MyMiniCity Mechanics & Pictures

Now that my city has reached population of 100, there are more games mechanics that I have to be aware of . After a couple of search I found a fair bit of information, and surprisingly the info is mainly in chinese and japanese. I guess a lot of players are from China, Taiwan, and Japan. I would use my city name "scraze" as the illustration. For other players, please replace the 'scraze' with the correct city name.

Here's what I could gather from these blogs and sites. Seems like there are 6 milestones. Once a city hits population of 50, there will be unemployment. With this milestone, another option of factory creation would appear, for the player to create factory. This is done via clicking the original url with a'/ind/' behind. For example, instead of 'scraze.myminicity.com', the person should enter 'scraze.myminicity.com/ind/'. Without factory there will be unemployment. Once unemployment hits certain figures, the people will leave the city. Each factory can create jobs for 3 population. Here's a picture of some factory

Once the city hits 100 population, there is need for better transportation. With more population, the 'transport' indicator would slowly drop from 100%. Thus another option would appear, where people can enter 'scraze.myminicity.com/tra' to increase the transport facility. Each facility can provide good transport for 10 population.

When the city reaches 300 population, there is need for social security, else the crime rate would increase from zero onwards. So the fourth option is security, where players click scraze.myminicity.com/sec/ to improve the security features. Each feature can help to decrease crime rate for a further growth of 15 population.

The fifth milestone is parks and recreational facilities. This comes about when the population hits 500, and the url to click would be scraze.myminicity.com/env/. I have seen some parks in other cities which are quite interesting. Here's a list of the different indicators, which could be iewed on the webpage itself.

The last stage is the commercial stage, where there is need for commercial investments. By pressing 'scraze.myminicity.com/com', commercial buildings could be built. So there will be high rise features in the cities. Commercial building can also help to decrease unemployment rates.

While it is a simple game, there is satisfaction in seeing it grow, especially when the buildings upgrade themselves to become something else. It's a pity there is no option to rotate the city, else there would be more fun to look at the city from various angles. Here's a picture of how a small yellow church could grow to become something nicer.

Other than the factory figures, I couldn't verify other figures accurately yet. Nonetheless, the purpose of the game is to have fun, so the mechanics need not be so detailed I guess. It seems after the commercial stage, there is chances of 'accidents' e.g. chemical factory explosion, happening. Well if it happens I guess I would update it here. Not sure at what stage would I decide to let the city stagnant, since to grow a city beyond 1,000 population takes a fair bit of effort. :)

Lone Wolf & Other Books Available Free Online!

Long before the emergence of virtual worlds, many of us had played in make believe worlds framed by books like Advanced Dungeon & Dragons and other Role-Playing Games book. Among the more successful ones include those Lone Wolf books by Joe Dever. I personally have played the whole Lone Wolf series till book 12, as well as the 'World of Lone Wolf', Freeway Warrior and 1 or 2 Combat Heroes books. I still have a number of these books packed away somewhere in storage boxes.

So in part nostalgic, in part curiosity, I visited the Project Aon site when I heard that they are putting all Lone Wolf books online, and for free!

It seems Joe Dever has given his permission to re-work all the books onto online version. I tried the 1st book "Flight from the Dark", and I must say the experience is not bad. There is a Java script of the character sheet, which makes updating of items easy. The script also include a combat function, so no more need to 'point the tip of the pencil' at the random number page of the book. For those who want to run everything online concurrently, the Project Aon team also provided a 'StatsKeeper" program that displayed the character sheet on the left while the player plays the game using the right panel. Cool!

The Project Aon team took on this role when they realised that the books are no longer published, and ever since then there is a renewed interest in Lone Wolf. Perhaps there is limited publication of the books, but I can still find a number of these books in the second hand bookstores. Moreover, I think the Lone Wolf game may be made as an online MMORPG soon, based on news that Joe Dever is working with Ksatria Gameworks on the project.

