Below are the 12 most recent journal entries recorded in sphincterbot500's LiveJournal:

Sunday, April 10th, 2005
2:23 pm	No, I did not have relations with that developer. Video games are a business scientifically developed to make the most profit possible. People are hired to research players, what makes games sell, and what makes them play well. The game industry and game developers have no obligation to the players at all, but if they're smart, which they are, they'll listen and adapt. Changing games over time gives the players what they want, and, when risks are taken, things they didn't even know they'd like. Thus, smart developers will listen to gamers over time, and come out with new games which will be fairly certain to sell well. This is the same as the movie industry, and when The Ring does well with audiences, a sequel and a dozen rip-offs are sure to surface. Thus, Max Payne spawned a sequel and many imitations of itself—it's a matter of giving the public what it wants until it wants to move on. The gameplaying public began to let developers know what it wanted, not just in future games, but in THIS game, right now. Now developers like Blizzard, because they're smart, change aspects of World of Warcraft on the fly, making the game better and better in the eyes of players. They are not obliged to do this; in essence, Warcraft is a dicatorship, but the game will get more renewed subscriptions due to improvements. This semi-democracy is optimal for both parties because gamers get improvements, developers get a more successful game and free suggestions, yet they are not obligated to change anything which will affect the game in detrimental or intent-changing ways. This means if they don't want to change certain elements or aspects that will change the game in ways they don't like, they don't have to. The optimal relationship for smart developers is a flexible dictatorship of some sort. There is certainly no obligation to do anything, but it's a wise idea to listen. Current Music: Last Man Standing-Brendan Benson-Alternative To Love (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 3rd, 2005
11:53 pm	Parlor Game Gossip from "http://www.holidaycook.com/party-games/gossip.shtml" "...Very simply, the players are lined up in a row or a circle. The first person is given a sentence or perhaps several sentences written on a piece of paper. He or she commits the information to memory and then sets the paper aside. He "whispers" the information, as well as he can remember it to the next person in line. This person does the same, passing the information down the line until it reaches the end. The last person reveals what he has been told to all assembled. The first person then reads the paper. There are typically no prizes or winners associated with this game, but the results are often quite hilarious. It is recommended for more than six players and generally requires children of school age with minimal communication skills." The game of Gossip is what we have probably all played, I bet under the name of "Telephone." It is a game in the sense that Salen and Zimmerman discuss, in that you have to be playful to play it generally, and the end goal is to see how funny and garbled the original message comes out. Thus it is not really a game with too many rules, but enough not to be what they call "ludic" play, which is playfulness without being a game. It falls within the alea (chance play) or mimicry (pretend play) categories if any, but it is sort of it's own play because it is almost more of a social activity than a game. There is really no way to break the rules, since the only real rules are that players pass on a message as best they can. The rules are more of what Salen and Zimmerman call rules of strategy, which are "rules of thumb," to help with play but not define play (125). This game is always funny no matter what age the players are because it's practically impossible to pass on a message without some garbling, and it's almost always funny. This would be a good game to play in class because it takes five seconds to learn and only a few minutes to play. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2005
4:49 pm	Child's Play, but without Chuckie I think I must have played particularly violent games when I was a kid because those are all I can remember really. The biggest one was "fight invisible badguys" with my brother, which just consisted of running through the bushes and pretending to fight people. There weren't any rules, really, but my brother would get pissed if I got dramatic and told him I'd gotten shot and to go on without me. Other games we played were "throw the rock with a sharp stick tied to it so maybe it will stab into a tree or something," dirt clod wars, cap gun fights, bb gun fights,and a game called "Indiana Jones." Our backyard circled around the house, and in this game I'd go one way and my brother would go the other and we'd meet in the middle. Whoever shot the other person with their cap gun first won, and you could hide and wait for the other person, or run as fast as you could and try to get them before they expected to see you. There weren't really any rules except being honorable if you had gotten shot first. We also played this jumping game that involved stacking up boardgames in the doorway and trying to jump over them onto a pile of pillows without knocking the stack of boardgame boxes over. The other game I played was skateboarding. For some reason, tennis or basketball are games, and skateboarding might not be considered one, so I asked Brendan what he thought. He said that it's what you do with a skateboard that makes it a game, so going down hills and trying tricks etc. makes it a sort of game. Come to think of it, it's a little weird that every game I played had the penalty of death or injury, but I guess that's just what little boys do? Current Music: Chromeo-Rage! (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 2nd, 2005
