Second Life Powerpoints
Here is the Loofa Mafia's original powerpoint.
And here is our revised powerpoint.
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October 31, 2005
October 26, 2005
The gamers' game? - research blog
Joe Barnes and Melanie Wider
As a child, I always thought that the future lay in developing human ability within an entertainment context - increasing complexity in our gaming interface to aid in development of mental agility and hand dexterity as well as coordination between eye and hand. The missing link between my vision of the future of gaming and the current paradigm of physical interface is the game I wish to create.
Already there are games which force the players into a state of almost meditation with their complexity and demands placed on the player. A genre of games that typically has this effect is called "shooters". Shooters make a good showing overseas in the Japanese market, and while not extremely strong in America, they do hold their own as a traditional arcade favorite.
Also, there are already controllers which require players to use more than ten input keys (though not all at once, of course). The most common and widely used is the alphabetic keyboard. This controller has been used as an interface by many for productivity, education, entertainment, and device manipulation, since the personal computer has been prominent.
This team's goal is to create a game which allows the gamer to help create what is seen on the screen while requiring the gamer to use a large set of input buttons (probably on a keyboard) to control the flow of the game. This game will require the gamer to develop their skills at managing several tasks at once as well as their ability to respond to each in a timely manner. Games similar to this have been created in the past, and have been mildly successful, but received lukewarm receptions. A part of the reason for this is that any game which has required a gamer to type has been considered an "educational" game.
While researching, the team found that the games upon which this game draws for its central concept and core mechanic have not been overtly successful because they are too much "gamer's" games :
Typing of the Dead required a user to type in order to save the day. The concept may have been one of fun, but many considered the game an "educational game in disguise", perhaps due to the word "typing" in the title. The Typing of the Dead game required the player to be both quick and accurate and did measure statistics on the players performance over the course of a level, but the statistics were secondary and not given much screen time compared to the story via various cut-scenes.
The other game the team is drawing on for inspiration is Rez. This game was designed to be a spectacle such that many people could watch it even if only one was playing. It was also designed to require a player to develop their sense of rhythm and timing in order to "perfectly" play a level. One of the reported "problems" with Rez (from some critics) is that the game itself isnt the shooting, but creating the music, which leaves people who cannot develop themselves at a loss when trying to find the fun in the game. On one hand, as a gamer and a designer, I believe that anybody who cannot develop their play does not deserve to realize how wonderful Rez actually is, but as a marketer, there needs to be a balance of some sort in order to keep the non-gamers having fun on some level.
A pitfall that must be avoided is letting kids think that the game is an educational game, even though we would love parents to realize this. If the game is placed on the "educational" shelf as a shooter it will most certainly fail, and, of course, we would like the game to be fun enough that the fact that a user has to use the keyboard for input is a secondary consideration in anybodys mind. Perhaps seeing a keyboard as an input device would be daunting at first, but once a player can have fun while typing on a keyboard, the game itself may get a bit more attention (rather than the "unorthodox" controller). The game, when marketed, cannot have the words "teaches" (or any variant thereof) or "typing" in the title in order to preserve the illusion that the game is strictly a game and not a game thats fun while making players develop their typing skill.
Further research pending, comments welcome.
October 25, 2005
First-Person with Meaning, Depth, and Authorship
by Aaron Thomas and Jeremy Kopman
In the summer of 2000, a man by the name of Warren Spector and his development team released a little game known as Deus Ex. The game was an intriguing blend of first-person gameplay with RPG character building elements: utilizing skill points, players gained skills in computers, electronics, environmental training, lockpicking, medicine, swimming, and of course, weaponry. While some growth in all levels was possible, there were never enough skill points in a single playthrough to master more than a couple of these areas. When coupled with the game's extraordinarily open-ended level design, the player was privy to a wealth of possibilities; a player could snipe, sneak, hack, swim, or attempt to assault their way through the levels, which incorporated designs that would support any of these skills. This gave the player a feeling of authorship as they built their character, as the choices he or she made would greatly effect the strategy necessary to progress in the game.
