Dear Mr. Hoerr:

Thank you for regarding the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), S. 3804.  On September 20, 2010, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced this legislation and on November 18th it was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee.  However, action was not taken on the floor of the Senate before the completion of the 111th Congress.

The Internet is an invaluable resource for millions of people worldwide and I agree that it is important that access remain unfettered.  However, illegal activity such as online piracy and counterfeiting has become increasingly pervasive and has assumed a potentially threatening form.  For this reason, I have cosponsored S. 3804.  I disagree that this legislation would inhibit free speech, rather, it simply gives law enforcement new tools to ensure that intellectual property receives the same legal protections online as it would anywhere else. An amendment offered by Senator Leahy and adopted as part of the legislation helped to strengthen the privacy protections in the bill by eliminating a provision that would have authorized the Department of Justice to publish the domain names only suspected of copyright infringement, but against which the government has taken no action.

Currently, the federal government does not have the necessary tools to combat websites that traffic in pirated music, movies and other intellectual property, as well as counterfeit goods such as pharmaceuticals.  Many of the websites engaged in digital piracy and counterfeiting are foreign-owned and operated.  However, this illegal activity impacts the American economy, consumers and businesses.  This legislation would allow the Department of Justice to obtain civil court orders against only those domain names that have the sole purpose of offering pirated content or counterfeit goods. COICA would apply to domain names registered in the United States, as well as those registered elsewhere under certain circumstances. A domain name registered abroad would be covered by this legislation if it provides access to a site offering pirated content or counterfeit material, and the site’s activities have a commercial effect in the United States

COICA includes safeguards to allow the domain name owner or site operator to petition the court to lift the order, including in the situation where the operator takes effective steps to exclude pirate or counterfeiting activity from the site.  It also would allow for a dismissal of an order if the domain name has been deleted following expiration of its registration and has been re-registered by a different party.

Again, thank you for contacting me regarding this legislation. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future regarding this or any other matter of concern.

Sadly, he’s pretty naive that law enforcement has any idea how the internet works.

It was after Vault 112 that I ran into the first game design issue that made me want to turn off my PS3—escorting NPCs.

Basically you are joined by someone who tells you that you need to go all the way across the map to get to the next part of the quest.  Um, ok… the game has taught you by now that you can travel instantly to any place you’ve already been, but this NPC takes off running at break-neck speed across the map and the story is such that I’m inclined to follow.  So we run and run and run and run and finally I’m like “fuck this guy, I’m teleporting my ass to Rivet City.”

So I do.  (being sure to save before hand incase I happen to break the game by doing so…)

I pop on over to where he told me to go, and he’s no where to be found.  I walk outside the city and note that I can see where he is on my little radar doohicky.  Rather than go back and find him, I decide to go talk to the scientist he’s coming to see.  Oh wait, there he is!  As soon as I talk to sciencechick he descends the staircase and proceeds to have a long conversation without any subtitles (which was awesome since I was playing with the sound practically off because my wife was sleeping.)

So now we’re joined by sciencechick to go off somewhere else.  Knowing now that I might not break the game by teleporting to the destination I do so.  Ok, so they aren’t here yet.  No worries, says I—I’ll use the “wait” feature.  So I wait 2 hours, nothing.  I wait another 2 hours and still nothing.  Super.  So off I go to find them.

I end up killing some super mutants (milk bottle to the face, sucka.) and the game updates my quest saying “go tell the people who were supposed to be with you that it’s ok to come in now.”  Um, sure.  Just one problem-I don’t know where they are.

I mosey around the building looking for where they might be hiding, or maybe a phone/intercom to call them and let them know that it’s ok to come in, but nothing.  I head out the door to save and teleport back to my house when its “OH HAI, HOW ARE YOU?!” there they are.

So now I have to “escort” them to the center of the building, which is possibly the most annoying thing in the world.  MMOs have taught me that when someone asks to be escorted anywhere you should expect ninjas to appear from nowhere and try to kill them.  So I stay close.  Here’s the issue with this: when your targetting recticle passes over the NPC, they stop to say something inane like “what can I do for you?” and pause for a full 10 seconds before continuing to move at the slowest pace in the history of the world. I know you can move fast, Mr. NPC-man.  I watched you book it across the wasteland for a good 10 minutes before I ditched your ass.  Stop talking to me and get to where you’re going… and keep an eye out for ninjas.

We get to the center of the building ninja-free, and they begin to mingle amongst themselves.  Um.  Guys?  Guys?  Over here.  I had a quest that you need to let me finish now please.  No, you can’t do anything for me.  Stop talking and finish my quest so I can go to bed.  Finally, he positioned himself in front o f a computer and I decided that maybe I should talk to him.  Voila!  My quest was done.

I went outside, saved, and went to bed.

