We're playing WoW today. Laura's reading a bunch of provocative statements about the game for us to form our blogs about. Me, Jackie and Anna are the only ones in the whole classroom to have written down the following statements. (Brownie Points)
"The social structures of WoW are in fact very similar to the interlocking and shifting hierarchies of multinational corporations."
"WoW is a playground for feminism."
"Is WoW biologizing cultural difference, or even tacking race onto personality and intellectual traits?"
"WoW is a virtual theme park."
Now a girl in our class is showing us how to create our own WoW accounts. I'm trying to make mine, but the application won't open for some reason...
Ok, so apparently the application wasn't actually installed on my computer, so now, instead of joining everyone else and playing WoW, I have to sit and watch this stupid application install on my computer. This thing's going to be done by the time this class is over. Awesome. Of all the computers I could have chosen today...
Installation just finished, time to start playing. Heyah!
Scratch that, it never worked on the Miami Internet. Apparently the firewall doesn't like the Blizzard downloader. So I tried it on my laptop too, but that didn't work either. Looks like I'm just SOL...
Scratch that ^, I am now playing. My guys name is Eatbraains, and naturally, he is a zombie.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Monday, March 28th
Today we talked about Super Smash Bros, and now we're holding a mini tournament in class. I signed up to play, but I have way too much on my plate right now to even think about playing video games. Besides, I'm a much bigger fan of the N64 version of the game, and play it often with my brothers when I'm home. Melee is too complicated for me, and unfortunately the skills do not translate.
Jon did a presentation on it, and said that Mega Knight was actually seen by the players of the game as being unfair, and should thus be removed from the game entirely. However, the best player in the world, using Diddy Kong, played another really good player using Mega Knight, and actually won, so the rumors were put to rest.
Laura says that she can hear narrative going on in the banter between players, and it's a really unique game in the fact that there is no set narrative in the mulitplayer setting, but emerges brilliantly in the culture of players who use the game. "Remember when I beat you by doing this?" "Remember when this happened?"It's a pretty cool concept.
Jon did a presentation on it, and said that Mega Knight was actually seen by the players of the game as being unfair, and should thus be removed from the game entirely. However, the best player in the world, using Diddy Kong, played another really good player using Mega Knight, and actually won, so the rumors were put to rest.
Laura says that she can hear narrative going on in the banter between players, and it's a really unique game in the fact that there is no set narrative in the mulitplayer setting, but emerges brilliantly in the culture of players who use the game. "Remember when I beat you by doing this?" "Remember when this happened?"It's a pretty cool concept.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Monday, March 21st
This is what Laura thinks the argument of Reality is Broken is:
To be fair, we're going to call Christianity a myth that fits in with all the other mythological systems that have existed over the course of time. They have all depended upon a certain kind of narrative structure in order to spread and exist; this structure is called "The life of the hero." It predominates in epic stories, the Bible, and all kinds of contemporary media texts. So why do these things matter? This structure has allowed these myths and religions to persist throughout the history of mankind.
Jane McGonigle talks about this phenomenon in terms of gaming. She looks at the alleged gaming problem in which there is a mass exodus into the world of gaming. They're leaving reality in droves for the gaming world, and Jane asks why? She says this is because reality is broken (haha, title of the book). She says that games allow ordinary people who can't stand their lives to undergo the life of the hero within these games, and this is extremely attractive to these people.
So why is reality broken? In what ways? Social problems, no poetic justice (corruption). To me, I think that reality hasn't necessarily broken down, it's just transformed. What's broken is the notion of reality itself and the utopian desires of people who want reality to be a certain way, void of the elements that have broken reality. Reality has simply spread out across multiple mediums, becoming embedded in the virtual world. In addition, there is now global interaction, which has actually expanded reality in a universal sense.
Jane says that in reality, we need to be able to see problems, be able to confront them, and solve them in the best way possible. Obviously there are limitations to this ideal, so that's why people are leaving the world for games. Jane suggests that we make reality a game, which would make more people want to join in and feel empowered.
What happens if we make a social problem a game? One example is Ender's Game. It's a great book in which a boy is trained to fight an alien army, but finds out that... I don't want to give away the ending.
It's a hard time to be optimistic in our society with all the negative stuff that's going on, so Jane asks us if we can set goals on positive progress. This is a much lower bar than other huge goals that a lot of people focus on. Laura asked us how many people can set goals and focus on progress (I raised my hand). She offers 3 steps that help us do just that:
1. Develop the When and Where of creating an alternate reality.
2. Invite people into our alternate reality games (friends and family).
3. Create activities that can be adopted as the core mechanics of our alternate reality games.
We can't believe that we can create a better place in this world all on our own, but we can believe the narrative of games. Therefore, we should turn reality into a game.
Superbetter- turns hardships and trials into a game, completing 5 missions a day until the goal is achieved. Example- Jane the Concussion-Slayer. She had to make the concussion the villain, and recruited her little sister as her guide who had to call her every day to check in. Other people got roles too, making it much like a game. People believe in this kind of language a lot more than that which "worked" in the past (the disease is a demon). She wants to take the enchanted world and implant it into the disenchanted, realistic, scientific world. It's very idealistic to think that we can fix reality with games, but I think that it's something that is very intriguing.
However, I also think that it takes a certain kind of personality in certain circumstances to get into this mentality. If I had a concussion or some other disease, I don't think that I'd be able to immerse myself into that kind of a mentality without feeling extremely self conscious about losing my reputation or maturity. I can definitely see how it can work for other people, but for me, I have to be able to see the problem in the most simplistic sense in order to see what kinds of solutions will/won't work.
That's just me though. I can absolutely see how this can work for others.
