Aug 21, 2016
Alpha Gate by Long-Pham
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Alpha Gate by Long-Pham
Empathy
I can't help but feel that this chapter was a missed opportunity. What video games have unique to them is the main character becomes a proxy of the player (some games like rpgs mostly). Through the main character, the player shapes the game world and its characters. The player learns about the characters. He or she might love, hate, admire, pity them, etc. The player might be surprised that he or she actually likes this certain companion despite having disagreeable characteristics. The player might learn about their history and culture and draw similarities between the virtual world and the real world. The player would act or react to events in the game that ultimately decide the fate of his or her companions that may result in bouts of laughter, cries of victory or tears. After all, the player has spent the last thirty or more hours adventuring and growing with these companions. If the game is presented well enough, the player could do some deep reflecting upon a single question. And when the player has stopped playing and when he or she least expects it, the player might experience a similar or analogous scenario in real life and might gain new perspective in the event. To me, this is what video games can teach us about empathy. These are not somebody else' friends and rivals. These are YOUR friends and rivals.
True Soloing
So the machinima I wanted to analyze might be stretching the definition of machinima too much. However, if the Leeroy Jenkins is considered a machinima then why not this one? It is a video of a death knight entire final instance of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjrjsxggGMc
This machinima ties into the chapter on deviance of play. Honestly, I didn't really like that chapter because it really doesn't showcase true deviance of play but rather showed ways to not play in World of Warcraft. In my opinion, this is true deviance of play, that is to take content in which one is supposed to have a raid (10 or 25 people) and clear it as one player. My main character is a hunter and I was and still am jealous of death knights and all their solo videos. I still solo from time to time but nothing as "hardcore" as last expansion raids. There are also videos of death knights killing other bosses like Yogg-Saron.
This machinima also is out to inform players that it can be done and how to replicate for other death knights rather than to simply entertain like most machinima. After all it would just be easier to get a few people and kill the boss as intended. There is also no achievement for soloing old content. Yet people do it. This also goes back to WHY we play world of warcraft. Soloing the lich king is no simple task; most likely, he had hours of preparation. There are also clips that he soloed all the previous bosses. There is also a high chance that he did not down the lich king on his first attempt. The video lasts for for more than 15 minutes. If we consider the numerous attempts, some if he wiped at 80%, 50%, 20% and the like, some when he got outplayed by the game mechanics or simple luck, then he has put a consider amount of time into kill. In the end, he succeeded and he, most likely, felt a sense of accomplishment and shared the video online earning the respect of many people.
Roleplaying
I love role-playing and role-playing games yet for some reason, I could never role-play in World of Warcraft. I have honestly never put much thought as to why until reading these chapters and the discussion in class. At first, I just dismissed it because of the online part and now thinking it over, I think I found out why. It seems to me, that each race has their own definitive personalities: the sanctimonious humans, the bloodraging orcs, the quirky and inquisitive gnomes, the chaotically evil undead, etc. It's like every faction-aligned npc, especially the racial leaders now, fall into these categories and it becomes difficult for me to have any other personality but the preset. It doesn't feel "right" to act like someone else. Thus, I become faced with a dilemma, to become a person I don't want to be or do as I like and become uncomfortable when interacting in the Warcraft world. I chose the third option, to not role-play but in truth, I don't think either of the first two are role-playing. This, to me, is where World of Warcraft falls short in terms of the latter half of MMORPG.
Introductions
I love the introducing cinematic in World of Warcraft. It displays 3 important concepts to a good introduction in games for me. The first is introducing the world. In a game with a massive world/playground, the biggest hook for a player is to awe the player with how large and beautiful it is. The second is to give the player a little background but to NOT overload the player with mindless jargon and important terms. Lastly, to give an idea of what kind of role the player has. For some games, it might be "the chosen one" but in WoW, it makes a clear distinction that you are ONE of "insert race here". I think in mmo's, its an important distinction since many people like to consider themselves the hero in their own story and therefore invincible and it might lead to more "leeroy jenkins". My qualifications for a good introduction in games might be pretty low but one would be surprised at how many games fail at that and thus, fail to grasp my attention. For example, despite it being a fantastic game after.... 30 minutes in, Skyrim's introduction leaves much to be desired. I mean really Bethesda? Of all the places to introduce the character, you pick the blandest area?
Oh and I would like to refer you to Extra Credits of Penny-ArcadeTV (http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/show/extra-credits). They have great videos on narrative in gaming. And try the gamerification one.
Digital Culture, Play and Identity.
So there's a lot I would like to talk about with these chapters that we read. I am a long time World of Warcraft player and a huge lore nut so I found a few parts a bit jarring. The first is the how outdated this book is and it's only less than 4 years old. The second is the discussion on feminism and how the author leaves out, who I believe are, the prominent feminist figures, Jaina Proudmoore and Sylvanas Windrunner. Azshara is currently an unknown godlike entity at this point (also, she was not seduced by Sargaras, she encountered him by chance from trying to change the world to her ideas of perfection ie conform others to be like her; so yea, she was always been corrupted before him), Tyrande has always been in the background until her husband comes into play, Modgud was mostly ignored until the events of Cataclysm and Aegwynn's history is laid out in the book. Jaina is the sole reason why there is ANY truce at all between the alliance and horde and probably the sole voice of reason on the alliance side. Sylvanas broke free of "slave-master" of the undead and then went, rallied the undead and called themselves Forsaken, defeated both the demons trying to enslave them again and the human occupation in Lordaeron (northern continent in the Eastern Kingdoms) and took the continent as their new homeland. Another point is how I believe that every character is so interconnected at this point that it would be pointless to argue that a female character does so and so because of a male character because now, you could say the same if the genders were reversed.