MyMinicity reaching 51 population

After 7 days of play, MyMinicity has reached a population of 51. The rate of growth is nothing great, but along the way I discover a few things. Here's a gif of the different screen-shots I took. Gif was created using online gifninja. The gameplay is very simple, and I guess that's what attracted people. With each population growth you could see little changes on the map that is quite interesting. (afternote: blogger doesnt support direct gif file upload so i break it into a few jpeg files.)

Firstly, those tools I recommended earlier could be used to grow the village by 1 population each. This is because these tools will 'query' the website about the statistics, and thus contribute to 1 population. Thus I've searched around, and also found this Japanese website which does comparison of two cities, and could be used to grow the population as well. Just key in the name of the two cities at the bottom of the site will do.

Secondly is that once the city hits population above 50, there are other options available for growing industry, transport...etc. I only have the option of industry so far. Once I reach other options, I'll do an update of what each means. :)

Simple Review of MyMiniCity

I was first attracted to the MyMiniCity when I saw the MSN message from my MSN buddy. Then I did a simple Wiki search and found the description of the game. After a couple of months, I finally decided to give it a try.

Signing up for the game is very simple. First you select a country (I couldn't find mine, apparently the selection is not comprehensive), and then you give your city a name. Voila! That's it! The starting city would have 1 inhabitant, and you need visitors daily to help the city grow. That's the simple mechanics of the game, i.e. attract visitorship. The more visitors per day, the faster it grows. Once a certain size is reached (i.e. 50), there will be other options available.

After starting the city, I searched around for various tools. Found a couple of tools and simple tricks to help grow the city. Other than asking for friends to visit the page, a player could also put up a java script of the minicity onto his blog to monitor the development. One good example of the script could be found at the WidgetBox. Here's a pic of the widget.

There are other sites that provide pop-up windows for blogs that automatically link to the MiniCity. I think that is not as good a suggestion though for the blog visitors since many people do not like pop-ups.

Another useful tool for monitoring the statistics of the MiniCity could be found here, where the website offer comparison between two different MiniCities. Another site that offers statistics could be found here. After 'playing' the game for 2 days, and irritating my friends with requests for 'clicks', I got the city to a size of 13 population. Guess I'll explore more about MiniCity and provide more comments next time.

Computer Games & Allied Technology 08

I went to the Computer Games and Allied Technology 08 on day two of the event. The particularly interesting sessions to me would be the ones on the rights ownership in virtual worlds, and the use of virtual worlds for scientific collaboration. Paul Bourke from the University of Western Australia presented an interesting example where scientists collaborated on the creation of a replicate site in Australia for a telescope. He also gave examples of how 2nd Life could be used to visualise 3D molecules. What is interesting to me is how we could model virtual objects using real world data. Incorporate this concept with existing mapping tools like Google Earth, it is highly possible that we could experience 'mirror worlds' creation much sooner than we thought.

Pic of a booth at the event

Virtual worlds are also no longer just platforms for recreational games, as evident from the numerous news articles and developments in this area. That was also quite well covered by the different CGAT sessions about the use of such tools for learning. What is remarkable is that people have been talking about it since 2002 or earlier (see this BBC article), but this concept is still not widely adopted.

Oh well, having more of such seminars / conferences would definitely profile the benefits of virtual worlds to more mainstream audience. Of course, after these uses become mainstream, the difficult questions of who owns what rights, and how much of the revenue should go to which 'creators' would be a big headache for consideration. :)

Rise of the P2P Economy

Peer to Peer (P2P) systems, where computers (or nodes) are linked up within a network into a mesh like configuration, have its beginning in newsgroup for spread of news. Subsequently P2P is used for sharing of music, video, and even voice data in real time. There have been many controversies involving P2P, where companies are sued, and network providers like the ISPs decide to 'manage' traffic for P2P. This even resulted in some suggestion of a legislation just for P2P, i.e. the P2P Bill of Rights.

Interestingly, the evolution of P2P has reached a new level, and now the concept has even evolved to include direct e-commerce. We have the Havard Business Review listing P2P Economy as one of the breakthrough ideas for 2008. The HBR listing feels that P2P economy has come, when consumers become consumer-producers that transact on a micro-scale with micro-incomes for individuals.

