Will Google Wave Play a Part in Your Game?

[Nikosandros]

And Google.
Thats one reason why Wave will not replace email. Everything goes through Google and thus is a huge security risk and will be used for data mining.

Private users might not care, but companies will.

From what they stated at Google I/O, this isn't necessarily true. If a third party acts as a Wave provider (which can be federated with Google and all the other 3p providers), Google won't have any access to waves that don't involve 'external' contacts. Actually, it was stated that, even if a wave originates from Google, any sub-wave that is branched off as private between contacts of another provider will be inaccessible to Google.

 

[Aeolius]

Something about the name intrigues me.

 

[Dannager]

And Google.
Thats one reason why Wave will not replace email. Everything goes through Google and thus is a huge security risk and will be used for data mining.

Private users might not care, but companies will.

If that's a concern, they can set up their own Wave service. It doesn't look like it'd be prohibitively difficult at all.

Have you watched that massive demo video? You should watch the video.

 

[nyenyec]

We started to use Wave with my D&D group last week.

Previously we had a wiki, a google group and also used IRC.

Now it's much easier, you still get the benefits of real-time chat but you never miss any updates ever.
Adding pictures to the adventure log and attaching character sheets is simply drag and drop.
You can use parts that you collaboratively edit (like a wiki page) and in other parts you can have threaded discussions (which may or may not be real time).

I'd say it's perfect for a group like ours.

 

[Umbran]

Thats one reason why Wave will not replace email. Everything goes through Google and thus is a huge security risk and will be used for data mining.

Private users might not care, but companies will.

That's a bit of a false sense of security, though. Even if a company runs it's own mail server, e-mail passes through the hands of any number of intervening companies who could, in theory, mine it for data. And if you send to a user who uses an ISP for their mail server (like I use a Comcast address), then your data is similarly not safe.

It is my understanding that Wave is (or soon will be) a fully Open Source project. In theory, other providers will be ale to set up their own Wave services - so eventually you should be able to pick a provider other than Google, that you trust more to not sniff through your bits.

 

[Meek]

As a primarily play-by-post and play-by-chat gamer (by choice, as the textual mediums are better for the kind of roleplaying I like than talking to people) I am very excited by Google Wave and have already joined a 4e game on Wave to try out roleplaying, combat, and everything else on it. It seems like a good fusion between play-by-chat and play-by-post.

 

[darjr]

Meek, I'm very interested in how it goes.

 

[Meek]

Meek, I'm very interested in how it goes.

I'll very likely blog about it when we do more.

 

[Dannager]

Article up over at Ars Technica on precisely this topic: Google Wave: we came, we saw, we played D&D - Ars Technica

 

[Asmor]

I was a bit dubious at first. I didn't think it had much to offer over PBeM or PBP.

I'm playing in a run through of Revenge of the Giants with a fellow who I'm not sure if he's got an EN World account or not. He's done two things that sell the concept for me.

1. Taking advantage of the "wiki" nature of wave, where anyone can insert things anywhere. Basically, he starts a scene with a long description and narrative (maybe a dozen or so short paragraphs). Then, anyone can just jump in at any point in the narrative and add in their characters actions. In this way, say, I might respond to something near the end but someone else can seamlessly take a cue from something near the beginning, and the structure of the narrative remains chronologically-obvious.

2. Something he's come up with called 'Skill Tags'. As an example, I wanted to examine a giant and wrote...

Primus leaps astride the nearest giant and shifts back into his humanoid form. The warforged picks through the giant's clothes with care, looking for any sign of anything strange or out of the ordinary. [Perception:26]

Then he came in and edited that to:

[sblock=Maybe minor spoilers for Revenge of the Giants, not sure, better safe than sorry]Primus leaps astride the nearest giant and shifts back into his humanoid form. The warforged picks through the giant's clothes with care, looking for any sign of anything strange or out of the ordinary. He sees some unusual markings along the neck of the leader, a strange glyph branded into the flesh. Primus also makes note of the scraps of metal plate adorning his shoulder and intended to be armor of some kind. It is the same brand of metal that the blade is made of.[/sblock]

So on a readthrough, it continues as one unbroken narrative rather than a bunch of posts which need to be pieced together.