This, while rare, was not entirely unique to Deus Ex. The System Shock series of games, released in the nineties, was based on a somewhat similar presence. Personal experience with System Shock 2 led to knowledge of the skill points and upgrades in that game, which placed you in either the marines (Brute), the navy (Tech Skills), or psychic warriors (Mental) that strongly effected gameplay, requiring the player to use the main attributes of his or her military class to survive. While not as free as Deus Ex, this still provided for a far more personal experience than most first-person games. It should also be noted that Warren Spector was involved with the System Shock series.
This intriguing and deeply-immersive blend of role-playing and first-person gameplay interests us considerably, and it shows that gaming is beginning to evolve. We believe this is a result of games becoming more mainstream with wider acceptance by society, now that the media backlash against games as a new media is finally beginning to back off after thirty years. The superlative reviews of Deus Ex and System Shock and relative commercial success - both games spawned sequels, and Deus Ex was released in a "Game of the Year" edition - seems to demonstrate that not only are games becoming more mainstream, but that they are also gaining credibility as a viable artistic medium. If this is the case, then we believe that it is time to take the step from superficial, albeit extremely compelling and sometimes complex, thematics into an artistic and culturally aware realm, examining and commenting on the vast social, philosophical, and aesthetic issues our society faces; the moment is right for a game that actually challenges the player to think about the moral and social impact of the decisions made in the game.
Inspired by the likes of Deus Ex, we've considered creating a first-person game that forces the player to examine cultural issues. The possibility we've most considered is a game set during a war in which the player would control a squad leader, likely a sergeant. We've chosen this scenario because of the many possible moral questions that a soldier would likely face, and as a squad leader, this would add to the player's sense of responsibility and tactical possibilities for gameplay. Multiple paths could be taken throughout the game world, some of which could rely on the skills of certain squad members or the player; some paths could and would prove more costly than others, resulting in more deaths of your squad members, civilians, and the other side. The idea is to present a world of contradictions in which the player must make difficult decisions about who and how many should live and die, is the side he or she is fighting for the right one, and if not, does that matter? A branching story would be implemented to allow the player's moral decisions to affect the game's plot progression. Obviously, true non-linearity would be impossible but the goal is to leave as many opportunities open as we can to give the player authorship.
We believe this can be successful due to the popularity and respect afforded to a game such as Deus Ex, as our game draws a similar premise as a first-person role-playing experience. This is an interesting area to explore both artistically and commercially: artistically, because the first-person viewpoint is by definition so personally involving, and commercially, there is a wide body of precedent that indicates a promising sales-base. On consoles, 30.6% of all games sold are first-person-shooters and another 9% are role-playing games. The numbers are almost as high on PC where 16.3% of games sold are FPSs and 10% are RPGs. There is even an international market that could offer great sales opportunities. For example, in the United Kingdom, 4 of the top 20 games in September 2005 were FPSs and 2 were RPGs. Even more intriguingly, 9 of those games were war-themed, showing another promising angle for a possible market of war-themed game enthusiasts.
In closing, we feel that the first-person role-playing experience is ripe for change. We propose to create a game that will engage the player meaningfully and emotionally that will also allow the player to influence the gameplay based upon their reactions through the actions of their in-game character.
October 24, 2005
Research and Inspiration for Final Projects by Justin Lin and Logan Olson
Research and Inspiration for Final Projects by Justin Lin and Logan Olson
While searching for a game to create, we took various game elements that seemed innovative and interesting to us and combined them to form the game we wanted. One of the goals we wanted to accomplish was to create a visceral high-intensity action packed game that was innovative, and possessed qualities that could appeal to different audiences. We tried to search for simplicity, and allow complexity to spawn from that simplicity. We wanted something that was an organic experience, where the player would not be frustrated, but rather enticed by the mysterious possibilities of his mistakes or frustrations. One of our basic ideas was going to be about this "ribbon-like" innocent and lively character that would go about a dystopian surreal world, defeating various enemies with his powers. His powers would essentially consist of him moving his entire ribbon body to slash, kill, wrap, twirl, transform, mutate, etc. in order to overcome his obstacles. A story would eventually follow what we created for the basic gameplay sceme. Though the idea is still rough, we decided to research the elements we thought we wanted in a game:
1. Unconventional games
While "Ico" was commercially unsuccessful, it was a critical hit (91% on gamerankings.com).
