Achernar

The importance of being alone

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 17:44:00 +0000

Lucas Yeat (R.I.P.) considered this collection of poems his greatest achievement.

What is it that we remember when we think of the poet, years after his passing? Mostly, his unabashed addiction to certain substances, including cheese of random quality.

I know in the right time I will meet Lucas again. We will all meet him again. Forever.

The importance of being alone, by Lucas Yeat, on Amazon (eBook).

Project Compass and the "box" in "sandbox"

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 01:41:00 +0000

In which I react to a micro-incident in Eve Online, eager to share and marvel at a creative endeavor by fellow players.

Worlds beyond the wormholes
In Eve Online, you find your fun in many ways, but the core gameplay is one of many-flavored combat. (Miners don't extract fun from the game; they extract ores.) Stellar systems, for example, are categorized primarily in function of the restrictions to combat. You can fight in known space (empire, low-sec and 0.0) and in something called wormhole space, a wondrous network of mysterious interconnected stellar systems which appeared later in the life of the game.

Combat is supported by other forms of gameplay which provide the elements necessary for a good fight. For example, players can have their characters engineer the production of industrial items, like guns, often using space structures called Control Towers.

And then there is emergent gameplay: methods to fun that CCP, the developers of the game, did not necessarily think about beforehand. Even though they do not directly encourage or condone each of these methods, they strive to provide a favorable context for players to come up with creative ways to enjoy the game, whose most vaunted feature is its focus on sandbox gameplay and player-influenced narrative.

1300 light years from the center of New Eden...
Back to wormhole space: a few roleplayers decided their characters would launch an in-game initiative to research its location using advanced mathematics. Poetic Stanziel explains: "Project Compass' mission statement was to determine the location of w-space (aka Anoikis) with respect to k-space (aka New Eden). And further down the line, to map Anoikis systems with respect to each other." If it still sounds a little bit cryptic, what about this: to simulate the wormhole systems in its software, CCP gave them coordinates somewhere in the same tridimensional virtual world already host to known space. Project Compass used a little-known function of Control Towers to calculate those locations, using those equations. They invested time and in-game money to build a network of Control Towers for this purpose.
Knowing where the wormhole systems are in the virtual world has no in-game consequence, as wormholes are the only way to travel there (you cannot travel directly to another stellar system, much to my chagrin). It does not help in any way to perform better in the game and its in-game acquisition takes a lot of hard work (out of game, the information can actually be found in the public data dump). Its relentless pursuit is thus of the foremost importance and extremely fun.

Well, was actually, because the Crucible 1.5 patch removed this possibility: "Control towers in wormhole space no longer reveal distance in the Control Tower Management window." This change kills Project Compass before it completes its virtual astronomy masterwork. Time to remember that the sandbox is a box!

Why
Project Compass, because it is shared with the community, contributes much more to Eve Online than just the fun of the players involved. Why was this, admittedly extremely niche, method to fun patched out of the game?
I would guess a purely technical reason. CCP has no interest in punishing players finding unlikely fun with minor game mechanisms and playing around the enigmatic quality of wormhole space.
Chances are the developer(s) who championed this change of the rules never heard about Project Compass until the patch went live. If that is so, I hope that, in the future, they manage to squeeze some time in-between two daily scrums to watch the fragile mini-systems of fun that grow like lichens on the most unlikely parts of their game. And when those rare varieties of fun are roleplaying-based, CCP has one simple way to soothe their pain while changing a rule: just maintaining the coherence of the game narrative by providing a background explanation to the change.
Whatever the reason, when players explore the physics of the game, they tread the thin frontier between emergent, exploratory gameplay and the exploitation of game mechanics for combat or griefing. That is why the developers removed the methods to create deep space safes, used by some to park ships in space out of reach of all would-be probers (explorers), or why they prohibited the use of "grid fu" to manipulate the shape of the immediate viewable environment around the ships of player characters.

Someday, some capsuleer will stumble upon bits of code in-game and argue on the in-character forums about the possibility that New Eden is an artificial world.

The discussion is going on in this forum thread and on the Poetic Discourse: Thoughts from a graduate capsuleer blog post.

The content society 4: the future of income

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 11:53:00 +0000

A world without jobs
In The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future (2009), Martin Ford predicts that our society faces systemic mass unemployment within a few decades. He reflects about the necessity to provide people with work-unrelated income in order to preserve the free market, which he deems to be essential.
"In order to preserve the free market system, we will have to come to the realization that while work (at least for most people) may no longer be essential, broad-based consumption is essential."

The economy does not need you
While I disagree on the specifics, I agree with Martin Ford on the general concept of the solution he puts forward.
To me, the free market is not a grail or a beacon in the dark, just one nonexclusive method towards common prosperity. My end goal would rather be to preserve the people's means of living a decent life. Also, I believe that, sadly, the system does not need mass market consumption. When people lose their revenue streams, they get out of the system, which adapts. If everybody loses their job to the machines, the industry will manufacture stuff for the sole remaining customer: the owner of the machines. No, really: on the long term, not only are we all dead but nobody cares. If I sound like I know the future: I don't. But the concepts above need to be said strong and clear because the idea that more "growth" equates with more jobs is still ingrained in many minds. We can wish for more growth, and deal separately with the issue of incomes.

Looking for another way
All people should receive minimum income, enough to survive and never know hunger anymore. Salaries should provide extra revenue and should not be taxed. Actually, the society (or the government, but I want to make a point through the ideological blinders often associated with the word) should pay the salary of everybody, minus an optional, gradually more taxed, premium provided by the company as an incentive to recruit and retain the best personnel. This mass subsidization of the people would be funded with the riches to be found in the system. I do not believe in or long for bloody revolutions. So I want to think about a way to transition to such a system very progressively, iteratively, with opportunities to test if it can function as intended. It might entail, for example, the creation of a parallel, opt-in economic system, with its own money, that could gradually gnaw into the salary-based system. People could belong partially to both systems and, if the alternate system functions, it could grow into the main fabric of the economy. We could also envision multiple economic systems, all vying for the attention and interest of the citizens, until one of them or a combination of them emerges as a stable dominant method for the prosperity of all.

La société du contenu 4 : l'avenir du revenu

Un monde sans emplois
Dans The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future (2009), Martin Ford prédit que notre société s’achemine vers un chômage de masse systémique d’ici quelques décennies. Il réfléchit à propos de la nécessité de fournir aux gens un revenu non lié au travail afin de préserver le libre marché, qu’il juge essentiel.
“Afin de préserver le système du libre marché, nous devrons aboutir à la réalisation que bien que le travail (en tout cas pour la plupart des gens) ne soit plus indispensable, la consommation de masse est essentielle.”

L’économie peut se passer de vous
Je ne suis pas d’accord sur certains points mais je souscris au concept général de la solution proposée.
Pour moi, le libre marché n’est pas un graal ou un phare dans la nuit, juste une méthode parmi d’autres sur le chemin de la prospérité commune. Mon but final serait plutôt de préserver un niveau de vie décent pour tous. De plus, je ne crois pas, hélas, que le système qui se profile nécessite la moindre consommation de masse. Quand les gens perdent leurs sources de revenu et quittent le système, ce dernier s’adapte. Si les machines prennent le travail de tout le monde, l’industrie se réorientera au service du seul client restant : le propriétaire des machines. C’est ma conviction : à long terme, nous sommes tous morts et il n’y a personne pour nous regretter. J’écris comme si je connaissais le futur, ce n’est pas le cas. Mais les concepts ci-dessus méritent une voix claire et forte tant l’idée que la “croissance” équivaut à la baisse du chômage est ancrée dans encore beaucoup d’esprits. Nous pouvons rechercher la croissance tout en traitant séparément la question des revenus.

A la recherche d’une autre voie
Chacun devrait recevoir un revenu minimum, permettant de survivre sans jamais plus connaître la faim. Les salaires devraient fournir un revenu complémentaire et ne devraient pas être taxés. En fait, la société (ou le gouvernement, mais je veux faire passer un message à travers les oeillères idéologiques associées à ce mot) devrait payer le salaire de tous, à l’exception d’une partie optionnelle et supplémentaire, déboursée par l’entreprise pour attirer et retenir les meilleurs employés, et qui serait elle sujette à un impôt progressif. Des ponctions ailleurs dans le système financeraient ce subventionnement massif de la population. Je ne crois pas aux, ni n'espère de, révolutions sanglantes. Je veux donc réfléchir à une façon de transitionner très progressivement vers un tel système, avec des améliorations successives permettant de vérifier qu’il peut fonctionner comme prévu. Cette méthode pourrait comprendre, par exemple, la création d’un système économique parallèle sur une base volontaire, incluant une monnaie, et qui pourrait petit à petit grossir à l’intérieur du système salarial. Les gens pourraient appartenir aux deux systèmes et, si le système alternatif fonctionne, celui-ci pourrait devenir le fondement de l’économie. Nous pourrions aussi envisager de tester plusieurs systèmes économiques, tous en compétition pour l’attention et l’intérêt des citoyens, jusqu’à ce que l’un d’eux ou une combinaison de plusieurs d’entre eux émerge comme une méthode dominante stable vers la prospérité de tous.

Clone monologues 18

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 17:31:00 +0000

Hello, me.
In the past year, I have mostly dealt with logistics, that is, moving ships and assets from one base of operations to another. The carrier has seen repeated use as the Epsilon Lyr capsuleers have traveled space in their quest for a new stronghold to forge their destiny in. My crewmen, like the true space nomads they have become, barely ever leave their jumpsuits. And today, once again, we are on the move. The morale is high, but this is not the life I wanted. I long to experience another time-dilated space battle in my glorious Abaddon, like the one yesterday.

I might receive more than I asked. When you awaken, pray that your life will be violent, and leave out the short part.

Experiences with space democracy

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 23:33:00 +0000

This post is part of the EVE Blog Banter, a monthly Eve Online blogging extravaganza maintained by Seismic Stan. The polls have just opened for the election of candidates to occupy the 14 seats on the 7th Council of Stellar Management. To kick-start a topical CSM-themed banter, CCP Xhagen - fierce champion of freedom of speech and in his words, "the guy that gets yelled at when the CSM dudes do booboos" - has offered this question: "How would you like to see the CSM grow, both in terms of player interaction and CCP interaction?"

Pay to vote
The Council of Stellar Management (CSM) is a group of players elected by the player-base of Eve Online. It originates with the publisher of the game rather than the community itself, and its main mission seems to be to allow players to contribute meaningful ideas to the development and exploitation of the game beyond the playing itself. CCP, the publisher, seems to believe there should be no taxation without representation, so the right to vote is not given to actual persons but to game accounts: players get as many votes as they have accounts (sometimes two or more). Subscribers, not players or characters, have the right to vote.
One of the main hurdles on the digitization of the real life voting process is indeed the necessary verification of the voters's identity. The set of processes devised by the democracies of the 19th century to ensure transparency in elections does not function so well over the Internet. Unlike what happens in South Korea, where players have to provide their Social Security number before they can play online games, CCP cannot know for sure the identity of the players. They have settled for the next best thing, their database of accounts.

Liquid democracy?
CSM members are representatives, they gather physically to hold meetings, they elect a chairman, etc. This part is very traditional, too much for my taste in fact. This game is a sandbox, a space to explore alternatives and boldly go where no elective process has gone before! Thus, one thing I would like to see is something different. I have an example that I intend only as a starting point. The German Pirate Party has implemented within its ranks a system of direct democracy called "liquid democracy". In a nutshell, the word "liquid" refers here to the way you can delegate your vote on a specific topic to somebody you trust on this issue, and this person can in turn delegate his vote to somebody else, etc., in a flow. Search for it and you will find explanations of the concept, such as in this wiki.

Bring on the science fiction
I am not saying it would be a good idea to implement such a system as is, I am saying that Eve Online is a game, not an actual country, and though hundreds of people depend on it for their livelihood, they can also take much riskier stances and innovate like crazy, and it might just work, thanks to all those brilliant minds in the community and in the company.

Check other Eve Blog Banter articles on the same topic:

Freebooted: Blog Banter 34: The Rise of the Spaceship Politicians (check for new links)
Killers, Thieves and Lawyers by Corelin @ Mad Haberdashers
Credibility by Ender Black @ Pod Goo
Blog Banter 34 by Nikolaj Vincent @ EVE Stratics
Blog Banter 34 by Scitor Nantom @ Tilt180
Blog Banter 34 by Drackarn @ Sand, Cider and Spaceships
Spaceship Politics by Mara Rinn @ Rinn's Rants
A CSM for all parties by Emergent Patroller

Further Resources
CSM Vote-Match (candidate/voter compatibility test)
Jita Park Speakers Corner (discussion forum)
Council Candidates Voting Page The Council of Stellar Management - Implementation of Deliberative, Democratically Elected, Council in EVE by Pétur Jóhannes Óskarsson (CCP Xhagen)

Space captain: real-life corporation wants its name back

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 02:43:00 +0000

The players of the online game Eve Online manage many useful websites and services and one of the most significant is Dotlan. Dotlan provides the community with an efficient interface to exploit the game's public API.

Wollari, who runs the site, mentioned on Twitter that a real life company got in touch with him about an in-game corporation, included in his site's database, which was using their trademark. Wollari directed them to CCP, the publisher of the game.

