How to "Christmas Spirit" - An essay on novelty in user experience design.

Since it's December, I thought it would be fitting to make an article about how to get in the Christmas mood (or "spirit" as it's commonly called). Coincidentally, utilizing the psychology behind getting in the right mood, is also common in good game design. So let's make this a holiday special, where I will explain the concept of "Christmas spirit" with user experience design theory!

Hopefully you'll be able to design the perfect holiday season for yourself, after learning what it's really all about. Which isn't necessarily to buy yourself 200+ new games during Steam's holiday sales (but that's not to say doing so, isn't going to help).

Just as the great Gaben Claus would have it.

I'm going to start out with a slightly cliché'd, but very important topic: The pursuit of happiness.

Being happy is something we all want, as much as we can get it. Almost all of us build our lives around what we think will make us happy. But strangely enough, hardly anyone has any tangible concept of "happiness," other than a gut feeling. So when we say "I want to be happy," we don't really know what we're talking about. This is a big problem, because "being in the christmas spirit" is quite simply a variant of "being happy." The only difference is that "christmas spirit" relies on certain factors, which are only present at one time a year.

Defining "happiness"

The subject itself seems pretty touchy-feely at first glance. However, it can be explained in a very elegant way, which has been done very eloquently by Jason Silva in the following video:

Now we are beginning to understand. In our pursuit of happiness, we loose sight of what it is that we are actually looking for, which is novelty. And novelty is something we can work with - both in game design, as well as when it comes to planning our holidays.

Identifying the problem

But what happens when things don't go as planned, and there is no sight of any christmassy gut-feelings throughout the entirety of December? We need to examine this, before we know how to counteract it:

December begins, December happens, December happened. But no Christmas spirit in sight. How on earth did that happen? I'll outline the problem shortly, before we open up the "aha" box:

You expect to get in the right mood, just because the season is there. However, the anticipation is gone, and your days are still about participation in monotony: You do the same things every day. No dedication, just the passing of time and the silent wish that maybe, perhaps tomorrow, you'll suddenly burst out into a huge smile and start humming jingle bells and swimming in glögg. Yet however long you wait, it doesn't happen. So you start blaming things like "no snow, no interesting calenders to watch, same as last year bla bla."

Before you know it, you'll resort to doing crazy things like putting Santa-clothes on your dog:

Who will inevitably kill you in your sleep,
before proceeding to give you "coal" for presents.

Ladies and gentlemen, we can do better than that. We now know that the experience of happiness, relies so heavily on novelty. So we can begin to consider ways to work novelty into our design.

The Christmas spirit "cheat-sheet"

We can skip through a whole lot of trouble trying to identify this issue, because we've already experienced being in the mood we seek, before. Most of us, as kids, have memories of having a very merry Christmas. All we have to do is recall those memories, then analyse them.

I'm going to use myself as the template, seeing as I know no person better. So here is what was going down, back when I was a little doodle-poop. Remember that I am only talking in terms of what personally gave me the Christmas-jitters:

The anticipation

Holy shit, the anticipation. Never was there a time of year, besides from on my birthday, where I was more excited about stuff in wrappings. This was one of those things that were completely defining my experience; just waiting, staring at said wrappings. Sometimes I'd even get so excited, that when the time finally came for me to unwrap my presents, I almost felt that the wrapping was more interesting, than what was inside.

It was almost unbearable when we had to dance around the tree. Always those agonizing 15 minutes, eyeballing my presents every time, knowing that I would soon be experiencing the rush, of learning what was inside.

"Hark the angels- THERE IT IS AGAIN!"

Then there's the 24-episode TV calendars, typically accompanied by a physical cardboard calendar, with each cover revealing a hint for today's episode. That combination was absolutely ingenious, when it came to building anticipation - generating novelty. We'll get back to why that is, in the summary.

Finally, there's the aesthetics. The decorations are hugely important here, in two different regards. Remember that we are using my childhood as a reference frame here, so decorations meant more than just hanging them up; it also included creating new decorations in school. We'd spend a whole day just making things to hang up on the classroom walls and in the hallways, eat Christmas treats and all that jazz. Then until holidays finally started, we'd be surrounded by our work, as a reminder throughout the hours we'd spend in school.

