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Ask HN: We're building a real-life, location-based MMORPG. Will you play?

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Re: Ask HN: We're building a real-life, location-based MMORPG. Will you play?

#23

Post by jhuckestein »

I'll play for sure.

I've been tossing the idea of a game layered on top of reality around quite a bit. The pitch is "imagine a group of WOW players exploring a real cave in Yosemite National Park and fighting against a real invisible dragon for loot.". The world is great, there is no reason to invent another one.

In more abstract (and less crowd-pleasing) terms, I believe that such a game can give a motivation for changing people's behavior (for better or worse). If I have a boring commute to work on foot, then I can just go on a "quest" to work, which will be reflected in my profile. The quest could even be charitable. Maybe there will even be an API for quest-givers, who know ;)

The real fun begins when you include group dynamics. Imagine getting a quest to capture the dangerous thief kind of Alcatraz, but unfortunately he is so obese that you need at least four people to carry him away. Would you ask strangers to join you on your quest? ;)

Check out this great related TED talk by the guy who runs SCVNGR: http://www.ted.com/talks/seth_priebatsch_the_game_layer_on_t...

I think thee idea is a little ahead of the curve, but in a few years (call me crazy!) something like this has the potential to be the defining game of a generation.

Keep us posted on your progress.

P.S.: I second the "no fantasy" sentiment. Fairies and dragons don't work for everyone.

Re: Ask HN: We're building a real-life, location-based MMORPG. Will you play?

#25

Post by pwim »

In Japan, these kind of games have been popular for at least a couple of years.

One I know of is "Keitai Kunitori Gassen" where players check-in to different regions of Japan to get points and take them over. They have enough money to advertise the game on the trains. The interesting thing is they have hardcore users who will travel all around Japan to check in to locations. This actually ties into part of their business model, where they are paid by businesses to hold special events at certain locations. A couple years ago, they said they could get a couple thousand people to go to a location just by holding an event there.

Re: Ask HN: We're building a real-life, location-based MMORPG. Will you play?

#26

Post by chmike »

chmike wrote: post #16

In the university I studied, students organized different games played trough the year. It is a good method to help people socialize and know each other in the first year. One of these game was called hitman. Every student who wanted to play had to provide a picture of himself and was registered as player. Then each player was given a random photo of another player and a small trumpet in paper that rolls out when we…

This was more then 20 years ago (this hurts). There are many ways one could imagine to change these rules today in the way the killing is performed. Since most people have today phones with numeric camera capture devices, killing could be changed into taking a picture of the target in a particular condition. For instance one variant could be called paparazzi where the hitman is a team of two players of opposite sex randomly combined that will have to cooperate. The killing could be taking a picture of a stolen kiss on the cheek or a photo bombing which could become a parallel contest. Replace the umbrella by a big colorful hat or anything alike which attracts attention and is funny. Those games should of course always respect the law, culture and rules of the place and require explicit (signed) prior consent of the players. The target should then be implicitly given ownership of the photo by game rules and be able to decide of their use. People should never be/feel constrained to play the game.

So the first fundamental rule of such type of real life games should be respect of the players and social context.

In the virtual worlds (i.e. WoW) one can erase the avatar and create a new one from scratch. In real life this is not possible, and interferences with other activities (family, study and professional) may become devastating by accident or youth naivety. Organizers should take their responsibility very seriously. Otherwise the limit is just imagination. The first aim of such type of game is to be fun and provide good laughs and catalyze social contacts.

In some contexts where ostensible extravagant behavior is not tolerated, i.e. army, business, the game could be changed into assigning a random secret (i.e. word) to each player with the hitman playing then as a spy that has to find out that secret by any means (except water boarding of course, although...). This could be a good game to entertain people and be useful by training their vigilance to what they say and where, etc.

The business idea could then be to provide a web service to manage the game, assign random secrets (i.e. word, object, concept) and a mean for the spy to check his finding with eventually a limited number of tests. This type of game could help socialize but also contribute to train people to hold defense/trade secrets.

Have fun...

Re: Ask HN: We're building a real-life, location-based MMORPG. Will you play?

#28

Post by gabesmed »

vyrotek wrote: post #2

Sounds fun, but the world's first? Isn't http://www.parallelkingdom.com already doing this?

Another example to look at:

http://www.appsafari.com/games/10766/kingpin-game/

Kingpin, ... is a new addition to the foursquare client family. ... Users can accumulate points, collect badges to store in vaults, and become mayor (boss in Kingpin) of places they regularly frequent. .... Kingpin has all the nifty features of foursquare, but it raises the stakes by allowing users to attack local bosses.

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