6:36 pm	Terranova—July There are a few interesting money concepts in a couple of the July 2004 Terranova articles, one being a company called Playvault that converts the mmog money of the game you're playing now into the money of the mmog game you want to play next, so that you're not starting totally from the beginning. Another article talked about Dark Age of Camelot essentially bribing players to switch to less populated servers with Camelot game money. Nick Yee also had a Daedalus Project research update, or journal of some sort. When I went there, I found some research he did that showed that generally, women have a preference for first person game perspective and men have a preference for third person game perspective. There was also information about addiction; " In particular, self-reported addiction was positively correlated with scores on Achievement (r = .25) and Escapism (r = .25)." It seems like the most addicted people (hours up to 32.7 per week) like to achieve and move ahead, which isn't too surprising, but it also seems like the most self-describedly addicted people also play the game for escapist reasons. This seems like a sort of roleplaying, in that the game is used to escape from everyday life for hours upon hours. Yee also discussed mimicry behavior and mentioned that waiters who repeat the customer's orders get bigger tips than if they say something different. Also, people who mimic your behavior are seen as more likeable in a study. This is similar to the experiment Yee discussed in WoW with us, where a politician who looked like you in subtle ways was seen as more likeable than another politician. Current Music: Don't Drink Poison-Le Tigre-This Island (Comment on this)
Sunday, February 20th, 2005
6:01 pm	Gender Turing Test What is the difference between sex and gender? From an anthropology point of view, I think sex is your anatomy and gender is your social role, or whatever is associated with your anatomy. Gender is created by your society, so questions like "how many women does it take to go to the bathroom" or "what is your ideal date" are designed to figure out sex based on gender roles. As a performer, I just kind of tried not to give too much away but to answer honestly. One question was about baseball, which I tried to avoid. The favorite movie question I answered "Evil Dead," which was the best movie I could think of besides "Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" which I didn't think was a very well known one. The other question I answered was "what do you tip the guy who washes and dries your hands in an upscale bathroom." I said something about not making anyone wash my hands for me, which some people took to be feminine because men are tough and don't care if people touch them, and some people took to be masculine because some men are homophobic and would be freaked out. I was just answering gender-neutrally I thought, because my reasoning didn't seem to have any gender leanings. Basically, I just didn't want to make other people wait on me if they didn't have to because I'd feel like a jerk. I think I might have answered another question, but I can't remember what it was. I guess basically, I managed to avoid the baseball question, then the handwashing question people took how they wanted to, and then the movie question I answered with a typically masculine movie. I guess on the whole, my true answers lined up with standard perceptions of male gender, so most people thought I was male. It will be interesting to re-play the exercise with lifelines, because the answers Kjell, Lisa, and Nicole were giving were very good and it seemed like people had a hard time determining who was who. It would be interesting to try again without knowing how many men or women there were, rather than knowing two were female and two were male. Current Music: Phoenix - Everything Is Everything (Comment on this)
5:41 pm	Research title/topic Tentative title: "Playing Roles: Living life As Someone Else?" I am curious as to why someone would choose to roleplay in a game, and would like to investigate this further. Why would someone choose to be someone other than themselves, like an actor stuck in character? If one plays a role within a game in order to become that other person, does that become your life, especially if you spend more time in-game than out of game? Are more immersive games more conducive to roleplaying, or are games like D&D which require imagination for immersiveness more conducive to roleplaying? Does it even matter, or can one roleplay without even using a game? Are most roleplayers casual, or are some roleplayers their character even in real life? How much is a roleplayer's RP character like their true self? Is a roleplayed character just an identity shard of a player's true personality which has been expanded upon? Do roleplayers get addicted more easily to the game because it has truly become their life? If your life in-game is the life you identify with and consider your true self, then is there such a thing as addiction to your own life? What if the game is shut down...do roleplayer's characters still exist? How is mmorpg roleplaying like larp? Do some people do both? Is larp a game? All of these questions provide good jumping off places for more brainstorming. Message boards, personal interviews with roleplayers, and larp players (if these can be obtained) will be good resources, as well as some table-top roleplayers perhaps. Current Music: Alpha Beta Gaga-Air-Talkie Walkie (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 13th, 2005
