Surgical precision robot w/ force feedback!

Ooh the precision.

Henrik's new amazing prototype

Here are pictures and video of Henrik's new prototype. It's amazing and it definitely holds a potential to play WoW with it also.















































VIDEO:

Warlord Concept

I know it's holidays and all, but I've been working on a Warlord concept none the less. It's based on the finding that some gamers prefer to use a tablet instead of a mouse because they feel it's more accurate. The idea was prototyped last thursday and Esa's got some video and pictures of that session. It seemed to work very well so I took it a step further:

Wii goes 3D immersion super experience

3D without stereoscopy!

NO extra skype meeting tomorrow on monday! (usa sunday)

hey we dont think tomorrows meeting is necessary!
What does Stanford think?

But, I will make Google Document for the requirements.
If Both Aalto and Stanford teams can go and see them before tuesday(stanford mon evening) skype meeting and add and comment?

Henrik and Esa please put your requirements there when tehy are ready. I will put mine today.

thank you :))

CoD online to remain free, always

Here's an interesting topic:

Some analyst expecting Activision to start charging money for playing CoD online:
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/40036/Activision-must-charge-for-CoD-online

Activision CEO promising the opposite:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/ceo-says-activision-will-never-charge-for-call-of-duty/

Third Chapter and Fourth Chapter

The template has been updated! Check out changes in the third and fourth chapter that we are writing in collaboration. The new file is called fixed fall template.docx


3 Design Development

3.1 Setting Up Communications channels

3.2 Research and Benchmarking
3.2.1 Aalto Research and Benchmarking
3.2.2 Stanford Research and Benchmarking

3.3 Critical Function Prototype (CFP)
3.3.1 Aalto CFP
3.3.2 Stanford CFP
3.3.3 CFP Learnings Summary

3.4 Critical Experience Prototype (CEP)
3.4.1 Aalto CEP
3.4.2 Stanford CEP
3.4.3 CEP Learnings Summary

3.5 Ideation and Prototyping
3.5.1 Aalto Ideation and Prototyping
3.5.2 Stanford Ideation and Prototyping


4 Design Description

4.1 Critical Function Prototypes
4.1.1 Aalto Pointing Task
4.1.2 Stanford Button Experiment

4.2 Critical Experience Prototypes
4.2.1 Aalto Interface, Display and Space Experiment
4.2.2 Stanford Rumble Feedback Test

Aalto Fall presentation in Egnyte

Aalto team's presentation is in Egnyte.
Look in the second page in Activision folder file "Activision Aalto Fall Presentation.pdf"

Aalto CEP video

The list of contents and division of work load for the documentation

Today, we agreed to the following:

1 Executive summary: Stanford
1 Glossary (Compile): Stanford
1 Context: Stanford
2 Design Requirements: Aalto
3 Design Development: Stanford & Aalto
4 Design Description: Stanford & Aalto
5 Project Planning & Management: Stanford
6 Vision and Future Work: Aalto

The other stuff should basically happen on its own, right.

acti-VISION

Stanford CFP Videos

Hey Guys, I've uploaded some of our CFP videos to Egnyte in a folder called "Stanford CFP Videos"

Template for Fall documentation

I uploaded a template.docx to Egnyte to Fall documentation folder.

We can talk about if it's good enough to our documentation in our Skype meeting so please check it out.

Similar controls/ Simultaneous functions matrix

Skype meeting Wed/Thu

Thursday at 9 am (Finland)
Wednesday at 11 pm (Stanford)

Stanford Brochure

ME310 FALL CFP/ CEP REVIEW

Aalto TT comments:

What did the team learn?
* How accurate the different controllers are.
* Whit PC gaming is not for fun

* XBox remote controller was really inaccurate but the XBox version more popular than the PC version


Is it clear why the team picked what they did for their CFP/ CEP investigation? Explain respectively.
* Thy wanted to study how to perform the aiming function + the difference between different controllers.

* Aiming is the most important function
* PC / Console makes a difference


Recommendations for what the team should focus on next and advice or further comments for the team:
* Be aware and study different modes that the gamers have

* What's next after aiming? Think about this

I WISH...
* You will keep the big picture in your mind in the future as well

* You would brainstorm more even if you have a good idea, it helps to ideate. This will keep things fresh

* You look into more unusual stuff - what are the "weirdos" of the industry


I LIKE...
* The data and how you presented it. Very well organized! Good job!

* Great prototypes! Solid job

* Your set. Pictures, visuals, measurements
* Space / environment set


Grade 4,5

Fall Documentation Road Map

We have a plan for the documentation in Egnyte in the folder Fall Documentation. If we all follow the same rules when writing our texts, the process will be very much easier. So read through the plan (Fall Documentation Road Map.docx), tell us your opinions. Of course it can still be changed and improved.

The idea is to use Word, because it's easy.

