TTP
I just learned a new term via the women_dev mailing list (mostly populated by female games developers, although there are plenty fellas there too): TTP. "Time To Penis"!
Apparently it's oft used in the MMO dev scene, whereby the amount of flexibility in creation given to a user is directly proportional to the Time To Penis number. In Spore's case, apparently the TTP number can be measured in seconds, so much so that there's even a new term for the results: Sporn (link to YouTube, various videos there amusingly NSFW, like this one).
I wonder if this means online play will be limited to something like 15+?
It's a play on OMM's "Time To Crate". I think Ron Gilbert was first to make the connection, in relation to the Spore editor. I'm not sure where else it would be applicable, but then again I'm not sure I *want* to know.
Posted by: Robin | June 21, 2008 at 15:20
Someone else on your mailing list might have already mentioned this but I have heard that as "Time to Cock" which is originally attributed to Jeff Freeman. Unfortunately the original posts seems to have been eaten by time but here is an ancillary post related to it: http://mmocodex.com/blog/?p=8029
Posted by: Doug | June 21, 2008 at 17:03
Content may change during online play
- ESRB
TTP's definition is news to me, thanks.
Posted by: Spencer | June 21, 2008 at 21:27
Spencer hit the nail on the head :) I've seen plenty of rubbish whenever anything the user created is allowed - sprays in Valve and UT games, obnoxious army titles in Dawn of War, people's own user names, and a whole host of modded content - sometimes stupidly sexual, sometimes seriously sexual.
Typically immature, but it does depend. I'm sure that EA will try and clamp down on it though.
Posted by: Andrew Armstrong | June 21, 2008 at 22:51
A couple of NSFW creations for you. The first was a day 1 creation by someone, and I think it the very definition of TTP.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=muOYlj2t_Ks
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-689194118682834081
Posted by: Mr Tom | June 22, 2008 at 12:13
Is there a corresponding "time to boobs"?
Posted by: Shawn | June 22, 2008 at 13:42
TTP is far too many other things as well..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TTP
(although to me it will always be 'TOS Takes Parameters')
Posted by: Tom Parker | June 23, 2008 at 14:02
First time I'd ever heard this phrase was out of UO, also attributed to John Freeman. Rubenfield's got a few amusing anecdotes about it.
http://rubenfield.com/?p=89
Posted by: jmojo | June 23, 2008 at 18:50