Hank Hoodoo: do you think it's fundamentally bad for VW's to be part of the real world? I submit for your comments the idea that the reason many developers have a hard time finding anything of value not only from researchers, but often from their own players, is that they are, in effect, seeing a different world, all the time. 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.
Valadeza Anubis: QUESTION FROM: Mechanique Thirty: QUESTION: I submit for your comments the idea that the reason many developers have a hard time finding anything of value not only from researchers, but often from their own players, is that they are, in effect, seeing a different world, all the time. 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.
Moving beyond this, take the piano example I use in many of my talks. I show the screen shot sequence needed to construct a piano in Ultima Online. Sure, it looks like a piano, but it isn't a piano in any useful way. In the same way, even the most evocative description of a piano isn't a piano. But a suitably constructed and simulated piano in a 3D world is a piano in every meaningful way. I submit for your comments the idea that the reason many developers have a hard time finding anything of value not only from researchers, but often from their own players, is that they are, in effect, seeing a different world, all the time.
Given that the virtual worlds we spend 20 hours a week in are able to keep track of everything we do in them, there's a gold-mine of social science data (personality, social networks, etc.) that's being accumulated. It's a pity that it's so hard to get access to aggregate server-side data. This is changing though with games like World of Warcraft that allow third-party census mods. But so far, most census mods have only served to provide snapshot data. I submit for your comments the idea that the reason many developers have a hard time finding anything of value not only from researchers, but often from their own players, is that they are, in effect, seeing a different world, all the time.
The first, "Evolving Nemo", details the creation of evolving AI creatures within Second Life. While boids and genetic algorithms built on top of SL's scripting language are interesting, what pushes this effort over the top is the use of shared code and standards within SL's ALife group. I submit for your comments the idea that the reason many developers have a hard time finding anything of value not only from researchers, but often from their own players, is that they are, in effect, seeing a different world, all the time.
Text worlds allow creators to write code and text to generate an interactive text description of skydiving. Simulated worlds allow that and also allow creators to build parachutes and airplanes that enable skydiving in a 3D world. 'Nuff said.
Maybe the issue is the "larger" community. It's always easy to abstract and oversimplify at that level. But I know that on an individual level, there are real conversations and collaborations going on. I don't want this to turn into some rosy "it's better than we think" or "can't we all just get along" thing, but I do think that perhaps the situation is not as dire as it's hyped to be. But then again, I haven't gotte my evals back yet.
Maybe the issue is the "larger" community. It's always easy to abstract and oversimplify at that level. But I know that on an individual level, there are real conversations and collaborations going on. I don't want this to turn into some rosy "it's better than we think" or "can't we all just get along" thing, but I do think that perhaps the situation is not as dire as it's hyped to be. But then again, I haven't gotte my evals back yet.
Maybe the issue is the "larger" community. It's always easy to abstract and oversimplify at that level. But I know that on an individual level, there are real conversations and collaborations going on. I don't want this to turn into some rosy "it's better than we think" or "can't we all just get along" thing, but I do think that perhaps the situation is not as dire as it's hyped to be. But then again, I haven't gotte my evals back yet.
Maybe the issue is the "larger" community. It's always easy to abstract and oversimplify at that level. But I know that on an individual level, there are real conversations and collaborations going on. I don't want this to turn into some rosy "it's better than we think" or "can't we all just get along" thing, but I do think that perhaps the situation is not as dire as it's hyped to be. But then again, I haven't gotte my evals back yet.