Wednesday, February 20, 2008
How to survive in beyond reality world
Grega, I've found these video from Affiliate Summit 2006, down in the video area about surviving in internet world. Maybe you and Tatie could comment, if you agree with what the guy in video says? Specialiy I am interested in using a blog for a commerial purpose.
Emotions in virtual world
So far emotions in virtual worlds have been limited to text messages or so called “emoticons” or “smileys”. Users had no other way of expressing their emotions. Sure one could use capital letters to simulate screaming, but were they in fact really screaming or just forgot to turn off the “caps lock”? Same goes for various sounds and “smileys”. If someone said they were happy or posted a happy face, were they really happy or they just stated that? With advance in digital graphics faces or avatars in virtual worlds got their expression. But that expression is still controlled in a conscious way. So even though we may be looking to a happy face on monitor the user sending that signal could just as well feel sad and depressed. This masking of true emotions is often used in online dating. Where person might not turn out to be in real life what he is online.
But it seems progress has been made on this area. A company Emotiv made an affordable controller that actually uses brainwaves to control action on the screen. You feel happy? The character feels happy. You want to grab something? The character grabs something. Even though technology was available before it wasn’t affordable nor was it practical. Now it seems a breakthrough has been made. Once the prices drop even more we can expect social behaviour of people in MMORPG and in virtual worlds to change. It will be much harder to conceal emotions if you use this kind of device. So there is a question how many people will actually like that fact. After all internet gave the freedom to chat and connect juts because the people could represent themselves differently as they do in real life. As simple glimpse on their chosen nicknames will show you that - RazorBlade, Casper, Subzero and Devious just to name a few. They all show these people that use them inspire to be someone else (or at least to be known as someone else) on internet.
But it seems progress has been made on this area. A company Emotiv made an affordable controller that actually uses brainwaves to control action on the screen. You feel happy? The character feels happy. You want to grab something? The character grabs something. Even though technology was available before it wasn’t affordable nor was it practical. Now it seems a breakthrough has been made. Once the prices drop even more we can expect social behaviour of people in MMORPG and in virtual worlds to change. It will be much harder to conceal emotions if you use this kind of device. So there is a question how many people will actually like that fact. After all internet gave the freedom to chat and connect juts because the people could represent themselves differently as they do in real life. As simple glimpse on their chosen nicknames will show you that - RazorBlade, Casper, Subzero and Devious just to name a few. They all show these people that use them inspire to be someone else (or at least to be known as someone else) on internet.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Building social network by playing computer games?
Is that even possible? Games are often defined as something evil and a waste of time. Sure there are plenty of them (if not all) that are meant to entertain those who need to be entertained. Bu they can be more than that as well.
Often clusters and networks that are created by modern computer games are not seen and hence the focus is shifter to other things. Such as for example in-game violence. But many games often have their own (sometimes large) community. People meet on these community sites or spots and chat. The structure almost seems to follow a certain pattern. And it might even be worthwhile investigating form social science point of view. A quick look on any forums will tell you have basically 3 major topics. The game - where people discuss "the coolness" and "awesomeness" of the particular game. Then there is a help section - where people come to ask help. And then there is the chat section. A quick view on any gaming forum will show where most posts are. In the chat section - where people just interact, debate and exchange information on topics that are not related to the game (moderators take care that that is the case).
One might say that debate over other topics prevails over game discussion. After all a lot of games leave nothing to discuss about. A few options, a few quirks, glitches and bugs. And that's it... But the chat section it's filled with various topics. From personal problems of members, to daily politics, sports and events.
The only problem is that these networks don’t seem to be stable. People come, stay, people go. The only more stable ones are the ones dedicated to the project. Yet again they last only until the project lasts.
An interesting project is Mount & Blade. Started by a small team - husband and wife - it evolved fast with help of a large community and mod developers. With many followers and many people already purchased the unfinished game (project?!) it seems to be a success.
There are plenty options available through modifications. The biggest one is to easily represent the history of a country through game and offer it to other people to experience it. An example is 100 years war mod or Holy War mod. Too bad there is no “Slovenia in middle ages” mod. But there are Slovenians participating in development of othe rmods. Well at least something I guess….
Often clusters and networks that are created by modern computer games are not seen and hence the focus is shifter to other things. Such as for example in-game violence. But many games often have their own (sometimes large) community. People meet on these community sites or spots and chat. The structure almost seems to follow a certain pattern. And it might even be worthwhile investigating form social science point of view. A quick look on any forums will tell you have basically 3 major topics. The game - where people discuss "the coolness" and "awesomeness" of the particular game. Then there is a help section - where people come to ask help. And then there is the chat section. A quick view on any gaming forum will show where most posts are. In the chat section - where people just interact, debate and exchange information on topics that are not related to the game (moderators take care that that is the case).
One might say that debate over other topics prevails over game discussion. After all a lot of games leave nothing to discuss about. A few options, a few quirks, glitches and bugs. And that's it... But the chat section it's filled with various topics. From personal problems of members, to daily politics, sports and events.
The only problem is that these networks don’t seem to be stable. People come, stay, people go. The only more stable ones are the ones dedicated to the project. Yet again they last only until the project lasts.
An interesting project is Mount & Blade. Started by a small team - husband and wife - it evolved fast with help of a large community and mod developers. With many followers and many people already purchased the unfinished game (project?!) it seems to be a success.
There are plenty options available through modifications. The biggest one is to easily represent the history of a country through game and offer it to other people to experience it. An example is 100 years war mod or Holy War mod. Too bad there is no “Slovenia in middle ages” mod. But there are Slovenians participating in development of othe rmods. Well at least something I guess….
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