More recently, Katamari Damacy, has been successful critically and financially. A sequel was just published, and immediately sold out due to underestimation of sales.
Okami has yet to be released, but is greatly anticipated by the video game media.
All three games feature unconventional play features or narratives. Ico takes place in a dream-like state, with no clear conflict established at the outset and a lemming-like feature to the gameplay in guiding a princess around the world. Katamari Damacy solely consists of rolling up the world into a ball. Okami takes place in a wood-block painting which the player, as a wolf, must bring back to life.
The concept of cel-shading also appealed to us. Looking toward games such as The Legend of Zelda: The Windwalker, Viewtiful Joe, Dark Cloud 2, and Zone of the Enders 1 and 2. The cel-shading effect according to various people makes the experience more accessible, especially to younger aged kids, but not so that the adult players would be scared away from it.While we hoped for a protagonist design to be a very solid colored design, we still wanted an edgy look to it, very streamlined and organic, but still technological, achieving in essence a sort of design balance for adults and kids. The background with all it's dark shadows and odd worlds would help to contrast our character providing the clear distinction between good, evil, and the not-so-normal.. We thought various elements of cel-shading (the cartoony look of texturing) could be used to create the character, that totally contrasted the dystopia world of the noir realist/surrealist background.
Movie/Anime influences: Evangelion, The Matrix, Aliens (a fusion of organic and technological).
2. Control schemes
Katamari Damacy is controlled using the two analog sticks to move and face all possibilities on a 2D plane.
Zone of Enders and ZOE 2 use the control sticks to control movement on a 2D plane and camera. Two buttons are used for the 3rd plane (up and down). This is all supplemented with auto-targetting.
Rise to Honor (Jet Li's game) uses one stick to control movement and the other to attack.
The face buttons in these games are mainly there to serve as triggers for special moves or to manipulate the environment (an action button, etc.)
Fight Night 1 and 2 uses dual stick controls to give an organic feel to controlling a boxer in the ring. There are no jagged moves, and it feels like you are controlling all aspects of what a boxer can do, from dodging to punching to countering.
In terms of creating a ribbon character that was fluid in motion, as well as simple in operation, we looked at games that had similarities in simplicity. We wanted to create the fluid use of Katamari Damacy's dual stick control, with the quick auto targetting of Zone of the Enders. The reason for this is because, in Katamari Damacy, whenever the action slowed down, the player would feel tired and frustrated. But with ZOE 2, there is always this non-stop feeling of visceral action that gripped you to your seat because you displayed a ballet of destruction before you. This made your actions feel cool because you can auto target your enemies, and yet it was still challenging because of the sheer number of things you could use and destroy.
3. Artistic research:
For cyberpunk backgrounds: H.R. Giger - http://www.hrgiger.com/ The designer incorporates organic objects into this technological feel. Similar to Aliens and The Matrix designs.
For protagonist design: Look at gymnastic streamer performances and "Legend of Zu."
Make the character simple in design, while making him elaborate in transformation. A sort of multi-purpose design, where each of it's design elements, however simple it maybe, could transform into something totally complex when needed for attack or for actions.
We did not want the character to be anthropomorphic nor anywhere near the uncanny valley. We wanted something more iconic and simple in graphics, so that people can view it simply and understand it easily.
4. Special moves:
"Legend of Zu" is a film that incorporates fantastic, sentient, malliable weapons. It is choreographed by Yuen Wo-Ping so it is aesthetically pleasing and satisfyingly violent.