4:48 pm	roleplaying server Playing WoW on a roleplaying server wasn't too noticeably different. It seems like most people don't roleplay on it, although Silver Hand was highly trafficked. As far as gender roleplaying, it's hard to consciously play up gender without being an idiot/chauvinist. When I first started Warcraft, I was a female gnome, and didn't know if I was treated any differently because I had nothing to compare it to. Since then, I've played as a male night elf and a female human. I haven't noticed a bit of difference, although I've kind of amended a statement I made ealier. I thought people might identify with their character and/or make their character like them in some ways. When playing, however, I never thought of the character as a representative of the true person behind the screen. I find, after playing a while more, that I do generally (but not always) tend to think of a female character as a female person, and a male character as a male person. This is certainly not always true, as anyone can be anyone. As a female human, I was never given anything because I was a woman, which I kind of expected to happen, but I did get a great trade from a high level night elf in Stormwind city because I said I was new and asked for help. I got a Dalaran Sharp, which is a high-level healing food or something, and he traded me for some meat and other junk. This was more due to niceness and pity it seemed, rather than a gender inequality thing. I also tried spamming the main chat channel with questions that would pull people out of the roleplaying atmosphere, like "does anyone like reno 911?" But since people weren't roleplaying too much, it didn't seem to work. Then I talked to specific people in Stormwind about roleplaying like I was an idiot. I asked a few people what roleplaying was. One of them just said something and smiled and left. I asked another person how to roleplay, and they said roleplayers got married and had kids in-game, so I said I wanted to have kids and asked who would marry me. Then I asked the person if they were married, and they said, "sadly, yes." I then acted like and idiot and asked if there was divorce. The player said yes. I said I was going to go get married and then divorced, and then I said goodbye. I was simultatneously talking to another player about roleplaying and asked what it was. I said I didn't know and wanted to try. Like the other person, this player said they didn't really roleplay. They said you just pretend you are your race and class in real life. I explained that my character didn't really exist in real life. "but they do in this world." "Oh, okay," I said, "I'll try roleplaying now...I can feel my magic powers!" The person I was talking to just said "okay...," or something like that, and I said I had to leave. All in all, no one responded to anything on the main channels, so I decided to talk to people personally. People were nice and helpful, no matter how weirdly I acted, giving me the great trade and explaining sitatuations. There didn't seem to be much roleplaying going on though, and a person I talked to said they only roleplayed sometimes, which seemed odd (maybe with another character?). The gender roleplaying seemed weird and hard. I could pretend, but it was difficult to convey that I was a female to other players without being an ass, so I didn't actively try. I thought about saying I had a boyfriend, but I thought the good player wouldn't want to trade with me. Maybe a female playing up the damsel in distress act to get items would be okay, if manipulative, but for me as a male to do it would involved me stereotyping, so I'd rather not. As far as other attributes, I felt kind of bad taking free loot from a good player who was nice enough to help me. I was new, it's true, but it felt manipulative. I seemed to be able to act however I wanted without repercussion; people were willing to help and chat. As far as presenting identity in the real world versus presenting identity in the game, it seems far different. You can fake your personality in life to some extent, but in the game, you can do whatever the heck you want to. The fundamental difference seems to be, at least in my eyes, that in the real world, you are you (which can vary situation to situation), but in the game, you can be you or anyone else you want to be due to anonymity. Current Music: Refused-New Noise (Comment on this)
Monday, February 7th, 2005
