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新型社交平台Nintendo 3DS游戏体验融入玩家真实世界

发布时间:2011-04-14 17:32:08 Tags:,,,

游戏邦注:本文作者为Christopher Totten,文章为其参加StreetPass DC聚会后的所感所想。

Christopher Totten表示自己原本没有想过发表有关Nintendo 3DS的续贴。在上篇帖子中,他谈到3DS的真实感性能令其化身镜子,将玩家身边的世界融入数字游戏场所。

上篇帖子中他还谈到设备的几大功能,如3DS系统之间的通讯、玩家之间的互动以及围绕这些功能的Facebook社交活动。也是因为参加首个此类活动,他才萌生撰写续贴的想法,此贴的灵感来自于3DS平台及粉丝团体,这些粉丝一心想把城市环境转变为社交游戏空间。

StreetPass DC

StreetPass DC

我所指的社交活动是“StreetPass DC”(游戏邦注:其创始人为3DS的忠实粉丝、DC当地居民Joshua及酷爱Mario帽的Lynsen)的首次聚会,与会人员都是华盛顿都会区的草根3DS用户。StreetPass DC旨在将帮助当地3DS用户充分利用这个新型掌上社交平台。

Totten在小宅网(Kotaku)读到该团体的相关创作后,决定参加此次聚会。Lynsen曾在采访中谈到,他成立该团体主要是受日本掌上游戏组织的鼓舞,当时美国还没有类似的组织。

Totten表示他很能理解Lynsen那种没有游戏知音的沮丧心情。他称,当他看到Lynsen的Mario帽时,他的3DS绿色信号灯就开始不停闪烁,随后就有10名用户造访他的Mii Plaza,10个玩家均打败了他的《街头争霸IV》角色。

他们从中收获众多惊喜。

像DC这样的城市不乏社交活动,不论是Hash House Harrier组织,还是年轻时曾在公共场所体验场地游戏的成年人,他们通常都将互联网作为团体沟通的基础。

StreetPass DC主要关注3DS平台的同种社交互动,3DS将周围的城市环境转变成玩家的游戏空间。从早上10点到中午,DC海军纪念馆(Navy Memorial)成为无处不在的游戏热区,当然这只有通过3DS系统才能实现。CNN等媒体的评论常常错误地将3DS平台等同于iPhone手机平台。

除此之外,索尼的Jack Tretton笑称3DS是儿童设备。他认为3DS和Game Boy(游戏邦注:这是一款80年代末的移动手持游戏设备)大同小异。从很多方面来说,iPhone和即将问世的NGP将会是此类游戏体验的最佳载体:游戏体验可以延伸至室内其他房间,同时游戏内容还可以从网上下载。

IPhone是手机和即时通讯设备,堪称口袋科技的奇葩,但作为游戏设备,它和22年前的Game Boy大同小异。就像Totten上篇帖子提到的,3DS和其他设备不同,它让游戏体验变得更富有意义。如今玩家得以在真实世界遨游,而非仅仅坐在客厅。

Totten接着谈及他参加StreetPass DC的始末:他首先来达了Gallery Place/Chinatown Metro Station服务区的红线地铁站,时间有限,所以他没有更换线路,而是忍受周末中转列车的漫长停留时间,接着他步行到了海军纪念馆,因为纪念馆附近的站点只有黄线和绿线才有经过。

在步行过程中,他将3DS调成“休眠模式”,因此设备能够感应到附近的参会人员。这同时也让他得以充分利用设备的计步器(游戏邦注:玩家每走100步就可以收集到相应的游戏币)。玩家在现实生活的交通工具选择也能对3DS产生影响。

当他到底聚会地点时,发现设备已经自动在Mii plaza中添加新的Miis角色(游戏邦注:Mii是玩家自己设计的仿真人物),这样他就可以化身Mii角色体验3DS游戏。在《Find Mii》中,他通过借助这些人物角色,且携手游戏中的英雄人物,顺利击败了一些幽灵。《Find Mii》是一款角色扮演游戏,游戏中StreetPass Miis角色会帮助玩家自创角色免于受困城堡之灾。