Other ideas might come from "Red Ninja" (lackluster PS2 game) and chain-whip wushu routines (all the materials referenced are on hand, except Red Ninja)
Moves can become emergent like through a combo system. Whereas, when we attack an enemy a certain way, and create new moves from the system. However, we strive not to make these combos and special moves seem repetitive. (aka Megaman, Fighting games like Tekken or Street Fighter).
5. Camera Angles:
While looking through the previously mentioned games, we hoped for a perspective camera that would not distort, bore, or confuse the reader.
Since the games we were looking at were mostly third person, we thought of various third person ideas. There were games like Katamari, where the camera changes according to your ball, and ZOE2, where the camera is fixed according to your robot. Games like Resident Evil 4, fixed your 3rd person view, unless you turned around. Then there were games where the camera is fully adjustable. We wanted a camera angle that was both intuitive and fun in an all 3d world.
6. Story:
There would be a pre-set narrative story where we would create an outlining 3-act structure, where the character has a goal, goes through various obstacles to get to his goal, and obtain it. Since our character design has been more toward the abstract and iconic, we wanted to make people identify with the character's simplicity. There would be a story that would have emotional intensity in it, but not to the point where the story dictates the game play too much. This would provide a more detached feeling toward the character, but we wanted our focus to be more on the game than the story. Katamari is a good example of this. We want this to be a game that is accessible to both the hardcore and casual gamer.
October 19, 2005
Usability Test: Loop
Shon-Ting Fu
Peter Van Dyke
Joe Barnes
Interface Pros:
- Clear Design
- User did not have any trouble realizing control scheme
- User did not have difficulty discovering how to use controls to advance the game
- Time restraints seemed natural and were communicated well
Interface/Game Cons:
- Too “simple”
- No explanation for the point system in the game
- Also no display of the point system
- Power-ups were ambiguous and were not explained
- Pause mechanic counterintuitive
- Boring
- Engaging, but over time player loses interest
Loop is a very simple game built around a mechanic of catching butterflies. The player, in this case Jeremy Kopman, uses the mouse to create circles around the butterflies to “net” them. Once a player has netted a certain number of butterflies (before the time runs out), the game advances to the next level. The user interface was very intuitive, as could be seen from the ease with which our player understood the controls. Overall the mechanic was simple and easy to use, but the game itself did not appear to be engaging to our player. He commented after the test that the game was “engaging,” but that he did not feel committed to continue playing – he did not feel bad when he lost. He also pointed out how easy the game was, and that in a lot of ways he was thirsting for a little more complexity to the main mechanic… the game was too easy. He knew that he was improving, but never understood how some of the power-ups worked. Overall, Jeremy enjoyed the game, but not enough to play again.
Usability Test by Justin, John, and Melawie(?)
Blix
Interface Issues:
1. Screen is too crowded at times (Severity 1)
2. Player does not get any feedback of him getting better (0)
3. Did not understand time limit (3)
4. Too easy (3)
5. Repetitive (3)
Top 3 revision suggestions
1. Mix up levels
2. Better tutorial explaining the strategies, controls, and mechanics of the game.
3. A more friendly and simpler interface by making it bigger and less compact.
Blix is an action puzzle game, where you try to bounce balls into a box using barriers that you place around the grid. One of the problems that we had with this game, is that the tutorial did not provide enough information for us to accurately play the game. So this caused the difficulty level to be a bit high when you first started because you'd have to figure out how the mechanics of using the barriers would work. Each barrier you place, depending on whhere on the each grid square you placed it would cause it to bounce a certain way. When you watched a player play the game, at first it took some getting used to for them. But once they got the hang of it, they improved dramatically, when they understood how the game work. The thing is, the player didn't realize that he was improving, which is quite suprising.
Text Twist
by Aaron, Logan, and Jeremy
The subject was sent to the web address of the game and asked to play without any instruction except to "think out loud."
