Eastern map from the Western view: When one ethnic group looks at another

(from http://www.philaprintshop.com)

(from http://www.unitedstatesofasia.com)

It is strange when one try to map a foreign land. We thought Marco Polo was great navigator. Let us look at a map based on his descriptions of Asia (top map). An actual Asia map (below) in case you are not yet aware.

The top map was made in the twelve century, when probably only Marco Polo and his crew had been to Asia. A lot of traders had been to India, probably why India appeared all over Asia. This is not a problem since we know that cultural differences often color the way we look at things. However, it is a problem when we assumed what we know is true.

Today, I saw a map that reminded me of the above lesson, this time a map of communities in World of Warcraft (see below). I would not contest how the 'west' looks. But look at the 'east,' occupied by an army of GOLD FARMERS - I object!

While gold farming is part of the mechanics of gaming (a small part btw), it was amplified beyond proportion, just like how India appeared as the whole of Asia. In fact, all Chinese players I met online or in chatrooms are genuine players. They play, they make friends, they create addons, and they like to pvp. It was only a recently published that Chinese players are the best pvpers in World of Warcraft. However, one part of Chinese players that is causing all the trauma is a small number of gold selling corporations extending their reach into US and Europe.

(from http://timhowgego.com)

In China, virtual items trading is a big part of the gaming community (contrary to bots farming or accounts stealing). Players, on top of paying for game play, also pay for gold or items. It does not appear to be a problem to them in contrast to the counterparts in US. I can understand the many US players found gold sellers' spamming to be annoying and a disruption to fair play. However, that they are all bad is a gross generalization. An advantage to gold buying and selling is similar to common trading. Players without money but a lot of time (often students) may sell their gold or items for real money, which fund their play time. Players with money but no time (often professionals who had to work overtime), may buy gold to quickly level their characters. More then often, Chinese friends whom I met online asked me to level faster so as to group with them for game play. These were social gestures less often seen in US communities.

One may disagree with me and still cry foul. However, such was one issue with culture, one perspective does not go well with the other. Nonetheless, we should not view the entire Chinese communty as 'gold farmers.' Instead, companies that sell gold using farm bots and stealing accounts are really the issues here.

A design problem worth pondering is that most games designed in US do not accommodate virtual trading, which to them is Axis of Evil to be exterminated. Why not since our economy as a whole has moved on from barter trading and thrives? Why discriminate against players who have jobs and don't have time earn all the tier 5-6 items? If virtual trading can be supported in the game, perhaps there will be less opportunities for gold trading companies to thrive. For example, money earned can proceed to paying for monthly account. Evil it maybe (at least in the Western sense), but perhaps a necessary one.

Turning users into developers

Lately, I have been thinking of a problem. That many successful products have large user base. We had try to get designers to create great products. We said they made them beautiful, but not necessary usable. We got usability professionals to make them usable. We interview them once every few months to update usability guidelines. Lastly, we put users into the same room as we work. We work, they tell us how to do it. Now what?

As always, the gaming industry has pushed the knowledge envelope. For the past 15 years, they have been learning how to turn players into developers. They develop free development kit for paid users. Some were merely map editors for creating new zones for play, others were full development environment that allowed users to create a new game altogether. The resulted outcome are mods, and users who created them modders.

Modders contributed to games immersely. Most modders were passengers, who were there, and done that. A few, however, made their mark, and changed the landscape of gaming forever. Counter-Strike is a first person shooter that is played in every professional gaming tournament and developed by two modders. Counter-strike is a total conversion mod, meaning that the game is different from its parent. Other mods, such as those in World of Warcraft (WoW), the most popular online game played by 10 million worldwide, are partial conversions.

Since developers do not think like players, as we had long acknowledge, putting toolkits in the hands of users allow them to customize the product as they need it. It gets as close as what they need, only to be limited by the power of the toolkit and their knowledge of how to use it. Most modders in WoW know programming before they started modding, making the entry level for modding fairly high. Yet, we may lower this barrier by providing more usable, less powerful toolkits. For example, by making cellphones cover easier to remove and replace, we allowed the possibility of 3rd party developers creating alternative designs. By examing users who use them, we can learn about differing user tastes and cultural factors!

I felt that we have a lot to learn from modding in games. How do we decide which part of a product to open for modding? How do we attract a community of modders? How do we work with modders? What is the optimum size of modders? How do we substain modding activities? These are questions I have in mind.