The Massive studio is located in the town center of Malmö – Sweden’s third larges city located westerly next to  Copenhagen, Denmark. Besides working on my thesis I tried to get as much impressions of the city and the people as I could. While staying in Malmö I moved in the Massive apartment right in the town center. Therefore getting around was pretty easy.

The only problem – where to park the car? I had to realize that it is really hard to find free parking spaces in Malmö.  I went after some hints and found parking possibilities next to the S:t Pauli södra kyrkogård (südlicher Kirchengarten) where I parked my car for two months without any restrictions.

To get an idea of what to do and experience in Malmö I got a map with 34 so called “must-sees”. All the park areas like Pildammsparken, Slottsträdgården/ parken or Kungsparken attract many people to enjoy some time there. Very impressive is the new build Western Harbour with Swedens highest building Turning Torso – a 190m high construction that is twisted in a 90 degree angle from bottom to the top. Next to this new residential area is Staplebäddsparken - a unique 2000 square meter skateboard park where even watching is a lot of fun. Contrary to all the new architecture is Stor torget (Große Platz) with the city hall. Not far is Lilla Torg (kleiner Platz) – probably Malmö’s most charming square with many nice outdoor cafes and restaurants surround by buildings from the 16th century.

The question of where to go to eat during lunch time always was a vary hard one. Most restaurants have special lunch menus with low prices (40-85 Krones about 3,80€ – 8,20€). In order to get to know the most valuable places out of this really big variety of restaurants I joined Massive employees to get around. Close to the end of my stay we had lunch at a more or less traditional house called Andréelunds Mat & Vin – small but very charming and good.

I enjoyed my time in Malmö and I left with new impressions, experiences and most important with a big part of my diploma thesis done.
Thanks guys for having me with Massive and see you soon.

A mission had to be modified and  adapted with a completely new plot. To achieve something compared to that a new story line had to be designed and transcripted into the game logically, visually as well as acoustically.

Due to a lack of time while doing the actual research and the number of people that have to play the mission in order to fulfill methodology requirements, a tight time limit of ten to fifteen minutes playing time had to be set within the mission in any case.

The requirements for generating the two different kinds of advertising stimuli were set by the researcher to cope the theoretical background. The active object that has to be highly integrated into the plot should be come a transportation vehicle redesigned with DHL textures to achieve a look and feel of a regular DHL car that fill many streets in real life. The passive advertising stimuli should become a standard billboard – also redesigned with DHL textures – and placed in common spots a long the mission route.

After briefing Massive, three mission designers had to find an appropriate mission that could be adapted, think of an authentic plot that meets the requirements of common WiC missions, come up with a mission objective wording as well as script the plot (action paths, checkpoints enemy units)  into the game engine. A graphic designer had to look for suitable units that could be used for the custom-build textures. Two billboards and one transporter had been chosen, adopted and  finished with dirt and scratches in order to look more real.

Two sound designers had to look at the mission objectives and transfuse them into sound files to support the player with an auditive stimulus while playing the mission. Putting everything together took about one and a half weeks before the pretesting could start. One week before GamesCom a final mission polishing took place and the custom-build mission for this research was about to hit the field. In order to get four different versions the, reference mission was copied three times and the different variation of objects were set.

• map berlin1 – truck & billboards branded
• map berlin2 – billboards branded only
• map berlin3 – truck branded only
• map berlin4 – no branding

Besides the actual World in Conflict mission that had to be generated; a log file would be very useful and formed a new requirement itself. Therefore the researchers log wish list of the following data was part of the briefing:

• What mission had been played?
• How long played the subject to achieve or fail the mission in minutes?
• How often did the subject interact with the transporter?
• Did the user succeed and finish the primary mission objective?
• How many hit points did the transporter have after finishing the primary mission objective?
• How far did the subject got through the mission? (reached Checkpoints)
• How many seconds were the banner in the field of view of the user (200m range)
• How many seconds was the transporter in the field of view of the user (75m range)

And this is the playable result:

As well as the statistical summary after playing the mission like shown in the video:

Map: do_Mauer – DHL Billboard and DHL truck.
Total Time: 8.00 (480 sec)
Truck Health: 3600
Truck selected: 13

ProtectTruck: Completed in 363.659759521 sec
CaptureTruck: Completed in 54.2141876221 sec
Brandenburg: Completed in 68.6370544434 sec
Reichstag: Completed in 148.640365601 sec
Bridge: Completed in 39.4092712402 sec
ExitTruck: Completed in 41.9996948242 sec

Billboard1 in view: 74.9
Billboard2 in view: 15.6
Billboard3 in view: 33.0
Truck in view: 94.8

The final result was a mission based on the  World in Conflict: Soviet Assault Berlin mission. The main objective is to get “important files from the Reichstag’s archives and a Russian decryption devices from a nearby transport depot”. The user starts with three heavy tanks and two anti-air units to get the truck (DHL-branded or non-branded) with the decryption devices from a transport depot (DHL-branded or non-branded banners on the roof). After achieving this first checkpoint the player has to move on to clear the Brandenburger gate of Russian troops. Near Brandenburger gate right next to the Straße des 17. Juni appears the second branded or non-branded banner. The next checkpoint is right in front of the Reichtstag. The truck has to be placed in front of the building. While the player has to protect the truck of enemy fire the important files are getting loaded. Right after getting all the 30 files this “hit and run” mission has to end by leaving the city via passing the Moltke bridge that has to cleared of enemies before passing. The third branded or non-branded banner appears right after the bridge right next to the last checkpoint.

To encourage people, to actually takes some time to sit down, play this mission and answer a questions in an online survey,  a prize drawing was offered.

The winners have been contacted by eMail and will get their copy after replying with their shipment address. Deadline will be Sept. 9th 2009. Again, Thanks for taking part and I hope you had some fun, playing this nice piece of World in Conflict.

To see who won read on …

• 3642 hitpoints | Heinz M.
• 3645 hitpoints | Tim H.
• 3648 hitpoints | Christian E.
  
• 3652 hitpoints | Alexander K.
  
• 3675 hitpoints | Tarik Ö.

The prize drawing was not part of the anonymous research and all attendees of the research where asked to fill in their contact information in order to take part at the prize drawing. The best five players that finished the mission with the most truck hit points remaining would win one copy of World in Conflict: Soviet Assault. If there would have been more then five players with 3675 hit points left; five winners among these players would have been be drawn. A legal recourse was and is excluded.

After spending more then a month at Ubisoft Massive in Sweden and playing various sessions of classic arcade games the category was set. Why not doing something with “BLiNKY”, “PiNKY”, “iNKEY”, CLYDE” or hijack the invaders from out of space that entered the world in 1978?

I came up some ideas – feel free to help me to choose one.

u p d a t e

I never imagined to get such a controversial but still consistent – in terms of the number of persons that support one version – feedback upon my request. At the end majority (if you can call it something like that after considering that v1 = 9votes; v2 = 8votes; v3 = 10votes & v4 =8votes) voted for number three. Therefore this version was picked and modified due to advices of people that actually voted. Thanks for all attendees.