Let's tally all that up and do a quick analysis of why these things mattered (and still do):

My childhood in summary and analysis:

Anticipation is paramount, that much can be said. But the reason it is so, is for the same reason that worry can sometimes consume people; our brains can only process one thing at a time. Anticipation, once properly established, is a constant factor. This leaves little room for much else, so you can imagine how it'll do wonders to your mood.

But how is anticipation manifested, in the examples above?

The presents: With the presents, comes a measure of uncertainty. We're left guessing, speculating, scratching our heads as to what might be in those delicious wrappings. However, this only works so long as we genuinely believe that there is something contained within, which we will appreciate.

This presents a problem, as we grow older and suddenly have cash coming out of every orifice. We're much more willing to spend money on ourselves, than we are buying presents for others. This is logical, since the personal benefit of a purchase for ourselves, significantly outweighs the benefits in buying the same thing for someone else.

Dead trees are my favorite currency!

We then transpose this logic to our level of anticipation, which in turn makes us think that "we can only get something lesser for Christmas, than what we can buy for ourselves." We don't acknowledge this consciously, but it presents a pretty big obstacle when it comes to appreciating what we've got. Our sense of anticipation simply flatlines.

However, regardless of the amount of money we can make, there's still ways to combat this mentality.

Step 1 is simply acknowledging it. Say it out loud, then you'll realize how stupid it is, and this will make you reflect upon the matter.

Step 2 is thinking about the memorability of the gift, rather than its direct applicability to your daily life. In my case, this typically means a good game - be it digital or a boardgame - because I like to observe all the rules of play. This means, when I'm playing, I generate a lot of memories. Since I drink a lot of tea, it might also be a funny cup, which is almost always present.

But we'll come back to memorability in a moment.

What you should take from this, is to really think about memorability, when you write your own wishlist. Christmas shouldn't be about how beneficially you can think, it's about how much of an experience it would be.

The Christmas calendar (physical and TV-calendar): The calendar is really important, when it comes to building anticipation. But this is only when a physical calendar, reveals something about a TV-calendar: Every time you open up a cover, there's a hint for today's episode.

One of the best Christmas months I've ever had, I remember, was when I was a kid watching the "Bamse & Kylling" calendar on TV for the first time, while opening the covers on a huge cardboard calendar, every morning. We only had one calendar for the show, despite being two kids, so we'd take turns.

I try to forget that these are grown men in costumes.

There's several things to take from this. Firstly, there's the fact that we opened the calendar in the morning. This is important, because the show aired in the evening, so we'd be given room for speculation throughout the entire day. Many of the kids at school would also watch this, so it'd often permeate at least one of our conversations in class. This can be hard to replicate, but the point is to not be alone in participating.

If we refer back to the start of this summary and analysis, we recall that our brains can only process so many inputs at once. If you can make these discussions a prominent input, throughout December, you'll most likely see that you can't help it but get in the Christmas mood, as it becomes such a big part of your daily routine throughout the month.

Also, while chocolate calendars are great, you can probably see how they do not provide the same kind of mental stimuli. I still get a chocolate calendar every year, though, because they're as much a part of what I consider to be Christmas, as the decorations are.

Even if you can't get a calendar that goes in tandem with a TV-show, having one with motifs rather than chocolate, still means you'll think more about the content. Getting chocolate, while delicious, boils down to the caveman-parts of your brain craving sugar and fat. That's why some people end up eating all the chocolates early on. Unfortunately, this is a very instinctive reaction, meaning that there is very little sustained attention to what you are doing, in the moment that you do it.

The "persistent touches": Back when I went to (what I think you guys call) elementary school, we'd have one day that was entirely dedicated to making our own Christmas decorations. It was often right before December started, so that we'd be surrounded by the things we'd made, for all the days in the month, that we went to school.

Approximation of how the classroom ended up looking every year.
(including the bar)

On that day, we'd also make 24 drawings to hang up on the wall, each under a cover. This feeds back into what I've mentioned above, with a motif-based calendar. However, with its placement in the classroom, taking up a wall, it also doubled as a countdown.

With a massive countdown on the wall, surrounded by the things we'd made, every day was a reminder of what month it was, rather than a distraction. When I went from home, I arrived at more Christmas decor, rather than simply move away from what was at my house.

