Category Archives: Thesis

Questions

22 August 2006

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So…yeah…lost my mind and can’t think straight apparently!!

Here’s a simple sentence I managed to struggle with! Let me know which one you prefer; “When the ‘self’ is projected onto cyberspace…” or “When the ‘self’ is projected into cyberspace…”? Actually may want to change cyberspace to virtual world. Oh the DETAILS!!!

And here’s a thought I had while walking to uni today…I wonder if players who change their avatars often in MMOs have the same attachment to the game as those who like to stick to a favorite?

Ooh! In the spirit of…you know…just airing out stuff…I just had a conversation with a WoW’er about why MMORPGs are great fun! He says that half the joy is the ability to show off all the cool things you’ve managed to win, accumulate and make! We were comparing the joys of Oblivion and WoW. He asked me if this wasn’t true also for The Sims Online and I have to say no – actually the exact opposite is true! The Sims was such more an online hit that The Sims Online because of the community forums! People make stuff and share and download and can really show off with what they do in The Sims – whereas with The Sims Online was too bogged down with rules to spark innovation so rarities became really boring after a while! Funny that!

Oooh…and look at that (yup…reading through written work)! I’ve defined gold farmers as exploiters – I’m not sure that’s right! Which makes me wonder if gold farmers can be included in any players taxonomy. I don’t think so….huh…we’ll see what happens when I try excluding them! Ahhhh!!! The ‘buyers’ are definitely exploiters!

Anyways, have a fabulous day!!! I know I’m not!!

Brain vacation

18 July 2006

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So, my blogging isn’t what it used to be, I think my brain’s gone on a little vacation without me (easily distracted by such events as Sting being in town and well…work). So I STILL haven’t gotten around to concluding my thoughts on narratology vs ludology!!!! It’s at the tip of my tongue (or fingertips) and I’m hoping that I’ll get most of it done at uni today after work! I am soooooooo looking forward to concluding my thoughts on the subject, which I’m sure will never ever ever be completely substantial and confident – but I need to draw the line somewhere at sometime, right?!!! But first lots of interesting tidbits to blog about – so excuse the rushed thoughts and cut’n’paste mentality! A lot I need to get off my chest and I feel like I’m about to explode!

Griefers

15 June 2006

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The Guardian has a great article on griefers and the evolving community counter measures to tackle them.

I think it’s interesting how the journalist brings up 2 examples of ‘griefing’ that have caused the debate about gaming ethics (although it’s a discussion that’s been going on forever – at least since the LambdaMoo days).
The first is the EVE Online incident where a group calling themselves the Guiding Hand Social Club, cunningly infiltrated the Ubiqua Seraph corporation and basically ruined them! They worked on this for over a year! I first heard about this after watching one of the State of Play III debates, where Dr. Kjartan Pierre Emilsson brought this up as an example of how sometimes developers just have to shrug and say “Hey! It’s all part of the gameplay!”. I remember being so amused and uttering a little ‘Yay!’. The debate harrowed in the community, however.
The second example, is ofcourse when World Of Warcraft mourners (mourning the death of a real life player in WoW) were completely ambushed by a rival guild. Which was ofcourse seen as disrespectful and awful.
But these two examples are not griefing incidents, in my opinion! And we can’t start punishing players for how they’re playing the game. I mean most of these outcries are like children screaming “BUT IT’S SOOOO UNFAIR!”. It reminds me a lot about my life at the moment. I’m moaning and groaning about my thesis and my friends and family are hitting back with “For crying out loud, Linn! Will you please just get over yourself and finish the goddamn thing! Stop taking yourself so bloody seriously!” – the analogy here is me being the screaming child and my friends being the ‘griefers’! My point is….thank God for ‘griefers’!!!! Sometimes it’s good to have players come along and take the piss of those taking the game way too seriously! Which, in my opinion, doesn’t make them griefers at all!!! So what are griefers? I would call advanced players living off of stealing and hassling new players, griefers – but why? They’re still playing the game, are they not? I’m rambling here, sorry about that – it’s just that I feel we really need to define what griefing is before we start making executive decisions about who’s playing the game the right way and who’s not. I don’t believe that anyone should be punished for these two ‘griefing’ examples, but others may disagree.
So who gets to decide what griefing is and what actions are offensive enough to merit punishment? Who should decide? Game masters or democraticly organised groups? Community or an authoritative power?

I’m gonna leave you with these questions which have so often been thrust at you in this blog – and promise to come back with some reflections on what works and why tomorrow! It’s about time, right?!!

Player vs. user

10 May 2006

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Before I design some lethal weapon to kill the bird that’s franticly chirping outside my window telling me that I’m still nowhere and it’s morning – I thought I might vent out a bit in here!