7:59 pm	group maiming Fighting together is definitely the most fun part of the game. I like that you share the loot and help each other not die, which is a lot better than being a lone wolf. For some reason, I feel kind of weird asking people who are better than I am to join my group, so I usually ask people who are about the same; maybe because it would seem like I’m mooching off their skill. It seems the same way for other people,though, because when they ask me, they’re usually better than I am. Maybe they want to lead? Maybe they feel inferior to higher level players like I do. I started a new night elf rogue character, who is way more fun and is leveling up much faster than the warrior gnome. He’s a lot poorer, money-wise, but the skills are much better and the killing is faster and easier. After I grouped with a couple people and killed some monsters, I discovered a town which has lots of training and skill-giving people, and I couldn’t afford a single darn thing. But back to groups. It’s way more fun. You can talk or just bask in the bond forged through slaughtering spiders. I’m also in a newly formed guild which was accepting members. It’s really small and the main leader is mailing us items to level us up which is cool. One guy in it is a tractor-trailer driver who is off only every four or five days, and the guild leader has a baby (but he’s always online when I am it seems like). Anyway, there is an upbeat message on the daily guild board that says to have fun with your friends, and everyone seems really sincere and nice. It’s a weird sort of connection, but it seems to develop fast because you’re not just talking to people, you’re helping each other. In fact, I’ve barely talked to the members at all. As far as whether WoW encourages group activity, I’d have to say yes. At first, you fly solo and kill things, then you can join a group. Some quests require grouping, and the guilds seem willing to add people. Also, a spontaneous “kill these monsters” group is easy to arrange. It seems like the designers wanted to make this game playable from a solo or a group approach, so it’s better because of that. I haven’t done a big planning mission yet, so it’s hard to say as far as strategy goes, but the makeup of your group seems crucial. Our guild has a “core,” which they made me part of because I joined early, and this has a sort of president and vice-president, who are friends from another game (maybe in real-life too?). I would imagine that the game could teach leadership skills, though you’d have to lead to get them I suppose. Bartle seems to think that the good traits that come out in the game are traits you always had but never knew about, not traits that the game causes in you. I would imagine that there are a number of practical applications for the grouping aspects of a game like this in real-life. If a corporation wanted to strengthen their “team,” or develop a teamwork approach, just playing WoW as an exercise would be fun and I’m sure would help, provided the interface etc. wasn’t wasting more time than it was worth. The article we read by Castranova mentioned commerce taking place in persistent worlds as a sort of virtual shopping mall that avatars could actually be real-world employed in. It’s clear that there is value in the teamwork aspects of something like WoW, because the weird instant connection you feel to a newly formed group of random people you don’t know is surprisingly strong and positive. On a side note, I randomly came across an article in UTNE Reader about playing mmorpg’s for money that mentioned Castranova. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2005
6:34 pm	bartle test This test seemed a little ridiculous, because half the stuff I've never done yet, or wouldn't do in the future. Oh! And when we talked about how crappy the warriors were in class, I later discovered that my class character I accidentally made a warrior instead of a rogue, so now I'm a night elf rogue and things are a lot more fun. The best part of the game is playing with other people it seems like. Thanks for taking the test. You are person number 296033 to take it. Your type is: AKS. 3% of respondents so far fall into that type. The numbers below represent percentage of how many times you selected a given suite when given the chance. Since there are 15 questions for each suite out of 30 total, the number will add up to 200%. 50% thus means average for each suite, and 100% is the maximum score. Your answers were split as follows: Achiever 60% Killer 60% Socializer 46% Explorer 33% Current Music: tapping feet (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 30th, 2005
10:51 am	Journal 3 After 2 or 3 hours of initial confusion about how to fight and use the game, Matt explained that the game auto fights once you tell your character to attack, and you just pick the next moves to use. Oh! Well that's great news, and now I don't have arthritis from literally millions of clicks. Since then, the game has gotten much more fun, which is worrying me. The leveling up is really rewarding, and now I'm about level 6 and a half, which is exciting because it means more killing and bigger monsters. After reading the Yee article, I was a little disappointed to learn that leveling up is really quick and easy at first. I guess I knew that, but I felt like I was doing pretty well. I guess just keep up the killing and questing and things will start to get more and more fun. It was great going on missions with a group like we did in class last Thursday, because that was new, and co-op is more fun it seems. Also, apparently I'm in a "Teepee from my Bunghole" guild, which I think I'll leave on Tuesday. The in-class cooperation was great though, because killing was easier and we all had some knowledge of where various people and items were, so we got to travel around and help each other. It's easy to see how people get addicted to the game and how they see the best and worst aspects of their week as things which happenened within the game, because the teamwork is surprisingly affecting in some way. I keep my dad posted on what we learn about in class, and we're both struck by the depth that the video game entails (economics, cooperation, addiction, etc.). The Vinge novella was also amazing, not just because he predicted the future, but the story itself, and the way he described the flow of information and data around the world. The idea of being a god in the game, or famous like Mr. Slippery is one I'd like to come back to, maybe for some research. Current Music: Harm-Broken Spindles-Fulfilled / Complete (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 25th, 2005