Ooh, I think I wrote too much on that. In the other chapter, I wanted to talk about perception, mostly 3 questions. The first starts out with whether or not stereotypes are bad because there seems to be a consensus that it is but we keep on using them. What if we consider the the races are not being stereotyped? What if the races simply have attributes to some races, bad and good? The author remarks on how as the person playing WoW, we would be turned off by the Troll's comments of halitosis. However if we were truly role-playing, we would not be turned off. We would accept that trolls like halitosis and since we are trolls therefore we like halitosis. If we are not role-playing, then we are disconnected from our characters and even though we might be disgusted because we are humans, the trolls we are playing as would not care. The author insists on judging the races on human standards and so I ask why? And now I realize that the second half of this paragraph deals with my second question... Oh and every female race is sexualized compared to their male counterparts (not that I consider this a good or bad thing). Yes, even female dwarves.
And I don't have to ask the other two: At which point do we stop attributing the reality world to the virtual world(when do trolls become trolls and not just based off of Caribbean people or rather, trolls like halitosis, not the Caribbean people who they are based after)? and even though the alliance side is considered "good" and relatable, then why is the ratio between horde and alliance characters almost even? Oh and last point, females play WoW, they are not all healers and they do not all play the "pretty female races" or even female races.
Sound Unbound
So I read chapters 24, 25, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32 and 36. I chose some based on their titles. Others I chose because I saw the first lines of the chapter when I finished the previous chapters and thought it was interesting enough to finish reading. I also chose the last chapter because it was the last chapter and I like reading conclusions; it gives me a sense of completeness. I tried not to judge chapters based on length and boy, do I regret that.
24: The first chapter I chose based on its title and it was arguably the longest chapter in the book. I tried my best to read it and to "absorb" the contents but around 5 or 6, I think I may have blanked out.
25: Another chapter I chose because of its name. I found this chapter to be one of the most interesting in the book because I always believed that human movement could be modeled using computers and there was an algorithm for it. I also firmly believe that true human movement simulation is the combination of the three classifications they list in the chapter.
26: This chapter was similar to 24 as in it was too long and I blanked out halfway.
29: I chose this chapter because I have a fondness for history and I honestly never knew there was such a connection between rap and the Islamic faith. Perhaps I have read
30: This was the first chapter I read because I saw the first few lines. The rap made me think about the difference between a poem (that rhymes) and rap and whether there was any difference at all. Then I read the second part and although I agree with it (just maybe not as fervently as the writer does), it seems like one big rant. The third part was pretty cool too. Note: I really hope I don't sound this ranty in my previous blog posts.
31: Another history lesson I enjoyed. There were a couple meticulous details I could do without though, like the content of the bells. Also, math and algorithms, woo! The proposed algorithm does not seem too hard to implement. Just give me how many bells, what kind of order you'd like to play them in and I could give you the sequence for which day assuming you ring one exact sequence a day without repeating.
32: The other chapter I chose because I liked how the first few lines. I'm not sure if I was to learn something in this chapter. I mostly thought about the questions and points the writer states. It was... enlightening I suppose.
36: I like reading the beginning and end, it gives me a sense of completeness. It wasn't until I got the chapter when I saw that Lanier had written this chapter. And well, it seem like the same grumpy ole Lanier who written the manifesto. I mean I do agree with his thoughts and theories particularly the fifth theory. It also isn't the music industry that is suffering but also the movie, tv shows, and gaming industry.
Overall, I thought it was an ok book but I honestly didn't learn a lot while reading it
Without the Internet
So we talked about a what if scenario where the internet would be shut down in maybe a week or two. Honestly, I can imagine it very easily but it would just be so irresponsible, in my opinion. I consider it so for two reasons. The first is that the ease of access to information and how fast it is to acquire it. Let's say somebody is looking up the Roman empire. On the internet, one would just have to log onto the internet, and hit up wikipedia or google. All that is done in 5 minutes (unless you have dial-up then maybe >10 minutes). If there was no internet, he or she would have to walk to the library, ask the librarian for books on them, and then they would look for it. It could take 20-30 minute at least and that is if the library is close. Not everybody is as fortunate though. Let's say he or she can't find the information that he or she wanted specifically. A few clicks through wikipedia and a few more searches and he or she would find that information. In a library, there is no guarantee that the library has the book with the information that you need.
The other reason why I think shutting down the internet is irresponsible is the loss of social interaction. Everybody is anonymous to each other on the internet and it is because of that key feature that many people take new personas, become people they could never be in real life. Through this they would make friends with people from around the world. The world is large but your neighborhood is small and there's no guarantee you'll find someone with the same interests as you in that little town. With the internet there's no pressure to conform to a certain group like society forces you to; one would actively go find a group where they could be the person they are or wish they were. There is no hierarchy among groups, there is only delusion that one group is better than another. The friends one would make on the internet would probably stop contacting if the internet would shut down but does this mean they are not "real" or "good" friends? And if they aren't, is all it takes to be "real" or "good" is to stay in contact like the annoying friend who keeps asking to borrow money? Are they unimportant? Who is going to foot the fee to make long distance calls? Not all of us can afford texting or even have text messaging available.