Last year I had an incredibly difficult time discussing narrative with my fellow students in Games and Game Culture! They just refused to discuss with me the meaning behind the aesthetics of the worlds we were playing in. I remember someone, slightly frustrated with me, explaining to me that narrative is something that has happened. You can’t be playing narrative because narrative is story telling and you’re not telling a story. When I then (stubborn as I sometimes can be) emphasised that the whole geography we were in (Prince of Persia at the time) was basically telling us something, they usually sighed and gave me a whole song and dance that it was all code. When I then further persisted in stating that “well the game designer must have had some intention by designing this temple that I just can’t seem to get out of!” – respons: “No, Linn!!! It’s all just obstacle to reach your goal!”.

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Am I cheating if I do this?

9 May 2006

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So…I’m really into a flow of writing (expect a post on what soon) and I’m trying not to get caught up with ‘who said what and did they really say that’ glitches that often lead me astray to even more interesting reading which in the end leaves me with an even more immense sense of low selfesteem!

But along the way I keep using the phrase ‘sanbox games’ and a question popped up in my head (I’m sure if you could look inside my head you would probably only see a big shiny question mark, anyways). So I thought that I would just use this blog to put the question out there instead of using an hour to track it down and loose my ‘flow’!

Does anyone know who came up with the term ‘sandbox videogames’? I feel very strongly that it must have been Will Wright – but then again, Henry Jenkins is a strong candidate as well. So if you know who started using the term and where first – I would love a little hint in the right direction! But I seriously do feel like I’m cheating by asking and not doing the fundamental research that I should do all by myself! Oh the morals of life and the desire to do things right!! Will they ever stop tormenting me?

Using my blog as a resource

2 May 2006

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I’m not going to be blogging much this month as it is serious crunch time (urgh…who am I kidding? The summer’s gonna disappear into this thing!) I keep encountering problems! Such as I’ve eagerly avoided anything to do with story, narrative and fiction in games – specially MMORPGs. I’ve enjoyed reading about it and discussing the topic, but I’ve avoided having to dig deep into it – I’ve only skimmed the surface. But I keep coming back to the notion that MMORPG players are co-authors in the games they play! The fiction is the law – geography and rules. And well, I can’t seem to shake it off! So as well as looking at labour theory – I thought I might dip into some narratology (well…at least I’m enjoying it!!!).

But here I am ‘speaking’ my mind again, without thinking through what impression an unknown reader can get from reading this blogpost – so let me stop my trail of thought right there – and come back when I actually know what I’m ‘talking’ about (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha)!

Anyways! I was just going to slap in a little fact about rl killing in China because of a vl theft of a sword in my thesis and I knew I had blogged about it ages ago so I thought I would dig it up and find the link to a ‘true and believable’ source, so I could actually use this little fact! Ofcourse the links were dead! Typical! So what to do?! A lot of digging to find a reliable source, infact and it’s REALLY annoying when you know you’ve already found it once! Really annoying!!!! So I’ve started to wonder…maybe I should bring Dekcuf with me into my thesis! Oh…even better…when I hand it in it will say “By Linn Søvig and Dekcuf” – oh wouldn’t that be great!!! But I’m sure there’s some way I can do this, can’t I? All the stuff I’ve already blogged about I can reference my online personality, Dekcuf! She’s reliable enough for the university isn’t it? If Dekcuf says it’s so – it must be so!!! He he! I know, I know! I just became so fond of the idea! Not because I would be referencing myself (although that would be sooooo cool as well), but because I also feel it demonstrates Dekcuf as her own online personality. But ofcourse – if I could just reference to this blog it would be a hell of a lot easier for me – and as you all know I am lazy!
On a side note, however, I started to seriously doubt that this murder had ever taken place! That it must have been some blogger who made the story up, because blogs were all I could find! And that has to say a lot about the web, truth, reality and time!!!

Venting thoughts!

14 April 2006

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Otherwise my Easter has been spent lying on the couch ignoring social circles because ‘I’ve got so much work to do’ and watching tv and letting my eyes wander warily over to my computer with a passionate hatred!

I’ve kinda gotten myself into a sticky situation, which I’m either overthinking or I just need to drop it all together. Let me share it with you! I’m trying to explain the attachment we feel to our virtual assets in MMORPGs and I thought I’d found the perfect example. Now, let me point out that I want to go on to explain the distrust of the coding authorities (excellent word, Castronova!) to rectify such situations. So let me just vent out here:
Madelaine, a player in The Sims Online (TSO) loves to build houses! One time she had spent a lot of time, love and effort on a house which was fabulous! A friend of hers was constantly hassling her with wishes to buy it. Madelaine was flattered and in the end gave in! A few days later Madelaine came to me quite distraught. She had just found out that her friend had copied the house from Alphaville to Blazing Falls (another virtual city in TSO) and was passing it off as her own design. Madelaine was quite distraught, and rightly so in my opinion. So this is where I get into trouble! I don’t understand Intellectual Property Law! I thought this was a perfect example of that, and the more I think about it, the more I think it has to do with copyright.

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