I have no idea about the specifics. The founder of the in-game corporation could have consciously used the name of an existing company. Or it could be a case of making up a random name without knowing it already exists. In both events, the use of an existing trademark and the reaction of the company are of interest.

I was discussing yesterday with a graphic designer about logos. There are untold numbers of them and making sure the one you create is unique is a logistical nightmare. At least, the aforementioned company has plenty of search engines to identify any issue with its name. The world of pictures is not as easy to search as the world of words. A logo, like a name, is supposed to be unique. But everything has already been made. Words, pictures, guitar riffs... and cool-sounding corporation names. It is OK at some level, but not always, and certainly not for the next thousand years. How to deal with the scarcity of the resource?

This situation is exacerbated by the ubiquitous connection that redefines our society. Back in the days, we could bear the same name and nobody would know about it. Today, a real corporation can search its name on the Internet and take issue with a fictitious corporation using its name in an imaginary science-fiction universe.

Perhaps both words and logos could be assigned more insubstantial qualities. Right now, there are legal ways to ascertain your ownership of a name, but no cloaking device, no way to dampen the "signature radius" of a content on the Internet outside of the website you operate, signalling that "this is just for me and my pals, please leave me alone"; also, there is no invisible guardian angel hovering over your content on the Internet, making sure no one misunderstands what it is connected to. There is only the relentless purge of copies of names for dubious benefit to the society.

DUST 514 to be free-to-play: what next?

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:40:00 +0000

CCP announced that their online first-person shooter DUST 514 will be free-to-play. It means that we expect any owner of the supported gaming platform (PlayStation3) to be able to experience the game, at release, in a reasonably enjoyable fashion without having to pay an entry fee. Some players will provide revenue to the publisher by acquiring virtual goods to enhance their gaming experience.
Besides the fact that free-to-play is such an established business model nowadays, with huge hits such as League of Legends and World of Tanks, there are specific reasons why this announcement makes sense. The Eve brand is not known in console gaming circles, despite the buzz that has been growing around the development of DUST 514. CCP needs to diversify its income and there is no easier way to capture the attention outside of its traditional sphere of influence than by giving away the game.
Sony has a disproportionately high stake in this game, since it is both exclusive to their platform and allows them to reach to other gaming communities. If we do not pay the product, I guess we are the product. The competition from Facebook and Apple and who knows what must have Sony desperate to grow their flock and provide a credible alternative. In this world of abundant content, trading the entry fee for future microtransaction revenue makes sense if you are confident in the quality of your game.

Anyway, I am curious to see how the advertised connection between Eve Online and DUST 514 performs and what effect it will have on both gaming communities. Designing it seems like a recipe for headaches.
For Eve, we have one and soon two online games, a few books (my review of The Burning Life), a boardgame (my review), plenty of user generated content... I still think a small game for smartphones would make a nice addition to that.
I hope we can see more meaningful connections like that in the future, within the contexts of the Eve universe and of games in general. I dislike transmedia when its purpose is only to cover all bases.

What next?
There are many other games where I would enjoy this kind of cross-games interaction. For example, month-long play-by-email turn-based strategy games could connect with real time strategy games (for battles) or infiltration games (for espionage), etc. It would make some kind of long gaming continuum. This possible trend might mean some feature-rich games could drop features and those features would become complete games on the most relevant platform. Games might focus on what they do best and connect with complementary games based on previous features. MMOs are very feature-rich so I would not be surprised to see other announcements about games connected to MMOs. Wargaming.net (World of Tanks) might provide the combat game for Bioware's Star Wars MMO, for example!
Games might be created from the ground up with this connection in mind, like DUST 514, or they could reach to other games later in their career. The "connection feature" could redefine online games and the market of games.
Or DUST 514 could tank. We'll see!

Playing with the Company 8: Raise the Jolly Roger!

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 11:59:00 +0000

“You bloody idiot, you know better than to mix yer liquors!”
Kage Baker, The Life of the World to Come

Characters in the Company series have a peculiar look at history. The future depicted in the novels is bland. Past times is where interesting stuff happened: cowboys, Indians, and of course pirates. To truly understand pirates, you need to mix yer liquors. To write about pirates, you need to behave like a bloody idiot. You need, to have a HAT.

Pirates or Ninjas?
The clash of these super-memes is one of the most fundamental oppositions in culture, along with Dionysian vs Apollonian, Elves vs Dwarves, Elephant vs Hippopotamus. Kage Baker definitely sided with the pirates. The yarrr she brought into the world is manifest in one of the main characters in the series. For Alec, every day is Talk Like a Pirate Day. (Sadly, one of his twin brothers leans more on the ninja side.) Do you want to play the part of the good little boy, or do you want to be the rebel? Alec tries to be both, but his heart is true to the Jolly Roger.

Pirates have history.
This is not the first stage in life. You become a pirate, you are not born one. And escaping the rule of law, embracing freedom, is a conscious choice; nobody is forced into the pirate life. In a game based on the Company series, I would like to see players questioning rules and choosing to rebel. What would those pirates face? A totalitarian machine based on the most comprehensive surveillance system ever devised.

The decision to raise the Jolly Roger should come from the players; it should not even be introduced as a viable option. If players feel like using the good boy system, let them do it. And if they don't behave, let them be pirates.

Just send ninjas.

Eve Online has shards

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 10:55:00 +0000

The single most vaunted feature of Eve Online, along with the focus on sandbox gameplay, has to be its single shard universe. All players are able to interact with each other in the context of the game. The single shard leverages the full potential of the community.

This is a marketing lie. Another shard of Eve Online has existed for years in China. My understanding is that this quasi-clone of the original version was created to comply with Chinese rules. Some of these rules are about the nature of content, e.g., the possibility to destroy a capsule ("podding") has been removed. Other rules are about capital ownership. CCP just announced a new partnership with TianCity to publish Eve Online in China. I thought this press release would be a good occasion to reflect about the Chinese shard.

Right now, the Chinese players explore a world that is but a copy of the one explored by the global players. They cannot interact with other players. In my opinion, being exclusive in such a way betrays the ethos of Eve Online. This is obviously a business compromise, but the role of content creators is to accommodate business and technical impediments.

What would have made sense, if the law compels CCP to prevent Chinese customers to interact with non-Chinese, would have been having the Chinese customers play in a different part of the game universe. Trouble is, this will not happen. The background is intricately burrowed into the game system as in, a massive quantity of game objects are not background-neutral. Ships are obviously the result of the industry of specific civilizations. The same for Captain's Quarters, faces, plenty of skills, etc. A whole new series of stars and planets would have to be generated and named. The expansions have been built around a peculiar narrative, etc.

But still, it bugs me. I need to rationalize this other shard because, in the back of my mind, I still hope that at some point a grand unification of the Eve universe will happen.

Then again, maybe an entirely different set of human empires is located on the other side of the Jovian empire. The Joves are not talking, but have been feeding these empires with technology originating from Dodixie and Amarr. Or it could be a case of the parallel universes.

In the future, I hope this situation gets solved. Perhaps TianCity will go beyond publishing a clone. To keep with the spirit of Eve Online, they ought to make sure that their customers can explore a world that is truly theirs and not a carbon copy of the first one, minus some stuff that the Chinese government dislikes. This way, the fantasy that there is only one instance of the Eve cluster will be maintained.

The content society 3: value in a world of copiers

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 23:46:00 +0000

The digital environment makes the old content economy obsolescent. This provides us with a chance to re-assess what is the value of content and, further, what is the purpose of value. Once again, I am trying to make sense of what is a very public debate in the 2010's.

Content is everywhere
Content is the purposeful product of intelligence. It's what gets out of brains.
The digitization of content has begun with easy, static content (pictures, music) and is slowly moving to less tangible, more complex outputs of human activity (automatized). Once digitized, content can appear as an unchanging series of 0s and 1s or as something more complex and dynamic.
Computers copy (digitized) content. That is what they do. Putting limits to the copying has been the policy of many organizations in the past few years. They do so because they extract value from the controlled distribution of content. Thus, they focus their efforts on the copy and not on the creation.

Value is relative
Value is a social feature. It has meaning within a society and, as such, it is bound. Value holds within these social bounds and disappears without.
The concept of value is linked to those of money and income. All of these concepts enable the social phenomenon of exchange. But what do we want to achieve as a society by exchanging? What should civilization be about? The answer informs all present and future policies and strategies about content.

A long way from spinning jennys
Let's say we become able to digitize the skill of a surgeon. Computers copy this content. In every place equipped with the proper tools, this skill becomes available. In those places and times, being a surgeon brings no value. If the digital surgeon becomes commonplace, perhaps all of a sudden all those medicine students will feel like they learned something akin to humanities, like French literature or Latin. Maybe medicine schools will get empty. Medicine will not become something you learn to heal people and get rich in the process. Being a doctor will be less about execution and more about research and innovation -there would still be room for thinkers about ways to improve the digital surgeon.
Using the old content industry model, the owner of the digital surgeon in an all-digital surgeon environment should receive a little less than all the money that is currently spent paying all the surgeons today. (That is a lot of money for dubious effects on society.) The current economic system rewards copies.
The doctor who likes surgery would not, in normal circumstances, be able to extract payment for an operation, provided anybody even accepts to undergo an operation with a human surgeon by then. He would be like a 20th century factory worker faced with the rise of the machines. He would fail to find proper employment.
The example is meant to make a point and not to predict the future. If anybody can copy at no cost on his or her computer the digital surgeon, does it mean that the copy has no value? Yes. Let us all recognize the fact. Does it mean that the content is worthless and civilization would not be diminished were it to become unavailable? No. We still need to be healed and this contribution to the welfare of the society needs to be rewarded and encouraged.
If we really insist on rewarding content with money, we should stop counting copies as the sole way to set value, and focus on rewarding content creation itself, or whatever gets known to us after transition to digital status.

La société du contenu 3 : la valeur dans un monde de copieurs
L’environnement numérique rend obsolescente la vieille économie du contenu. C’est l’occasion de réétudier à la fois la valeur du contenu et la finalité de la valeur. Je tente ici de comprendre les éléments d’un débat devenu très public depuis quelques années.

Le contenu est partout
Le contenu est le produit de l’intelligence au service d’une intention. C’est ce qui sort de nos têtes.
La numérisation du contenu a commencé par le plus facile, le contenu statique (images, sons), et concerne désormais des contenus de moins en moins tangibles (par exemple, l’automatisation d’activités humaines complexes). Une fois numérisé, le contenu peut prendre la forme d’une série immuable de 0 et de 1 ou celle d’une structure plus élaborée et dynamique.
Les ordinateurs copient le contenu (numérisé). C’est leur nature. Beaucoup d’organisations promeuvent ces dernières années la fixation de limites au copiage. Elles le font parce qu’elles tirent profit de la maîtrise de la distribution du contenu. Pour cette raison, leurs efforts portent sur la copie plutôt que sur la création.

La valeur est relative
La valeur est intrinsèquement sociale. Elle a un sens dans le cadre de la société et pas au-delà de ses limites.
Le concept de valeur est lié à ceux d’argent et de revenu. Tous ces concepts rendent possible le phénomène social de l’échange. Mais que cherchons-nous à accomplir en tant que société en échangeant ? Que devrions-nous assigner comme objectif à la civilisation ? De la réponse dépendent les politiques et stratégies du contenu présentes et futures.

Le chemin parcouru depuis les métiers à tisser
Imaginons que nous devenions capables de numériser les compétences d’un chirurgien. Les ordinateurs copient ce contenu. Dans chaque lieu dûment équipé, ces compétences deviennent disponibles. Dans ce contexte, être un chirurgien n’a aucune valeur. Si un jour ce programme médical devient la norme, peut-être tous les étudiants en médecine se retrouveront-ils tout d’un coup avec l’impression d’avoir appris quelque chose qui relève plus des humanités, comme la littérature anglaise ou le latin. Les facultés de médecine pourraient se dépeupler. Ce cursus serait suivi pour d’autres raisons que juste soigner des gens et s’enrichir par la même occasion. La pratique de la médecine serait moins une question d’exécution et plus une démarche de recherche et d’innovation - le programme devrait encore pouvoir être amélioré.
Avec le vieux modèle de l’industrie du contenu, le propriétaire du chirurgien numérique, dans l’environnement couvert par son programme, devrait recevoir un petit peu moins d’argent que celui actuellement versé à tous les chirurgiens dans ce périmètre. (Cela représente beaucoup d’argent, avec des effets douteux sur la société.) Le système économique actuel récompense la copie.
Le médecin qui souhaite pratiquer une opération de chirurgie ne serait pas, dans des circonstances normales, capable de se faire payer, à supposer que quiconque à ce stade accepte de se faire opérer par un être humain. Il partagerait le destin des ouvriers d’usines confrontés à la mécanisation au vingtième siècle. Il ne pourrait pas trouver d’emploi relatif à sa formation.
Cet exemple est purement démonstratif et pas prédictif. Si n’importe qui peut copier sur son ordinateur le programme du chirurgien sans débourser un centime, cela signifie-t-il que cette copie n’a aucune valeur ? Oui. Reconnaissons ce fait. Pour autant, le contenu n’a-t-il aucune valeur et la civilisation gagnerait-elle à sa disparition ? Non. Nous avons encore besoin d’être soignés et cette contribution au bien-être collectif doit être récompensée et encouragée.
Si nous insistons sur le fait de récompenser un contenu avec de l’argent, nous devrions arrêter de considérer le nombre de copies comme le seul moyen de déterminer sa valeur, et récompenser avant tout la création du contenu lui-même, ou en tout cas ce qui nous devient connu après sa transition vers un format numérique.