Totten之前提到他的《街头争霸IV》角色也加入作战之中,正面迎战其他玩家的人物。他使用的是系统默认的角色,因此输了其他玩家十个回合,因为这些玩家使用的是定制角色。之后他将步行至地铁的途中所得的Play Coins用于打造全新的、更为强大的《街头争霸》角色。

此次聚会谈论内容不局限于被动通讯工具的使用方面。很多参会人员还通过无线方式编辑团体成员名单,以便同其他成员共同体验《街头争霸》或者《Ridge Racer》。他们还拍摄了《Face Raiders》的相关图片,还讨论了3DS真实感游戏和交替真实感游戏的可能性。3DS将一群陌生人转变为一次游戏体验。

虽然跑步团体、酒吧聚会、儿童足球组织或者其他活动也能到达相同目的,但该游戏系统完全颠覆了在活动中简单和某人交流的含义,这对玩家今后独自体验电子游戏来说也是影响深远。

除了为玩家提供身边富有真实感的数字信息之外,该系统还能够促进现实世界和数字世界进行自由的意义交流,并且在该过程中强化二者。玩家在现实世界的活动会对虚拟世界产生影响,促进玩家和其他探索者进行社交互动。3DS让玩家对于《Homo Ludens:  Man The Player》(游戏邦注:其为荷兰历史学家约翰·赫伊津哈的作品)有了全面认识。

3DS本身并没有应用。

Sesame Street App

Sesame Street App

Lynsen的团体通过小宅网和掴客网等网站的传播,在全球范围内“颇负盛名”。自网站宣布StreetPass DC将举行系列座谈会后,该组织就迅速走进大众的视野。StreetPass如今已发展成全球组织,这多亏了Nintendo 3DS以及那些怀揣着将现实世界变成社交游戏空间梦想的粉丝们的鼎力相助。

如果说3DS是窥探神秘游戏仙境的镜子,那么组织领袖就是White Rabbits,他们能够察觉3DS社交性和真实感功能的潜力,将玩家带入其中的游戏世界。他们为3DS玩家创造了沟通的桥梁,将系统优势发挥到淋漓尽致。如今这类团体已经和Hashers之类的组织一样普遍,其他城市的观光客对于StreetPass组织颇为钦佩:玩家的国内旅行可以强化自身的游戏体验。

SPDC(游戏邦注:指的是StreetPass DC)聚会的前一天晚上,Lynsen推出了StreetPass Network,旨在促进全球StreetPass团体互相交流和互换资源。会上,其他参加者也谈论了自己的初创公司,并表达了对于信息交流的兴趣。

Totten有提到组织还讨论了真实感和交替真实感游戏。会上他们深入了解了3DS的基本社交游戏功能,他们接着讨论了能够强化玩家身边城市风景的游戏体验。在DC这类的大都市,交替真实感游戏可以用来为未来的3DS或者Wii项目做广告:通过摄像头读取OR编码,玩家的地铁之旅可以演变成拾荒式搜索。

有了真实感标签,商店也能铺地毯,应用也可被下载,从而为玩家读取这些画面提供必要线索。3DS将植入《ARQuake》,未来聚会模式也许将变为玩家在国家广场使用3DS玩《抢旗模式》(Capture the Flag),而《口袋妖怪》将淡出人们的视野,玩家可以在United States Botanical Gardens的丛林中随处抓到野生皮卡丘,进而将其运用到StreetPass战斗中。

如果任天堂公司或者第三方3DS开发商有读到以上内容,那么就让这一切成为现实吧!

此次活动打消了他之前对3DS游戏体验存在的质疑:这并非简单的移动游戏设备,它还通往未知神秘社交游戏世界的窗口。虽然iPhones、Android设备也拥有此类功能,但3DS设备更胜一筹(游戏邦注:3DS的功能完全融入操作系统之中,操作更为便捷)。

red-pill

red-pill

如果开发商继续推出《街头争霸IV》3D版之类的游戏,那么3DS将会在手机游戏领域引起轩然大波,让最愤怒的小鸟也望尘莫及。如果玩家所在的地区拥有3DS StreetPass组织,且其本身拥有3DS设备,或者身边朋友也有次设备,而玩家也有兴趣购买,或者玩家甚至质疑设备的游戏体验,想要亲自一探究竟:参加聚会,和其玩家探讨该系统,探讨3DS未来发展之路。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,转载请注明来源:游戏邦)

Through the Looking Glass Part II: Ubiquitous Social Gaming

To be honest, I didn’t really expect to write a “part II” to my post on the Nintendo 3DS.  In the last blog post, I wrote how the 3DS’s AR capabilities could turn the system into a looking glass for seeing our real surroundings as digital playgrounds (much to the ire of several unconvinced commenters.)