During play the subject negatively stated that he:
1. Found the interface unintuitive
2. Was guessing and pressing things. "Twist" and the "Last Word" options were mysterious and therefore, he did not press them
Positive statements:
1. Felt like it was the right amount of (limited) time
After the test was over:
1. Did not realize that he could use the keyboard (as informed afterwards)
2. Did not care about his Score
3. "Hated" the game
4. Did not like color scheme
5. Found "Twist" to useless
It should be noted that the subject did not like word games (Scrabble, etc.).
We decided that the following improvements should be given consideration: a) either an onscreen instruction that the keyboard was usable for input or a disabling of the mouse's ability to select letters to allow the user to intuitively start using the keyboard, as the keyboard allows for a more fair game than slowly clicking away at letters; b) an incentive for the player to earn a higher score, perhaps being able to buy hints (definitions, synonyms, etc. to the 6-letter word?) or to purchase more time with score points - though this would immediately lower his or her score, it would give the player more opportunity to advance forward and earn more points; c) more color to add life to the game.
October 11, 2005
Team Deviants proposal
Project proposal for Team Deviants. Enjoy!
October 4, 2005
Emergence in Second Life
Second Life
Upon first impression, Second Life seems like the perfect play world. It has several fun things to do, manipulating objects, creating objects, and interacting with others. And it just so happens that the vast possibilities when it comes to item creation and interaction come together to create a strong level of emergence. The description of the game alone satisfies the definition of emergence. As the writing by Salen and Zimmerman include, and what is a perfect definition of second life "A modest number of rules appleid again and again to a limited collection of objects leads to variety, novelty, and surprise..." I think a perfect example of this in Second Life is the limited rules of...
Me and my new friend with his snazzy gear
this situation. Creating objects (dice). Interacting with objects (sitting on the dice). Manipulating objects (picking up the dice). These three rules yield something quite differant than what you could do with only the first two rules in place. It is the vital third major ability that allows emergence to come from this situation. What does this situation yield? A person boringly sitting on a die? NO! A fun and hilarious scene in which the character goes flying through the air, all while seated on the die.
Identity and Emergence
When Celia first described second life as being highly avatar oriented, I didn't understand it. I understood that many things could be done to change a persons appearance, but I just didn't image the ability to create truly anything using the tools available in second life. Rather than having a simple pallete that allows you to create a character wearing differant colored clothing, and have varying sizes, Second Life allows you to alter every aspect of your persona. As I type this I am envisioning the Jedi I will have to try to create when I have free time. Emergence is clearly present in the avatar personalization aspect of this game, a few rules, objects, textures, and body manipulation, allow for characters ranging from space aliens, to robots, to dragons. As well as the avatar, your identity can be changed by the way you interact with other characters, adding another aspect that allows you to do just about anything. Your posessions also help define who you are, this person I ran into bought a Ferrari!
Emergence applies to your identity in that your identity itself is something in which there are infinite possiblities. Compared to something like lineage, where there are very few things distinguishing one character from another, Second Life allows users to modify their characters beyond their wildest dreams.
October 3, 2005
Emergence in Second Life
The second life world is a very diverse one, and there are a couple of things that stood out to me as I traveled around. The first was a complete lack of meaningful play within the gameworld. This change my opinion of second life from “game” to “world,” and I believe that once this happens one can more accurately judge the system itself...
And that’s the second thing that I noticed within the game: the system. The reason this stood out was because within the game rules itself, there is no system, no meaningful play at all provided by the game designers. The entire world is player generated, and everything that players generate is open for other players to see, experience, and use. Within this we have two different types of emergence: What I like to call “random” emergence, and “societal” emergence. Some people like to create random stuff, or what appears to be random to other people within the gameworld that don’t know the ramifications of the items, buildings, or pictures that other players created or added. There’s no real benefit to them for creating these random islands, but it’s a lot of fun and they can do it with their friends, laughing as other players enter their domain and are confused as to what meaning it has. Societal emergence is much simpler – people like to do what will be generally accepted or what “fits” within the area in which they are creating things. Curiously, Second Life illustrates far more “random” creations than “societal” ones, and I think there are a couple of reasons why this is.
The first and most obvious reason is that people enjoy making things with other people. Simply because of this, there is going to be a certain level of uniqueness to anything created, ESPECIALLY if the two (or more) people creating them have a context. And that’s the second reason: context. There are hundreds of thousands of objects in Second Life, and quite a few have contexts that extend out of the game itself. I found this the most interesting part of running around in the game world. There was a definite trend of people pulling information from other games or the internet and creating some type of personification of that information/game/community in the Second Life world.
I mentioned the SomethingAwful forums during class a week or so ago, so I thought I’d expand on it here because it helps to illustrate the point that I just made. Players like to create things that they can relate to in the world, and while doing so a lot of the context can be lost on other Second Life players within the game who aren’t in on the joke. So to get us started here are a couple of screenshots from the SomethingAwful domain (they have an entire island):
Now, I can pull all kinds of meaning out of the objects and what’s actually making up their little world here, but if you introduced this to someone who didn’t have experience on the forums, almost all of the jokes within the objects would be lost and it would be reduced to “wow, that’s hilarious, it’s so random.” This is not the only situation I found that people added their own context to the in-game world. In fact, almost everything in the game has a personal touch from their creator(s), and some communities go as far as to recreate entire worlds within Second Life (an example would be the Uru area that we visited in class).
I really enjoy the lack of meaningful play within Second Life. It takes away the pretext for actually having to perform, and allows people to do whatever they like – effectively making Second Life a virtual world instead of just a gamescape. It makes everything player driven, player created, player scripted, players even determine the rules within their domain. Players create worlds based on what they want to see, and become designers themselves.
Actually, I would even go as far as saying that Second Life is less like a “video game” and more like Magic the Gathering. The entire system of the game (if you can call it that) is designed to allow players to create their own systems. You create what you want to see and do, and then others can experience it as well. It’s the closest thing to a metaverse we’ve seen yet, but it still has a little ways to go.
I’ll end with a picture of me, because emergence has allowed my character to look absolutely awesome:
Identity Crisis: Observations on Second Life and the Emergence of Mutability as Play (Assignment 6)
I wonder if the creators of Second Life anticipated that the online virtual world they created would turn into a fun-house mirror representation of reality. The game world most likely resembles how Earth would be if everyone had amorphous identities with the ability to fly, teleport, and instantly create objects from thin air. There are familiar representations from our experience – theme parks, casinos, malls – but the interesting thing is how they dominate the landscape, and how alien they feel, as if the Internet were turned into a three-dimensional space and unleashed upon us all.
Then there are the Furries.
My experience of Second Life was something I had to create for myself, as outside of the tutorial, there is no direction to the game besides what one makes for oneself. Because this doesn’t even come close to resembling a quasi-linear game experience, it’s difficult at first for me to get my bearings, and the community seems to be dispersed and concentrated in various areas. A critical consequence of this lack of shared “game world” questing and direction is that more of the players’ energies and identity is tied up with subcultures and construction, and as a result groups of players become more divergent from one another, a facet I’ll tap into later.
In checking out Second Life, I decided to go to the most popular areas of the game, to see what the dominant culture and play of the game was like, and at the same time also see what kinds of games the denizens of Second Life have created – how they’ve brought structure to the world, so to speak. The dominant forms of gaming I saw involved playing with the physics engine and recreation of board games. I skydived and parachuted, interesting activities in a world where everyone can fly and teleport; there was also a demolition derby-style game in which people crashed cars into one another. I also found many versions of board games in various places around the world. Their presence is probably facilitated by the world being primarily Socializer-oriented, and games such as Monopoly and “Settlers of Second Life” (a version of Settlers of Catan) are fun ways to pass the time while Socializing, so they are recreated to serve that purpose in Second Life.
However, by far the most dominant form of gaming in Second Life was gambling. As Michael Wolfe pointed out, there are many casinos where people try to win Linden Dollars, the online currency of Second Life. These casinos dominate the landscape and made up the majority of the “most popular places” list. The population of this area is interesting, again because of the way it replicates reality in a distorted fashion. The only way to earn money in Second Life is to create objects that people want to buy (planes, boats, clothes), or own objects that people want to use that give you money (blackjack tables, vending machines). If one can do neither of those, they are forced to gamble to increase their stipends, which seems foolhardy, especially since one cannot examine the machines in the game world to make sure they are legitimate and not rigged. However, the non-creatives have no other option. I believed seeing rows and rows of people plugging Linden Dollars into virtual slot machines was depressing, until I saw groups of people “camping” – that is, sitting in the casinos to earn trickles of money, about a dollar every ten minutes.
One wonders what the money is used for. Well, in a game world where mobility is unrestricted, and there is no over-arching game “quest”, the most important thing one possesses is identity. Second only to casinos are the thousands of stores selling avatar customizations, clothes, and avatar toys. They’re everywhere, and they’re organized in mall fashion, again a representation of reality – but they’re floating in space, or they have no ceilings, again a distortion of reality. You can be rated on appearance, and the appearance of the avatar is the only thing that distinguishes you from others (after all, there are no Molten Shoulder Blades of the Eagle that grant +40 to Agility), so people spend their money to set themselves apart from everyone else.
And thus we come to the crux of the game world – the creation of subcultures and divergent identities. I mentioned before that casinos dominated the “Most Popular Places” list; that was before I clicked on the checkbox that said “Include Mature Places”. It is like unlocking a door into the seamy underworld that one never knew existed. Again, it is an inversion of reality, in which deviant sexualities and modes of action that go against real-world norms become the dominant modes of action .
Wikipedia states that the dominant subculture of Second Life are the Goths; from personal anecdotal evidence, I would have to disagree and posit that there are far more Furries – people who fetishize animals and the anthropomorphic representation of animal sex. I encountered this subculture twice during my exploration of Second Life. The first was while I was trying to find another gaming area, I was directed to an elevator. Because of a scripting bug, the elevator was stuck between floors, and in trying to exit, I found myself in another building, one which was covered wall-to-wall with graphic art depicting anthropomorphized animal sex. The second was purposeful exploration, since the fourth most-popular place in Second Life was “Island Sim of FurNation Prime. Furry based sim maintained by FurNation Multimedia. Home of the famous Club Fur!” There, while trying my new motorcycle object (which, incidentally, I received as a gift from “Pure Passion”, ostensibly “Home to the Most Erotic Orgies in Second Life”), I stumbled upon a Furry gathering, in which players with animal avatars were re-enacting scenarios similar to the art I had previously seen, thanks to custom animations.
I have no doubt that other representations of deviance exist in the game world – virtual prostitution, racketeering, other sexual fetishes – but it is interesting to contemplate how these elements have become such a big part of the world of Second Life. Celia Pearce notes that “The computer is an ideal place to manifest a fantasy world. It allows for a wide variety of effects that cannot happen in real life” – a boon for those who wish to recreate difficult or impossible scenarios, such as the Furries. And because it is a “Second Life,” one divorced from one’s real life, it is likely to become an inversion, and the impulses one represses in reality come out in the game world.
Thus, the creators of Second Life have facilitated the process. Not directly, of course. As Salen and Zimmerman point out, game designers are second-order creators: they create a framework for player experience, but they do not make the experience themselves. This is doubly true for “Second Life,” for the creators give the players a blank world and ask them to make what they want. Linden Labs didn’t create the casinos, the malls, “Club Fur” or “Pure Passion” – players did, because those are the things they wanted to see, and those places would facilitate the types of experience they wish to have. Thus, it is the realization of Pearce’s statement that in gaming, “the consumer is thus transformed into consumer/producer and consumption itself becomes an act of production.” This is the result of emergence – from empty plots of land and basic scripting and modeling tools, we get a whole bevy of deviant subcultures and the sprawl of online commercialism – much like real life.
--
Images:
Settlers of Second Life, a recreation of Settlers of Catan
Parachuting
A Board Game in which one nukes European countries for points. France is a highly valued target.
The Teleporter for Pure Passion. (They gave me a shirt, a motorcycle, and a convertible.)
A work-safe image of a Furry.
Second Life
Second life is by far the most user influenced game that I have played as of yet. It is essentially an area ripe for user based input. One of the most fundamental defining feature of a game is its architecture. As Second Life is almost entirely built by the players themselves, there is a lot to be seen.
To begin with, one of the most basic elements of Second Life is the world itself. In some ways, it reminds me a bit of building new house in a neighborhood. There are rules and regulations that you follow in your building process. Like in real life, you can only build as much as you can afford. As well, unless you are a master carpenter or run your own furniture store, chances are that you'll want to buy some furniture.
I once heard that the internet is great because the playing field is equal between people of higher and lower social economic status. In the world of Second Life, however, I'm not sure this is entirely true. From what I've gathered from my short stay, those people with the most money can afford to make the fanciest buildings, design the best looking avatar, and own the most land. If this is true, then it suggests there might be a deeper rift after all.
To be honest, however, I'm not entirely sure how accurate that generalization is. While it may exist in some aspects of Second Life, the differences are likely not extreme.
In general, I think my only real complaint about Second Life is just the amount of time that the world takes to rez. Lag is, after all, one of the biggest complaints in the online world, Second Life is definitely not an exception. Once the world finally loads, its a fun place to explore. I particularly liked the Numbakulla Island Project. More than not, I'm starting to get curious about the game Uru. Its interesting to see how much influence that game has had on the imagination of its players.
Emergence, however, does fascinate me. In Second Life, it can be said that emergence is basically the entire driving force of the world. Creativity is encouraged. Unlike a story that has a definitive, however, emergence has a tendency to keep on going. If there's been one case of it, then you can be sure that that won't be the end of it. Another interesting facet of the user based world is that everything is essentially a work in progress. This can be both good and bad. It is good in the sense that it allows for a great amount of diversity and branching out from the original ideas. Many new fun activities may be created, none of which were likely planned. However, it can also be bad in the sense that there doesn't need to be any sort of connection to the game and may also lack order. It doesn't necessarily have to follow any specific rules and can go any direction it wants. Once emergence starts to occur, a game will never be the same. Whether it is good or bad is up for the players to decide.
October 2, 2005
Why I Should Avoid Las Vegas
Second Life is by far the most emergence-heavy MMORPG I have ever played. Through my brief explorations into the world, I have discovered a richness and variety of areas and places that games like World of Warcraft and City of Heroes can only dream about.
Of course, the main reason for such high levels of emergence in Second Life is because of the user-created content system. Within the confines of this system the only limitations on what players can build are time, their imaginations and how much money they’re willing to spend. In Second Life many people are willing to spend a lot. While exploring the game world I came across several different types of vehicles. Most of them cost several hundred Lynden dollars to buy. I saw a rocket ship that went for L$600 and a World War II era motorcycle that sold for around L$350. Unfortunately I couldn’t afford to buy them. Not all vehicles have to be paid for, however. I copied a boat I found docked at a massive skyscraper and motored around in it for a bit.
Identity is closely tied with emergence. This is true for both business owners in Second Life and for newbie like me. No matter how long you’ve been playing, your experiences shape the character of your avatar. I came across a good example of this in the form of a spooky fun house. It was called Sinatra’s Spook House. For the low price of L$1 anyone can enjoy the ride’s bizarre and admittedly corny special effects. Afterwards, I received a free t-shirt. This shirt is more valuable to be because it emerged out of my play experience rather than simply being handed to me by the game.
Of course, not all instances of emergence are beneficial. I found this out when I stumbled into this gambling parlor and decided to test my luck. I started out winning about L$30 or so and decided to press my luck. Like in Salen & Zimmerman’s increased risk penny-flipping variant, the simple act of betting L$10 and pressing a button became more meaningful with the prospect of earning more money and the risk of losing it all. Unfortunately for me, I had a stroke of bad luck and ended up losing over L$100. So it looks like I won’t be buying that rocket ship any time soon.