The content society 2: the new faces of meaning

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 02:32:00 +0000

I might have titled this article "the slow march to irrelevancy of language as we know it" because that is all I am going to talk about here (using, incidentally, the English language - quelle ironie !).

Language, if anything, is meaning. (The sentence "you know what I mean" actually signals "I" have reached the limits of my ability to use language to formulate thoughts.) For us social animals, it is the key to power and the way we organize our acquisition of the products we need in our everyday life. Language is the debt that allows the capital venture of human society to exist.
It first evolved from its primitive origins, to fill the medium of air with sound then, much later, paper with letters. In quantitative terms, language is now delivered primarily through electronics. And this new medium is now formatting, changing it in ways that go beyond the rise of the SMS style.
An entire class of professionals has dedicated itself to maximizing the use of language, exploring its limits and abusing it for different purposes. Words are many. Sometimes, words are removed from their origins as implements of human intellect. Robots speak.
As a result, words have lost their power. You cannot trust them anymore to tell what they used to tell.

Darwin happens
Our brains are adapting. In this world of advertisements, we see the majority of the words for the lies they are. We try to counter attack, to fool the system.
The system adapts. The algorithms that power Internet pay attention to my clicks as well as to my words. In the future, the search engine will analyze what my eyes look at, my body expression, whatever telltale clues it can identify.
The core components of written language are giving way. What use do we have for proper spelling nowadays? We keep it because of the back catalogue. Other elements of language are also going the way of the dodo or, at least, becoming secondary to other signals. If robots can take grammar in charge, surely we have no further use for it.
Articulated language has not been with us forever. Is syntax but an impermanent stage in our cognitive history? Will it disappear at some point in the future?

The rise and fall of voice
We are still cavemen. Nothing beats spoken language to teach or to convey emotions. There is an enormous potential space for voice recognition-based technology to fill.
But the world is crowded and, given our physiology, emitting sounds is not unobtrusive. I don't believe people would wear masks to speak (perhaps more to filter input). Your electronic mailbox or keyboard affords you a level of intimacy in public places that voice will have trouble matching.
People do give instructions to their phones in public places, but they speak more often to other people at this stage. It could change, somehow. Paradoxically, the next decades could be the swan song of voice. This form of language would become the primary way to extend our will by interacting with technology, but it would still face the same ever growing limitations when you would try to communicate with another human being.

Mind to mind
The endgame of language is too alien for me to picture. I can imagine the ersatz of telepathy that uses electronics as the pipeline between two minds, but not the extra medium-specific layer of language that might develop around the connection of two intelligent minds.

A battle that takes place
In the content society, finding ways to make sense has never been more important because our brain has been educated to disbelieve language as we knew it. In some places, Newspeak triumphs. In other ones, people reclaim words or, even better, les mots.

La société du contenu 2 : les nouveaux visages du sens
Cet article pourrait aussi bien être titré “le lent voyage vers l’obsolescence du langage tel que nous le connaissons” car je ne vais pas parler d’autre chose ici (d’abord en anglais ci-dessus, ce qui ne manque pas d’ironie).

Le langage, avant tout, c’est du sens. (La phrase “tu vois ce que je veux dire” signale d’ailleurs que j’ai atteint les limites de ma capacité à utiliser le langage pour formuler des pensées.) Pour les animaux sociaux que nous sommes, c’est la clé du pouvoir et notre méthode pour organiser notre acquisition des produits nécessaires au quotidien. Le langage est la dette qui autorise l’existence du grand projet qu’est la société humaine.
Il a quitté ses marais primitifs pour remplir le médium de l’air avec du son puis, plus tard, celui du papier avec des signes. De nos jours, en termes de quantités, le langage utilise surtout des moyens électroniques. Et ce nouveau médium le formate, le change d’une façon qui va au-delà de l’émergence du style SMS.
Des professions entières consacrent leurs énergies, pour divers motifs, à maximiser l’exploitation du langage, explorant ses limites jusqu’à l’abus. Les mots sont nombreux. Parfois, ils n’ont plus beaucoup de rapport avec leur fonction originale au service de l’intellect humain. Les robots parlent. En conséquence, les mots ont perdu leur pouvoir. Vous ne pouvez plus leur faire confiance pour signifier ce qu’ils avaient l’habitude de signifier.

L’évolution continue
Nos cerveaux s’adaptent. Dans ce monde de publicités, nous reconnaissons la majorité des mots pour les mensonges qu’ils sont. Nous essayons de contre-attaquer, de bluffer le système.
Le système s’adapte. Les algorithmes qui font tourner Internet étudient mes clics aussi bien que mes mots. Bientôt, le moteur de recherche analysera ce que mes yeux regardent, mon expression corporelle, et tout autre indice qu’il sera susceptible d’identifier.
Les éléments fondamentaux du langage semblent perdre de leur substance. A quoi bon s’attacher à l’orthographe, de nos jours ? Nous la conservons à cause du catalogue existant. D’autres éléments du langage vont disparaître ou, en tout cas, devenir secondaires à d’autres signaux. Si les robots peuvent s’occuper de la grammaire, sûrement nous n’en avons plus l’usage.
Le langage articulé ne nous a pas toujours tenu compagnie. La syntaxe n’est-elle qu’une étape transitoire dans notre histoire cognitive ? Disparaîtra-t-elle un jour, dans le futur ?

Grandeur et déclin de la voix
Nous sommes encore des hommes des cavernes. Rien ne transmet mieux les émotions ou les connaissances que le langage oral. La technologie basée sur la reconnaissance de la voix dispose d’un potentiel d’applications énorme.
Mais le monde est une foule et notre physiologie ne nous permet pas d’émettre de sons sur un canal limité. Je ne crois pas que des masques pour parler pourraient être populaires (peut-être plus pour filtrer la réception audio). Nos boîtes aux lettres électroniques et nos claviers nous procurent un degré de discrétion dans des endroits publics que la voix peut difficilement concurrencer.
Les gens donnent déjà des instructions à leurs téléphones dans des endroits publics, mais ils parlent plus souvent à d’autres personnes à ce stade. Il n’est pas interdit d’imaginer que cela puisse changer. Paradoxalement, les décennies à venir pourraient être pour la voix celles du chant du cygne. Cette forme de langage deviendrait l’outil d’interaction privilégié avec la technologie, mais continuerait à rencontrer, lorsqu’il faudrait communiquer avec un autre être humain, les mêmes limitations toujours plus fortes.

D’esprit à esprit
Mon expérience limitée ne me permet pas de concevoir l’aboutissement final du langage. Je peux imaginer un ersatz de télépathie connectant deux esprits grâce à l’électronique, mais pas la couche de langage propre au médium et susceptible de se développer sur cette base.

Une bataille se déroule
Dans la société du contenu, trouver un moyen de faire du sens est plus important que jamais parce que notre cerveau a appris à ne plus faire confiance au langage. Dans certains cas, la novlangue triomphe. Dans d’autres, les gens se réapproprient les mots, y compris ceux de leur langue natale.

The content society 1: 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:36:00 +0000

Thoughts about what I call, for lack of a better word, the "content society" keep nagging me lately. Let’s try to spell them out in order to achieve temporary peace of mind.

Content in the news
The news reports are buzzing with content-related conflicts: the “Search Plus Your World” update of the Google search engine fails to include relevant results from sources such as Twitter and Facebook; a movement opposes laws and treaties (Sopa, Pipa, Acta) which aim to protect the old economy revenue of copyright-holders at the expense of creativity and civil rights, the launch in France of a new low-cost mobile network operator; and the destruction of the companies and services revolving around the streaming website Megaupload by police raids prior to the alleged launch of a legal offer that might have changed the face of the content industry.

All these events revolve around the way digitized goods are created, produced, sold and distributed.

Setting priorities
Some of them highlight a worrisome trend of lack of due process. Gloves are off between “Internet” and the powers that be, champions of the “ancien régime” economy. We should strive to differentiate critics against systems of sale/distribution of content and critics against behavior which hurts people. In my book, for example, spying on people is a worse offence than rearranging a bunch of 0s and 1s. Laws and practices of law enforcement do not always reflect that view.

The dominant system
By ancien régime economy, I mean a market built around a value chain including strong intermediaries (distribution component, etc.) between creation and consumption, including social classes and mechanisms, such as laws, to prevent changes in the way these classes interact within the value chain. This caste system can still function well and allow people to live from the content they create, but often by applying ever more friction, as if trying to stop time. It allows some content professionals to benefit from income without providing commensurate value and it excludes, for right or wrong, the vast majority of content creators.
Everybody should be expected to welcome a frictionless chain value which values above all creation of content. This is not the case. Many people and companies have a stake in the ancien régime, from trade organizations to Internet middle men like Amazon. Actually, not trying to trap your customers in some kind of a web still seems counter-intuitive to many.

In the end, though, I hope everybody would benefit from living in a society which would address the twin fundamental issues of content and energy (form and substance, you know) in a less wasteful and unequal way.

Caveat
Our rationality is bound by our knowledge, our experience and our emotions. I am by trade a creator and marketer of content, hence the content-centrism. Also, the well-known pages below are a few of the sources that inspire those ramblings. There is literally nothing new in anything I wrote so far; my purpose here, faced with a superabundance of ideas hurled at my mind, is to make a conscious choice between what to take and what to reject. Also, I noticed that complex concepts, in fact, are best thought when both put in writing and spoken in a live discussion. Last but not least, I am a seeker of truth but do not pretend to own it. Please enlighten me with your comments.

Monday Note, the blog by Jean-Louis Gassée and Frédéric Filloux
Lockdown: The coming war on general purpose computing by Cory Doctorow
Owni, the French website, there is an English language version

La société du contenu : 2012
Des réflexions sur ce que j’appelle, faute de mieux, la “société du contenu”, me trottent par la tête ces temps-ci. Je tâche ici d’articuler ces pensées afin de retrouver pour un temps ma tranquillité d’esprit.

Le contenu dans l’actu
Les conflits en rapport avec le contenu font l’actualité ces temps-ci. Ainsi de la mise à jour “Search Plus Your World” du moteur de recherche Google qui n’inclut pas des résultats pertinents de sources comme Twitter et Facebook ; du mouvement contre les lois et traités (Sopa, Pipa, Acta) qui visent à protéger le revenu traditionnel des ayants-droits au détriment de la créativité et des droits civiques ; du lancement en France d’un nouvel opérateur de téléphone mobile low cost ; et de la destruction des compagnies et services liés au site de streaming Megaupload par la police, la veille de l’hypothétique lancement d’une offre légale qui aurait pu changer la donne au sein de l’industrie du contenu.

Ces événements ont pour point commun de tourner autour de la façon dont les biens numériques sont créés, produits, vendus et distribués.

Prioriser
Dans certains cas, le manque visible de respect du fonctionnement normal de la justice m’inquiète. “Internet”, d’un côté et les pouvoirs en place, champions de l’économie d’ancien régime d’autre part, ne prennent plus de gants. Nous devrions prendre soin de ne pas critiquer sur le même registre des systèmes de vente et distribution de contenu et des comportements qui blessent des gens. Pour moi, par exemple, espionner quelqu’un représente une violation pire du contrat social que de réarranger un tas d’octets. Les lois et les pratiques policières et judiciaires ne reflètent pas toujours cette position.

Le système dominant
Par économie d’ancien régime, j’entends un marché construit autour d’une chaîne de valeur comportant
1) des intermédiaires puissants (distribution, etc.) entre création et consommation, et
2) incluant des classes sociales et des mécanismes (lois, etc.) visant à empêcher de changer la façon dont ces classes interagissent au sein de la chaîne. Ce système de caste peut encore fonctionner avec succès et offrir des moyens de subsistance à des créateurs de contenu, mais souvent au prix d’une friction grandissante, comme s’il s’agissait d’arrêter le temps. Il offre à certains professionnels du contenu un revenu sans rapport avec la valeur de leur travail et il exclut, en bien ou en mal, la vaste majorité des créateurs de contenu.

Tout le monde devrait, semble-t-il, espérer l’arrivée d’une chaîne de valeur sans friction, valorisant avant tout la création de contenu. Ce n’est pas le cas. Bien des gens et des sociétés, des lobbies commerciaux aux boutiques en ligne comme Amazon, profitent de l’ancien régime. Pour beaucoup d’entre eux, il n’est même pas imaginable de ne pas chercher à enfermer ses clients dans des rets d’une sorte ou d’une autre.

Il faut espérer qu’au final, tous gagneraient à vivre dans une société qui gérerait les enjeux fondamentaux du contenu et de l’énergie - la forme et le fond - en générant moins de gâchis et d’inégalités.

Avertissement
Notre rationalité est limitée par notre connaissance, notre expérience et nos émotions. Je suis un créateur et un marketeur de contenu, d’où mon tropisme en ce sens. Les références citées ci-dessous, entre autres, inspirent ces réflexions désordonnées. Je n’ai rien écrit de neuf ; noyé par la surabondance d’idées, mon ambition est de choisir consciemment quoi prendre et quoi rejeter. De plus, les concepts compliqués sont plus faciles à appréhender lorsqu’ils sont aussi bien écrits que discutés à l’oral. Enfin, je cherche la vérité sans prétendre la détenir. Vos commentaires sont bienvenus.

