CTCS 564 FINAL PAPER

World of Warcraft:
MMO Game’s Future & Influence

Amazing Traditional Chinese Painting Rendering

My friend sent me this link:
http://media.renderaid.com/1013-l.wmv

It is really overwhelmed. Like toon shader, this specific visual style will win his commercial benefits in animation and TV industry. I'm expecting hardware support in the near future, which can really bring some chinese localized feature into game world.

-Jenova Chen

CTWR 518 Final Project

"Cockroach":
An Interactive Narrative Practice

Pattern, Pattern, Still Pattern

For a long time, I had been confused by the fact that I liked playing Tetris when I was young, but could not convince myself rationally why I liked playing it. From the study in CTCS 564, I got a reasonable answer to it. That obviously is Pattern.

People playing Tetris are trying to reach certain kind of pattern, which is psychologically or biologically comforting. Although I can’t tell why this happened on human body, I agree it happened on me.

We always talk about the reward in the game and the satisfactory feeling for game players’ pay and payoff. However, Tetris is different. No rewards but the meaningless scores, no story, graphically not interesting, simple rhythm and midi sound. But why do so many people addict to it? The answer is pattern. But how does pattern work? I started to anatomize my experiences.

When a player is trying to reach certain patterns, he or she has to concentrate on their actions. During this highly concentrated situation, people can realize an oblivious ambit of themselves, forgetting all the pressure out of this pattern making process. On certain aspects, such action can realize the same effect as film and other entertainment for fun do. So, does pattern ensure the success for game design? Not absolutely.

People’s requirement is endless. Most hard core game players love Tetris, but today few of them would agree to play Tetris alone. Thus game designer tried to give the Tetris a second life. In China, the online Tetris competition was very popular, Besides the pattern, players have reward of the satisfying from beat the others. But still, the game player who have played splendid 3D games could not enjoy the symbolized Tetris any more. One Chinese player with ten years game play history said:” I won’t waste my time and money on cheap entry level game.” So has the pattern game stopped in front of the hard core players? The answer is still no.

Looking at the popular game around today, patterns are everywhere.

First person shooting game is a pattern making game. By analyzing the most popular FPS game, counter-strike, you can find player’s pattern everywhere. Players fire AK-47 always in a certain rhythm in order to reduce the bias while shooting. When players buy weapons and armors, they press different hotkey combinations just as pianist playing their keyboard. Tactically, different players have their own pattern on moving, assaulting and defending. During the regular rounds of fighting, shooting and dieing, they all reach the level of forgetting themselves.

Real time strategy game is a pattern making game too. Psychologically, player tried to reach a balanced pattern of resource gathering and units building. Physically, by using the hotkey and mouse to command the units, most RTS player liked clicking mouse and keyboard in their own rhythm even when there is no need at all.

Racing game, action game and fighting game are all pattern playing. A pattern of using brake and turning, a pattern of different action combination and a pattern of combo and special move, they help player concentrate on their games, also provide a wide possibility for different patterns and players.
Pattern seems existing everywhere. When we design game, making some patterns in game design maybe an unconscious action. In my opinion, to consider pattern as an important game elements when we design a game need to be emphasized.

A Game Journal from Jenova Chen

FarCry: Break the Ceiling of Game Genre

On this year’s GDC, Ubisoft’s Farcry became the eye candy of various graphic cards manufacturers. Gamers talked about Farcry everywhere. But the most interesting part they talked about was not the game play or character or stories. This game is a complete technology experiment.

Before Half-life 2, Doom3 and Unreal 2 engine release, Farcry engine is doubtlessly the best and the most realistic one on the market today. The graphics in the game could be described as photorealistic. The physics engine and different effect simulation stunned all the player. For example, when a grenade explodes beside you, your ear will be filled with tingle until half a minute later. You vision will become blurred in order to simulate the dizzy eye sight. The AI is highly advanced in the game. NPC will talk to the player and communicate each other. Overall, the game play experience is rather a military rehearse than a traditional first person shooting game.

Farcry reminds me of the relationship between technology and digital game entertainment. It is a loop like all the other entertainment media. While a new technology came out, because it was new, public will like to spend money on it, because of their curiosity and vogue. But after a shoot period, when all the people had got used to this kind of technology, they started to criticize the lack of content and connotation. Certainly, Farcry is in one of these new technology waves, and it caught the right time. If half-life 2 or doom3 was released last year, Farcry will definitely be buried by these big brands. Because of Farcry was the first new generation graphical advanced game, everybody wanted to try it and raised their thumbs for the unheard-of experiences.

In Will Wright’s game design chart, Farcry could not break the boundary of the traditional game territory. However, the reaction from the public is similar to the reaction for a new game concept. FPS has already become a peak of game genre. The vertical change of this peak with the technology breaks the boundary of the ceiling. Besides looking for new genre in the unknown territory, to improve the existing height of a game genre is also considerable and practical method. However, there are limited inventions in the industry, how many games can share the benefits from technology creation? Compared with that, concept creativity is more accessible to the game designers.