PC gamers thrash console gamers

A piece of news (from last summer) about Microsoft cancelling a cross-platform project because keyboard+mouse gamers were kicking console ass ver very hard. Followed by a very intersting discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of both setups.

http://www.techspot.com/news/39738-microsoft-killed-crossplatform-project-because-pc-gamers-wrecked-console-gamers.html

"
I have every game system out there. I have a pretty spec'd out pc.
I'd rather play with a controller than a keyboard and mouse.
For me it's about comfort.
Pc gaming is like Mr. Sulu on the helm. Console is like Capt Kirk chilling.
I could lounge on my sofa chair for hours.
Sitting up right in my nice leather padded office chair...not so much.
No monitor can beat my 46in Sony TV. 23in vs 46in?
"
Congrats for the great feedback on your CEP/CFP !

Stanford's CFP+CEP feedback from Stanford

I share this here so its easier to be found.

lähettäjä Larry Leifer <leifer@cdr.stanford.edu> vastaanottaja 310-activision-global@lists.stanford.edu kopio 310-su-teachingteam <310-su-teachingteam@mailman.stanford.edu> date (päiväys) 24. marraskuuta 2010 2.16 aihe [310-activision-global] Activision: CFP+CEP feedback from Stanford Thursday.18.Nov SGM Reviews postituslista <310-activision-global.lists.stanford.edu> Suodata tämän postituslistan viestit lähettänyt mailman.stanford.edu peruuta tilaus Peruuta tämän postituslistan tilaus

piilota yksityiskohdat 24. marraskuuta (2 päivää sitten)

Activision (Stanford-Aalto)

We are sharing globally.

Stanford students on on Thanksgiving Break this week!

Comments are a mix from various TTeam members.

It will probably read like a committee report ;-)

Please share with the global TTeam.

Checklist:

• guided by user and expert interviews?   Yes, good job with the user testing. Might be interesting to talk to game designers and people who design controls of other input devices - they might share some interesting insights.
• guided by benchmarking insights? Yes. Many controllers were bought and some of the best merits of each was amalgamated into their CFP
• updates to the  persona? Was not explicitly mentioned
• global contribution in CFP/CEP? Global involvement was not mentioned but I know from talking to them that the globals are playing a strong part in the design direction
• is it clear why team chose their topic? Yes
• does team understand what they’ve learned? I think the team got some very good insights that will help ground their future direction.

CEP: Experimented with gesture based control. Biggest learning was that buttons are the preferred mode of input because of speed. While gestures might be more natural, gamers wouldn’t sacrifice that for speed.

CFP: Wanted to study if increasing the number of actions per finger - and engaging more fingers would improve game performance. Also, if haptic feedback and button types can enhance the user experience. The key insights were that more buttons do help, but buttons need to be located in context - eg. jump and crouch buttons should be in the same physical space, probably triggered by the same finger. Haptic feedback is merely a bonus feature - not something gamers are really looking for in controllers

Recommendations: Try to explore the space beyond the controller. How else can the user be engaged while still being able to perform actions faster. Use of legs, gestures, head tracking, eye tracking... directional sound or haptic feedback that can replace visual alerts.. …

We liked the direct engagement in multi-modal action and feedback media.
We wished the team had looked outside the computer/video game context for inspiration.

Consensus Summary score:  4.4

Sum-up of second quarter research results!

We did a reading and post-itting session to sum up learning from interviews, benchmarking, CEP and everything we've done this autumn/winter. The file is uploaded to Egnyte and includes a lot more information. We discovered some sixteen different themes that came up, but in the end the findings were fairly simple. The file is called Research sum-up (long version).rtf.

The most important lesson that we learned is that console gamers and PC gamers are two different groups of people:

PC

Younger

More free time

Gaming alone

Console

Older

More responsibilities

Less time

More money

No time to systematically practice gaming skills

Social gaming

Dream controller qualities - according to users

Fits perfectly to hand

Gives appropriate feedback

More advanced feedback than regular vibration (but haptic)

Opportunity to turn feedback off/on

Actions resemble real life actions (e.g. pulling the trigger)

Opportunity to control with movements (accelerometer based) in wanted (off/on option)

One piece that can be moved freely

Aiming as accurate as possible

No need to move hand/fingers a lot

Schedule Before Christmas (Aalto)

Tuesday 23.11
- make pre-christmas schedule
- ideation and prototyping
Wednesday 24.11
- put together material from research so far
- everybody reads and gets to know the material
- discussion and drawing conclusions
Thursday 25.11
- plan the documentation
- share plan with Sickdivision Stanford
Friday 26.11
- ideation and prototyping


Monday 29.11
(Tiia is away)
- "testing" prototypes
- put together material from ideation and prototyping
Tuesday 30.11
- prepare the presentation
Wednesday 1.12
- prepare the presentation
Thursday 2.12
Presentation
Friday 3.12
- work on winter documentation