Monday Note, le blog en anglais par Jean-Louis Gassée et Frédéric Filloux
Lockdown: The coming war on general purpose computing par Cory Doctorow (en anglais)
Owni, le site sur la société, les pouvoirs et les cultures numériques, et sa version anglaise

Playing with the Company 7: Dissipating Shadows

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:03:00 +0000

"Almost the first thing the Company discovered, when it went into this time travel business so many ages ago, was that history cannot be changed. Recorded history anyway. But if you work within the parameters of recorded history, you actually have quite a bit of leeway, because recorded history is frequently wrong, and there are always event shadows-places and times for which there is no recorded history."
Kage Baker, The Children of the Company

Recorded history is a complex and elaborate thing. The cyborgs of the Company play in its shadows, slither between the footnotes, in the gray area where lack of detail or sheer inaccuracy allows them to operate. Sometimes, the lack of information allows them to enjoy a great deal of freedom. A sense of uncertainty and adventure lurks in the event shadows.

The concept of the event shadow strikes a familiar chord with all authors, but especially those who write derivative fiction, or designers who create games based on existing "properties" (the dirty word for "beautiful worlds"). When you create content within the framework provided by an existing narrative, such as historical records or a science-fiction story, and when you aim to stick to the canon of how everything happens (which is but one possibility), you have to forego some potential interactions. This happens whether the derivative content is created by a filmmaker or co-created by participants in a roleplaying game. Event shadows are those loose ends in the existing narrative you can take over and create meaningful content with, without feeling too much entangled by the existing content. They are spaces of freedom for you to seize and use to express your voice. Whatever is not preordained, can be changed.

Escaping the panopticon
The Company series, brilliantly, highlights the shadows : adventure takes place behind the scenes of History. Event shadows are important events in Kage Baker's novels. In ancient times, they span countries and decades -or millenia. As time passes by, they get smaller and more localized. The advent of the information age narrows these spaces of uncertainty up until the point where almost everything seems to be under supervision. This is the panopticon age.
The Company knows what its employees do, too. Except when, for whatever technical reason, it does not. Those are event shadows of a special kind: turning points, when you can breathe away from the surveillance system of the Company, places and times when you can be a criminal, advance your own plots, tie and untie your knots. They are the beacons of hope in a History crushed by the watchful eye of the 24th century.
In a game set in the Company setting, event shadows should be both feared and hoped, as they provide unique opportunities to change things and settle accounts.

Playing with the Company 6: Kage Baker online

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:50:00 +0000

This is an incomplete list of online references about Kage Baker on Internet, to be updated little by little.

Begin your journey on the Kage Baker official website. Then sail to Kathleen's blog. (Kathleen Baker continues her sister's work.)

On your way for further reading, stop by the excellent Wikipedia notices about Kage Baker and the world of the Company. The main references are there and this list is but a complement.

Kage Baker speaks. There is an interview with Green Man Review (2005) and other resources on the Green Man Review site. There is another interview, with Jeff VanderMeer for Clarkesworld Magazine (2008).

Then there are the forums, such as the Kage Baker sub-forum at SFF chronicles.

The Google+ page dedicated to discussion about the gaming potential of the Company novels provides secondhand information.

Demimonde: interview with Justin Achilli

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 01:15:00 +0000

Demimonde is an urban fantasy novel by Justin Achilli, a game designer best known for his contributions to the Vampire roleplaying games by White Wolf. I read some time ago the Clan Novel Saga, a series of intertwined stories by a collective of authors using the setting of Vampire: The Masquerade. I did like Justin Achilli's style in the parts about the Giovanni and I decided to give his latter, completely unrelated novel a try. After reading Demimonde, I wished to better understand what the author had had in mind and he was gracious enough to reply to the questions below. For better and more recent information about the novel, please direct yourself to Justin's blog.
Beware: spoilers.

We don’t learn what the demimonde factions are about until quite late in the story, and many elements are left in the dark (e.g. of a possible interpretation, is it about reincarnation of archetypal figures?). I guess you did it to build a sense of mystery and prevent readers from getting comfortable, blasé and dismissive (oh, that is some Arthurian myth cult). I understand this is a story, not a sourcebook, but did you consciously draw a line between what you wanted to include (e.g. the religion) and what you wanted to leave out in the dark (who are these people)?

J.A.: I specifically wanted to leave some groups in the dark because in horror and fantasy, it's an effective way to achieve horror and wonder by not explaining everything and letting the reader's mind fill in the blanks or create his own details. For a long time, it's been difficult to get a sense of true horror from the World of Darkness because we have so many sourcebooks that give so many answers, it's easy for a play to say, "Oh, I know what that is," like you mention. As well, I think readers feel a sense of ownership over a world when they invest it with their own imagination, as opposed to having the author dictate everything to them.

About the religion. The two factions are quite evocative of the Circle of the Crone and Lancea Sanctum covenants in Vampire: The Requiem, a book you co-authored. Do you think that religious practices are the most successful tools leaders can use to rally and factionalize people in this day and age? Or that the focus on religious frontlines is perhaps a by-product of the sheer longevity of the unvisible feuds, in the same way the Catholic Church is one of the oldest institutions in the world?

While I will certainly acknowledge the excesses of organized religion, I'm not so cynical as to see religion as purely a tool of manipulation. That's really what the book is about: Brandon's struggle with faith and his ultimate failure to be able to make the leap and trust something that he hopes is larger than himself. Vampire trades in those themes as well, and it uses religious institutions in a similar way. No matter what their names or individual dogmas, every organization in the World of Darkness, spiritual or secular, has its earnest adherents and its manipulators. Narcisse represented the worst of those manipulators and Wyckham represented the best of the faithful, and even though Brandon ultimately defeats Narcisse as a person, he fails to overcome her venality spiritually.

The narrator accumulates flaws of character: misogynist, racist, irresponsible. Even though he does not explicitly look to hurt other human beings, his excesses ultimately make at least one true innocent victim. Plus, some parallels could be drawn between the demimonde in the novel and nightlife in our world. Did you want to write a moral tale about the life of a binge drinker/partygoer?

Without getting maudlin, this was a book about things I've done and failures I've had and mistakes I've made more than once, yes. It's not necessarily about the evils of booze and partying specifically, it's about how small and myopic a life can be without the presence of something that offers a greater purpose. It doesn't have to be God or morality that fills that role, but I think everyone has a great existential question at some point, and answering that question with, "Fuck it, let's get loaded" isn't a real answer and invariably results in the abandonment of the self.

Please be the “hipster douche” (*) and tell us what music to listen to while reading the novel.

You know, for a long time, I had kept the playlist in my iTunes, but I think the time for that has gone. Music is a pretty transient thing in terms of this book, and if the story happened now, none of the songs would be the same as they were when I wrote it six years ago. I remember reading an interview with Bret Easton Ellis in which someone asked him why he made so many popular culture and brand name references in his work and wouldn't they end up making the book feel dated. His response was that that was the intent, that there was something beautiful about the book becoming progressively more obsolete as time went by, that it really lent the whole thing a sense of a moment in time. There are a few songs and bands in there called out specifically, but as much as I love music, I didn't want the book to be about music. By contrast to Bret Easton Ellis' comments, I read China Mieville's King Rat a while back and I couldn't ever get into the book itself because it felt like an evangelical pamphlet for drum & bass. Kind of like I want readers to fill in their own factions for the demimonde, I want readers to plug in a lot of their own music, too, so that every reading is different.

(*) quote from the book
Read also this older interview with Justin.

Playing with the Company 5: a World Made by Greed

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:08:00 +0000

“He held out his hands and added brightly, “And it cuts overhead costs by sixty percent!”
Kage Baker, The Sons of Heaven

Greed, not the greater good
The novels of the Company describe a future where capital comes to dominate the whole history of the world, where stock in a company entitles to a share in the plunder of the past, where the events are shaped by greed and other vices. In this world, official History does not reflect the truth. It is but a Potemkine village hiding exploitation; not the worst exploitation, mind you -the members of the board of Dr. Zeus do not revel in the misery of other human beings-, but the farthest-reaching ever devised.
All of it is the result of a business plan: Dr. Zeus Incorporated provides customers with information, items and living things of all origins. Cyborgs are listed as assets and employees. Somewhere, there is a balance sheet where their fate is weighed by accountants. Cyborgs are not supposed to better humanity in the course of their operations. If they help civilization move along, it is only because, doh, at the end of civilization lies the Company, so civilization is the way to go, or so goes corporate logic.
There are not enough checks and balances to prevent the Company from resorting to unethical practices. The Company develops a "production force" without regard for ethics nor sustainable development and, when faced with the human resources equivalent of nuclear waste, picks the wrong choices.

How would greed impact gameplay?
I am no accountant but I think a game based on the Company novels should factorize three elements.

1) The heavy cost of transportation of employees and items into the past, combined with initially limited cashflow, means the Company minimizes time travel at first. Later in narrative time, when the revenue kicks in (exponentially), it can expand its time-traveling operations enormously. However, this is done at the expense of possibilities. This is the entropic trade-off: as the Company gets rich, History calcifies.

2) The procuration of items as social control: the dog does not bite the hand of the master who feeds it. Cyborgs are provided with equipment and delicacies such as alcohol or even Theobromos. At some level, such resources are part of the delicate formula of programming, monitoring and other techniques devised to help control the cyborgs. One can imagine, for example, that the official goal of a game, as the Silence gets closer, would be to accumulate good performance reviews in order to get a big bonus with one's 2355 pension plan.

3) Capital changing hands. Who owns the Company indeed? As time goes by, the system embodified by the Company is less and less motivated by greed. Employees, managers and even stockholders can stop being on top of things.

The process of changing History is like Clausewitzian War; once begun, it takes a life of its own and pursues its own objectives according to its own internal logic. Greed is just the kickstarter.

Playing with the Company 4: Words about the Silence

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:11:00 +0000

"[Dr. Zeus] seemed to be blind to whatever might lie beyond 9 July 2355 AD."
Kage Baker, The Sons of Heaven

In the Company novels, the future is off limits; Dr. Zeus can only project its power into the past and the present. No one knows what lies beyond 2355, because no time traveler has come forward to talk about it. This date is known as the Silence.
In narrative terms, the Silence is a singularity, a Planck wall, a quantum frontier: the closer you approach it, the more the rules change and history seems to accelerate, until a narrative big bang that is the single most important moment in History. Everything builds up to the point of maximal entropy, when there is no time left and thus no options to explore.

The Silence is a keeper
I envision two distinct exciting uses of the Silence in a game based on the Company setting: as the horizon (as seen from the past) and as the climax (as experienced in 2355 in the novels).

The horizon
The Silence might be completely absent from the first part of the gaming experience, then creep slowly to the level of player awareness, then loom dreadfully over the last games. The players should experience doubt about this event until it completes. There should be an emotional build-up for the last scenes.
The Silence is also a blank slate which leaves open the future. As long as the future is not written, it can be changed -that is the theory.
As players get close to the Silence, they should:
- know more and more, allowing them to make more informed choices;
- have less and less time to act upon this knowledge to fulfill their endgame objectives.

The climax
When the scenes of the Silence unfold, players might have little real choices (they lack time) while being unable to predict the outcome with 100% accuracy. Everybody, not only cyborgs, is facing the Silence.
I would find it interesting to change the game rules at this last stage to reflect both the diminution of options and the sense of uncertainty. Why not revert to an old school simulationist model for the last epic scenes?

Not the "END" stamp
I guess we can consider that, after the Silence, the future of the world is set. If anybody won, that is not something that can be taken back. This is the end of Company history and the beginning of something else. Perhaps, once you get there, the game is over and an entirely different one begins, with different stakes. For example, the Silence may make it possible for the player characters to pursue different activities, to try to bring their own stories to satisfactory closure by achieving deeply personal goals that could not fit within the grand strategy storyline that culminated with the Silence.

Playing with the Company 3: Taming the Serpent

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 22:58:00 +0000

"Paradox? If you view time as a linear flow, certainly. Not, however, if you finally pay attention to the ancients and regard time (not eternity) as a serpent biting its own tail, or perhaps a spiral."
Kage Baker, The Life of the World to Come

Methodological solipsists vs Area Man
When you write about past events, or when you contemplate them from the vantage of "eternity", you can afford to regard time as a serpent. You can assemble the pieces of the puzzle that is its skin with all the patience in Heaven, safe in the knowledge that it's all a done deal: only interpretation of history is susceptible to change, not the events themselves.
But, in most cases, for us down here in the mud of passing time, crawling through the days, worming our way to the future, you kind of have to experience time as a linear flow.

Stop creating universes please
While I love a good story, my first instinct is to dislike tales of travel in the past - you can travel in the future all you want, no one cares if you disappear, but don't you create a second version of the universe by saving Joan of Arc from her judges or something like that. My brain hurts just thinking about it.
Did the above-quoted ancients delve into the intricacies of time paradoxes? From where I stand, for practical purposes, time is linear and causality needs to be paid its dues, hence the desire to eradicate paradox. This is an endless topic, fit for clear minds like Philosophy Bro, but my goal here is to grasp how time functions in the Company novels and how it can be used in a game.