To be fair, we're going to call Christianity a myth that fits in with all the other mythological systems that have existed over the course of time. They have all depended upon a certain kind of narrative structure in order to spread and exist; this structure is called "The life of the hero." It predominates in epic stories, the Bible, and all kinds of contemporary media texts. So why do these things matter? This structure has allowed these myths and religions to persist throughout the history of mankind.
Jane McGonigle talks about this phenomenon in terms of gaming. She looks at the alleged gaming problem in which there is a mass exodus into the world of gaming. They're leaving reality in droves for the gaming world, and Jane asks why? She says this is because reality is broken (haha, title of the book). She says that games allow ordinary people who can't stand their lives to undergo the life of the hero within these games, and this is extremely attractive to these people.
So why is reality broken? In what ways? Social problems, no poetic justice (corruption). To me, I think that reality hasn't necessarily broken down, it's just transformed. What's broken is the notion of reality itself and the utopian desires of people who want reality to be a certain way, void of the elements that have broken reality. Reality has simply spread out across multiple mediums, becoming embedded in the virtual world. In addition, there is now global interaction, which has actually expanded reality in a universal sense.
Jane says that in reality, we need to be able to see problems, be able to confront them, and solve them in the best way possible. Obviously there are limitations to this ideal, so that's why people are leaving the world for games. Jane suggests that we make reality a game, which would make more people want to join in and feel empowered.
What happens if we make a social problem a game? One example is Ender's Game. It's a great book in which a boy is trained to fight an alien army, but finds out that... I don't want to give away the ending.
It's a hard time to be optimistic in our society with all the negative stuff that's going on, so Jane asks us if we can set goals on positive progress. This is a much lower bar than other huge goals that a lot of people focus on. Laura asked us how many people can set goals and focus on progress (I raised my hand). She offers 3 steps that help us do just that:
1. Develop the When and Where of creating an alternate reality.
2. Invite people into our alternate reality games (friends and family).
3. Create activities that can be adopted as the core mechanics of our alternate reality games.
We can't believe that we can create a better place in this world all on our own, but we can believe the narrative of games. Therefore, we should turn reality into a game.
Superbetter- turns hardships and trials into a game, completing 5 missions a day until the goal is achieved. Example- Jane the Concussion-Slayer. She had to make the concussion the villain, and recruited her little sister as her guide who had to call her every day to check in. Other people got roles too, making it much like a game. People believe in this kind of language a lot more than that which "worked" in the past (the disease is a demon). She wants to take the enchanted world and implant it into the disenchanted, realistic, scientific world. It's very idealistic to think that we can fix reality with games, but I think that it's something that is very intriguing.
However, I also think that it takes a certain kind of personality in certain circumstances to get into this mentality. If I had a concussion or some other disease, I don't think that I'd be able to immerse myself into that kind of a mentality without feeling extremely self conscious about losing my reputation or maturity. I can definitely see how it can work for other people, but for me, I have to be able to see the problem in the most simplistic sense in order to see what kinds of solutions will/won't work.
That's just me though. I can absolutely see how this can work for others.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Monday, March 14th
Today we're talking about Micropolis, which is based on the open-source code of the original Sim City. This means that it can be downloaded and tinkered with at the will of one with a laptop and an Internet connection.
Watched a video of a guy working with the game and getting things started.
Code Studies- Reading and analyzing code as if it were a text. We're about to go through and read some code.
The following is what Cade Taylor, Anna Romano, and I found interesting in the code for Micropolis:
Watched a video of a guy working with the game and getting things started.
Code Studies- Reading and analyzing code as if it were a text. We're about to go through and read some code.
The following is what Cade Taylor, Anna Romano, and I found interesting in the code for Micropolis:
/** Smooth police station map and compute crime rate */ void Micropolis::crimeScan() { smoothStationMap(&policeStationMap); smoothStationMap(&policeStationMap); smoothStationMap(&policeStationMap); Quad totz = 0; int numz = 0; int cmax = 0; for (int x = 0; x < WORLD_W; x += crimeRateMap.MAP_BLOCKSIZE) { for (int y = 0; y < WORLD_H; y += crimeRateMap.MAP_BLOCKSIZE) { int z = landValueMap.worldGet(x, y); if (z > 0) { ++numz; z = 128 - z; z += populationDensityMap.worldGet(x, y); z = min(z, 300); z -= policeStationMap.worldGet(x, y); z = clamp(z, 0, 250); crimeRateMap.worldSet(x, y, (Byte)z); totz += z; // Update new crime hot-spot if (z > cmax || (z == cmax && (getRandom16() & 3) == 0)) { cmax = z; crimeMaxX = x; crimeMaxY = y; } } else { crimeRateMap.worldSet(x, y, 0); } } } if (numz > 0) { crimeAverage = (short)(totz / numz); } else { crimeAverage = 0; } policeStationEffectMap = policeStationMap; newMapFlags[MAP_TYPE_CRIME] = 1; newMapFlags[MAP_TYPE_POLICE_RADIUS] = 1; newMapFlags[MAP_TYPE_DYNAMIC] = 1; }
Basically, we read that the more influential your police station/force is in the world you're given by the game, the less crime there is. However, you can update new crime hot spots, truly tapping into the God-ness that the player experiences in this game. The crime, then, is proportional to the population of the world and the influence of the police force. In addition, the crime rate is affected by police stations, powered, police funding ratio, and road access. Here's a picture of Micropolis:
Laura looked at what we just wrote, said that it was basically awesome, and immediately promised us all A's. Also, we're listening to The Black Keys because I suggested it, and this is the best class we've ever had because of it. Love me dem Black Keys.
Laura then took some code and tried to make it into a poem. There's a lot of artistic capability involved in the reading and writing of code, and it's possible to make a working code with a beautiful idea, like the anguish of a man longing for a woman to love him as he loves her; to just kiss her face.
That's all for today...
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