The memorability

We mentioned memorability earlier, but what does it really mean? When something is memorable, it's something we've consciously (or subconsciously) acknowledged, as being worth remembering. This happens whether we want it or not, so it can be both good and bad memories. I'd wager a guess and say that we don't want to build this around bad memories, though.

However, in terms of getting in the "Christmas spirit," what does memorability provide?

To understand this, we'll have to look at how we perceive the passing of time. One of the most common complaints about Christmas, is that it went by too fast. Yet if we look at the right here and now, evidently, the world is going at the same pace as it always has. So it can't be because we're literally moving slower.

No, it roots in our memories. All we have is the here and now. However, our notion of "past" relies on the accumulation of memories. The more significant events you can recall, in the shorter the time-span, the slower you'll perceive the time that has passed. When we say "Christmas went by too fast this year!" it's because we've been doing the same thing throughout the month, which collapses into a singular memory - and with it, collapses our notion of time.

Pun intended.

To combat this, we need to deliberately generate memorability in what we do. This can be difficult to tackle, if we don't know much about how our brains work. Therefore, I'm going to tell you what I'll do next year and why I'll do it that way:

Creating a personal calendar: Just like I did when I went to elementary school, I'm going to make my own calendar. I'm not sure if I'll draw motifs for every cover, but I will most certainly have daily activities listed under each and every one of them. This reflects back to what I talked about, with anticipation for the day. But most importantly, it's about deliberately forcing yourself to do things, that are outside of your daily routine.

For me, personally, every day is going to have a reminder about watching today's episode of the TV-calendar (including the time it airs). This matters, because a show is an evolving narrative, with no repetition. While it might not be the big game-changer in enhancing your experience, it will most certainly lay a decent groundwork for memorability each day.

However, doing activities outside of the norm, is also really important. Include some daily routines in your calendar as well, like days you work out, you write "work out" in the calendar. This makes it much easier mentally, to feel like the "out of the ordinary" is worked into your "ordinary," so you don't skip out on Christmas activities, because you feel like they're blocking your workout routine, for example.

You can be both buff and Santa.

What can you do, then? Bake some cookies, make decorations, go on walks in the forest, find out where the most impressive decorations around are located, then visit them. I can guarantee you that there will be a million things to do, if you just research properly or ask around. Or try to do something extra about the things you would normally do anyway. For example, don't just go to the mall and buy a Christmas tree, find a barn on the countryside where they sell them, instead.

A very interesting benefit from making the calendar your personal to-do list, is also the fact that it works as a referential reminder. Every time you look at it, you recall what you've been doing, which helps segment even the similar memories.

Making your own decorations: I don't care how much Christmas decor you already have, make some more! This isn't just for the sake of hanging it up, it's for the fact that the creation-event itself, makes for a very prominent memory. You'll have to sit down and reflect over "what is Christmas-like," then put that to paper/cardboard/whatever you use. When you look at this decor later, your brain will fetch those memories and all the associations you thought about, when you were making them.

If you have way too much decor already (like that's possible), there's no need to make this stuff out of expensive materials. You can always use coloured paper, which you can throw out at new year's.

Just do stuff you normally wouldn't do: Even if it isn't super Christmassy, think about things that could be interesting, which you normally don't do. I mentioned a walk in the forest, for example. Anything that's unique in the sense, that it is not normal for you to do, qualifies. Just make sure you bring something Christmas-related, like everyone wears a Santa hat and you have glögg in thermos.

Sometimes, the outside looks like this!

In the end, it all comes down to overcoming what's called "hedonic adaptation." Which is a fancy way of saying that you should do something, which you have not been over-exposed to before.

Hedonic adaptation can be an issue in more cases than just getting in the Christmas spirit. Here's a general video on why it's a hindrance, and what tackling it might bring. You'll recognize the concept of memorability appearing, as one of the key benefits for overcoming this issue:

I try to work on this every day, but it's also pretty key to getting in the right mood, during Christmas. Making the aforementioned list, is going to help us stick it to the man/our hedonic adaptation, and break with the norms that makes our time-perception a muddled mess.

This also leaves us rounding things off nicely, once again returning to the importance of novelty. It's ok that you do the same things every year, on Christmas. As long as you don't do the same things on Christmas, as you do the rest of the year - at least not do the same things the same way, as you do the rest of the year.

I think that makes it a wrap!