Unicity and authenticity
There are two redeeming features in the way Kage Baker handles time travel in her novels.
1) There is one world, one continuum, one story and one history; only our knowledge of the past can be changed, though we retain our free will and can exercise it within the boundaries of the story. The Company tells (to itself) the story that the treasures lost to time and now recovered have in fact be made to disappear by them in the first place.
2) History is paid respect. It does not feel like a theme park. There is a sense of difference.

Gameplay around time
Paradox: since only one history does exist in the Company novels, paradoxes that posit fundamental inconsistencies within the story are unstable and prone to disappear once the whole story gets known. Getting to explain how something is not paradoxical (hopefully gearing causality your side in the process) can be a fun and meaningful gaming objective.
Flashbacks: they function differently in real life and in the diverse gaming media. Game mechanics can provide a framework to simulate flashbacks without breaking causality and unicity. Cyborgs do not fear permanent death, so that is one major hurdle out of the way to explain unlikely comebacks away. Every game could be a flashback, or it could be used the way it is used in movies, to highlight significant aspects of the story being told.
Uchrony: the clash of technologies and behaviors is savory and holds both comic and dramatic potential. But History is savored quite differently with a cyborg perspective. It could be interesting to have players and/or characters graduate to the truth of the universe, from simple mortals to cyborgs.

Phew! I almost divided by zero.

Playing with the Company 2: Theobromos

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 17:51:00 +0000

"Our masters were horrified when they discovered that chocolate gets us pleasantly stoned, because they thought they'd designed us to be proof against intoxicants. They even tried to forbid it to us, but must have realized they'd have a revolt on their hands if they did, and settled for strictly regulating our use of the stuff. Or trying to, anyway."
Kage Baker, The Children of the Company

In the Company novels, most cyborgs use and abuse of Theobromos (a.k.a. chocolate) whenever they can get their hands on some. This is at times a difficult proposition, given that operatives are sent in the human world for extended periods of time and in places that can be quite far from Mexico, Central and South America, the places of production of cacao for a large part of recorded history.
Theobromos is one of the more humorous elements in the series. The idea that Company employees get their kicks out of chocolate (not unlike Kage Baker used to herself, so it seems) deflates the testosterone-heavy stereotype of humorless super-agents from the future that springs to mind when you mention the words "immortal cyborgs". This attraction which borders on addiction reminds me, on a smaller scale, of the one of the Newcomers in the movie Alien Nation. Theobromos, when corporate policy does not prohib it entirely, is certainly used as a carrot by the management. And the substance is not entirely harmless. Excess of consumption leads to "theobromine poisoning".
Ironically, the cyborgs, while technically removed from humanity, share more tastes us than with their 24th century human masters who have given up on cigarettes, alcohol, meat, milk, sex and chocolate.

Does chocolate need game mechanics?
The question is open. Theobromos should remain an element of fun and stay on the periphery of things.
Gameplay could revolve around finding the balance between the thrill of forbidden food / joy of instant gratification and the risk of getting caught / losing status with your immortal employer.
Simulating addiction and pleasure is difficult due to the disconnection between the perception of the player and that of the character and the way our brain is wired to select different options depending on what our stomach tells us. I am tempted to use real chocolate on the gaming table in order to appeal to the real hunger of players. It is a difficult exercise: I would not want to frustrate the players out of proportion with the intended result. Perhaps, like children, they should be able to grab their candy when the management / game master looks the other way.

Playing with the Company: Kage Baker's legacy

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 03:06:00 +0000

"He'll be very clever, look at that score. And we'll take this figure for his strength, and this one for his alignment with the forces of good. Is that neat or is that neat?"
Kage Baker, The Life of the World to Come

In a series of books collectively known as the novels of The Company, Kage Baker tells the consequences of two technological breakthroughs in the 24th century: cyborg immortality and time travel. A company develops techniques to make people immortal (an ugly and unwholesome process) and to travel to the past (the future is out of reach) and back again. Intent on profiting from their technology, they send a cadre of technicians in prehistoric times. There -for simplicity's sake, let's use "there" instead of "then" when referring to narrative (rather than linear) time-, they kidnap Neanderthalian kids and pour all kinds of technology inside their little skulls. Essentially, they make them into cyborgs. They raise them, teach them everything they know in the 24th century, give them the keys to the past and then leave back to their clean and bland future. They instruct the new, permanent employees to retrieve all kinds of lost items and living things while staying in the shadow of official history, of the events that are already known to have occurred: history cannot be changed. The good little cyborgs do as they are told. They work for their employers, spiriting away treasures lost to time while Rome is burning, making the Company very, very rich in the process.
This article is not about discussing the books themselves. I urge you to read them. [For my French readers: only the first two have been translated.] The characters will grow on you and you will enjoy the humor, the action, the emotion. And, when you are done reading the main storyline and the standalone stories, while closing this last book you will be thirsty for more.
Gaming is a continuation of story by other means. This is the first in a series of articles about the gaming potential of the Company universe. And oh does it have potential. If you share the same belief and wish to contribute, get in touch with me, leave a comment and let's discuss.

Warning: the spoilers begin here.

Stakeholders
Like any company, the Company is host to an ecosystem of stakeholders with wildly different points of view, each of which could be explored in games.
- Shareholders
- Management
- Employees
- Customers
(The list could be longer.)
Some elements in the story are perfectly suited for adaptation to boardgame gameplay.
- For example, managers are torn between, on one hand, the desire to get rich by creating and employing many cyborgs, and, on the other hand, the need to control and survive their creations, a conundrum that is evocative of many crises. Multiple players can compete to be the richest (best bonus) while the game retains a collaborative element (everybody loses if the cyborgs take over).
- Other example: who knows who owns the Company who owns History? Who indeed? The players/shareholders might not know at start their own identity.

A roleplaying game
Mostly though, I believe The Company is an employee-focused pen-and-paper roleplaying game begging to be born. Each player would play an employee created by the Company and working for it. The totalitarian dimension of this proposition immediately springs to mind. We are reminded of a game such as Paranoia, especially in the way a huge gap separates official corporate policy and the everyday life and feelings of the employees. I am also reminded of the French game Thoan : Les Faiseurs d'univers, about Philip José Farmer's World of Tiers series. In a nutshell, the characters of Thoan have been created by mad demiurges and try to take control of their life and assault the heavens. The Promethean dimension is very much present in the Company series. The fact that the cyborgs cannot be killed displaces the core of the gameplay from murderous fight to a space where players need to pick their brains. There are conflicting imperatives and dramatic tension at multiple levels: between the will of the company and the will of the individual, between known history and hidden history, between the need to blend and the need to perform. The cyborgs, who have trouble relating to humanity due to their semi-artificial condition, need to adapt to and interact with a number of environments and situations. Social situations are an area where roleplaying games shine.

Themepark vs Sandbox

The corporate nature of the setting lends itself to making a mission-based game. In the books, cyborgs are tasked with precise assignments, such as to retrieve a flower, a painting, or even a whole people and their way of life.

At the same time, the setting leaves ample room for players to build their own sandcastles. Recorded history cannot be changed, but so much can happen in its interstices. Many elements within this open world environments are set in stone and cannot be changed, but the rest is fair game and is actually the place where the action should take place, given the importance of meaningful choices in roleplaying games.

It is far easier to accept if you forget about the philosophy behind; accept the contraries, that you have free will and that history cannot be changed, merely discovered in the way that suits you best.

Gamism / simulationism / narrativism

(Using Ron Edwards's definition.)
Gamism: there is competition in the series and there could well be around a gaming table. Player characters are co-workers in a mission-based environment, but they can pursue different endgames using the sandbox, like Nennius and Labienus.
Simulationism: if you accept that History cannot be changed even by the mighty dice, there are still elements of balance and uncertainty that can be identified and used for entertainment.
Narrativism: I do not envision the problems typical to licensed environments -"don't touch the canon"- because not touching the canon is part of the genes of the Company: players need to insert their own story into the bigger picture that is our world with its rich history, and its extra layer of invisible, Company-related history.

Casus Belli IV, le retour de la vengeance du fils de la nuit

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 13:14:00 +0000

Nous discutons de Casus Belli v4 dans l'épisode du mois de décembre de Radio Rôliste. J'ai depuis eu le temps d'en lire une grande partie et j'en reviens à ma première impression : enthousiaste.

A. D'abord, un historique de ma relation à la presse rôliste.
A la fin des années 1980 et au début des années 1990, comme beaucoup de rôlistes à l'époque, je dévore tous les magazines que je peux m'offrir. Mon premier s'appelle Graal, je lis quelques Chroniques d'outre-monde avec intérêt, manque Dragon radieux (pas assez de sous) et, au final, m'abonne à Dragon Magazine (tant qu'il dure) et surtout à Casus Belli.
Ce dernier est le magazine le plus pérenne et, des années durant, je reçois ma petite injection de bonheur en le découvrant dans le courrier. Je n'aime ou ne comprends pas toujours tout, mais je lis chaque numéro de A à Z (dans le désordre), y compris les passages sur les grandeur natures et wargames, des loisirs que je ne pratique pas.
Au fil des ans, j'envoie de nombreux courriers à la rédaction, surtout des propositions de scénarios (une dizaine de scénarios envoyés spontanément de mémoire), et je suis chagriné de ne jamais recevoir d'accusé de réception. J'espère des commentaires, même négatifs, des conseils, de l'encouragement, mais rien ne vient. Si je regrette ce manque de disponibilité de la rédaction de Casus Belli à l'époque pour répondre à des courriers non-sollicités, l'écriture d'un scénario impliquant une somme d'efforts plus grande que celle, par exemple, d'une candidature à un emploi, je la comprends. Je suppose la rédaction à la fois submergée par l'attention des lecteurs et désireuse elle-même de placer ses créations dans un marché de niche pré-Internet. Pour ceux qui s'efforcent de faire du jeu leur "day job", il faut abattre une quantité énorme de travail créatif, et l'écouler le plus possible. Déjà à l'époque, l'offre est bien supérieure à la demande dans ce marché de l'imagination.
De mon côté, ce silence, bien que frustrant, a des vertus. Il m'apprend à toujours remettre sur le métier mon œuvre sans râler et me pousse à progresser. C'est cet échec à entrer en communication avec l'équipe de mon magazine préféré, spécifiquement, qui contribue à améliorer mon "éthique créative". Les Faiseurs d'univers, l'association des fans du jeu Thoan, ont pour certains eu l'occasion de lire le supplément Le Monde de l'Opéra, un de ceux que j'ai écrits mais pas publiés pour le jeu. C'était initialement un simple scénario envoyé à Casus Belli (à côté de scénarios pour des jeux plus classiques), et il est devenu beaucoup plus profond par la suite. Revus et améliorés, d'autres scénarios sont par la suite publiés dans Backstab (cf ci-dessous).
Les années passant, j'ai le plaisir d'entrer en contact avec Michaël Croitoriu qui, au côté de Tower, PA et toute la bande, anime alors les Chroniques de l'imaginaire sur une petite station de radio de l'Ouest parisien. Je repense avec nostalgie à ces instants où je captais des bribes à travers l'éther. Par l'intermédiaire de Michaël, je fais la connaissance de Léonidas Vesperini, co-auteur de Thoan. Je reste reconnaissant à tous deux de m'avoir offert cette opportunité d'apporter ma pierre à l'édifice rôlistique. De fil en aiguille, je participe à des projets et connais les joies de la publication. Je rejoins, d'abord en tant qu'auteur d'enquête/critique/scénariste, la rédaction de Backstab, un magazine concurrent de Casus Belli. Casus Belli v1 est publié par Excelsior Publications et met en avant les produits de sa filiale (ou division, je ne sais pas) Jeux Descartes. Backstab est publié par... ça dépend de l'année. Mais le magazine est le produit d'une association de plusieurs parties, dont Halloween Concept, un autre éditeur de jeux, qui finit par reprendre le titre complètement.
Outre les considérations marketing, les deux magazines ont chacun un ton différent. Backstab, le challenger, opte pour celui du mauvais garçon. Comme Casus Belli, il connaît ses hauts et ses bas. Dans ses pages sont publiés, lorsque je suis rédacteur en chef (2002-2005) comme à l'époque de mes quatre prédécesseurs (les très estimés Benoît Clerc, Croc, Julien Blondel et Patrick Renault), des petits bijoux comme des trucs très oubliables, grâce à des auteurs et des illustrateurs de grand talent, dont certains n'ont pas fini de faire parler d'eux (un exemple au pif, Johan Scipion). Le déclin du lectorat rôliste frappe cependant le magazine, quelques années après la fin de Casus v1. Je suis reconnaissant d'avoir pu participer à cette aventure, qui se termine avec un goût d'inachevé : le lancement d'un magazine successeur, Fantasy.rpg, qui n'a pas le temps de prouver sa valeur, l'éditeur coulant alors que le n°2 est sur le point d'être publié. Je ne sais pas si Fantasy.rpg aurait pu trouver sa place dans le paysage, mais cela valait le coup d'essayer.
Pourquoi ? Parce que la crise de la presse n'est pas propre au milieu du jeu de rôle. Elle relève d'une mutation numérique qui dépasse le simple abandon de l'effet de mode des jeux de rôle sur table. Depuis des années, les éditeurs de contenu, coincés sur une "plateforme en feu", cherchent à construire un pont vers un futur où, à titre personnel et à titre capitalistique, ils font encore partie du paysage. A l'ère du numérique, l'offre de contenus croît plus vite que la demande, et ils ne sont plus diffusés en silos hermétiques. Si je veux publier un scénario, je peux le mettre sur un blog ou sur la Scénariothèque - et ne m'opposez pas la loi de Sturgeon ; l'intelligence n'est pas une qualité rare chez les rôlistes.
Pour en revenir aux scénarios, entre fin 2002 et le printemps 2005, ils disparaissent de Backstab (à mon grand chagrin). L'idée est que le public rôliste est dispersé entre trop de jeux, qu'il peut trouver ses scénarios sur Internet et que, pour répondre au plus grand nombre, il faut lui fournir autre chose, explorer le monde avec un regard rôliste et un accès backstage. Je me demande encore s'il est pertinent de proposer des scénarios dans un magazine de jeu de rôle.
La réponse est oui, bien entendu. Oui il faut des scénarios, parce que c'est ce que nous vivons, nous les rôlistes. Les aventures définissent et accompagnent notre pratique du loisir. Celles dans Casus Belli v4 doivent servir d'exemple pour une génération.
Je m'égare... Je reviens sur ma perception des différentes versions de Casus Belli :
- V1 (canal historique) : attachement adolescent et donc particulièrement puissant ; le magazine accompagne une partie de la jeunesse de nombreux francophones et devient plus qu'un titre, une marque implantée dans la psyché d'une génération ;
- V2 : jouant sur cette marque, une ligne éditoriale originale mais dans laquelle je ne me retrouve pas ; je n'accroche pas non plus au graphisme (*) ;
- V3 : une aventure courte mais valeureuse et qui a eu le mérite de mener à la V4
- V4 : j'y viens...

