator (and in the sequel), Ariane has two defining characteristics: she loves to do daring things, and when she gets mad she gets brutally honest.  Combining those characteristics with the fact that she drives around in a four wheel SUV with no doors or a roof (a free model I found online when I needed a car model, had I found a free sedan model she would be driving a sedan), and Ariane is defined as “action girl”.

The upshot of that definition of Ariane is that it frees “science and gamer geek” for another character.  Rachel is the main character in story 4, she is the “Ariane” of Something’s In The Air and will likely be the most talked about character when I finally release the game.  Hence the title of “science and gamer geek” fell on Rachel, thus helping me write her dialogue.  Besides an interest in science and video games, Rachel is also a social butterfly feeling comfortable around crowds.  That is kind of a contradiction, I know, but it will all be explained eventually.  For now I can tell you that she is a 19 year old college sophomore taking summer classes because she missed the spring semester.

For those of you keeping track, there are 6 total stories.  I’m now mostly done with two of them, leaving 4 to go.  That means I’m about a third of the way done with this project.

12 Great Events in the History of Arizona

A little bit of departure from my usual stuff.  This month marks the 100th anniversary of Arizona as a state, and being someone who lived here most of my life, I’d thought I’d share a little bit of history of the place. Basically, I’m hitting the top 12 highlights, with links to wiki articles for the full story.

So where to start.  I could start with the Grand Canyon whose rocks at the bottom are 4.5 billion years old, as old as the earth itself, but that is a bit too far.  Or I could start with the archeological finds south of Chandler, AZ that show humans have lived here for at least 16,000 years.  But instead, I will start with an event that actually had an effect on modern Arizona.  It starts with a Volcano.

1024 – Sunset Crater becomes a Crater

The last time a volcano exploded in Arizona was almost 1000 years ago.  We know the exact date thanks to tree ring studies.  The Sunset crater explosion spewed ash for miles.

Now the cool thing about volcanic ash is that it retains water, making it easy to plant in and grow food.  Combine good soil with a fairly consistent river (known today as the Little Colorado River) and you end up with a good place to live.  The Wupatki ruins are one of the oldest and largest pueblo ruins in Arizona.  What we know about the place is that tribes from all over came to the region to live.  You can find a Kiva, a round ceremonial circle used extensively by tribes to the north, and a ball court, a sport imported from Mexican tribes to the south.  The gathering of many groups to Wupatki meant a sharing of technology, and improved lifestyles.  Pre-Wupatki housing consisted mostly of sticks and mud.  Post-Wupatki housing consisted of rock and mortar.

Eventually, water and resources got scarce and Wupatki was abandoned.  Tribal groups went their separate ways.  The Anasazis moved east and built an even bigger city, known today as the Aztec ruins in New Mexico.  Another post Wupatki settlement was Old Oraibi, Arizona, considered to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in North America.

14th Century – Invasion of the Dine

At some point around the 14th century, the tribes on the Colorado Plateau stopped building cities on the ground, and started building them in well protected places like the sides of cliffs.  The most likely reason seems to be an invasion from the north of nomadic tribes who called themselves the Dine (pronounced Din-Eh).  Their Athabascan language was very foreign, and genetically they are related to natives of Mongolia.  Today we call them the Navajo and the Apaches, and their affect on regional history is still having an impact today.  There is a 600 year feud between the Navajos and the Hopis, that is no longer fought with weapons, now it is fought with lawyers, and still has an impact on politics today.

It is amazing how many people don’t realize that Native Americans are not all the same race.  There are at least 3, with 3 different groups crossing from Asia (the Inuits are the third). Intermixing over the centuries has mostly erased the genetic differences, but linguistically and culturally they all continue to maintain separate identities.

Though generations removed by the time they reached Arizona, one could call the Dine invasion an Asian invasion. If you think about it that way, the Asians beat the Europeans by a couple of centuries.

1539 – An African comes to Arizona

When it comes to who got to Arizona first, Europeans came in last place.  The first non-native to set foot in what is today Arizona, was an African slave named Estevanico.  He was one of only four survivors of a shipwreck on the coast of Florida in 1529.  Led by Cabeza de Vaca, the four men made their way across America, surviving only by “going native” with the tribes they encountered.  When they finally reached New Spain, it was 8 years later.