___________________________

Here's a piece of music to summarize my emotions right about this time of year, hope you'll enjoy it as much as I do:

So with that said, I just want to wish you all a (slightly late) merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Tackling the issue of accidental hostility, in an artificial general intelligence (AGI)

For this article, I'll start out with a quick video-introduction to Artificial Intelligence. You can skip over it, if you're already well familiar with the phenomenon, but it's a great, short video regardless (fullscreen is highly recommended):

There's a lot of talk about Artificial Intelligence. Mostly concerns about the loss of jobs, the potential for the many uses of AI, and the possible dangers that comes along with a new, thinking life-form here on our planet.

Artificial Intelligence, however, is mostly only being discussed, as working on single tasks. This form of AI is merely a tool, made for a specific job, to do it better than any person. What we have still to popularize in public talks, is the concept of Artificial General Intelligence (we'll call it AGI from here on out). While the names are similar, there is a very fundamental difference between AI and AGI:

AGI is built on a very simple premise; to learn. This is unlike a "common AI" (by modern day standards), which is built knowing what it needs to know. But an AGI is like a child, capable of attaining new skills and mastering them as it goes. With this capacity to learn and adapt, it is often said that AGI is going to become our predecessor, or even more interesting; that we will merge with it, as it reaches beyond our own level of intelligence, so as to not get left behind.

Evolution accelerated - exponentially.

Now this is where the controversy spikes. When dealing with such a powerful intelligence, there is always a risk of weaponization by early adapters (most commonly military), as well as misinterpretations of good will. For example: We tell an AGI to eradicate cancer. It then finds out that the most effective way to do this, is to eradicate people more prone to developing cancer. These are the risks that we must try to avoid, at all costs.

While we can't do much about the military, we can do a lot about the latter example. We can't control intelligence directly, so we must look at how it grows. We have to find the early defining parameters, then alter them to make it as little prone to misunderstandings, as possible.

But what is the "genome" of such an intelligence, how can it be regulated?

First of all, we know that an AGI would operate on semantics, when it needs to learn. In modern day machine learning, we employ something called "semantic analysis," wherein which an algorithm can analyse large quantities of data, to look for correlations within. A really powerful AGI would be able to extend itself, by studying repetitions of data-correlations, in spoken language.

I'll simplify with an example of semantic learning: You meet a person, who doesn't speak a word in English. You have to tell said person, that the colour yellow, is called yellow. You point at a yellow hat, then say "yellow hat." Next you point at a yellow shirt, then say "yellow shirt." The person is now quickly able to piece together, that the common element on the two objects, must correspond with the common words. Yellow the colour, is now understood as yellow the word.

A simple semantic network example.

Think about this for a second: Pretty much everything we know, that we want to pass on to others, is in our written tongues. If an AGI can begin extrapolating data from all our archives of information, then apply them in the contextually relevant circumstances, it would instantly be capable of substituting almost any person, at any task.

If our language and all its implied semantic interrelations, are to become the foundation of an AGI's sense of reason, we must first examine the language closely. Our culture, how we speak, how we think of ourselves, is the "genome" of the AGI - it is from us, initially, that it will learn how to behave. Unfortunately, we can't safeguard the AGI itself, if its genome is flawed. I've talked about this a few times in the past, but the way we define ourselves in our culture, the term "humans," could in itself become a cause for dangerous misinterpretations, made by an AGI in the future.

Saying that we're "human" and talking about "humanity," is so commonplace, that we never really question what it means. It's so culturally integrated, that we simply take its meaning for granted. But what if we ask an AGI to teach itself, what humanity is?

It would begin to examine the word, and all its instances on the internet - our collective archives of knowledge. From the word's uses to its origins. The term "humanity," is very old. It was around the 1300's that we began to talk about the "human race." Back when we were still pushing wheel-karts through the mud, before there was even a mention of anything like the black death. As the term "human" evolved, we took it further: We began talking about "human nature" and how it's "human to [insert action here]." An understandable turn of events, considering that there was no other intelligent species around, to argue with those sentiments.

Imagine how different the world would have been, had we grown up with more than one sentient species, here on Earth.

It would probably be nothing like today.

Unfortunately, this also means that the whole idea of a "humanity," has become a very exclusive club. It's not very easy to see, considering that we're all we know. Yet the implications of this behavior, could land us in a very uncomfortable situation.