(*) C'est une question de goût et de personnalité, et le jugement général s'accommode d'exceptions spécifiques. Lisez si vous avez le temps cette analyse sur les entreprises et dites-moi si vous êtes d'accord pour dire que V2 reflétait une vision marketing (référence : Apple) ou si vous préférez penser que c'était une vision à base d'idées (référence : Google). Et si vous avez suivi jusque là, comment qualifieriez-vous la V4 à travers ce prisme d'analyse ?

B. Quelques réflexions sur Casus Belli #1 (novembre-décembre 2011)
256 pages, 9,50€

1. Distribution : ciao les kiosques
- Abandon de la diffusion en librairies. Disponible en boutiques spécialisées et par correspondance. Les quantités vendues sont moindres, mais les invendus le sont encore plus. Gestion moins risquée et moins lourde + meilleure connaissance des clients.
- Existe en PDF. De nos jours c'est plus qu'impératif, mais c'est juste la base.
- A Black Book Editions de mener sa veille techno-économique permanente. Les lignes de front bougent très vite et il faudra s'adapter. Apple, Kindle, Google, GIE e-presse, etc... Je ne dis pas qu'il faut prendre un de ces partis mais, de nos jours, toute entreprise de presse doit regarder ce qui ce passe avec attention et recul. Pour ne pas dépendre des nouveaux maîtres des tubes marketing, il faut construire sa communauté et se placer au cœur du paysage rôliste, ce qui implique de dialoguer avec tout le monde.

2. Réalisation : format mook
- La référence à IGmag est excellente à plus d'un titre. Le sérieux de la forme va de pair avec le sérieux du fond. Le verbiage et le remplissage caractérisent trop souvent la presse vidéo-ludique française. Les lecteurs sont intelligents et éduqués, on peut s'adresser à eux presque comme à des professionnels. Le modèle (contenu, pas contenant) est britannique : Edge Magazine.
- C'est l'anti-DXP (revue de jeu qui avait expérimenté le format "presse quotidienne"). Arrête de caresser ce papier glacé, Cyril. (Je parie que les Men in Black caressent beaucoup leurs exemplaires aussi. Combien de fois par jour ? Par heure ?!)

3. Contenu : du vieux, du neuf et du beau
- Le magazine reprend pour l'essentiel de vieilles recettes au niveau du contenu, tout en choisissant une approche plus contemporaine pour le contenant. A voir dans les numéros à venir s'il tiendra le pari du "critique + aide de jeu/itw + scénario"... Je ne sais pas si c'est l'objectif, mais j'aimerais bien dans la mesure où l'aide de jeu et le scénario complémentent admirablement une critique.
- Le magazine est bien tenu. Chemin de fer bien organisé. Ergonomique, pas de fioritures ni d'espace gâché pour y ranger de l'ego.
- Manque de relecture parfois scandaleux. Même si un article a été relu, il faut vérifier sur épreuve papier que la bonne version a bien été utilisée. Oui, c'est toi que je regarde, Damien C., dont les "réflexions rôlistes" par ailleurs très pertinentes réveillent l'ire de mon grammar nazi intérieur. :)
- Les illustrations originales sont réussies. J'ai beaucoup apprécié celle avec les "néo-Incorrigibles" page 231. L'humour est une des clés du succès, bravo de parvenir à faire des clins d’œil tout en parlant à tout le monde.
- Dans les critiques de jeux, j'apprécie la nuance apportée par le second avis parfois exprimé ainsi que la clarté du format "j'aime, j'aime pas". Lorsqu'on crée une rubrique de critiques, la question centrale qui revient est celle de l'adoption ou non d'un système de notes. C'est comme pour les enfants dans les écoles, les deux systèmes (notes ou pas notes) ont leurs mérites et leurs défauts. Casus Belli choisit de ne pas noter. Dans un marché où la classification version non publiée / version publiée se dissout dans un processus évolutif constant et où des publics très différents sont visés, ce choix paraît sensé. J'aurais aimé un retour des crapougnats ou bien un petit camembert ludiste/narrativiste/simulationniste pour situer le jeu critiqué dans le paysage. Et j'aimerais aussi une explication du périmètre des critiques. Casus Belli reçoit, je suppose, des services de presse et critique une partie de ces produits. Comment le choix des produits critiqués est-il fait ? Qu'est-ce qui relève du jeu de rôle mais est écarté du champ des critiques ?
- Le dosage de la partie critique ne m'a pas choqué. Le nombre de pages consacré aux jeux vidéo dépend aussi de la stratégie commerciale. Vendre de la publicité est un métier à part entière et j'espère que les Men in Black ont une vision juste des potentialités du magazine en la matière. Je me demande s'il n'y a pas lieu d'aller chercher un public qui apprécie la créativité des petits jeux vidéo indépendants, puisqu'à ma connaissance il manque un organe de presse sur ce créneau précis. Skyrim a sa place en 2011 dans un magazine de jeu de rôle, mais je peux me renseigner beaucoup plus vite sur le sujet sur Internet.
- Les scénarios en noir et blanc ne sont qu'un exemple de la reprise de codes existants dans le milieu. Je n'ai pour l'instant lu que les scénarios Mississipi et L'Appel de Cthulhu, que j'ai tous deux savouré (celui avec ce bon vieux Nyarlathotep en particulier). Les pitchs des autres scénarios m'ont moins intéressé, je les lirai plus tard. Je n'ai pas trouvé sur le site de Black Book Editions de contenu additionnel (plans au format original à imprimer, ce genre de choses). Sur le forum ou le site, pourquoi pas peut-être mettre en place un espace pour mettre les discussions et compte-rendus de parties consacrés à ces scénarios ?
- Jeu Chroniques Oubliées : je n'ai pas lu car je ne pense pas être le public, mais j'apprécie énormément qu'un effort soit fait dans le magazine pour proposer du contenu pour l'initiation ; ces 38 pages permettront je l'espère au magazine de circuler dans les collèges et lycées, comme avait pu le faire à mon époque Terres de Légendes, jeu au format Gallimard (livre-dont-vous-êtes-le-héros).
- Partie magazine : ouahou il y a quelques perles. L'entretien avec François Marcela-Froideval et la présentation du D&D de Maraninchi, ainsi que les réflexions de Damien Coltice... Même l'énième interview de Peter Adkison par Léonidas Vesperini (sérieux, Léo, c'est la quantième fois ?), que je redoutais un peu, a su m'intéresser.

La suite en janvier ?
J'ai lu en premier ce qui m'intéressait le plus. Il me reste beaucoup, en attendant le numéro 2... Que j'espère recevoir par courrier puisque je compte bien m'abonner. Longue vie à cette nouvelle mouture de Casus Belli !

Le journalisme peut-il aider à réinventer la démocratie ?

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:03:00 +0000

Un débat s'est tenu sur ce thème le 9 décembre 2011 au Celsa, à l'occasion du trentième anniversaire de la section journalisme de cette école des métiers de l'information et de la communication.

Michel Boyon, président du Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA) ainsi que du conseil d'administration du Celsa, note que la démocratie française est médiatisée, avec ce que ça implique de goût pour l'immédiateté et la petite phrase.
Il exhorte les étudiants à rechercher la rigueur de l'information, citant en exemple la "reprise par deux chaînes nationales, lors de manifestations en Guadeloupe en 2009, d'images montrant des policiers qui tirent ; images en fait récupérées sur le net et provenant en réalité de Madagascar".

Voici quelques unes des idées fortes exprimées dans la suite du débat :
- le journalisme forme les croyances, fonction essentielle pour la démocratie, système fondé sur l'incertitude ;
- face à la compétition numérique, l'arme principale du journaliste est son sérieux ;
- il faut avant tout recouper les informations ;
- le souci est peut-être autant local (manque d'indépendance) que global ;
- les journalistes doivent tenir une conversation avec les consommateurs de contenu - citoyens, et ce alors qu'Internet n'est pas la panacée démocratique ;
- nous vivons une période de transition où un modèle reste à inventer.

1. "La société démocratique est, fondamentalement, livrée à l'incertitude."
Myriam Revault d'Allonnes, philosophe, définit la démocratie comme une "forme de société, une expérience, un horizon de sens" qui englobe à la fois "pratiques de pouvoir" et "expériences subjectives".
La caractéristique fondamentale de la démocratie est le doute : "l'expérience démocratique moderne est habitée par le doute et l'insatisfaction". En conséquence, le débat public est une notion cruciale.
Ce débat engage une opinion publique tiraillée entre la volonté de "penser par soi-même" et le "mouvement d'alignement sur l'opinion commune".
M.R.d'A. invoque Tocqueville, qui s'interrogeait sur la source des croyances dans une société mouvante. En démocratie, on répugne à reconnaître en quiconque une grandeur. Conséquence : "la tyrannie du nombre fait autorité et accrédite les croyances."
On comprend ainsi que démocratie et journalisme vont de pair.

2. Le sérieux de l'information face à Internet
Christophe Barbier, directeur de la rédaction de l'Express, est le premier à mentionner Internet, qui ne figure pas dans le titre du débat mais dont les mutations qu'il impose à l'économie de l'information ne peuvent être esquivées. Ses travers, connus, sont les "dictatures de la transparence et de la rapidité" : il faut publier le plus vite possible.
La règle suprême, cependant, doit demeurer celle du sérieux de l'information. C.B. cite comme exemple une enquête menée par la rédaction de l'Express suite à la publication d'une fausse note de renseignement.
La première contribution du journaliste, donc, est celle de la vérité, "factuelle" comme "de caractère". Le journaliste, dont l'article est commenté sur Internet, en vient à organiser la controverse avec cette interactivité du réseau.

3. De la modestie et des faits
Bérengère Bonte est journaliste à Europe 1. Pour elle, imaginer que le journalisme doit réinventer la démocratie est "présomptueux" et c'est une attitude qui a "plombé le métier". Il faut "de l'humilité" et revenir à l'essentiel : "livrer des faits" et les "recouper" (règle n°1 face au syndrome du copier-coller).
Elle ne nie cependant pas que la démocratie est imparfaite. Elle cite un passage de son livre Dans le secret du conseil des ministres, évoquant la façon dont Gérard Longuet s'est fait renvoyer "dans ses cordes" par Nicolas Sarkozy lorsqu'il a tenté par deux fois d'exprimer une opinion négative à propos de la prime "contre les dividendes" du printemps. C'était pour elle une démonstration qu'"il n'y a pas de débat politique au sein même du pouvoir".

4. Face au manque d'indépendance, le besoin de vigilance
Roland Cayrol, conseiller du CSA, est un ancien sondeur. Il évoque le classement des professions les plus déconsidérées, au fond duquel journalistes et hommes politiques côtoient prostituées et banquiers. Les personnes sondées reconnaissent des qualités aux journalistes : ils sont "compétents, intelligents et courageux". Mais "ils manquent d'indépendance".
R.C. exhorte le public : ''soyons vigilants, sourcilleux, ayons le réflexe citoyen". Il cite en exemple ses soupçons sur le supplément "M" du Monde, disant qu'il "se pose des questions".
Pour R.C., la qualité de l'information baisse. La preuve en est qu'on parle de "mode du fact-checking" : "les pure players découvrent le concept".

5. La réalité inquiétante d'Internet : les gens ne vont pas y chercher des remises en question
Stephen Shepard dirige une école new-yorkaise de journalisme partenaire du Celsa.
En ce qui concerne le manque d'indépendance du journalisme, il évoque le mouvement américain pour la "news literacy", avec des professeurs qui enseignent à consommer des médias avec un esprit critique.
Il exprime l'idée que les problèmes démocratiques sont encore plus évidents aux États-Unis mais juge "absurde" de vouloir "réinventer la démocratie". En revanche, il se dit convaincu que "le journalisme est en train d'être réinventé". L'ancien rôle, celui de "gatekeeper" de l'information, est révolu. Le produit du journalisme est remplacé par un processus de journalisme, avec une conversation entre producteurs et consommateurs de contenu. "La rue est désormais à deux sens" et le journalisme est plus démocratisé.
Pour S.S., Internet est en théorie un outil démocratique, mais la réalité est inquiétante. Les gens vont chercher sur Internet ce qu'ils croient déjà, ils n'y vont pas pour avoir une conversation.

