ANTH-3745H-A

Kool-Aid Man in Second Life

Kate Dougherty — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 16:23:52 +0000

Netartist Jon Rafman’s Kool-Aid Man avatar is one of his primary characters, taking appointments and leading tours through Second Life worlds both utopian and fetishistic, as well as starring in still images and films directed by Rafman himself, which humorously contrast the avatar’s round red body with the super-sexy alter egos more commonly seen in Second Life. He speaks with Lindsay Howard about his work here.

Also see Kool-Aid Man’s site here.

Cataclysm is Out!

MachoMAN — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 17:13:19 +0000

It’s the holidays so it means we are gonna have a lot of free time and probably would need something to occupy us away from all the holiday and family chaos, and what better way to that than jump back in World of Warcraft’s newest expansion Cataclysm. You know what the worst part is? It’s when you have finally fought the addiction of WOW and called it quits for sure, but then Blizzard comes out and releases an enticing expansion pack with a bunch of cool new features. And inevitably your friends then finally make you cave and buy a copy of Cataclysm, starting you back on the path of the downward spiral. I have already started lacking proper amount of sleep, and have overheated my laptop a few times now from over use. I already know this isn’t going to turn out so well and Blizzard has got me hooked all over again. With that said, let’s talk about Cataclysm. I’m just curious if anyone who previously played WOW is excited for this expansion pack. And also if this expansion’s new feature is enticing enough to attract any new players to the game who was turned off from it before.

NBA Fantasy an MMO?

MachoMAN — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 17:12:34 +0000

Hey guys, I just realized something interesting that I came upon. As I am a huge NBA fan I wanted to get involved in an NBA fantasy league. But getting involved in a league and running a successful team is much harder than I thought it was going to be at first. I tried joining a league and creating a team on ESPN’s fantasy league, but everything went just over my head. So I asked a friend to show me and educate about the ins and outs of running a fantasy team. The thing I realized immediately and found to be really interesting was the similarity between an MMO and the fantasy leagues. Things like having a successful avatar with the proper (most efficient, best) gear and skills, can be seen the same as having a successful team with the right mix of talented NBA players that complement each other and produce positive results. Other things like the auction house or a bank system and shops in MMOs can be seen to be similar to the draft and free agents system in fantasy leagues. Also you can socialize in both medium with a great and vibrant community to support both types of medium. The main reason I found these similarity surprising and interesting is because the perception and stereotypers associated with both activities are pretty much pure opposites. People who play MMOs are considered “geeks” while people who are associated with fantasy leagues and thus sports are considered “non-geeks”. But the fact is that despite the opposite stereotypes of both, the activities done in both are pretty much identical.

Capsuleer School of Hard Knocks

Carbon — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 19:44:12 +0000

EVE online carries a certain reputation among the general gaming populace for having a notoriously unfriendly learning curve and being frankly quite boring. I can’t dispute that EVE has it’s boring points as I have been guilty of playing in windowed mode so that I could surf the internet or do other unrelated activities while waiting for my character to finish mining an asteroid or jumping half way across the galaxy.

What I would like to do with this post is to provide an alternative viewpoint and a few key things that anyone interested in checking out EVE online should be aware of before jumping right in.

The biggest hurdle to overcome for new players is the way the skill system works. In EVE online, skill training is done strictly based on time the character has been alive. Even when you are not playing the game, your character is still training skills, which means that you’ll have to set up a training queue every time you log off for the first few days until you burn through the low level skills you want to train which can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours.

As a consequence of this system, you cannot of course increase the speed with which you gain skill points by spending more time in the game. Additionally, new players are now given so many skill points that before you even start playing you have to make some serious decisions about just what kind of activities you want your character to engage in without being given the opportunity to experiment and see what things do. This more than anything is likely a major cause of the feeling that EVE is supremely unfriendly to new players. EVE demands a lot from players and that starts before you even disembark on your first space flight.

A good first stop when looking for information on the skills and ships in EVE online would be the wiki located at the EVE Online Wiki. Beyond that, both the in game “Rookie Help” and normal help channels are usually filled with people that are more than willing to give pointers to people who ask for help.

For people simply looking for help with the controls, the in game tutorial, while lengthy and boring, is probably one of the best resources for describing how to deal with the controls.

If you are willing to put in the effort that is required to get over that initial learning curve, the game becomes much easier to understand and can be very rewarding. And if that’s too much work, you can always start up an in game bank and then run away with everyones money like this guy did while listening to the player run internet radio station.

The Guild Season 4

Xehla — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 19:43:16 +0000

The full season 4 of the guild is now available on www.watchtheguild.com Hilarious cosplaying in the final episode! Enjoy!

.hack//Sign

Xehla — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 19:42:22 +0000

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.

Now you can have a Leeroy Jenkins of your very own! ^o^

Xehla — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 19:41:20 +0000

Papercrafters of the world unite!!

http://paperkraft.blogspot.com/2010/11/leeroy-jenkins-papercraft-world-of.html

Defense of the Ancients (DotA)

Boudreau — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 19:40:45 +0000

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

Back in my day…

Xehla — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 19:39:51 +0000

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.

You will unite or you will fall.

Tate — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 21:43:18 +0000

In the process of this course, and from experience gained while playing Aion, I’ve found that much of the play in MMOGs could almost be considered multi-player if we were to place them on a console system pre-dating Xbox live and Playstation network.

Even from the early levels co-operative play is encouraged through many quests in order to make it easier for players to achieve the goal and survive through it’s entirity. This is of course most obvious through the guild system, which if caught onto early enough in the game can be of a huge help to the noobs and other low level players trying to complete the early quests, or negotiate the PvP zones.

On the other hand, I, like many other new player I encountered, did not manage to find my way into a legion until after the main low level quests. Initially this was a problem, repeatedly dying as I tried to time my runs with those around me, until I discovered the ability to make groups. It seems these impromptu groups, sometimes led by a higher level or more experienced avatar, and a common feature in many MMOGs, are genuine life savers for noobs in these runs; the collective play they demand ensures everyone makes it through to complete the quest.

For me these groups not only got me through the quest but also found me high level contacts and taught me skills I would need to play my class in the future. Did any one else find that as a guild free player these groups were around to help or is it a chance event?