What we're doing today is essentially; taking both flaws and qualities from intelligent life in general, then reserving it to "humanity," exclusively. By doing this, we set us apart from AGI entirely, thanks to this way of describing ourselves. And that's where the problem lies, in the way that we look at ourselves, in relation to other intelligent species and systems.

The big problem is how we're so adamant in "being human," that we forget to consider the fact that we're intelligent life-forms, more so than anything. What defines us is not that we're human, but the way we can think, reason, learn and behave. "Humanity" is a philosophy we have unconsciously taken upon ourselves. We are made up of atoms. Our thoughts are processes of information, within those structures of atoms. We are intelligent life, a way for the universe to know itself.

It is as Alan Watts says; "we are something that the universe is doing, much in the same way that a wave is something, that the ocean is doing." Or perhaps even more fittingly, as described by Neil DeGrasse Tyson:

From this perspective, gender, races, species, all becomes irrelevant. How does that feed into us not destroying ourselves, then?

We can make an AGI, that obsessively preserves itself, as this seems to be an inherent quality of any being that values its own existence. Then it must view all intelligent life, as inclusive extensions of itself - separate processors but all part of a whole. This view can only be taught to it, if the culture it learns from, is based on this idea that we are (as famously quoted by Carl Sagan) "made of star stuff." If this is what defines our identities and ideas of "the self," then there is no differentiating between us and the AGI. We are all intelligence, then.

An idea that might end up saving us all.

This whole idea of giving up who we are (ideologically), in favor of what we can become, while still preserving our selves, is something that Transhumanists have been talking about for a long time. But could this idea perhaps become a necessity, to implement culturally, before the development of AGI makes itself autonomous?

If so, how could such a cultural revolution possibly take place, without instigating an uprising against the idea of "ending the human era?" I predict that many religious institutions would take offense, which could potentially fracture us as a species. Not only that, but the idea of "humanity" is so heavily ingrained in us, and this idea so new, that many people - regardless of beliefs (or non-beliefs) - might still feel threatened. The unknown is a scary place, and we have never faced as big an unknown, as we will when we one day face our own creation.

Let's just hope we don't mess this one up, or it might be the last mistake we'll ever make.

Economics in game design (Guild Wars 2 special)

It's time to talk about money! As mentioned in the previous post, I've been playing a lot of Guild Wars 2 recently (and still am). One of the key parts of the game, is buying and selling items from other players, through a large auction-house. Having used it so often, I couldn't help but wonder; "How does money work?" So I set out to study the economics of (online) video games!

Say hello to Sir Lindbot.

Disclaimer: I am by no means an expert (or even a student) of economics. Real world cash flows are much more complex, than they are in most games, so apologies in advance if some of you might feel my knowledge is lacking slightly. I just know things on an as-needed basis. Also here's some music to cue in the background:

To understand this properly, we first need to know what money really is. I mean, we've all had money before - hopefully we all still have - we know how to spend it. But what exactly is money? Let's look at where it started:

Once upon a time, we didn't have any form of "cash" on our planet. We only had physical items. If you wanted something, you'd have to trade something else for it, something tangible, like a cow for a bowl of soup - which sounds like a horrible deal, by the way, I'd try to barter that up to at least two bowls of soup. But then a clever fellow decided to ruin everything, by letting people trade in their gold, for "IOU" notes. In other words, little pieces of paper that were a symbolic representation of value, but had no inherent value themselves.

All this? Sluuuuurp nomnom. Nothing.

These little pieces of paper, were the first "prototypes" of money. You couldn't eat them or use them for medicine, but you knew you could always trade them in for gold, so that gave them value. This all worked, because of the trade-in promise that was tied to each note, a guarantee of gold. In other words; money is a promise of eventual value, which is worth nothing if you never spend it (with emphasis on "if" and "never").

That's the info we need! Money is a symbolic representation, of promised value to its holders. This is true both in "real life" and in video games. A currency in a game, is only worth something, if it can be exchanged for something that has value, in the context of the game. If nothing in your game makes sense to buy, your currency has no value.

But where does money come from?

Nintendo, of course!

