Developers Corner

It occurred to me that it would be interesting to be able to have an implementation of web cameras in games.  By this I mean having a video feed of something in a game world that is accessible through the web.  Just as if it was a web camera.  If necessary, the camera could be one of those "one update every 5 seconds" cameras.  Or it could be full speed.  But it would be a video feed, not a character model feed.  Although a live feed could be implemented for those who have the given game installed.

In 'sharded' worlds like World of Warcraft, it would suggest one camera per shard per location in the world.  But in single worlds like Eve Online, a camera could be mounted on something like the Jita station.  Or not even mounted.  It might circle the station or some such thing.

Other uses of virtual web cams would be to place them in raid instances in World of Warcraft, fleet actions in Eve Online, PvP battles in numerous games.  Such cameras would always be put in place with the permission of the leader of the group or groups involved.  If they proved to be a handicap for intelligence purposes, then group leaders would veto their use.  They might just insist that the camera be lower resolution or at a given distance.  Certainly either can be implemented.

An enticement for doing this would be to add to the body of marketing available on the web for a given game.  Low resolution virtual web cameras could be free on the web, while higher resolution web cams would require a log in to the web camera site using a game subscription.

For players, it would just be an opportunity to possibly see content that they normally might never encounter.

One of the things I used to enjoy was watching a friend playing a game so I could learn their techniques.  This might be an interesting idea to try out.  It could also be a time-delayed or recorded view.  It would be neat to watch an epic battle after it is over.  Of course the camera would be pretty boring during slow times.

Now all you need is a John Madden to scribble on the video and explain the boom-bam-bing maneouver the assaulting side just performed.

guildwars allows you to go into observer mode for areana matches between ranked guilds.  and it's actually used a lot by people and it's a lot of fun to mess around with.