The first follows the Half Life approach, last seen in Modern Warfare 2 and Uncharted 2. Place the player into a specific individual within the game, give him a clear cut goal, and rail him through a rollercoaster plot. Surround him with sound and fury, leaving him little time to ponder anything else. Immersion arises from the cinematic presentation of action and gameplay, but the story unfolds in a linear progression. Done well, the player seeks to finish the story, to see how the plot unfolds, to experience the game as they might normally experience a movie, just with more interactivity. Great stories can be told through this method, but they’re rarely suitable for a more multi-player experience.

Battle Stations is thus incapable of this, just yet.*

The second is the Choice and Consequence approach, as evidenced by Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and The Witcher. The player becomes an active agent in the story’s progression, rather than the guy who’s ordered to shoot things. The player is presented with a choice that will affect the outcome of the story. Players become invested in their choices, and the characters they play. Play the power-hungry mage and sacrifice all who come into your path, or play the paragon of virtue, spreading compassionate ass-kicking to all corners of the galaxy. It’s the player’s choice to make. The outcome of the story is thus determined by the player’s actions, not a linear progression of plot, sandwiched between stretches of gameplay.

Several players have remarked that they would like to see this in Battle Stations Quest system, yet these are incredibly complex to design, and often overwhelming to more casual players.

The third is the emergent narrative, Civilization, Warhammer, Fallout 3 etc. Design the world, litter it with details of a living, breathing ecosystem, like audiotapes, lost logs, pedestrians you can mug, cars to steal. It’s the backbone of a well-designed sandbox game such as Grand Theft Auto, (before they railroad you down the linear plot). The writers and designers create a world and all its ancillary information so players can make up their own stories, and go on their own adventures, discover the worlds little secrets.

This is what we’re trying to do, more or less.

Some of the real story that derives from Battle Stations comes from the players themselves, who their captains are, what sort of feud is going on between the clans, which famous captain is flying high in the skies of Sios this week. We want to build on that. Obviously, a static quest system will not be the best way to involve players in the game world. That’s why we have a Renaissance.

We’ll be launching Battle Stations: Renaissance sometime alongside Chapter 1 of the quest updates. Renaissance is essentially a wiki format for all things Battle Stations, including Siosian history, Prominent player characters, personal character stories, etc. One of the main features is for fan contribution, whether in terms of fan fiction, or creating a short story we can fold into our flexible quest system. The idea is that if there’s a particular bit of story there, something we can spin several quests out of, we’ll look at being to produce it with what resources we have in-house, and you’ll see it in the quests sooner or later.

We’re trying to build a world for you guys to play in here, but where others can visit.

So thanks to Coy’s magic hands (our designer) and LL,  Ta-da!!

We present to you our new Battle Stations 2.0 wallpapers!!

You can download it at http://www.ocho-online.com/battlestations/downloads.html .

We have 2 different versions for you to choose from so take your pick. (i really like remy!!though i personally prefer him wt black hair..haha)

Kaizo done up the second draft of the pencil sketches and they’re turning out great. It’s just a matter of a couple of tweaks here and there and we can proceed on to inking and colouring the rest of the comic. Most of the character designs by Kendrick has also been progressing at a good rate. We’re now experimenting with colours and all the other minor little details.

So hope you guys like the first comic. I’m starting to write the second issue and plan the story all the way to issue 7 now and I can promise some awesome stuff down the line.

Original article from my paper <<我报>> Singapore’s first free chinese newspaper,

The following is the Chinese to English translation.

Page 1:

3 university students founded a gaming software company that did not take off, and nearly collapsed. Fortunately, the social networking site, Facebook, provided a lifeline at the most critical moment.

The company,Tyler Projects, started anew and designed the massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) “Battle Stations” and launched it on Facebook. The revenue generated saved the company and enabled them to continue their dreams.

Battle Stations is a type of social game, and is the first Facebook MMOG launched by Singapore developers. It is currently the most popular Singapore Facebook MMOG.

Battle Stations generated a monthly revenue of US $30, 000.

Figures show that Battle Stations has 15, 000 daily active users (DAU). In other words, Battle Stations has an earning potential of US $2/mth/DAU.

According to experts, social gaming have an earning potential of up to US $1.20/mth/DAU.

Having higher earning potential than other social games, Battle Stations’ popularity is apparent.

If the 55,000 monthly active users is used as an indicator, Battle Stations can earn US$0.58 from each player on average.

According to one of the company’s partners, Leonard Lin (27 years old), some social games and web applications can only earn US $0.01 from each active user.

What criteria is needed for a social game to become popular and profitable? Will social gaming development be a potential source of revenue for game developers in Singapore? Today’s “Headline News” will take you through the world of social gaming.

Page 2 (Section on Tyler Projects only):

Local video game start-up companies find it hard to attract investors. Because of this, Tyler Projects had to find more sources of revenue.

Leonard Lin recalled the situation 2 years ago, “We were full of ambition, and wanted to create a “Final Fantasy” like computer game. When the game was finished, there were over 3 million unique downloads for the trial version. But only 1500 copies of the full version were sold.”

After analysing and going through gamer’s feedback, Leonard and his partners realised that the games they create need to have earning potential, such as through advertising revenue and sale of virtual goods. “We couldn’t spent one year designing a product that can’t earn revenue.”

60% of Battle Stations’ revenue comes from virtual goods, 20% comes from in game cost per action advertising (eg inviting players to fill up surveys, buying discounted items, etc), remaining 20% come from conventional advertising.

Ultimately, a social game needs to increase its player base in order to be profitable. “The game needs to be easy to pick up, yet must have enough depth and scope, as well as many small gaming sections, in order not to lose the gamer,” said Leonard.

“Some very popular social games and applications are over simplistic, causing their popularity to be transient, leaving little chance for earning revenue.”

The game must also limit the the expenditure of the player. Usually, virtual goods sold by fighting genre games give an advantage to the player. If the purchase of such virtual goods is not limited, players with greater spending power will quickly gain invincibility in the game, and lose the desire to play further. Gamers who are unable to afford the virtual goods may feel injustice and thus quit the game.

Tyler Projects will chose a two prong approach to further develop its business. Besides building public opinion by rolling out social games that have depth and scope, simple social games will also be rolled out to attract more users, in order to attract investors to invest in the company. The company, in collaboration with Scrawl Studios, plans to rolled out a beta version of “5 Kingdoms” at the end of October.