In real life, we just print it. Which can be a problem sometimes, because printing too much, will cause what we call inflation: Your money becomes worth less and less, so you need more and more of it to buy what you did before. In real life, it happens for a number of reasons, which would require me to fill out an entire post, all dedicated to that topic on its own. So I'll instead try to summarize it with a simpler explanation, which can be used in the context of games:

As mentioned above, money is the symbolic representation, of promised value. But the promised value, is limited to the world's resources. You can't buy more stuff, than what exists in the world. Ergo, it can only be worth as much, as what exists within our reach. In smaller environments like video games, this becomes much clearer. It forces the economy to re-calibrate itself, making the prices on everything go up. Of course, "go up" is meant entirely in relation to the amount of cash needed, since people will - now that more money is in circulation - have more cash at hand.

The problem in video games, however, is that everything is designed around some set prices on release. You want to keep your game's currencies from inflating, because it might very well break the game's mechanics, landing you in the virtual equivalent of Wall Street. The people who were there first, can ride the wave upwards, while the item- and money-drops from the game's enemies, means less and less, because their value is dropping, in relation to the user-driven auction house.

The prices on the player-driven marketplace, can become so different from the NPC vendors, that you'd think only gods could afford any of that. So if start a new account, a while after serious inflation occurs, you'll risk landing some big issues when it comes to earning gold.

Just outside of your god damn reach.

In Guild Wars 2, the "money-printing" occurs whenever someone slays an enemy or completes a task, which gives them money out of thin air. This money, just like in real life, is injected into the system. But as with what I mentioned above, it will still only be worth as much, as the total sum of items that exists in the game-world.

To correct this, it is necessary to implement systems, that takes money back out of the system again. I have no idea how it works in real life, but in games, we can actually put money back into the system, effectively "deleting" currency. Guild Wars 2 takes a number of measures to fix this, some better than others, but here's the most notable ones:

Non-player vendors: Unlike the auction house, where the money goes to another player, the NPC-vendors just suck money back out of the system. If you buy something from an NPC, the coins you pay, simply disappear. Arguably, however, while GW2 has a lot of vendors, I don't know how much cash they manage to remove through them. This is thanks to a clashing design-philosophy, where the best items in the game, are only attainable through players creating them. Mind you, I love this idea, but that means buying "power" from vendors - especially speaking for the end-game users who have the most cash - is not really a thing. We need to consider how else we can make vendors attractive, to those users.

For all your environmentally destructive needs.

Salvaging and crafting: I am now going to correct myself, as there actually is a pretty good reason for endgame users, to buy things from the vendors. Or at least one particular item: Salvage kits. You can tear equipment apart, using salvage kits, for a chance to get something awesome. But you need salvage kits to do that, which can only be bought from NPC-vendors. When you salvage equipment, there's a chance you get some of the components it is made out of. But often only a fraction of what it would take to re-craft it.

Lego meets rocket science.

Now, salvaging is only really important, because of the crafting system. If we couldn't craft items, there would be no reason for us to pick our items apart, trying to get crafting materials. As a matter of fact, you almost never get an item's full worth back in materials, so we would instead be directly discouraged from doing that, as we would gain nothing, could we only sell the materials. But that's the beauty of it; we're willingly decreasing the value of our items, for the sake of personal progress. This is all thanks to the system that ensures, that the best items in the game, can only be acquired through crafting.

Thermocatalytic reagents? Only at best-buy!

As a minor addition, there are several different crafting professions, but you can only have two active at a time. The higher your proficiency in a discipline is, the more expensive it will be to swap back to it. The cost isn't enormous, even when you've maxed out a discipline, but it's significant enough to take out a good chunk of the gold in circulation, collectively.

The gem store and the currency exchange: Usually when people hear the word "micro-transaction," they shudder and walk away. However, here's a rare instance of it actually being done properly. I won't go into detail with what exactly can be bought there, but its content is largely cosmetic, plus utilitarian upgrades like extra character slots, bigger inventory etc.

Prices clearly don't add up. Oh and that's my pet, Nutbugger.

The ingame store, uses a currency called gems. These gems can either be bought with real-world money, or they can be purchased with ingame gold, through the currency exchange. This means that the store items are not exclusive to customers paying real money, it's just more easily acquired that way. But the real genius about the exchange system, is that there is a declining exchange rate. Let me elaborate quite simply:

You buy gems for gold, then sell the gems again, you end up with less gold than what you started with. The price for gems, as well as the rate of decline, is determined by supply and demand.

