Not everything around here has to be about game development, right? Although, if I remember correctly, I came across this little story while reading about script writing or game design… I can’t remember exactly where I found it, but here’s the exact quotation, nothing changed…

“Here’s a story I heard from Alexander Kjerulf, who was talking about David Bayles’s book “Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking“:

A ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of the work they produced. All those on the right would be graded solely on their works’ quality.

His procedure was simple: On the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the quantity group; 50 pound of pots rated an A, 40 pounds a B, and so on. Those being graded on quality, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an A.

At grading time, the works with the highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity.

It seems that while the quantity group was busily churning out piles of work — and learning from their mistakes — the quality group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of clay.”

…something to keep in mind when tempted to just sit around, thinking about how to handle things insted of actually DOING it…

The last stop of the “Pow do Italia”-tour went to Latina, a half hour train ride south of Rome. Latina sports two real Power Soccer greats: Alessandro and Pasquale – better known in the game as Hogweed and Tamb83. They are both experienced admins, now MA (tamb83) and HMA (Hogweed) and the admin structure precisely what I went to Latina to speak to them about.

My Latina stay was part work and – of course – part fun! The Latina district is a beautiful area, with a several kilometre long beach, hillsides, countryside, and the idyllic town centre. I can recommend future visitors to rent a car and drive up among the mountains and pay a visit to the small villages and lush landscape that you will find up there.

The work part consisted mainly of discussions about the admin role in the future Power Soccer community. One of the big challenges in the future will be to keep the admins structure highly flexible and up to date with the current needs of a community that grows and goes through different phases.

The current admins structure is impressive! The admins are doing their tasks very well; skilfully and with lots of engagement. We also see some great advancements at the admins management end recently: CA’s and FA’s alone now consist of more than a hundred people, and we are steadily growing! The challenge here is just to keep the current flow up. At the developer-end of the structure however, we still need improvements. Our talk sessions was broken down into a number of wide categories, like: “what should be the admins’ future tasks and what tools will they need”, “what tools does MA’s need in order to manage the admins”, “what exactly should the role of the HMA be”. I think we reached results in all these areas.

Another important question is how to give more acknowledgement to the admins (of all levels); how do we lift them up and make them visible? For sure part of the value of helping out as a volunteer is getting the credit you deserve. We need to find ways to better let the admins know how valuable they are to us, and how much we appreciate what they do. We should never take the admins for granted!

A big piece of news that I’m excited to reveal is that Alessandro will be hired by us as crew member on a part-time basis! He will continue working as the game HMA (Head master assistant – meaning boss of the MA’s) but his tasks will exceed that of the normal HMA. Whereas the normal HMA works solely on managing the admins from a top perspective, Hogweed will also be working with the translation bits, some support bits, he’ll create documents and how-to’s for the admins and translators, and he will be a prime source for crew to consult regarding admin issues. We are very glad to have Alessandro with us!

As a final word – the Italy trip was exiting stuff for me. Finally getting the chance to meet up with the people I have only seen behind a nickname for years is truly a fun experience – albeit a bit scary at first. Pasquale, Filippo and Alessandro, thank you all for your hospitality and friendliness. This was a trip to remember!

Being in the somewhat casual games business myself, I just gotta love that one line It’s from a lecture by Nick Fortugno on the rise of the casual MMO. So far, we haven’t seen too many of those. Fortugno really makes an interesting point on what “casual games” are all about, who the casual gamers are - and what’s so great about hardcore anyway?

Read it for yourself!

http://www.worldsinmotion.biz/2008/04/imgdc_nick_fortugno_on_the_ris.php

Oh yes, I almost forgot. There’s been some serious updates on the car physics and with these latest changes it feels better than ever. I might have said that before but it’s true! (It’s just like those washing powder ads - the clothes actually get a little bit whiter and brighter every time…)

The quality and feel of the game so far speaks for itself - it’s gonna be an online smash hit. It’s good looking, the controls are tuned to perfection and the game modes makes competition fun fun fun… Programmed for success!

// Miss Wallin

I try to understand what makes people happy. In the playful, game-related kind of way. Online or offline, PC or Luxor VES, computer generated paperdolls or Dungeons and Dragons around the kitchen table - it doesn’t matter. What are the fundamental elements of having fun while playing games?

I’m looking at different communities, websites, online hangouts and games trying to figure out what people actually like. I keep asking “why do you play that game?” “what is it that you like about that place?” “how come you just spent half an hour doing that?”

I want to understand how the attraction works. What’s the big deal?

What makes people wanna spend time there? What’s the reward? Why is that an investment they consider being worthwile?

The one simple and logical answer is: fun. It must be fun. Right? The game (or website or something else) must give them some feeling of value, or quality or dreams being fulfilled.

Or, if I ask you why, why do you play this game, is the answer simply “killing time”..?

This turned out to be a post filled with questions but no answers. And of course, there are about as many answers as there are people playing games.

So, even though the chance of finding the truth is somewhere around slim to none, I’m very much looking forward to continuing this research. What is it that drives us?

Keep reading and join me, in my search for “the elusive art of fun”.

(and if you’re interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludology)

// Linda

Hello you all! I guess you though the Power Challenge Racing Team had disappeared - but no. We’re still here, writing code, making schedules, drawing trees and what have you. Basically trying our very best to make this the best racing experience ever. Things have just been a bit…upside down around here lately. Everybody is still as busy as ever, no doubt about it, our focus is just slightly altered. There are som really important issues being handled, features being built and changes taking place in the soccer department - and of course we’re all joining in, making sure Power Soccer rises to yet another level.

Well not all of us actually. A couple of us are still keeping the racing game alive and kicking, building new tracks, designing more cars, dealing with network puzzles… All those things, give or take a few, that need to be taken care of before the release!

Another Very Important Part of a quality racing game is… the sound! Nothing gives you that illusion of presence and tingling sensation of speed like raw realistic high quality sound. Metal against metal, flying gravel and shrieking breaks. Of course we only want to give you the very best, and to make sure of that we hired the guys at Pole Position to do all of our sound work. They are complete racing AND music/sound freaks, so there couldn’t be anyone else more suited for the job. We just got some nice recordings from a stock car session - very nice. And in a couple of weeks, there will be another recording session with some serious driving: a bunch of japanese cars - on an airstrip… Hopefully closed off! Like I said, these guys are seriously into both cars and sound.

I promise to write again soon. Yes, seriously, I do. Even though we’re slightly behind the original schedule, we’re still destined to rule the racing world…

See ya!

// Linda