Ugh.  Make interacting with NPCs beyond just dialogue not suck please.

While we’re on the subject can we discuss why/how I can teleport across the Capital Wasteland?  I appreciate it, don’t get me wrong—but how does it fit into the game world?  Has the radiation broken down my body like Sandman (from spiderman 3) allowing me to dissassemble myself and move through space at an increased velocity?  I wish they had explained it somehow.

I was reading through my feeds this morning when I stumbled across this post.

You can actual ruin a good part of the game if you ‘game’ it too much. By that I mean it’s easy to destroy most of the challenge if you stack your party with Cone of Cold-tossing mages, kite mobs around, or save/reload to make sure you get the ‘perfect’ dialog responses every time. Once I shut the gamer part of my brain off, and just played the game as it was meant to be played, it was a far more enjoyable ride that still remained a good challenge.

I realized that I’ve been doing this to myself for every single game I’ve played since I started raiding in WoW.  I spend countless hours researching on the internet to figure out game mechanics and other bits and pieces of “essential” information that allow me to succeed at playing.

Couldn’t 100% a level in Little Big Planet?  Look it up online.  Problems finding all the flags in Assassin’s Creed?  Look it up online.  Can’t figure something out in EVE?  Look it up online.

So here’s my new goal.  I’ve read the walkthrough for Fallout 3 through the end of the “Following in his footsteps” quest.  I know where to find the Galaxy News Radio, and that Three Dog is going to ask me to go get a satellite dish (from where I work in real life…)  I’m going to try and get to Three Dog tonight and from here on out, there will be no more guides for anything.  I’m going to relax and enjoy the game as it comes to me.  I don’t know that I’ll be able to apply this philosophy to all the games that I play (no loadouts from Battle Clinic for Eve?!) but I will not spend my free time browsing the interwebs for anything and everything about each minutia for any game I pick up.

Call it an early new year’s resolution.

Where I work is thinking about creating a game.

Mushy and vague enough for you? (note: typing out the entire name of the place attracts our public affairs office’s attention… look here maybe: http://americanhistory.si.edu )

We’ve accepted the fact that while we have great content, unparalleled collections and (historical) resources-we could use some help to design a game.  To that end it looks like we’ll be hosting a sort of brain-trust with folks who are qualified to design games.  (Don’t bother asking me for an invite or an invitee list as I can’t supply the former, and I don’t have a final version of the latter.)

That’s a bigger step than most of you probably realize.  I think  that frequently educational/non-profit organizations like the Smithsonian assume that because they’ve got the content/message they’re qualified to design the perfect delivery.  What ends up being created is a not-so-compelling web-based activity that’s targeted at middle schoolers, but is so poorly executed that it gets pushed on elementary kids.  (nothing’s quite as brutal as honesty, eh?)

There are exceptions to the rule, but you’d be hard-pressed to qualify most of these activities as a “game” at all.  Which brings me to my point and question:

What is a game?

Here’s a wikipedia link since that’s the place most people will probably turn to first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game

I’m genuinely interested to hear any and all of your thoughts about this.  Some additional things you might consider:

Does a game require multiple players?
Does a game require the ability to interfere with other players?
Does a game need to be “fun”?
What’s the relationship between “play” and “game”?
To what extent can you accomplish (or task the player with) “work” within a game?

Your real name: Dan Hoerr  (pronounced “Her”, it’s german-skip the first vowel)

The country you’re living in: US of A

How old are you: 24, coming up on 25 (January 9th)

What kind of work do you do:

I do web/graphic design and programming for the Smithsonian’s  National Museum of American History.  This includes the entire fleet of websites we support and also a few of the touch-screen kiosks that you see around the grounds of the building.

I’m well versed in HTML and CSS.  Understand PHP, Javascript, XML, Spry… a lot of things.  I’d consider myself a jack of all trades as the most important part of what I do is being able to communicate with specialists.

What other hobbies or interests do you have:

I graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art with a BFA in Interactive Media, so its safe to assume that I’m interested in art.

I love music, particularly metal & most things closely related.

My wife got me into diving, which I thoroughly enjoy.  Her father runs a dive charter out of Morehead City, NC: http://tortugacharters.net and I’m looking forward to next season when we’re not preoccupied with planning a wedding so we can get wet more often.  (Isn’t that what they call doing PCP?  ”getting wet” I’m remembering a scene from Training Day or something…)

I like learning about game theory and examining the “metagame”.

Do you have a personal blog or non-Eve website you want to share:

You can find some of my portfolio and some general thoughts at: http://autumnrayne.net I subscribe to the slow-blogging movement though and hardly ever update that front page.

My wife keeps a southern food blog here: http://biscuitsandsuch.com you can check it out and be jealous of what I get to eat.