Also in the post, I glossed over several features focusing on communication between 3DS systems, the interaction between their users, and Facebook-based social events forming around these features.  Having attended the first of these events, I thought that writing a “part II” would be appropriate, as I have been further inspired by the 3DS and a group of fans devoted to changing cities into social gaming spaces.

For those who don’t know, the social event I am referring to is the first meeting of “StreetPass DC”, a grass-roots group of 3DS users in the Washington DC metro area.  Begun by 3DS supporter and DC resident Joshua “The Man In The Mario Hat” Lynsen, StreetPass DC strives to bring local 3DS users together to utilize the new handheld’s social gaming features.  

Living just outside of DC, I decided to attend myself after reading about the group’s creation on Kotaku.  In an e-mail interview with Daniel Wise of VideoGameWriters.com (who was also in attendance at the inaugural meeting), Lynsen remarked how he was inspired to create the group after observing similar portable-gaming themed groups in Japan and lamenting the lack of similar groups in the US.

Having taken my own 3DS out into the city during daily activities with StreetPass mode turned on, I could relate to his frustrations at having no game encounters.  Sure enough, as I saw Lynsen’s Mario hat (which he said would be how the group could distinguish him from the normal Cherry Blossom tourist crowd), my 3DS’s green communication light began blinking in earnest and I soon had ten visitors to my Mii Plaza and my Super Street Fighter IV figurines had lost as many battles.

Truly, we had stumbled onto something amazing.

Cities like DC are awash in social activities, from Hash House Harrier groups (people who go running and drinking) to adults playing the playground games of their youth in public places, often using the Internet as the basis of their group coordination.

StreetPass DC focuses the same style of socialization around the 3DS as a device for transforming the surrounding urban environment into a digital playground.  From the hours of 10 am to Noon, the DC Navy Memorial became a ubiquitous gaming hotspot in ways that are only deliverable via a system like the 3DS.  Some reviews, like those found on CNN, incorrectly compare the experience of the 3DS to that of using the iPhone as a mobile gaming device.

Meanwhile, Sony’s Jack Tretton shortsightedly laughs it off as it a “babysitting tool.”  This outlook on the device compares it to the experience founded by the Game Boy in the late Eighties: one using a handheld to act as a gaming console on the go.  In many ways, the iPhone and upcoming NGP are the zenith of this experience:  the ability to play games away from your living room and download content from the internet (the 3DS will receive its own e-store and internet service this Summer.)

Yes, the iPhone is a phone and internet/IM device, making it an amazing piece of pocket tech, but as a gaming device it pretty much does what the Game Boy did in glorious green and black those twenty-two years ago.  As I stated in my last article, the 3DS differs from these systems in its ability to make the idea of mobile gaming more meaningful – the fact that you’re moving around in the real world and not sitting in a living room matters.

Let me describe my StreetPass DC experience: I arrived at the Gallery Place/Chinatown Metro Station on the service’s Red Line. Already nearly late, and not wanting to change lines and endure the long weekend waiting times for a transfer train, I walked the rest of the way to Navy Memorial, whose closest Metro Stop serves the Yellow and Green Lines.

During this walk, I had the 3DS set to “Sleep Mode” so it would respond to anyone approaching the meeting.  This also allowed me to take advantage of the 3DS’s pedometer and gather gaming coins as rewards for each one hundred steps taken (though in a city like DC, the daily earning limit of ten coins is reached all too quickly.)  Already, my real-world decisions in transportation meant something to the 3DS.

