General Discussion

Ever wish you could use your cell phone to keep up to date on your favorite MMO, see which of your friends is online, or when your next raid is? Those and more are the possible uses of cell phones for MMORPGs according to Tom Sperry of Exit Games.

What practical application does your technology have for today’s MMORPGs in terms of new features and / or functionality?

Tom Sperry

Our platform’s service, called “Neutron”, enables PC-based MMORPG developers to extend in-game features to a mobile device in real-time. The most important thing about an MMORPG is the community (besides the quality of the game of course) and all of the social interaction features that go with it. Players are not able to sit in front of the computer 24/7 – at least, not in a healthy way – and so a natural way to access the game while on the run is via your mobile phone.

In the US, mobile devices and networks are not “ready” today to be gaming systems capable of realtime gameplay of MMORPGs, so we’re not trying to replicate the actual game onto the mobile. Instead, we’re using what it’s best at doing – communication. What Neutron can do for MMORPGs is tie the mobile phone to the game’s back end so that the player can stay plugged in to the virtual world, through various forms of social communication features. These features may include seeing which friends are currently logged into the game, chatting with a friend or your guild mates, checking the raid calendar, searching the auction house to see if the weapon upgrade you’ve wanted is up, etc. The mobile device is the perfect channel to stay in touch with the game while away from the computer, and Neutron allows developers to make this happen without having to allocate too much in dedicated resources.

Read it all here.

I am completely on board with this idea, but don't neglect the possible downsides of this situation.  I'm thinking specifically of gold selling and power-levelling spam.  I would really hate to get gold spam texts on my phone.  On the flip side, I would hope that some measures would be in place so that this technology doesn't make it infinitely easier for the spammers to reach us in-game.

Other than that I'd LOVE to be able to check the AH while I'm at work waiting for samples to thaw or commuting on the shuttle to the parking lot.    It would be extremely helpful if we could send messages to a guildmate's cellphone as a"raid reminder".  Just a little text saying the raid is in a half hour or something like that.    OR, it might be nice for (literally) calling in a sub  mid-raid if someone leaves and you need a replacement.  

Considering I'm on my cellphone so much, any advancement in that area is a huge plus for me.

hmm interesting, certainly could serve a purpose. That is, if you have a mmo that you're sufficiently into. I know playing around in Everquest, there was a time and stuff like might be appealling.

---

It would be extremely helpful if we could send messages to a guildmate's cellphone as a"raid reminder

---

Why did you stay in the guild then?

   While it was mentioned there will be a subscription fee depending on a few factors, which on its own probably wouldn't be too bad, we're forgetting something. While you pay a steady subscription fee to USE the feature you still pay the Cell Company fees to use the internet. Unless you have a cell package that incorporates internet usage not just "ya you can use the internet, just press that button"  your phone bill will be ridiculous.

Five minutes here ten minutes there at 15-35 cents a minute will be a large hurt when the bill comes in.

I'm not sure about where you live, but here in South Africa generic WAP is very old news. We pay for data sent over GPRS/3G/7.2Mbps HSDPA, not how long we stay online.

I can remember the days of having to make a "phone call" to access the net

maybe EvE will make it we can reply to text to train via cellphone? :)  wishful thinking

Canada, U.S has always been behind in tech from the east, sad but true. By the time we see tech from the east you ahve had it, used and moving on to the next best thing.

Ah I see...South Africa is usually on the forefront of cellular technology.

And just for the records, its in the West too but I get what you're saying