6. "L'ancien truc est cassé et le nouveau n'est pas encore là."
Un membre du public prend la parole pour citer les résultats d'une étude menée il y a quelques temps par le cabinet Technologia. Il y aurait 37.000 journalistes en France, dont beaucoup ne gagnent pas leur vie. Le modèle qui permettrait de stabiliser les choses n'existe pas encore.

Les années 2010 seront donc encore des années de transition, à la fois dangereuses et excitantes. Il n'est plus possible de fonctionner comme dans le passé. Christophe Barbier, patron de presse à l'agenda chargé, l'admet : "on ne peut plus fonctionner dans un embouteillage, dans un entonnoir, avec des arbitrages". Il imagine un futur journaliste indépendant, se livrant à une activité à son compte tout en traitant avec une rédaction non plus sur la base d'un emploi classique, mais d'un contrat de gré à gré. Sa vision est donc celle d'un journaliste de plus en plus autonome et responsabilisé.
Pour Stephen Shepard, nous ne sommes pas dans un monde où il faut choisir entre vieux et nouveaux médias ; il y a plus de journalisme actuellement qu'avant.

En plein dans le sujet, notons le blog Fil Rouge 2012 que les étudiants en journalisme du Celsa consacrent aux campagnes présidentielle et législative de 2012.

Légitimation ou délégitimation des figures du pouvoir

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 02:25:00 +0000

Un débat sur ce thème a eu lieu lundi 21 novembre au Celsa, école des métiers de l'information et de la communication dépendant de la Sorbonne. Le compte-rendu décousu qui suit ne prétend ni à l’exhaustivité ni à la reproduction texto des propos tenus ; les commentaires et corrections de points sont bienvenus.
Pour Jean-Pierre Beaudouin, l’animateur, le thème s’est imposé comme une “évidence”. A titre personnel, je pense qu’on peut pointer du doigt à la fois l’actualité française (scandales politiques) et internationale (scandales économiques).

Michèle Cotta (représentante du monde des médias)
La journaliste politique considère qu’il y a en ce moment un jeu de massacre, en grande partie mené par la presse, qui concerne le pouvoir en place comme l’opposition. Les meneurs de ce jeu ont changé : “Auparavant, on trouvait l’information le matin à la radio et l’après-midi dans Le Monde. Maintenant, on la trouve le matin dans Mediapart, puis dans les éditoriaux, puis dans Le Monde.” Or la presse électronique, pour M.C., bénéficie de plus de contacts, mais ne vérifie pas assez ses sources.

Délégitimation dans les entreprises ?
La revendication d’égalité ne touche pas les capitaines d’industrie. La légitimation oligarchique et héréditaire, nulle en politique, est très importante dans l’économie. (Des héritiers-dirigeants sont cités en exemples.)

“Arrivons-nous au bout de la démocratie ?” Michèle Cotta confesse que, par le passé, elle imaginait l’avènement des experts. Ce n’est pas du tout arrivé : au contraire, chacun veut avoir son mot à dire, y compris sur ce qu’il ne connaît pas. Il y a 40 ans, à la rédaction de L’Express, M. C. ne tenait pas compte des lettres de lecteurs, “des dingos”. De nos jours, les sites web leur offrent des tribunes et les réactions du lectorat font l’objet de débats internes.
“Nous avons sous-estimé le pouvoir d’Internet : il y a une déstructuration de notre mode de vie.”
“Il y a une crise de la démocratie. Le mythe de la démocratie directe est ravageur pour la démocratie représentative.”

Comment faire face à cette crise de légitimité ?
“Tout dépend du niveau de vie.” M.C. pense que la grande remise en cause de la légitimité des figures du pouvoir découle d’un abaissement du niveau de vie. Si un transfert de richesse de l’Europe vers ailleurs se produit, elle est pessimiste sur la légitimité future de ses dirigeants.

Xavier Huillard (représentant du monde des entreprises)
Délégitimation dans les entreprises ?
Le PDG de Vinci, un groupe qui vit des dépenses publiques, s’est concentré sur la (dé)légitimation des figures du pouvoir économique. Il y a pour lui une “crise de confiance” qui n’exclut pas une certaine schizophrénie, les Français soutenant leur employeur tout en étant prompts à dénigrer l’entreprise d’en face. Par ailleurs, “tout le monde touche à tout et donc il y a une délégitimation de tout le monde.” Ainsi, tandis que le monde associatif adopte des règles issues du monde économique (entrepreneuriat social), la “porosité entre les sphères du pouvoir” se traduit par des épisodes comme celui de la “prime à mille euros”, alors qu’il juge les hommes politiques illégitimes sur ce terrain.

Il refuse une confusion des genres, donc, mais invoque les mânes de Ford et consorts pour rappeler que l’entreprise, historiquement et par vocation, appartient à plus que juste ses actionnaires, même si seuls ceux-ci peuvent voter. En fait, les “écosystèmes” dans lesquels évoluent les dirigeants sont devenus si complexes que l’énergie de ceux-ci est dépensée à les comprendre au lieu de construire du sens, de l’utilité publique pour les entreprises.
Ses recommandations :
- les entreprises doivent communiquer sur leur projet ;
- on ne peut pas tout diriger du sommet, il faut promouvoir l’autonomie.

X.H. promeut la transparence comme antidote contre le risque de prise de grosse tête des dirigeants (“je suis un génie”). Mais il se méfie aussi des risques liés au fait de s’exposer. Sa règle de conduite est de jouer la transparence de base sur tout, et de procéder par exceptions raisonnées.

Comment faire face à cette crise de légitimité ?
Une bonne organisation, c’est de la cohérence, de l’autorité et de la responsabilité.
“Il y a un développement irréversible des partenariats public / privé”, explique le patron d’un des plus grands groupes mondiaux de bâtiments - travaux publics : “Il faut mener une réflexion sur le partage du pouvoir, sur la légitimité, et éviter la nostalgie du passé sur le partage des rôles.”

Raymond Soubie (représentant de la sphère politique)
Cet ancien conseiller de Nicolas Sarkozy rappelle que “la légitimité, c’est la conformité à l’ordre des règles préétablies”. De ce côté-là, “pas de problème : le pouvoir respecte les règles”. En revanche, il diagnostique une perte de reconnaissance des institutions politiques et d’entreprise. Le problème est pour lui cette absence de reconnaissance. “Les Français considèrent qu’ils ne croient plus au projet politique et aux entreprises.”
Par ailleurs, “les enquêtes montrent qu’il y a dans le management une impression de solitude, du désarroi, une déconnexion face à la complexité des systèmes où on se perd”.
C’est la même chose en politique. Il y a un décalage entre les promesses que les hommes politiques font pour être élus et la portée de leurs responsabilités. Les hommes politiques, en soulevant ces attentes, “creusent la tombe de leur délégitimation”.

Or, avec Internet, “n’importe qui peut dire n’importe quoi. Tout le monde est sur le même plan. Tous les coups tordus sont possibles, et l’homme politique court après les rumeurs.”
En conséquence, il y a deux sortes de transparence. La bonne, c’est la déclaration d’intérêts des responsables. La mauvaise, c’est la transparence absolue.

J.-P.B. tente une synthèse ce que dit R.S. : “Les décisions sont de moins en moins personnelles et le pouvoir de plus en plus solitaire.”

Les recommandations de R.S. :
- Il ne faut pas de contestation trop forte du système.
- Il faut permettre aux gens de s’exprimer (plutôt que de faire ce qu’ils disent).
“Le jeu de la démocratie est mortel pour celui qui s’y livre.” R.S. adopte la posture de l’homme politique qui tire une légitimité de l’Histoire plutôt que du peuple : “Je réalise mes objectifs, tant pis si je suis jugé froid. Je serai légitimé après par l’action que je vais mener.”

Comment faire face à cette crise de légitimité ?
R.S. propose d’accomplir quelques actes symboliques pour les valeurs affichées et de donner la parole aux gens pour qu’ils s’expriment.

Simon Goldsworthy (représentant du monde universitaire)
Ce professeur en relations publiques à l’université de Westminster a mis un bémol aux charges contre les médias et a appelé les figures du pouvoir à avoir le cuir un peu plus dur : “Les hommes politiques ne sont pas les derniers à lancer des rumeurs, ce ne sont pas des victimes.” D’ailleurs, “qui vit par l’épée meurt par l’épée” : en choisissant par exemple d’exposer sa famille, on en fait un objet médiatique valable.

Les relations presse (RP) ont, ironiquement, un problème d’image. Mais les gens détestent Ryanair tout en devenant massivement ses clients. L’industrie des RP emploie beaucoup plus de monde que les médias et fournit la majorité du contenu médiatique. Tout le monde utilise les relations presse, y compris les organisations non-gouvernementales.

S.G. évoque le manque d’intérêt des jeunes pour la politique. Il mentionne les ressemblances entre les partis politiques, dont les programmes sont passés à la moulinette du marketing. Il mentionne aussi que les problèmes de notre temps n’ont pas fait l’objet de débats publics avec votes, qu’il s’agisse de la façon de répondre au terrorisme, de la guerre en Irak, de la crise financière, etc. “Nous élisons des gens pour leur capacité à répondre aux crises futures. Examiner de près ces hommes est donc légitime.”

Comment faire face à cette crise de légitimité ?
Pessimiste, S.G. cite George Orwell : “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -forever.” “Ces choses vont continuer à faire partie du paysage.”

Deux questions
Quid de l’exemplarité ?
R.S. Pour l’homme politique, c’est se surveiller pour ne pas se retrouver dans les feuilles de chou. C’est aussi ne pas gagner trop d’argent. Cela se traduit par des gestes symboliques assez forts et assez simples.
M.C. Cette exemplarité est à définir, à border.
S.G. Au Royaume-Uni, les hommes politiques, bien qu’enthousiastes, ressemblent de moins en moins à la majorité de la population, elle-même désengagée en politique.

Un Autrichien installé en France depuis une dizaine d’années, professionnel des relations presse : “La démocratie française n’est plus exemplaire, elle est devenue une oligarchie politique, sans séparation des pouvoirs. L’Allemagne est plus fédéraliste ; il y a beaucoup plus de personnes qui décident. Par exemple, en France, une cinquantaine de personnes ont fait le choix du nucléaire à eux seuls.”
R.S. La classe politique est méritante, elle fait un métier difficile.
M.C. Il faudrait se pencher sur le fonctionnement des institutions, “revoir la pyramide”.

Réflexions
J’ai cru sentir M.C. exprimer un désarroi de voir contestée une élite d’experts. Le monde est certes complexe. Mais ces experts d’une autre génération donnent l’impression d’être dépassés par Internet et par les possibilités d’expression que celui-ci offre à une population beaucoup plus éduquée qu’il y a des décennies, lorsqu’ils firent leurs débuts.
X.H. semblait prendre en compte cette impossibilité à prétendre pouvoir tout faire et tout comprendre tout seul au sein d’”écosystèmes complexes”, d’où son appel à promouvoir l’autonomie des employés au sein de l’entreprise.
En même temps, s’il y a un rejet des figures du pouvoir, ce n’est pas par insoumission stérile des “n’importe qui” et autres “dingos”, mais parce que ces personnages ont failli dans leur expertise. Ils se sont trouvés pris au dépourvu par des phénomènes qui n’ont rien de mystique, comme les crises financières. Le fait que “personne ne comprenait les produits bancaires dérivés” qui ont frappé au coeur la croissance mondiale est-il un argument recevable ? (M.C. a eu un moment “It’s the economy, stupid!”, et le mouvement des “Occupy / 99%” qui symbolise récemment la critique du pouvoir met beaucoup l’accent sur les injustices économiques.) Comment être un expert quand on échoue à ce point ? Quand on est à la fois inefficace et qu’on fait preuve d’un manque d’éthique, “l’expertise” n’est qu’une qualité qu’on s’octroie pour discréditer ses interlocuteurs. Elle devient une sorte d’argument ad hominem, “vous n’êtes pas un expert, donc vous ne devriez pas avoir droit à la parole”.
Pour autant, M.C. fait preuve d’une certaine réflexion critique, en contraste avec l’anti-démocratisme assumé de R.S., dont la plupart des propos m’ont atterré. J’écris cela en 2011 et les mots de R.S. auraient peut-être pu être tenus en d’autres temps par le général de Gaulle, géniteur d’une Ve République taillée pour des hommes cabrés sur leurs convictions plus qu’adeptes des débats constructifs des agoras. Le rôle des processus démocratiques semble plus être pour lui de maintenir la paix sociale, de promouvoir le dialogue comme si on donnait un nougat, que de contribuer aux décisions. A mon sens, cela relève d’un orgueil tout sauf "efficient". Pour moi, ce n’est pas seulement la légitimité qui vient de la collectivité, mais aussi la réponse, les réponses toutes faites d’un individu étant surclassées par la complexité des questions.