A Franciscan Friar named Marcos De Niza was planning an expedition north, and wanted the help of Cabeza de Vaca as a guide.  DeVaca turned down the offer, wanting to return to Spain, but as a slave Estevanico didn’t have a say in the matter and was basically drafted.  Marcos De Niza was not a fan of slavery, nor was he a fan of the big savage beast Estevanico had become after 8 years wandering in the wilderness, nor of his harem of native wives.  So De Niza basically let Estevanico go ahead of him, telling him to build a cross when he finds something important.  That is how an African crossed into Arizona before the Europeans did.  Estevanico did not get very far, he was brutally killed by the Zunis, just a few months into the expedition.  Finding out about the death De Niza, a man of peace, was forced to turn around.

He was followed a year later by an invading army led by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, looking for the legendary cities of Gold, which did not really exist.  The “golden cities” was an illusion caused by the sun reflecting off the mica flakes common in the adobe mud.  Coronado made it all the way to Kansas before returning in disgrace.  His only major discovery was a giant hole in the ground known today as the Grand Canyon.

1540 – 1810  The Pimeria Alta Colony of New Spain

For 250 years, Arizona was ruled by Spain.  Most of that time, Spain considered it worthless desert land and left the natives alone.  But, eventually gold and silver was discovered, so they felt the need to expand their influence, and started moving in.  Arizona actually gets its name from a successful silver mine operated by Spaniards. The most famous of the Europeans to come here was Father Eusebio Kino, a Jesuit priest, and Italian by birth.  He had a mission to bring Christianity to the tribes of Southern Arizona, but he used a carrot instead of a stick.  He brought education and new farming techniques to the natives.  He was also opposed to slave labor and other bad stuff the Spanish brought to the region.  The natives were big fans of Father Kino.

During his time in Pimeria Alta, Kino established 24 missions and towns, including what is today Tucson, Arizona.

1847 – The Mormon Batallion

In 1810, Mexico gained its independence from Spain, and Arizona became part of Mexico.  Some “Mountain Men” from America occasionally came into the territory, but except for a few mining operations, nobody bothered the area since the natives in the region were considered rather vicious.  One of those Mountain Men was famed explorer Kit Carson, who was the first American to traverse Arizona from east to west and back again.

America’s first war of aggression was to move against Mexico in 1846 in hopes of seizing the land from Texas to the Pacific Ocean.  America had already established interest in California before the war started, and were anxious to take over.  What they did not have was a land route to California, the only way to get there was boat trips around South America.  The closest they got to California was a road to Santa Fe.  Meanwhile, the Mormons were recently chased out of Nauvoo Illinois, and were now holed up in Council Bluffs, Iowa.  They wanted permission to establish a colony in the “promised land” of Utah, and made a deal with the US government to supply men to build a road from Santa Fe, New Mexico to San Diego, California.  The 2000 mile march of the Mormon Batallion was one of the longest in military history.  They basically blazed a path following routes established by the previously mentioned Kit Carson and others.  During the entire march, they never actually saw a battle, but they came close to hunger and dehydration a couple of times.

The truth is, they got very lucky.  The best path across Southern Arizona is the one that follows present day I-10 to I-8.  After heading south from Santa Fe, they completely missed an important right turn at Dos Cabezas, and ended up going around the Chiricahua Mountains.  That pass was called the Apache Stronghold, and would become a dangerous and deadly pass to travelers during the Apache Wars.  Had they gone that way, they would have no doubt been attacked by the Apaches.

1853 – The Gadsden Purchase, or Congress proves that they are a bunch of stupid morons.

Every history class in America has a map of America carved up into what year the US acquired the land, and there is this little sliver of land in the southern New Mexico territory called The Gadsden Purchase.  I doubt anyone ever asks why we bought the land from Mexico, or why it was necessary to do so, and even if some kid in class asks the question, I doubt the teacher can provide the answer.

So I will tell you the answer: Congress is filled with a bunch of stupid morons.

We won the Mexican War and proved our “Manifest Destiny” from sea to shining sea.  The question before the people negotiating the Treaty of Hidalgo is, “Where do we draw the Southern border?”  Well the dominant northern state oriented congress wanted to draw the line as north as possible, because Southern Arizona and New Mexico is south of the Mason-Dixon line and therefore could become a slave friendly territory.  So they drew the border to follow the Gila River because “We could just boat down the Gila River to get to California.”  and so that is what Congress decided.

Stupid thing #1: The Gila River is dry 9 months out of the year.  When it is not dry it is either in the form of dangerous rapids through narrow canyons, or shallow washes not deep enough for a boat.

Stupid thing #2: The US just spent a ton of money and the hard work of the Mormon Battalion building a road south of the Gila River to San Diego which we just gave away back to Mexico.

Stupid thing #3: Slavery was already outlawed in the New Mexico territory in 1810 when Mexico was still in charge.

After the idiotic mistakes made by Congress, Ambassador James Gadsden went to Mexico to negotiate a purchase.  Mexico needed the money and actually offered  most of northern Mexico and all of Baja California for a decent price, but instead Congress again only authorized the bare minimum to get the road built by the Mormon Battalion back into US hands, again because they were afraid of adding more slave state territory.  (sigh!)

1871 - The Camp Grant Massacre

Under Mexican law, land claims by native peoples were recognized.  Under the Treaty of Hidalgo, the US was obligated to recognize those claims.  They didn’t.  Under US law, if you don’t have a deed you don’t own the land, and the Native Americans rights to the land in newly acquired territories were treated the same as the Native Americans in the rest of the US.  They didn’t have any land rights.  Were the natives angry about this? You Bet!

It was the Apaches who put up the biggest fight.  The period from 1848 to the 1886 surrender of Geronimo became known as the Apache Wars.  It was the reason the southern half of the New Mexico territory (calling itself Arizona a popular name for the region when Mexico was in charge) joined the Confederate States of America.  After the US recalled their troops to fight the Civil War, Texas sent troops to Tucson in exchange for CSA territory.  The arrangement only lasted a few months, the US sent in volunteers from California to chase out the Texans, resulting in the Battle of Picacho Peak, the western most battle of the Civil War.  In 1862, President Lincoln would split the New Mexico Territory in half vertically, the western half would retain the name Arizona.

By 1871, a lot of the fighting with the Apaches had subsided enough that the US was withdrawing troops.  This did not sit well with merchants who depended on the troops for income.  A peaceful band of Apaches took up residence outside Camp Grant,  then on April 30, 1871, a group from Tucson attacked the peaceful band slaughtering up to 144 mostly women and children (the men of the tribe were in the mountains hunting).  The people that were responsible were caught and tried, and found innocent.  Arizonans did not consider killing “Indians” to be that big of a crime.

Back east, news of the event made headlines, and got a sympathetic ear from President Grant.  The Camp Grant Massacre was not the first mass act of genocide against Native peoples, nor was it the last, nor was it even close to the biggest, but it did change US policy towards Native Americans leading to the autonomous reservation system we have today.

1881 – The Gunfight at the OK Corral

What can I say about an event that has been discussed in dozens of books, and portrayed in dozens of movies, even in an episode of Star Trek.  What I can tell you is that the legend is far more glorious than the reality.  Tombstone was never a really violent town.  It was mostly a mining town famous for drinking, gambling, and prostitution, and in its heyday did not have a reputation for murder.  Most of the big entertainers of the day (on their way to California) made a stop to perform at the Bird Cage Theater.  The upper decks of the theater had brass beds where the prostitutes plied their trade.  Big windows allowed you to watch the show below, and people below had an obscured view of what was going on above.  The song “I’m just a Bird in a Guilded Cage” was written about the prostitutes at the Bird Cage theater, before being adopted by Tweety and Sylvester cartoons.  As for gambling, below the stage was a poker table that housed a card game that went on continuously, night and day, for 12 years.  Dozens of famous people at the time played in that game including Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Bat Masterson.

This is the kind of stuff Tombstone should be famous for, but the thing everyone talks about is the Gunfight, a battle that lasted about 30 seconds leaving 3 dead, 3 injured, and 3 unharmed.  Few people bother to mention that at least two of the Clanton-McLaury side were unarmed, making it somewhat of an unfair fight.  The legend is much bigger than the reality.

The Gunfight at the OK Corral has become a symbol of the lawless west. As Cracked.com pointed out recently, it is a reputation not deserved.

