I thought I would share this anime, as it goes along with the courses themes quite nicely. It used to run on YTV and it’s one of my faves! In a nutshell, the story takes place in The World, an MMOG in which players interact basically via virtual reality. The story follows Tsukasa, a player who becomes unable to log out of the game. The anime is a bit slow paced in the beginning and heavily dialogue based, but definitely worth a watch. Here is the Wiki page for more info.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.hack//Sign

The show is available on Youtube in Both Japanese and English.

In middle school and high school I played a real time strategy game called Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and later the expansion pack Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. The game provided a feature that allowed individuals to play custom made games. Around 2005, a custom game was developed called Defense of the Ancients (DotA) that had role-playing features. The map was created with the world editor. There have been many variations of the original concept of the game and it is constantly being updated. Players are divided into two teams of five; the Sentinel and the Scourge. The goal of the game is to destroy the opposing team’s ancient structures at separate corners of the map that are guarded by strong units and heavy defences. Players choose from variety heroes, each with unique and specialized spells and abilities. Certain heroes have tactile advantages over others. Players gain experience points and level their units by fighting mobs, destroying base structures and killing hostile creeps. Players collect gold to purchase items from local merchants to enhance statistics and increase damage. The game revolves around strengthening individual heroes although the game relies heavily on teamwork. DotA has received a lot of attention since its release; it quickly became a feature at various worldwide gaming tournaments including the world renowned Blizzard Entertainment’s BlizzCon. I currently play the Starcraft 2 version of DotA and I look forward to the future release of Defense of the Ancient 2 currently being developed by the commonly known Valve Software (Developers of Counterstrike, Team Fortress and Half-life). The following links are general information and video clips of DotA.

General Information:

http://www.playdota.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients

Videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ4vwU_m3Oc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD_2REs95pY

While conducting my online research, I can’t help but reminisce over what gaming used to be. Ten years ago, Nintendo prevailed and if you didn’t play Pokemon, you didn’t game. There is something to be said about pulling about the ol’ NES or SNES, even the N64, and reliving child hood favourites, many which stood the test of time. And does anyone else still have the brick that was the first game boy?

Having grown up on console games, MMOGs would take some getting used to for me to play them on a regular basis. Yes, the idea of a global community of players to interact with is astounding, but I can get the same enjoyment from playing Super Smash Bros. with a group of close friends…in the same room.

At the end of the day, I am glad to have tried MMOs via this class, but I can’t say for certain which I’ll stick with in the long run. All I know is I have a copy of Super Mario All Stars for Wii which will be replacing my current time in World of Warcraft.

anyone stopped to wonder why facebook and itouch games aren’t considered MMOG? they require firm social networks in order to succeed, but the primary difference is that the social network is supposedly constructed based on actual world networking. however, anyone who has become sucked into these games (such as farmville) knows that you can friend people just to collect neighbours and advance in the game.

i’m less familiar with itouch games but my room-mate says she needs more neighbours, and you get them essentially by helping out and asking them to add you to their list. through this large networks of strangers develope, centered on shared interest in the game. they do not have a prominent tendency to hold conventions, but who knows where these networks will go. and like MMOGs these networks have a tendency to spread across games, because the people are thought to be willing to play.

i understand that these types of play were excluded from the course for a valid reason, however it is interesting to note that the patterns are similar to that of MMOGs. one can ask many of the ethonographic questions of this form of play.

The almost universal use of the social networking site facebook has provided developers of simplistic games with a massive market for their creations. As a user of facebook it is hard not to notice the large number of posts telling me who has started playing what game and who just beat their friends records. I find it rather interesting that even my friends who I would consider to be the exact opposite of gamers invest such periods of time in these simplistic flash games. When I asked one of my friends why he spent so much time playing these games he told me that he did not really enjoy the games themselves that much, but rather he liked the idea that he could compete against all his friends and he could see where he stood in the rankings. Another of my friends said that it was just something to do while she was talking to people on facebook chat. I have also invested a fair amount of time trying to beat the high scores that my friends have set and if I had to give a reason I would say it was procrastination. Playing these flash games was simply something that I could do that was not studying and required little, to no brain activity. Perhaps this is why I have noticed an increase in game related posts on my wall since the onset of Exam season.

The vast majority of games that incorporate an online element also support the development of thriving online communities both online and offline. While this is true for most genres one example that has a striking lack of online community is the genre of first person shooters. One of the most popular series within this genre is the call of duty games. While a huge number of people play this game there is relatively little social activity within and outside the game world. I believe this is a result of a lack of a social place within the game such as a city or town square where players can gather. When a gamer is playing a first person shooter they are almost always actively playing the game so as well as a lack of a social space these games often lack a sufficient amount of downtime in order to facilitate the level of social interaction observed in online games of other genres.
In addition to a lack of social space these games also limit the interactions between to players. While game modes within first person shooters often require some form of coordination and teamwork at the casual level of gaming the communication present within the game is usually extremely limited.

