f13.net

Is everyone trying to cash in on MMOs? This is insane. Not to mention stupid. The Minnesota Zoo is even giving it a go.

http://www.wolfquest.org/preview_video.html

I'm so there...

I like the Everquest logo font/style ripoff they went with.

Also, the kid howling, yea, that's absolutely money.

I was really disappoined that the kid didnt piss all over the floor...

It's not a MMO. It says in the feature list that it only supports 2 - 4 players in multiplayer mode.

Like Vanguard?

They should add Elves that can ride the wolves and call it ElfQuest.

I forgot about Vanguard.

Ok guys, no disrespect but you are really missing the point of this type of project. This specific project is a zoo taking a look at historical attendance of the 9-13 age group, applying the general "mission" of a zoo in the first place (hypothetically things like "get people close to those that share the planet with us", "teach people about animals", "give people passion about animals", etc), and using a technological solution to help accomplish that goal.

For the record, I've not heard about this project before I saw this thread, and know nothing about them specifically--but I am a pretty firm advocate of using game technology and games themselves as learning, social education, and general educational purposes.

There are many "serious games", "eco-games" (as this one is being designed as), and even "civil learning" games that are designed to use the motivational and familiar vehicle of gaming to teach. Venture Artic and Venture Africa are eco-games (and are made from Torque, to be up front), I also know of a game written to help child cancer patients learn more about their condition and feel engaged in fighting it by giving them a first person shooter style "game" inside a human body, letting them combat cancer cells and learn along the way, and a host of other "games" that are being funded for these types of purposes.

No, it's my firm opinion these are not "everyone trying to cash in on MMOs". In fact, it's the exact opposite--"cashing in" on the motivation and familiarity kids have with games/mmo's to help them become better people--not trying to make billions of bucks.

Do they want to make money? Sure--would be naive to say no. But is their primary purpose "cashing in"? Absolutely not.

It depends on the toolset they include with it. Modders might be able to make a persistant world ala Neverwinter Nights.

I personally want to create a map where you kill a couple cows, watch the farmer claim it was "UFOs" to his insurance company and then have Dateline NBC show up and do a story on Aliens in the heartland.

Am I the only one that actually wants to play this?  Small-scale co-op gameplay with relatively detailed modeling of wolf behavior (i.e. it's not just an FPS where you're a wolf, they put in scent trails and the like)?  The trailer looked pretty good to me.  At the very least, it's something new and original.

Side question:  Was that bullet time they used when the wolf struck a killing blow?

I agree with Zepp (and congrats on the massive funding you guys recently picked up!), educational games can have an effect on kids.  My parents were both engineers and I was always planning on following in their footsteps, until the old Win3.1 rendition of Where in the World is Carmen San Diego addicted me in 4th grade or so...

SOW PLZ

<sorry, I had to>

I like this idea, particularly in Minnesota.  They've been trying to raise awareness for the plight of the Timberwolf for years.  It's not a bad idea to build empathy in the kids.  It also makes a nice exercise for engaging kids at the grade school level in the whole circle-of-life thing.  I think it's a neat learning tool. 

I heard the wolves are over-powered and are going to be getting a nerf to their "Mark Territory" spell next patch. Every time I try that spell in public it seems to attract the police. They seem to have an affinity for urine or something.

I don't want to play it personally, but I certainly respect it!

It's kind of funny--I actually implemented "marks" for my old text mud for werewolves--they could leave text messages "attached" to a room that only other werewolves could see.

Visual scent trails (visual simply because rendering is easiest) is certainly doable, but needs to be carefully implemented or the scenes will get over-run with them due to kids going overboard--would be cool though.


Thanks, and with the "effect on kids", a lot of these types of games are becoming mainstream. From the Microsoft (I think it was IBM) "Green contest", to lots and lots of niche organizations reaching out to game tech companies for information on this type of venture, it's going to happen a lot more in my opinion.

Honestly I think this is brilliant. It's not overly ambitious, and does just what it's meant to. It's even got a sense of style and courage to it. Most of all it's something new, and I would give both testicles to play an MMO version of something like this.

I SMELL ELK!

Meatplace featuring WolfQuest Online!

Gold.

We have a Weener.

What a bummer that game would be, I can see it playing out two ways:

Timmy: Hooray! I beat cancer! I'm well now, right?
Doctor Unintelliageableindianname: No Timmy, I'm afraid you're still going to die, but it was fun, wasn't it?

Or

Timmy: Why can't I beat level 4? This game is broken!
Doctor Unintelliageableindianname: Aren't reality games fun?!
Russian Doctor: In soviet Russia, game beats you!

Disclaimer: I'm a horrible person, and I've been drinking, but mostly, im a horrible person.

Heheh...good viewpoint of course--and it's not a "game" in that there aren't win/lose conditions. The entire intent of that particular project was that when children have cancer, they are passive--not through choice, but because they have all these adults hovering around them using 10 syllable words they don't really understand. The "game" (it's more of a simulator really, just hard to describe) puts the kids in an active role--they can explore the human body, see what is going on, and "act" to do something about it. From the anecdotal conversations I've had at conventions and stuff, it's actually been pretty positively achieving that goal--kids feel more in control, or at least being able to participate more in what is happening to them.

They've already started the publicity :
(http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/8824/973996mh9.th.gif) (http://img406.imageshack.us/my.php?image=973996mh9.gif)

Looks like they are going for Meatdog online.