We received the greatest news yesterday!!!
Jill Walker has “won one of the Meltzer Foundation’s prizes for excellence in research dissemination”!
Please excuse my lousy translation ability here:
“Through her blogging as an academic, she has created her own forum for research distribution (?) and has been an inspiration to several others both inside and outside of academia” TOO TRUE!!

This is just such great news! It’s so wonderful that she’s getting recognised for the amazing work she’s done!

And I have to say…coming from a department that’s pretty much chosen to ignore the excellent student research blogs, this is even greater news! And maybe it will inspire them to start their own!

So congratulations Dr. Walker! And I also have to say, “Thank you for the music!”.

Well this is an interesting new MMORPG, Seed. It’s a Sci-fi MMORPG with personalized stories and social/plolitical gameplay. It looks to be very story oriented which I think is interesting.
On their interactive stories:

• “Experience stories suited for your playing style. In Seed you will be involved in several stories at any point in time.
  
• Some are on a personal level: to gather the resources needed for production of repair tools; to identify the strange fungus you discovered in the machine pit. Some involve fellow colonists: To help your friend getting voted in as an administrator; to find out who has been spreading rumours about you and why. And yet some involve the entire colony: What to do with the terraforming process; should contact to Earth be re-established no matter the cost. Regardless of impact or scale every story is personalized and interactive.
  

There’s a story template thing going on as well. Hmmm….I can’t help feeling kinda sceptical about this as well. But learning has to be an important issue here, don’t you think?

Anyways…it looks interesting and deserves a closer look!

So…there’s a new game out called “A Force More Powerful – the game of nonviolent strategy”. I applaud the idea, I really do! At the same time though…it kinda scares me.

• “A Force More Powerful is the first and only game to teach the waging of conflict using nonviolent methods. Destined for use by activists and leaders of nonviolent resistance and opposition movements, the game will also educate the media and general public on the potential of nonviolent action and serve as a simulation tool for academic studies of nonviolent resistance”

I definitely think this is something cool for the ‘comparative politics’ (direct translation) department at my university to have a look at! I suppose my wariness of it comes from the fact that it’s American, which is really unfair of me! But when it comes to serious games like this, it’s very important that the AI is ‘realistic’ and not trying to enforce a certain belief or theory and well…I’m not too happy with the American’s methods these past few years. Am I completely off base here? Probably. Before I can even consider this I really should have a closer look and see who’s involved with the scenario design a.s.o. before I voice an opinion! And of course play the game! Hhhmmm…maybe I should send a mail to our local Amnesty International as well?

Great initiative either way!! I’ll have to have a closer look at it soon!

Promo video link.

Well…ummm….I guess I’m charmed and in stitches! Apparently these guys have several videos, I don’t know what to say really…just have a look!! It certainly brought a smile my way!

Breaktime in a PC bang? So what do you think the guy in the background is playing?

So…I’m sitting here at the university on a Saturday night (and I’m FAR FROM ALONE, so all those complaining about lazy students can just kiss my…) and I’ve skimmed through Timothy Burke’s wonderful “Rubicite Breastplate Priced to Move, Cheap: How Virtual Economies Become Real Simulations” again!!! And I’m just in awe of how beautifully organised the whole paper is! Here I am with my messy clutter of gaming diary, quotes to argue against and quotes to reinforce arguments, it’s a bloody mess, I guarantee you – but this guy just makes it all seem so easy!

And then he has an excellent analogy system going on (is it possible to say he’s a brilliant analogist?). I just wanted to share my favorite with you! It’s just so spot on on what we’ve been seeing lately:

• “Imagine if anti-globalization activists and multinational corporations could both pray to deities, asking them to spontaneously alter the laws of physics and the basic determinants of social relations in their favor and actually have a reasonable expectation that their prayers might be heard and answered. The ether between Heaven and Earth would buzz incessantly if so.
• This is exactly the situation as it stands in persistent world MMPGs.”
• (Burke, 2002)

Isn’t that just lovely! God I wish I could write like that!!!!

Video of Will Wright’s presentation of Spore!

I love this! “So really we have these different levels of gameplay. And overall structure of the game now is that of a T. We’re going up through evolution, through all these different levels and then we have this very broad set of meta games above it, space level. And this is actually the opposite of most games, because what we’re doing here is putting the more goal oriented gaming first, as the tutorial for the eventual sandbox”.

That’s just soooo smart! And well…if you’re going to be talking about gaming revolution, this has to be a part of that! I’m wondering how this is going to catch on. Because usually you have to work pretty hard before you get into the goal oriented gameplay, but it seems like Mr. Wright here has designed a way to make the ‘learning’ of the game, fun! The reward is that you get to use all that you’re learned to create in the sandbox! I love that! But will gamers approve of the reverse gaming method?

It’s all just so exciting! And I absolutely adore the fact that he uses words such as diplomacy in his presentation. Diplomacy between species, they’ve taken something from Star Trek here, but I’m not sure what. And then there’s the whole Close Encounter of the Third Kind mechanism! Using musical tones to communicate with other species? My oh my! Just think of the possibilities! And the fact that you’re downloading other people’s planets?

I could go on and on! I’ve been talking about this game for ages now and I’ve got so many of my non-gaming friends hooked on the idea! I’m really looking forward to it!

Turns out that my creativity is crap! I can’t seem to be imaginative or creative in any way! I’m trying to figure out pseudonyms for 25 avatars. I’m considering just getting a book and stealing names from that. What should that book be, I wonder…Neuromancer?
Anyways…if anyone has any great suggestions! Please share them!

Oh…and as I’m kinda on a writing spree today (written half a page), I’ve noticed that I keep usning the ‘virual gaming world, combo of words’. Not MMORPG, not MMO, not virtual worlds, not synthetics worlds…I won’t go on! Thought that was kinda interesting!

So…speaking about the sad life of a MMORPGer…you might wanna see this!