Personally I feel this trend has existed before 2008, since we have already heard of the term 'pro-sumers' sometime back. The only addition is the use of P2P concept, and the direct involvement of micro-income streams. Micro-income stream as a business model, is made more popular with Zilo. Zilo allows individuals to easily add a shop front on their blogs and websites, and essentially acts as the middle man between the actual goods manufacturers and the 'pro-sumers', i.e. retailers. Individuals are now retailers, with their own peers, e.g. blog visitors,as the consumers. Zilo offers over 6 million products for 'sale' and each sale results in about 10% commission for the 'pro-sumer'. Not bad, I bet the 10% commission paid is cheaper than what an actual shop rental would have cost.

Is this trend going to continue? I bet it will, and I think the industry knows this as well. Seems like Amazon banned Zilo. Not too surprising. Would this invite more 'protest' and barriers from those who feel threatened or who want to have a share in this new revenue pie? Yes again I think.

At least I think the ISPs who want to 'manage' P2P traffic will have greater justification now to charge more for P2P traffic, since the P2P traffic is used to generate income by the subscribers. Since ISPs generally charge different broadband rates for consumers and businesses, they will want to charge some 'P2P rate' in-between these normal rates for the 'pro-sumers'. If they cannot charge the individuals directly, they will want to charge the service providers, i.e. Zilo.

Next would be the tax authority. Individuals selling small items online at auction sites are not big worries for the tax authority, since how much could they make? A few thousands per year for the minority of successful sellers? If the amount is significant, the authorities can easily track the individuals down. However, using such P2P economy concept, the manufacturer of goods / products could be overseas, while the 'local' shopfront of 'pro-sumers' are technically not subject to any tax. Traditionally the wholesale providers who bring in the good have to declare and pay tax. The retailers who sold the products have to pay corporate income tax. 'Pro-sumers' belong to neither categories, and it is almost impossible to track the transactions of 'pro-sumers' nor are the 'pro-sumers' require to maintain accounting books. This would be an interesting mess.

Despite these 'barriers', I still think P2P economy is the way to go. Maybe Zilo wouldn't be the most successful case, but there will be others. Napster failed (in a way) but Bittorent came along and now it is a mainstream activity. There is no way for any corporates or government to stop Internet development driven by the whole of Internet users. They can stop one or two, but others will spring up. Internet users would embrace such P2P concepts for the simple reason that they can participate in these activities, and also cut down the middle-men (for the commerce part) for better profits. Since there is a demand from the Internet users, someone will come in to fill the gap.

As for how far such a concept of P2P economy would go, and what forms it will take in the years to come, it is anyone's guess. Those who ride this tide early will be the next successful Internet icon. :)

Google Sky Maps

The Google Sky maps are sort of old news since it is made available since last year on Google Earth (Google Earth just released the latest version 4.3 with a lot of features, e.g. integrated streetview & more realistic buildings). You could also get the html version via the http://www.google.com/sky/ Playing around with the site is quite fun, since it simply reveals the view of whatever you can see in the sky. Search for a planet, or constellation and you can get it easily. Once you are bored with looking at the sky, you could also view the moon and Mars. The 'About Google Sky' page also gives you a lot of interesting information about how the pictures are obtained...etc. Looking at Google Sky is like experiencing another different world.

So far so good.... and here comes the not so good part.

I want to look at what is happening to the sky right above me! Using the html website, I can't! Or at least I need to get some 'Right Ascension and declination' thingy figure out first. Now that is the difficult part. I know using Google Earth will solve the problem, but realistically I don't really want to load that software just to see my sky (and the objects) right? zzz.

Did some search using Google hoping to find a conversion tool or something so that I can find out the exact "right ascension and declination' but couldn't. Found this YouTube clip instead, that makes me more irritated actually. If anyone knows of such conversion tool, drop me a comment k? Thanks!

For those interested in Google Earth 4.3, where Google Sky is already earlier integrated inside, you could have a preview of it on YouTube: