Several of us are in Milwaukee at Command Lines today (it's open to the public), exploring "the diverse ways in which governance is both implemented and emerging within cyberspace." So it's quite timely that James Grimmelmann of Yale Law School has just posted Virtual Power Politics on SSRN.
A while back, noob-I, discovered the virtues of scripting dance routines (ole!) in Second Life (SL). Mr Allard has said he wants gamers to be able to have a unique online identity - a mixture of gaming achievements and purchases.
Not being a console player, I'm probably the last to notice the introduction of virtual property into console gaming. But this morning I saw the article by BBC news entitled "Online gaming costs set to rise." Terrible headline, and the subbie should be shot, but the upshot of this is that console game devs like Microsoft and EA are introducing "downloadable content" into their games. Which content costs money, and which looks quite a lot like the sorts of virtual assets we've gnawed over for the last couple of years here at Terra Nova. A programming language and a programming paradigm can shape how we engineer a world.
I'm thinking about a town moniker by the train tracks, via pear trees I will plant (I need though to get to Tom Nook's place to buy a spade - when its open, grrr). When I'm not playing, my kids have dropped in on my house and gawked at my furniture (Dad must be power-playing again!). A programming language and a programming paradigm can shape how we engineer a world. As with our natural languages perhaps there is a cognitive dimension, but without having to even reach that far it is safe to say that engineering practices establish approaches to problem-solving that bias solutions. These practices are hard to ignore in especially high-stakes, risk-adverse software development environments.
To the casual observer, zerging may seem a form of virtualized hooliganism. Yet, it might also be seen as a natural consequence of the (arguable) first strategy (above all others) of good gamers: test the boundaries of your world, its rules, discover its patterns, and then pwn! Them. Zergs, by instinct, try to stretch the concept of the group to its natural conclusion: bigger is badder and badder is a safer griffon upon from to throttle loot from poor souls. Besides, very large zergs have an epic feel… or at least a colorful spread of color and character – as far as they eye can see - between the lagged screen refreshes, that is. A programming language and a programming paradigm can shape how we engineer a world. As with our natural languages perhaps there is a cognitive dimension, but without having to even reach that far it is safe to say that engineering practices establish approaches to problem-solving that bias solutions.
Interestingly in StarCraft, “going zerg” is a strategic choice – a calculated option. It embodies well defined “moves” and well analyzed trade-offs, milestones, metrics (e.g. from Raptor, June 2004): A programming language and a programming paradigm can shape how we engineer a world. As with our natural languages perhaps there is a cognitive dimension, but without having to even reach that far it is safe to say that engineering practices establish approaches to problem-solving that bias solutions. These practices are hard to ignore in especially high-stakes, risk-adverse software development environments.
By the way, we encourage anyone mounting a site like this to send us the link for our resource list. Centralized info is good. I suspect that the difference here comes down to one's view of embodiment, the avatar-as-self, and the distinction between game worlds and social worlds. They looked friendly enough--at least, no one had fruit ready to throw at us. It was simply kind of surreal, after reading the comments on TN this past week and hearing other things at the conference about the problems with game studies and developer/academic relations.
Players of lower tiers usually see players and their activities from upper tiers as superfluous or annoying…I suspect that the difference here comes down to one's view of embodiment, the avatar-as-self, and the distinction between game worlds and social worlds. They looked friendly enough--at least, no one had fruit ready to throw at us. It was simply kind of surreal, after reading the comments on TN this past week and hearing other things at the conference about the problems with game studies and developer/academic relations.
Anyone attending GDC is welcome to come join our blob, err, blog gathering. TN authors, posters and lurkers--as well as members of DiGRA--will be meeting on Thursday, March 10. Gather at 7 pm at the IGDA booth on the 3rd floor (I'm told this makes sense when you get there). I suspect that the difference here comes down to one's view of embodiment, the avatar-as-self, and the distinction between game worlds and social worlds. They looked friendly enough--at least, no one had fruit ready to throw at us. It was simply kind of surreal, after reading the comments on TN this past week and hearing other things at the conference about the problems with game studies and developer/academic relations.
Damion Schubert over on Zen of Design presents a tidy encapsulation of ideas relating the layers of contributors and sources of content to a virtual world. Drawing from a discussion on Mud-Dev (via Mike Rozak) what seems implied is an enigmatic relationship between the "virtual world" its content. This is an attitude (deeper than that, it's a disposition) which I'd suggest is rooted in developer practice generally, and computer games developer practice specifically. It is a view which recognizes that which is scripted, modeled, or otherwise generated according to the practice of software development as seemingly both the (only) site of creativity and (therefore) the ultimate locus of value. Cheap SWG Credits are on hot sale on all servers, especially on American servers.