TSO Bingo
MAXIS has done a crap jobb in maintaining entertaining game play in TSO! They have so much to learn from Second Life!
But The Sims Online players are finding new stuff to entertain themselves with and the creativity is endless!!!! The recent fad is this bingo game, Bamse was kind enough to send me a picture of (haven’t played it yet, silly me). It amazes me so, cause there’s so little room for TSO players to use their own creativity and design and implement them again…but yet again they amaze me! Just think how wonderful this game would be if the players had more design freedom!

The tears have been rolling down my cheeks continuously since Thursday. I am so sad for London, I hate that my dear London friends have to go through this and I find myself in a grieving state of mind.
But my thoughts are on the positive side, however. Hitting London like this does not create fear or hate…..it creates unity, love and peace. Hatred will not thrive in London….love will. In many ways I wish I was there, hugging London in every possible way. But I’m in Bergen grieving. My thoughts and love go out to London, the city that is so close to my heart.
I also feel confident that whoever’s behind this will be caught and brought to justice….war is not the answer, and I think we know that now. No Bushism will prevail here!

So….I’ve come yet again to a crossroads that I was desperately trying to avoid in my thesis! I’ve been struggling for such a long while now…trying to find the right approach to talking about governmentality and the individual’s rights in MMORPGs. I’ve now come to the conclusion that excluding game theory seems irresponsible as actual game design acts as a governmental force in MMORPGs. So the interesting thing is combining it all…to analyse The Sims Online (TSO). And this is where my thoughts are at the moment.
I’ve really fallen under the spell of Klabber’s taxonomy for classifying games and simulations, which has helped me map out my own interepretation of the design aspect of TSO. I suppose the crossroad I’m at is using this model to further interpret what is actually going on in these online worlds, maybe I can go so far as to say that I want to analyse how the game is actually played. There’s a meta game going on here, of course there’s the actual question of the classification of game, but that aside….how do I even start to interpret the social organisations being spawned from these games? I was mesmerised by Javier Salazar’s paper On the Ontology of MMORPG Beings: A Theoretical Model for Research that I feel lays out these problems so well and proposes some interesting new outlooks and then there’s the genious Nicholas Yee’s Motivations of Play in MMORPGs. Both of these papers look at the player’s relationship to these virtual worlds and lay out some interesting methodological approaches that I feel are useful for looking at the socio-economic ontology of MMORPGs.
Although, by writing this post….I’m even more confused than ever….the method of keeping things simple has eluded me yet again! Back to the drawing board I think!!!!

Now I haven’t been to Nettavisen’s Spillsonen in a while, don’t know why….but I just popped in now and I’m sitting here in hysterics!!!! Oh, where to start….?
Well….an obvious gamer nerd has written a little article advising gamer geeks on how to pick up women! And granted, I have an odd taste in men, but if I ever met a guy doing the things he suggests I’d be ROTFLMAO!!! A few points are good….but this guy actually suggests pulling out the Singstar to seduce a woman!!!! I’m sorry, dear English readers….it is written in Norwegian. Now….I have to admit that I’m wondering if this guy has been given money to try to get more men to buy Singstar….cause this is just ridiculous….!
Anyways…thought I’d mention it here….and thought some of you would be laughing as much as me!

I’ve heard some ridiculous stories about MAXIS suspending people from TSO….but today I think I hear the best one yet!
Someone who runs an in-game store has recently been suspended because she was AFK (Away From Keyboard) most of the time. Apperantly some idiot player had complained to TSO about this….and she was therefore suspended! I say idiot player…but who knows….maybe those MAXIS dudes are just bored and wanted to create some drama, but if it is true, it definately demonstrates how incredibly boring the game is…that gamers start wining about such ridiculous things! This case also reminded me that I must take the time to actually read the User Agreement for TSO, as MAXIS referred to that in this case. You would think I’d gotten around to that!!! Urgh….I’m such a lazy git!
And for those of you who are interested….another suspension case has caught my attention. In TSO there’s a program in the form of a maid that helps you maintain your property. She basically just cleans and tidies the place up for you. It is a trend for TSO gamers to find ways of confusing the maid while building their property…quite amusing really. But someone took this a bit too far! They kept referring to the maid as ‘cunt’ and MAXIS didn’t like that very much so they enforced a suspension! Hillarious really…cause it’s a computer program….apperantly they have feelings too cause MAXIS referred to ‘rules of conduct’!

I don’t know if I should start rethinking my life style when people start sending me games about drinking a.s.o. But…hell…I’ll just keep laughing! Check this stuff out! I’ve been laughing all day!!! Thanks to Bamse (hun….we really need to find you a better name!!!).

Getting home drunk
Yes…it’s a game about peeing!

And these two aren’t games….but just hillarious!!! Make sure you have sound on!

Laughing baby

Hillarious!!!

I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this here yet!!!! On October 14th the University of Bergen is hosting an Aesthetics of Play conferance. The program looks great and the abstracts are really interesting!!!! Personally….I can’t wait to see and hear Espen Aarseth! Heard so much about him….and read so many brilliant things by him!
Also hoping to meet the right people to mingle with to help me figure out how to start a doctorate! Yes! It’s true….while I’m sitting here NOT writing my thesis….I’m dreaming of becoming a professor on the subject!!! Pathetic, aren’t I?! LOL!

Well! Since we’re into the whole gaming experience theme in here….thought I’d post this film. It’s an incredibly crude and cruel joke….but interesting as well!!!

Enjoy!!!

Several people have commented on my spelling of ‘dormouse’. It is actually correct. It comes from chapter 7 of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’