I reached the meeting and had already found my system welcoming new Miis into the Mii plaza, which I could then use to play games packed into the 3DS.  Using some of these characters, I beat up some ghosts with my new heroes in Find Mii, a basic RPG where StreetPass Miis save yours from being locked in a castle.

Also, as I stated previously, my copy of Street Fighter IV joined in the fun, using my team of figurines to go up against everyone else’s who had brought the game.  Using only the default figures against everyone else’s custom characters ended with ten solid defeats on my part.  I would later spend my Metro ride home cashing in all my pedometer-earned Play Coins on new, more powerful Street Fighter figures. 

The meeting held other opportunities beyond the use of the passive communication tools.  Many of us wirelessly compiled friend lists of group members and jumped into Street Fighter or Ridge Racer games with one another.  Pictures were taken for Face Raiders and the possibility of AR gaming and Alternate Reality games with the 3DS was discussed.  The 3DS’s features changed a gathering of strangers into a gaming experience.

While the same might be said of anyone gathering for running, barhopping, kickball, or any other outdoor activity in the city, the game systems changed the meaning of simple things like walking and talking to someone else into activities that could and would later have implications in our private video game sessions.

Apart from laying the AR layer of digital information on the world around you, the system, as demonstrated by the event, can create a free exchange of meaning between real and digital world events, enhancing both in the process.  Your activities in the normal world affect those in a brave new digital frontier, all while facilitating social interactions with other explorers.  The 3DS allows owners to become the full realization of Dutch historian Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens:  Man The Player.

There ISN’T an app for that.

Lynsen’s group gained worldwide notoriety through sites like Kotaku and Gawker, going viral shortly after those sites reported on the upcoming inaugural meetings.  StreetPass groups now exist globally…let me repeat that…GLOBALLY, thanks to the Nintendo 3DS and a fan who thinks that it can transform the real world into a social gaming space.

If the 3DS is the Looking Glass into a hidden gaming Wonderland then the leaders of these groups are our White Rabbits, recognizing the potential of the 3DS’s social and AR features and leading us into their world.  These people are creating the means for 3DS owners to come together to take full advantage of the system’s features.  Now, as is common with groups like the Hashers, visitors from other cities may find themselves looking up the local StreetPass group:  someone’s vacation or trip home may also enhance their gaming experiences.

The night before SPDC’s first event, Lynsen launched the StreetPass Network, allowing StreetPass groups worldwide to communicate and exchange resources.  Other attendees to the event also mentioned their own startup and expressed interest in exchanging information.

I mentioned that the group discussed AR and Alternate Reality games.  As we stood around getting so much from what are essentially the most basic of the 3DS’s social gaming features, we discussed the kinds of gaming experiences that could potentially further enhance the urban landscape around us.  In a metropolitan area like DC, Alternate Reality games could be used to advertise future 3DS or Wii projects:  rides on Metro could turn into scavenger hunts by reading QR codes with the camera.

Stores could be given mats with a special AR card design and apps could be downloaded that would give players clues for reading these images.  The 3DS could go ARQuake and possible future meetings could be spent playing Capture the Flag with 3DS’s on the National Mall, where our Pokemon game goes off and we catch a wild Pikachu in the foliage of the United States Botanical Gardens that can then be used in StreetPass battles.

In case anyone from Nintendo or a third party 3DS developer is reading this:  make all of that happen.

All in all, being part of the event cemented what I already suspected about the 3DS experience:  this was not just a simple portable gaming device that I purchased; it was a window to a new social gaming playground that exists behind the veil of the world around us.  Even if apps do exist for iPhones or Android devices that do similar things, the 3DS has these features as parts of its operating system, making them instantly more accessible.

If games like Super Street Fighter IV:  3D Edition continue to be made by developers, then the 3DS could have an enormous impact on the mobile gaming industry, turning even the angriest of birds green with envy.  And if you live in an area where there is a 3DS StreetPass group and you own a 3DS, know someone who owns a 3DS, are interested in purchasing one, or are even skeptical of the experience and want to investigate one for yourself:  go to a meeting, meet and discuss the system with people there, and see how far the rabbit hole goes.(Source:Gamasutra


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