Ahhh…the remarkable Tony Walsh is liveblogging SXSW! I have to say, though, it makes the wish to be there even stronger!!!
I’m so glad that Mr. Walsh has a curious nature, cause I think we’re in for a few extra treats as well. Like ‘Beyond Folksonomies; Knitting Tag Clouds for Grandma’.
I admire people who can liveblog! And I’m so thankful! Would have loved to hear Wallace and Ludlow!
Carnegie Mellon and Electronic Arts are making Alice, which is a really cool program to learn computer programing, better!! All in the spirit of making computer science education fun! Awww…isn’t that lovely!! Electronic Arts is giving them Sims.
President Jared L. Cohon of Carneigie Mellon I think says it best:
“This unique alliance between academia and industry is further evidence that sharing technology is an essential step towards arming students with the tools needed to excel in computer science education and interactive entertainment”.I have to say…this really looks great! Reminds me that I should have a closer look at Alice and see if I might pick up some computer programing skills!!!
And I also can’t help wondering what’s up with all the Alice in Wonderland stuff? Something about computers, games and the Internet makes us all think of this story, what? I can’t even remember what influenced me!
“At long last, you’ve returned!” the elf cries. “I had feared that you …”
> Click Complete Quest
The elf snorts and hands you a slimy, rusted, bent dagger with runes on it reading “Discount Shiv Warehouse — Bring us a lower price, we’ll stab it.”
> Look at dagger
It’s a noxious, poorly-balanced piece of crap, but it’s better than the weapon you have right now.
> What do I have now?
It’s not clear from the decay, but you think it may have once been a whisk.
> Wield dagger
You look slightly less feeble. A knight rides by on a gleaming white charger. He is bedecked from head to toe with shining armor. His shoulder armor alone is big enough to house you, your family and any pets you pick up at the auction house, and still have room to hang that pathetic dagger of yours on the wall as a constant reminder of your utter weakness compared to a true man like him.
> Pout
You hear a voice in the distance. “LF2M need healer and tank!”
> Talk to elf
Clickable Culture has a lovely overview of Second Life Statistics. He’s posted them in two different columns to show the discrepencies between Google Talk and ETech…I love that!!! Nothing much that impressed me really. I guess I should be starstruck by the fact that “$6.5 million in transaction took place in the last 30 days since March 7, 2006″(ETech source) or that “75 million instant messages relayed in Second Life in the last 30 days since March 7, 2006” (yup..you guessed it ETech Source, again). But…you know…I’m not! This is the way it was supposed to go and it will just get bigger! What really makes me tick is that “5,000 residents (15% of total population) have written 12,000 original scripts in the last 7 days for a total of 2.5 m lines of code per week” and that “17 different universities are teaching in Second Life” (oh I wish mine was one of them) – all from the ETech Source – my eyes must be wandering to the right today.
And I can’t have a ‘sum up everything in one post’ without mentioning Wonderland’s lovely idea of ‘Building business like a game’ – I think there’s a lot of potential here!
Also, on my reading list is this nifty little thing. International Review of Information Ethics Vol. 4 – The Ethics of E-Games! I’m so intrigued by this!
But it will have to be ‘reading at work’ tomorrow, because I’ve wasted a whole day doing stupid things like, not winning the Xbox360, being outraged by the whole South Dakota issue – disgusting, registering at Infomatica’s site (excellent, excellent, excellent!! They’re even taking the initiative to gathering all the thesis subjects in process and BLOGS!! wOOOhooo!!) and talking to people who are panicking about being 75% further along the way than I am!! So…its 7.30 pm, I’ve wasted a whole day….and panic has struck because I need to go to work tomorrow and then there’s the women in academia thing and I really, REALLY want to have a few beers with fellow students tomorrow night!
A few weeks ago I met a reader of this blog who had a lot of nice things to say. I was truly flattered and inspired! I mean, it’s such a great compliment when people find my words and findings readable! So I’m sure I stroked my hair a bit to the side and started battering my eyelids in a flirtatious manner (yeah…I know…the flirting game is something I still have not mastered, I’m absolutely hopeless). Then the guy wondered if he could offer me some friendly advice. Sure!! The advice? That I should consider downplaying my feminism! I wasn’t aware that I had been preaching feminism, but since I am a woman, I’m sure some feminine qualities are bound to be revealed! I found the conversation quite terrifying, really! I guess what he was trying to tell me, was that if I wanted to be taken seriously, I should start writing like a man!
So, on that note let me introduce you to some fellow female gaming voices!
MMORPG.com’s “Do Girls Game Differently?” – great piece with refreshing discussion
Wired’s “Women Gamers Duke It Out” – not too fond of this article really. I don’t like sentences such as “…a furious divide exists over how to get women to play video games”. But a good little link collector of the whole women in games community.
Guilded Lilies’ “Annie Get You Gun” – picture stolen from this wonderful blog! “I think more women already play shooters than anyone really knows about, and that game designers could greatly expand their markets by making a few adjustments. I for one could do with a little less sexism in game design all around – think: More shooters, less Hooters. Additionally, games like the Tomb Raider series have proven that men are more than willing to play a game with a main character that is female, so why not design a FPS with an intelligent, competent female protagonist, one that is not just a male personality dressed up in fantasized female clothing” – says it all, really!
There’s more! I’ll have to come back and update this post in the course of the week! But now, I need to work!!
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:
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.
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.
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:
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!
Remember What The Dormouse Said 