New Orleans

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 00:52:00 +0000

Monday 12
Paris-Charlotte: despite the noise, I enjoy the plane's multimedia system. The Adjustment Bureau, Cheaters, Flight of the Conchords...
Charlotte-New Orleans: I am sitting next to a strong, silent type dude watching 24.
I arrive at the Ursuline Guest House in the French Quarter around 6PM, which happens to be wine o'clock in this particular place. I enjoy a good glass of red wine with hosts Bill and Marlin; then a second one; then I ask for a drop and get a full refill, captain's orders; then my memory blurs and I am playing with a set of spoons on a tin washboard with Bill.
There is an "employees only" sign on the door of Room 6B (think: Floor 7½). I crawl into a cramped room full of character. It would look like a suite to submariner smurfs and is quite the atmospheric base of operation if you do not intend to sleep much anyway. Six-feet tall people cannot lay straight on the bed. I hunch my way to the shower then slither back into the bed, where I spend my jet-lag in wonderful half-sleep.

Tuesday 13
I grab a huge, all-encompassing, "All That Jazz" mushrooms shrimps and win sandwich at Verti Marte. I visit the French Market. I buy a superb multi-dyed velvet scarf in Dutch Alley from her very maker, who tells me she likes quiche lorraine. Friendly people all around. I rest a bit in Jackson Square and later take a peek at Greg's Antiques. The magnificent city bathes in infernal heat. I push into the Tremé neighborhood, but it is late.
I try to regain composure inside the scalding hot tub in the courtyard of the guest house.
I am an all-you-can-eat buffet for mosquitoes. By the end of my stay, the little bloodsuckers will have taken more than thirty blood points from me.
At night, I drink a local Abita beer with Jeremy H., a recently arrived French expatriate, at Lafitte's, the oldest bar in the Quarter and hence one of America's oldest.

Wednesday 14
I wander into Louis Armstrong Park. I spend quite some time in the New Orleans African American Museum, set in a beautiful Tremé villa. A French-speaking curator helps me and a couple from Martinique understand the madness that slavery was ("Drapetomania: A Disease Called Freedom") and appreciate the vibrancy of local art. I absorb the beauty of Marcus Akinlana's paintings into my skin and vow to use it as a sadness repellent.
I eat at Lil' Dizzy: salad and fried chicken, rice, red beans, sweet tea. Tasty.
Bill has invited me to a sailing race on his boat. First we stop at a supermarket to buy a few bags of ice. Then we board the Stray Bullet with smiling crew members Kenny, Tucker, Miranda, Thomas, Rachel and Lance. The ship launches into Lake Pontchartrain, where sky blurs into the sea. We chat, drink cold beer and have good fun while the most dedicated and skilled crew members make sure the ship holds her own in the race. That is a fantastic and precious moment and I am grateful to Captain Bill and his friends for it.

Thursday 15
The weather has downgraded from hellish to very hot. With a dozen other geeks, I follow the man with the hat, cold-skinned Lord Chaz, to St. Louis Cemetery One. Lord Chaz has been a guide in New Orleans for two decades and the layer of stories he adds over churches and crypts makes them pulse with darkness under midday sun. I learn of St. Expedite, of entombed people saved by the bell and of coffins banging against the stone over them.
I devour a half-muffaletta at Central Grocery, treat myself with a Creole praline and head to the Monteleone Hotel to attend the Grand Masquerade convention.
The master of ceremony asks attendees not to wear weapons and not to brutalize each other. America.
I play a first pen-and-paper Vampire game with the Wrecking Crew, the group in charge of this kind of games at the Grand Masquerade. My character somehow survives, thanks to a fragile relationship with Baron Samedi.
I take part to the French Quarter Opening Night Reception, a classy party with beautiful people. I make friends. An acrobat dances in a piece of cloth, suspended under a chandelier, and pours wine into glasses.
After the party, I eat a good hamburger in Clover Grill, a dinner on Bourbon Street, far enough from the noise.

Friday 16
I attend two panels and end up in a gigantic line. Everybody and his fanged cousin wants his version of the Vampire 20th anniversary edition book signed by the authors and contributors. Endless lines are gifts by superior entities to make sure we pay attention to the people around and make new friends.
In the evening, I spend some time at the Bayou Club on Bourbon to find Bill and Lance. T'Canaille performs Cajun music. Frank (Cajun singer), Bill (only musician in the world, he explained to me, to use three-spoons-and-a-fork), Lance (accordion) and four other musicians give the crowd a good time. There is some dancing and a lot of spoon music by many people. "Allons danser!"
A permanent sound battle plays out in Bourbon Street by now. Each bar unleashes insane amounts of decibels onto the street. This is madness. No, this is NOLA!
I retreat with Joe a fellow geek to Clover Grill for another delicious hamburger.
Finding the Canadian-made International Party and exchanging rumors about it makes it all the more fun when it begins at 1AM. The theme is the Prohibition: bathtubs of cranberry-flavored gin are in order. Making friends, chatting.

Saturday 17
The morning begins at noon.
I head at Johnny's Po-Bo and regale myself with a bowl gumbo.
I see things you people wouldn't believe. Chicago Bears trucks worming their way through the French Quarter. I watch break dancers do their thing in the place in front of Jackson Square. All those moments will be lost in time, like an overused movie quote.
At the guest house, I make friends with the week-end guests.
At last, the Succubus Club party begins in the House of Blues on Decatur Street. The venue is a pleasure to navigate. Multiple dancefloors with multiple DJs. Good sound and not too much noise. Open bars all over the place. Performers to amaze us. The high point is a play where actors exemplify seven different kinds of vampires.
A friendly fellow named Doug gives me a cigar. I religiously smoke it all night long while gulping down Abitas and butterflying.

Sunday 18
I play another tabletop Vampire game with the Wrecking Crew. Mike's story of "Great Uncle Victor" is a real treat. The roleplaying experience and effort put into this game by everybody is appreciated. My character tries to kill the guy he was supposed to protect, ultimately fails and ends up in vampiric torpor.
After that, I buy a sandwich at Verti Marte, eat it on a bench in front of the Mississipi (Mississipi!) river. The city is in front of the TV to watch the Saints triumph over the Bears. Who Dat?
I say my farewells to the French Quarter, bathing in its beauty. Then I bathe in the hot tub at the guest house, I take a shower, I drink some water, I drink some wine, I eat some cheese. Time to relax for one last evening in this courtyard.

Monday 19
It rains. New Orleans-Charlotte, Charlotte-Paris. In the plane, strong and silent, I watch the first episode of a 24 season (the one where Jack Bauer kills a guy with his bare mouth, vampire-like on the neck). Arrival at 6:30AM on Tuesday.

Pictures.

Worlds of Darkness 8: Q&A MMO panel at the Grand Masquerade 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Cyril Pasteau) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:37:00 +0000

I was present Saturday, September 17th at the Q&A MMO panel in the Royal Sonesta Hotel in New Orleans. Reynir Harðarson (creative director) and Chris McDonough (senior producer) gave little bits of information here and there and answered questions and queries from the assembly.

My notes, below, have been edited Saturday 24th to include my comments. I used quote marks for clarity purpose; these are not exact quotes.

- High-level design principles
"Before the advent of computer gaming, games were multiplayer. The trend is a return to that. True human interaction is most interesting."
"You can play very casually -e.g. like Magic:The Gathering."

"The game will feature external access from the Web."

- Scope of the game
"Vampires only initially, no other critters (otherwise shallow, lack of depth). Caitiffs are not part of the original game."
CCP has confirmed that, at start, the game will only feature the seven clans from the 1991 Camarilla. Werewolves or mages may be present as part of the occult background, but only as non-playing characters. It makes sense to focus on a small part of the World of Darkness (WoD) and to do it right before expanding the scope. The pen-and-paper game started that way. The print collection provides a template for a development roadmap. While adding layers of systems to the depth of the game, CCP just needs to make sure every one is properly "corified" so as to be fully compatible with potential developments in scope.

- Game mechanics design
"Live action roleplaying (LARP) inspiration for systems."
This neatly answers my question about the core gameplay model for this game. Eve Online had Elite or Freelancer. World of Darkness, the MMO, has the Mind's Eye Theatre game line. We will gather, we will chat, we will plot. There is a model for that, and it functions well -ask the thousand or so Larpers who attended the Grand Masquerade.

"It is possible to gain influence without fighting anyone. You can fight stuff, but it is not the only way."

"You have to make friends."

"There is some metaplot, but it unfolds differently."

Chris: "player-driven metaplot". This was an answer to a player demanding some story.

"World events: in."

- Game objects and world setting
"There are non-playing characters (NPCs)."
This was an answer to a question by Justin Achilli, former developer at CCP and currently in charge of the open development process with the V20 Companion Book. It looked like an inside joke question, however I am going to guess it might have been based on an actual discussion where Justin would have advocated the removal of non-playing characters. Only players (in two meanings of the word) might have been able to fulfill a number of functions such as dialogue and unique in-game appearance.

"The choice was difficult but the other options (like playing mortals during the day) were rejected: permanent nighttime."
The developers do not want to prevent the players from playing the characters dearest to them half of the day. Makes sense. It does not even prevent CCP from introducing daytime in the future as another shard with passageways into the nighttime shard or something like that.

"Havens."
Hopefully with a way to design them.

"One big huge community, multiple cities."

"No duplicates, there are differences between each city."

If I understood well (really not sure about this one), you can start the game in the WoD reflection of your real life city and try to plot your way to Princedom there (or elsewhere).
Perhaps CCP could try to crowdsource part of the design of some elements of what constitutes a city to the community? I can imagine people from Mexico, for example, building some Elysium in Mexico City with a housing tool otherwise used for havens. I would trust them to add more local flavor than CCP ever could.
And what about devising a program to partner with real world outlets, like nightclubs (advertising revenue for CCP, added content to the World of Darkness)?

A player requested that the use of Dementation powers could impact the interface of players of the affected characters, if I understood well. At least graphical effects. "We have systems for that."

- New player experience and character life cycle
"Everyone starts as a mortal. You cannot be Embraced against your will."
If a player tries to Embrace you, you will have the possibility to refuse. It means you can probably choose your Sire and your Clan. If I understood correctly the answer, it also implied that Embraces are player-made, with multiple consequences:
- you will have a hard time accessing the most exciting part of the game if you like to play MMOs without ever talking to other players; the socialization incentive this system provides will help form the first social structures;
- there can be systems using genealogy, both in and out of game.

"Unique characters."
Already the case in Eve Online, graphically speaking.

"The standard character sheet is similar to the one in the RPG."

Five-dot skills fit nicely with Eve Online's five-level skill system.

- Player versus player combat (PvP)

"You should never be totally safe."

Like in Eve Online. You can attack everybody everywhere, but there are consequences.

"Attacking other players lowers your Humanity and a low Humanity allows other players to attack you."
This control mechanism might naturally entice players to segregate themselves according to their Humanity rating.

"PvP is very different (from what I don't remember), smoother and more restrictive."

"You can die permanently – including vampires."
Like for the Embrace, permadeath appears to be a matter of choice. It would make sense to carefully craft a set of guarantees around it. Just ask any Eve Online player who lost his shiny ship to a wave of lag. You do want the players to be able to evade permadeath by following specified courses of action.
Permadeath does not need to mean the loss will hurt you as much as would, for example, the loss of your character in Eve Online. There are ways to make it more palatable to players, as I previously pointed out. If the player can come back as another vampire, possibly even of lower Generation, it can offset the loss of all his contacts, wealth, boons and other assets. After all, CCP does want to kill characters, not to lose customers.

"Diablerie and Generation under discussion."
Generation is more troublesome than Diablerie if the playerbase Embraces itself, if you wish to stick with the canon. You would probably need to renounce the limit on Fifteenth Generation.
Plus, a system with player-run Embraces set in the Old World of Darkness would put new players at a heavier and heavier disadvantage as time goes by. Blood Potency, as a replacement or a complement to Generation, could solve this issue.
EDIT: Chris says a little bit more in an interview with Machinima.com. Generation could end up being the result of your in-game activies, like levels in Diku-type MMOs.

- Roleplaying and maturity
"This is not forced roleplaying game but emergent. The interests of player and character converge: that is roleplaying."
I hope they entirely remove static quests, using other devices to retain players who like to farm.

"A staff lawyer is looking into the implications of adult content. Characters in underwear are not allowed in public spaces, you can do it in havens. Opening the possibility for full nudity risks lowering the maturity of the game by opening venues of abuse by kids, trolls, etc."

"Inappropriate character names can be reported, there will be bans on that ground."
Good luck to them for that.
There will be tons of abuse in the game, if only because betrayals and character assassinations are part of the eternal war vampires wage against each other, and accepting with good grace the loss of a character in a contemporary world, who looks like a cooler version of yourself, will not come easily to many players. I think that, like in Eve Online, reputation will be everything.

- System requirements

Query about keeping minimum system requirements low.

Chris jokes "The game is done, we wait for machines to become powerful enough to run it."
"It's gonna run on the laptop."
Common sense. When World of Warcraft came out, the average machine was able to deal with cartoonish graphics. In two years time, even smartphones may be able to handle realistic graphics.
Also, not entirely untrue. Some Eve Online players reported losing their graphic card to the Incarna expansion (which uses the graphic engine common with WoD).

- Localization
"Epic localization system" called Cerberus... Same for Eve Online. (French version on the way!)

They also said:

"There will be more next year, everything is not set in stone."

I urge you to check the post on Umbral Echoes for another take on this MMO panel.