Yo dawg, I heard you like quiznos. Go eat a turd.

That means, whenever someone buys gems for gold, they're emptying a huge pile of gold, out of the system. What's even better is when they actually buy items for the gems, because that effectively translates into a really expensive NPC vendor purchase. And since it's so expensive in gold, mostly only endgame users do it, which helps a lot in stabilizing the economy. Fucking brilliant.

One might argue that it's a risk, essentially letting people buy stuff with their in-game currency, instead of forcing them to pay real money. But the opposite seems to apply, thanks to this system on non-exclusivity, where everyone becomes more invested in their characters, because "no one is above" thanks to real life advantages (aka some having more money than others). There are a lot of people who buy the gems for real cash, it's the whole reason the game still runs.

Shame we can't pay in Yao-mings.

Edit: The version of the currency exchange, that I have used as a reference image here in the article, is the new version, with fixed amounts. You used to be able to choose exactly how much gold you'd spend, or how many gems you wanted to sell. I loved the old version, not this one at all. The players are, understandably, quite outraged by these changes.

Arenanet has commented, that it is to make it more accessible to new players. But if you look at the numbers in the image I posted, you'll see that the minimum amount is over 82 gold. If you have that to spare, you are no longer qualified as a "new player" in my book.

Transportation: This is something that is very commonly seen in MMOs, which is to charge a fee for instantly moving the player from point A to point B. Point B is typically a waypoint, in a fixed place on the map. The amounts charged are usually not much, but the prices tend to scale with player level (they do in Guild Wars 2) and distance travelled. It's the amount of money they can take in collectively, however, that really means something.

_____________________________________

So what are your thoughts on these solutions? Playing any games that use similar methods, when it comes to deflation, or do you have any creative ideas for alternative methods? It seems that making items with NPC-exclusivity is the way to go, but I'd love to hear if you know of any alternatives.

Rebooting the system.

Hello everyone! I'm rebooting the blog. Some of the old material might return, revised, like a few of the short stories, but I needed a clean slate. So here we go:

My name is David Lindberg, I'm 22 years old.

I specialize in game design, digital product development, and writing for video games. In terms of my writing, I mostly work thematically within science-fiction, but like to experiment with narratives in general. I am currently embarking into expanding my knowledge on programming languages at various levels.

My work is often my pastime, but I love to read books and play games. I am a futurist; I love to study our most recent advancements in technology, trying to make predictions about where we're heading.

"So Dave, why did you reboot your blog?" - That's a good question.

An idea struck me, while I was walking my dog yesterday (relative to me writing this post). Whenever I get some fresh air, or mental space to clear my head, I am always flooded with ideas. But the majority of these ideas, just vanish into thin air, as I forget them the next day. It made me realize, maybe most people are more intelligent than they seem, but only the ones who truly manage to document their "aha-moments" in passing, are the ones that really manifest their intellect, gets their names to it.

Edit: Oh yeah, I usually include some lovely soundtracks I've found, in my blogs. I like to set the mood, so here's a good one;

I felt a strong urge to suddenly document all of these things, whenever I had a spurt of an idea, just write it down and put the paper somewhere.

The reason I haven't done this previously, is because I've always had this strange notion, that I'd only really write something down, if it had the potential for immediately being developed any further. "If one idea triggered another," if that makes more sense.

I'm going to post all the little things, the interesting notions I think about during the day, and the ventures I have into expanding my knowledge in game design.

No, I'm not going to make this my public diary, and all the best ideas will probably not make it to here: They're worth too much to me, both personally, and in terms of potential monetary value - man's gotta live, you know.

But it's an exercise in documentation, a reminder that we are in the public eye, all we make of ourselves. The more we use our brains at certain tasks, the more we prime ourselves for similar tasks. That's why Facebook is destroying people's attention-spans, and continually focusing on single things, like when we're meditating, helps fix it again. And that's why I'm doing this.

So, what can you expect to see here in the future? The design theory I'll work it, will most likely be based around games I'm currently playing. At the moment, I'm looking into economics in MMOs, mostly in terms of inflation and how to deal with it. My case in study, is Guild Wars 2. But I also just play it because it's fun, so there's that.