Monday 6.12
- work on winter documentation
Tuesday 7.12
- work on winter documentation
Wednesday 8.12
- work on winter documentation
Thursday 9.12
Deadline of Winter Documentation


TUUKKA ADDED "AALTO OFFICIAL SCHEDULES"

Howdy ME310ers

Some of you guys were wondering today about the remaining schedule this year so here's a short summary:

Thu Nov 25
Normal SGMs with the same schedule as last week. You can swap slots with other teams if you wish. We will give you feedback on your CFP/CEP reviews last week. Details and schedule on the brochure and the fall final presentation will be explained at LGM. SUDS by SUEZ.
DUE: Detailed results & learnings from CFP/CEP user testing.

Tue Nov 30
Normal lecture: Fall presentations + Brochures + X.

Thu Dec 2
No SGM's. Fall final presentations and brochure (the brochure is a part of the fall presentation). SUDS by UPM.
DUE: Fall presentation + Brochure

Tue Dec 7
Lecture. Fall final checklist for all the teams and documentation Q&A.

Thu Dec 9
Fall final documentation to be handed in. Feedback session for the entire semester for each team. One-on-one interviews. SUDS by Amplitude.
DUE: Fall documentation

From Fri Dec 10 until Mon Jan 3rd Xmas Holiday *<):-)
Lectures begin Jan 4th with brand new stuff, the PaperBot Challenge!

That'll be all for today. Happy prototyping!

-Antti and the TTeam


--
Antti Sonninen
Aalto University/ME310
Tel. +358-40-763-0044

No Skype Today!

Team Stanford is kind of scattered in different places right now during our Thanksgiving break, so we won't be able to skype today.

In general, out CFP/CEP review went over well with the TTeam, but we're still waiting to hear their official feedback.

Our next major task is our final quarter presentation, which will take place on 12/2 (dress rehearsal on 11/30)

Aalto CEP user test

Today we did CEP user test with a person who mainly plays with console.

















As said before we did two different environment: Office and living room. Test person played in both environments with 4 different arrangements. One game session lasted 10 minutes and after that person filled following paper


















After that person was asked following questions:
* Can you imagine to play with this setup at home?
* Which attributes did you liked?
* Which you didn't
* How would you develop the setup?

Test was done in a room where was multiple video cameras and microphones attached on the roof. While test person was playing, we were in the next room watching him. Here are pics of surveillance room.
















In the end test person filled personal information on a paper and we gave him a movie ticket as a paid for a good job.

We have now done this test for two persons and next we have to analyze the data what we get from them.

We have also interviewed three gamers in their home. Last interview was done in last Friday.

gamer interview added to Egnyte

One gamer interview (Asko Koskimäki) is now added Egnyte.

CFP results, individual and sum

CFP & CEP aalto

CFP

Function: Aiming

Why:

aiming/moving are the two main functions

aiming is crucial function to manage in the game

aiming is very different between pc, regular console controller and PSmove/wii/gun controller

Task/setting:

-Simple aiming task: aim and click to blue circle in the screen, when caught, next one appears.

-Task lasts one minute.

-Practice about one minute before

Measure:

How many hits in one minute -> comparison between controllers

Results: see charts

CEP

Experience: Environment

Why:

Family room and Pc on office table are very different environments.

How does the environment matter?

What is it like to change the environment?

What are the meaningful factors in the environment?

How do the different factors affect the experience?

Setting:

-Basic setting in both environments (TV, Xbox, Sofa & Table, chair, pc, screen, keyboard, mouse)

-Key elements (our opinion, assumption based on the information gathered so far) are switched to make 6 more settings (see chart)

-videotaped

Measure:

-Interview

-how did it feel

-what was good

-what was bad

-what would you improve

-would you play like this home

-Geneva emotion wheel

Feedback:

With xbox controller feels more free

-hands are more free

-also when tv is closer head can be moved more?

He would be happy to change mouse to some kind of pointing device

Xbox controller just isn’t for playing first person shooting games

-it’s not accurate enough, “tattis” are terribly inaccurate

-vibration is nice for fun gaming (although it’s niin nähty)

No vibration or anything extra for keyboard and mouse!

-they are for more serious gaming (internet gaming with other ppl)

-all extra things like vibration take the concentration away from the game

Doesn’t like the Xbox controller auto focus, because it feels more like watching a movie (not that involved) - Anti-immersiveness?

We felt that he did really like the table sofa and said that he has not thought about it before.

Between the lines: would never change from keyboard in serious gaming

But: he also said that if xbox controller

-he was more excited with controller, he had more challenging experience with controller, pc was boring/familiar

Notes:

Xbox cd broke, be prepared well :)

Technical problems with audio

The table in sofa was too small -> can something be done so that does not affect the experiment?