A Game Journal from Jenova Chen

Cockroach Project Started

Environment Setup

Script example

///////////////////////////////////////
//Back Ground Info //
///////////////////////////////////////

//Shon's mystery
Alex: Jill?
Jill: Huh?
Alex: I'm tired.
Jill: (Look at Alex)
Alex: I hate to say this, but I'm tired.
Jill: (Pause)You can return at anytime.
Alex: Jill, you can't stick to this.
Jill: (Stare at Alex)
Alex: What? What are you thinking? He was dead, you know it. Shon's dead.
Jill: (Silence)

//Rally point and short of water
Jill: (Sigh)
Alex: How much water have we got today?
Jill: Two gallons, not even enough for us to reach the next rally point.
Alex: It's not bad, we are still alive at least.
Jill: (Silence)
Alex: Sorry.
Jill: Never mind, it's not your fault.
Alex: (Look out of the room)

//Birth places
Alex: So...Where are you from?
Jill: Old NewYork.
Alex: Really? I've never believed it was still existing.
Jill: Not until we left.
Alex: (Pause) I'm sorry.
Jill: What's your homeland? United City?
Alex: No, actually, I came from another city. I bet you don't know it before.
Jill: The third mobile city.
Alex: Oh, man, how do you know that? You must tell me, how?
Jill: By friends.
Alex: Oh no, it's impossible. Who are your friends?
Jill: (Ignore)

//Room Info
Alex: These greedy bastards. Is this the place to sleep?
Jill: This is a cabin.
Alex: Sleep on the table? My godness!
Jill: (Ignore)
Alex: Well, this is the only one we can afford though. I wish we can earn more water tomorrow.
Jill: We have to.
Alex: All right, all right.

The Philosophical Roots of Computer Game Design

Ernest Adams, freelance game designer and popular game industry commentator, spoke with great humor on Friday afternoon about philosophy, literature, and the need for new heroes in the video game world.

The Pre-Modernity of An Emerging Art

The game industry, Adams said, is in a conflicted state of being. At its heart, the industry is a technical place, composed of rectangular boxes and rectangular thinkers whose technological determinism stunts the creative growth of the medium. We believe so strongly that our technology is thousands of years more advanced than the rest of what's out there, Adams said - and yet the rest of the world sees our ability to tell stories as thousands of years behind that of other mediums.

And according to Adams, we are. Videogames are in their pre-modernity, he said, beginning an extended literary metaphor. Our Virginia Woolfes and James Joyces, the people who experiment with the art form and raise the state of the art, have yet to emerge. The world is only just beginning to understand that video games are an art, and thus we still reside in the pre-modern space where heroes and demons battle one another in the black and white reality of our ancient ancestors, with emotional apotheosis still an epoch away.

Steam Engines, Hobbits, and The Failing of the Matrix

It is rumored that the PS3, said Adams, will be one thousand times as powerful as the PS2. Does that mean PS3 games will be one thousand times as entertaining, or the experiences one thousand times as deep? Adams likened the technological development of gaming to the emergence of steam-based technologies in the Victorian era. Those innovators must have found their time very exciting, he said. Yet if steam trains had been used for entertainment, engineers would have been fools to think that a thousand times more steam would mean a thousand times as much entertainment.

Referring to Tolkien's mythological sources for The Lord of the Rings, Adams joked that the guiding vision of the videogame industry is, in essence, to create "Icelandic Nerd Poetry." How, he asked, can we expect gaming to be considered among the world's great art forms, when most of those world's great artists would feel uncomfortable even attending the Game Developers Conference? Tolkien, the greatest of luddites, would have hated GDC, Adams said, noting that the man would have reviled the "nerdiness" of the game industry as epitomizing all that is wrong with technology and industrialization. And yet, said Adams, we worship him.

What we need, Adams said, is to transcend the struggle between the experiences we create and the technology with which we create them. There is a disconnect there, he said, and pointed to the Matrix sequels as the quintessential example. Here we have a set of films that emphasize style over substance, form over function. These films are created using the latest and most amazing of visual technologies, and yet they absolutely fail in terms of narrative. That, he continued, is the core paradigm of the game industry.

The Search for New Heroes

The solution, said Adams, lies in shifting our view of which kinds of people will be the ones to push the limits of our industry. We need new heroes, he said. According to Adams, programming and technological innovation will always be at the center of what we do, but we need to turn our respect and admiration to the visual artists, sound designers, and creative thinkers who have the vision and confidence to synthesize technical innovation with aesthetic sensibilities, if we are to keep moving forward.

Once we do that, he said, the bar will begin to rise on the aesthetics underlying our games. To rise above the level of "Icelandic Nerd Poets" and outgrow our Victorian roots, we need to begin creating games in which the heart leads the mind, and in which technology and creativity are in harmony. Only then, Adams said, will the hearts of the public open before us, and finally lead the way to a post-modern video game era.

This is quite what I've been thinking for a long time. When technology become overwhelmed in film and game industry, we have to remind everybody the importance of art and creativity. Besides eye candy, what people care more is the content, and it will never be made just by technician.
-Jenova