For my awesome last post, I’m going to mention an MMO-related movie which I thought was better than the one we watched the last day class.

The movie is called Ben X and it was released in 2007. It’s a Belgian movie so it is English subtitled. Wikipedia gave a pretty good description of the movie so I’ll just quote it here:

Ben X is a 2007 Belgian drama film based on the novel Nothing Was All He Said by Nic Balthazar, who also directed the film. The film is about a boy with autism who retreats into the fantasy world of the MMORPG ArchLord to escape bullying. The film’s title is a reference to the leet version of the Dutch phrase “(ik) ben niks”, meaning “(I) am nothing”.

The novel was inspired by the true story of a boy with autism who committed suicide because of bullying.

You can watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0s3GR7QNo6g

Hope I haven’t pass the deadline for blogs yet……

I don’t know, coming to the last days of this term, I really don’t feel like playing anymore Runescape than I have to for the personal essay. I still play games, and I find that I have been playing more iPhone games more than any of my other platform games. PC games are fun, but they are way too time consuming. Wii is great, but playing alone is a bummer. NDS is good too, but, not much good games lately. MMOG is too money consuming for me. But iPhone games are great, lots of them are “free”, and I can practically pause anytime. I don’t have to worry about it being in the way of things. I can play within my breaks, I can play when I am waiting for stuff to happen, heck, I can even play it in the can if I really want to.

There are MMOG iphone games, and more lately than ever. Although I am not too into those games, it does comes to mind that is the iOS platform conquering casual game industry, and creating new gamers that didn’t exist before. Lately, I have been into the game Real Racing by Gameloft. The control and the physics of game is great. And compare to lots of racing games on various platforms, this one definitely have its advantage. You do feel like you are steering something afterall.

If there are still people active on this blog, what do you guys think about iOS games? And what are the types of games that you enjoy playing on it?

In the spring of this year I attended my first gaming convention PAX or the Penny Arcade Expo. Started by the writers of the Penny Arcade webcomic this convention brings together thousands of gamers from across North America twice a year in Seattle or Boston. This year was the expo’s first year on the east coast in Boston and I applied to volunteer for the convention as an enforcer. I decided to work there rather than simply attend firstly because I got into the convention for free and also because I had nobody to go with and it seemed I would be better able to join a community by working there.

Before going I had no real idea of what to expect though I heard stories of the con and seen pictures and video of it I wasn’t really sure what would be happening or what the people there would be like. I assumed the attendants would largely be hardcore gamers decked out in elaborate costumes and perhaps too hardcore about their games for me to integrate with them easily. In reality gamers from all across the spectrum from power to casual gamer were there, both genders and many age groups were represented and most of the people seemed to be genuinely nice, interesting and friendly.

I spent the first day wandering the vast convention center with no real idea of where I was or what I should be doing besides those times when I was working in a specific area or section. However I quickly learned my way around the hall and became more comfortable with the crazy routine of the convention. Some of the most surprising aspects of the convention for me were that these people who were used to online interaction were quite open and confident indeed I myself acted more confidently there than I would in most situations which I believe stems from knowing all of the people around you share a common interest. This lead to nerds and geeks participating in spontaneous dance parties in the hallways, holding prolonged discussions with total strangers and forming close bonds with anyone who happened to be standing in line near them.

Overall working at the convention was a great experience which I would recommend to anyone into gaming, this year’s PAX East is on March 11-13th and registration for enforcers or regular participants is currently open. See this website http://www.paxsite.com/paxeast/index.php for further information.

It seems that Blizzard Entertainment (the company behind Starcraft and WoW) are thinking about bringing the MMO world to the XBox360. It would be a new concept to the Microsoft console that would take a lot of thought before initiating. The two determining factors of this happening is that (1) they need to talk with Microsoft before any planning begins and (2) they’re not sure if the console’s hardware can handle something as complex as an MMO. It would be very different from the XBox Live that we have today.

It will be interesting to see what will be used in place of the keyboard and mouse which play such a huge role in online gaming. It could be a market for the XBox company because they COULD be release new hardware for online gaming, for example a keyboard and mouse specific to the XBox and its online gaming needs.

It is suffice to say that the online gaming world on XBox 360 is not anywhere near the new future, but it is something to possibly look forward to. A new medium for online gaming. Hopefully they can solve some of the problems of bandwidth and the constant updates of the MMO world, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

http://www.tgdaily.com/games-and-entertainment-brief/52934-blizzard-skeptical-about-xbox-360-for-mmos