11:26 am	This is the first time I've ever played any sort of mmog, and it's both easy and overwhelming at the same time. The walking and interface seem pretty basic, but the rest of it is pretty new to me. There are a few things I don't understand. When you die, is there any point to wandering around looking for your body, or is it just a penalty? What about pvp? It's supposed to be off, but you can duel with other players; what's the difference? What about when we're all born as gnomes and dwarves and we are in the snow, is that just our class, or is that every new dwarf and gnome in the game? Also, now I'm on a quest to kill some weak trolls, or maybe baby trolls. Can anyone do this quest at the same time, or am I the only one? When I win, do I get something besides experience? What about fighting? Is there strategy, like dodging and running, or do we just take turns? Sometimes I'll get totally schooled by someone stronger than I am, and sometimes I can win no problem. How is this possible if they are a higher level than I am? What about the attacks? I have a basic attack, which I click, but then if I don't click it 100 million times, it switches to my better attack automatically, which only works if I have rage, so I end up getting slaughtered. Anyway, these things will all become clear the more I play it seems. As far as games go, I'm an old fashioned "slaughter and leave a trail of blood and organs" kind of guy. The only rpg style games I'd get near where Zelda 64 and A Link to the Past. WoW has an insane learning curve, which is really overwhelming (and can be a detriment to some mmog's in the eyes of the general public, as gamespy mentioned). This is counteracted by the simple "Full Throttle" style point and click interface, so it's not too discouraging, I just need some constructive "practice" (hah!) with the game. Anyway, it will be fun to dive back into things tonight. Current Music: Piney Gir (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 18th, 2005
3:15 pm	First Impression Hello, I'm Graham. I enjoy long walks on the beach. I'm a son, brother, friend, student, and boyfriend. As a comm. major, I'm part of a group of people with similar interests, such as movie-making. I also listen to music a lot, my parents say to the point of addiction. I guess you'd call it indie-rock or something in there, so that's an identity fragment related to a subculture. Most of my friends and I talk a lot about music, so that's something we have in common too. Thus, social identity is linked to personal identity I suppose. Other interests are skateboarding, messing with my drum machine which my girlfriend gave me for Christmas, and horror movies, especially with zombies. As far as personal identity, I guess it's a medley of social identities and relationships with other people combined with my character and morals and interests. I have to do some more thinking about what individual identity really means, because it's pretty hard to define one's self. I haven't really played many games, but some I have are Final Fight, Golden Axe, Goldeneye, some Zelda games partway, and Spiderman, whatever the new one is. Right now, I guess I'm kind of overwhelmed/freaked out about World of Warcraft, and I think the psychology aspects will be most interesting, because the game itself seems too big. When I was a kid, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books irritated me tothemax because there were so many options, and the fact that we'll never get to explore the whole game or finish it seems like biting off more than I can chew right now. It's amazing that there are people being paid to mine items in the game and sell them. I had no idea that the mini game world was so real-worldy in terms of economy, inflation, etc. The fact that people get addicted to the game and sever ties with the real world is also pretty interesting, as weird as it is. In-game prestige, class emergence, and other real world attributes that arise in the game will be interesting to study as well. Player killing sounds hilarious right now, so I hope that's an option too. Is there real fighting, or do you sit still and cast spells on each other and get hit points and all that stuff? Anyway, this is going to be an experience. As far as characters go,it's hard to tell how the gnome and dwarf are different. The dwarves seem good at healing and the gnomes seem smart, but it's hard for me to tell what all the racial traits mean. I think I'll choose gnome because of the escape artist and intelligence traits. I don't know if we get to pick, but if we do, I want to be a stealthy rogue, because sneaking around and wasting monsters sounds like more fun than just rushing in and chopping them up. It seems like being a smart gnome would help with all the sneaking around. Also the gnomes look really goofy. Matt Daly said he sees me as a girl, so a female gnome it is! Current Music: DJ Cuba Gooding (Comment on this)