1885 – The Thieving Thirteenth Legislature

Arizona politics is notorious. The recent furor over SB 1070 is the latest in a very long line of political controversy in Arizona.  Politics here is contradictory to most of the rest of America.  Conservatives tend to be more Libertarian rather than of the social conservative variety.  This leads to many contradictions.  Arizona was one of the first to allow women to vote and was the first to allow the recall of judges, and one of the first to allow public petitions to override the legislature, and even the state constitution.  Recent reforms include public funding of state races and a citizens commission to draw new lines for congressional and legislative districts, stuff a lot more states should be doing.  Arizona has had four female Governors, can any other state say that? And yet, these “progressive” reforms are coming from one of the most conservative states in the country.

The strange politics of this state can be traced to 1885 and the 13th Territorial Legislature.  Up until 1885, Arizona had relied on troops fighting the Apache wars to provide for their economy.  With only a small band of Chiricahua’s left to fight, Arizona needed new sources of revenue, and new institutions to modernize the state.  The Territorial Legislature spent money like crazy, creating a prison in Yuma, an asylum in Phoenix, a teacher training school in Tempe (eventually to become Arizona State University), and a college in Tucson (eventually to become University of Arizona).  They also created bonds for roads, bridges, and trains to transport goods and connect to the rest of the US.

The good that the “Thieving 13th” did to the state is still recognized today.  And yet at the time, the massive deficit spending was considered criminal, and in the next election, all but 1 of the members of the legislature were voted out of office.

1911 – Roosevelt Dam and the Salt River Project

OK, we got ourselves some much needed institutions, now all we need is basic necessities like water and power.  The Phoenix metro area wasn’t very big yet, but they had already outgrown the irrigation system built by the Hohokam some 500 years earlier.  It was time to upgrade.  In 1902, federal funding was granted to build Arizona’s first hydroelectric dam.  Roosevelt dam was constructed out of brick, between 1903 and 1911. Until it was enlarged and covered over by concrete in 1996, Roosevelt Dam was one of the worlds largest masonry constructions.  Three other dams were eventually built along the Salt River, then more along the neighboring Verde and Gila Rivers supply much of the water and power to the Phoenix Metro area.

1912 – Arizona becomes the 48th State

Its 1912, election year, and President Taft is looking to be remembered for being more than America’s fattest President.  So he proposes filling in the blanks and making New Mexico and Arizona into full fledged states.  Arizona actually got its paperwork and new constitution submitted first, but President Taft was not happy with the provision allowing for the recall of judges and told them to change it.  New Mexico came in and became the 47th state on January 6, 1912.

Arizona came back with a revised constitution without the recall of judges.  Originally Arizona was to be made a state on February 12th, but that coincided with Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, and it was thought improper (this despite it being Lincoln who created the territory in the first place).  It was finally made a state on February 14th, 1912, resulting in the nickname the “Valentine State” for a while.  Because of the large number of copper mines, they tried to be the “Copper State”, which was lame since California already claimed to be the “Golden State”, and Nevada the “Silver State”.  In an effort to bolster tourism, we now call ourselves the “Grand Canyon State”.

Once we achieved statehood, the first thing we did was amend the state constitution to allow the recall of judges.

1928 – The Invention of Freon

Before 1950, the only attraction Arizona had was a few fringe industries known as the “Five C’s”: Citrus, Copper, Climate, Cotton, and Cattle.  If you weren’t part of these industries, the only reason to come to Arizona was for health reasons, like Frank Lloyd Wright did in the 1930′s.  It was miserably hot here most of the year.  Still is, except today we have Air Conditioning.

Before modern AC, houses were built with a screen porch.  Wet sheets were hung over the screens, and the evaporation would cool the porch.  The entire family would sleep on the porch during the summer.  With electricity came swamp coolers, consisting of a water pump continuously moistening a canvas mesh and a fan sucking air through the mesh and blowing it through the house.  Swamp coolers are still extensively used today, but during the humid months generally between mid july and mid September, the cooling effect of swamp coolers completely fails.

It was the invention of modern air conditioning, that led to rapid growth.  Between 1950 and 1960, Phoenix tripled in size, and doubled again every decade until 2000.  Phoenix is now the 5th largest city in America, and air conditioning is the #1 reason.

There you have it 12 great historical events that shaped modern Arizona.  Happy 100th Birthday, Arizona.