illusive_zug

I think the ideal political relationship between game developers and game players would be something of a democracy. I feel most things benefit from democratic discourse, including games. Though within this democratic framework, there with be those that "exercise" more power than others; the developers have almost absolute power on game play mechanics, storyline, and even access to the game, in the case of World of Warcraft, whereas the players' only power is the ability to quit playing and paying for the game. Despite this, developers would be ignorant to assume they can do whatever they want to with a game. So a proper balance of power is needed to keep both developer and player content.

An example of this power struggle in the past: the beautifully executed naked gnome warrior civil disobedience at Ironforge. Hundreds of unhappy players congregated to protest to deficiency of the warrior class. Blizzard, the developers of the game, took action to disperse the unruly crowd that was heavily burdening the server by denying access to these player's accounts for three hours. While not an immediate success, however, this did influence the developer's decision about the warrior class in later patches. The developers obviously exercised the majority of the power in this situation, but the players were able to have (at least a little) say in the development.

It seems like these Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing World are little different from nations. The developer are the governing body, and the players are the citizens. Unlike the United States, however, it would be easy for the citizen of World of Warcraft to leave this virtual world, and I'm certain the developers fully realize this.

One parlor game I've run across and had occasion to play is a game called "blindman's bluff." Surely it has had several incarnations with other names, but "blindman's bluff" is a game that has been enjoyed for centuries, most likely. A very simple game, it seems to have remained popular for an extraordinarily long time. Perhaps it's because the game can be enjoyed by people of all ages, despite its seemingly childish rules and objective.

The most common variation of the game has one person blindfolded. After the blindfolding, this person counts to a pre-selected number while the rest of the players scatter about the room. The blindfolded person then searched for - and need be chase after - the other players. During this chase sequence, the blindfolded person must identify the person they think they are chasing, without looking. Upon correctly identifing someone, the victim is then the "blindman," and so on.

With such an open-ended game, it has lots of possibly for variations, but the concept is generally always the same. This game serves a couple of functions. To list a few: it is a way to past time; it allows players to function socially with a group of friends (it wouldn't be easy playing this game with complete strangers); and it offers an innocent form of competition - there is a moderately level playing field, but certain players have advantages over others.

A couple of factors keep this game enjoyable. With specific tailoring to Salen and Zimmerman's work "Rules", there are certain things the players of "blindman's bluff" do to "play" the game. The rules that the players of "blindman's bluff" have certain qualities and characteristics. First off, while playing "blindman's bluff," the players are limited to certain action. For example, the players of "blindman's bluff" aren't going to break out into factional warfare while playing. That isn't what the game is designed to do. Secondly, the game's rules are very clear. While playing, you can't peek from under the blindfold if you're the blindman. Everyone else is also expected to not hit or hurt the blindman while he or she is in persuit. Thirdly, the rules of "blindman's bluff" are shared by all that are playing. It wouldn't make sense to let one person leave the room while everyone else had to stay in the room, for example. Fourth, the rules are fixed. If the oldest person playing "blindman's bluff" suddenly announced that the oldest person in the room can peek every ten seconds, other players would most likely find this unfair. Fifth, rules have authority. Breaking the rules should accordingly be a violation of the game, and wouldn't be tolerated by other players. Last, the rules of "blindman's bluff" are repeatable. "Blindman's bluff" should be at least familiar to others; rules must be consistence so as to create a concept of the game that can be shared universally.

The fame "blindman's bluff" has accumulated is not unjustified. It has been a game that has remained popular up until today, and it's a game I don't think I would mind playing even at my age. :).

A game I used to play as a child was what friends and I dubbed ‘manhunt.’ Thankfully this was a much more merciful name that what other games were called (e.g. smear the queer), and general described the content of the game. I played manhunt with about a dozen or so other kids about my age around the time we were attending elementary school. One of the great binding factors we all had was the apartment complex we lived it. This complex, called “Country View Apartments” were formidable townhouses set up together on a plot of land of about 4-6 acres; so far – two excellent environment variables – player base and playing field.

With this in mind, a basic explanation of the game is in order. Manhunt was a simple game of glorified ‘hide and go seek’ that somehow gained epic status. Manhunt wasn’t hide and go seek – it was manhunt: violence, sabotage, trickery, deception, etc. Anything that can get you from your hiding spot to the ‘base’ was fair game. The player pool would divide up into two groups, the hunters and the hunted. Hunters and hunted would start at the same location – the start and finish of the game – ‘base’. Hunted would the be allotted a certain amount of time to go hide before the hunters took chase. This time was usually around 10 minutes or so. Hunted would hide anywhere inside the complex – in the bushes, on top of roofs, underneath cars, inside houses (on a limited occasion – usually this was cheating – but again, no rules…). After this ten minutes, the hunt would begin. The objective for the hunters was to catch the hunted quickly while preventing them from reaching base. The objective for the hunted was to get back to base a quickly as possible.

Beyond this, not much was given rules or regulations. Generally strategies evolved on the part of the hunters or the hunted to help their teammates to succeed. For example, one of the most popular was the ‘sacrifice’. The hunted would designate the fastest runner to be the sacrifice – to madly dash past base, drawing base-guards away. Hopefully this sacrifice would escape, but while base-guards chased down for the kill, other hunted would slip into base while unattended. But of course this strategy became expected, and strategies became increasingly complex to cope.

I really liked manhunt. It was simple, allowed an escape from reality (at least it did when you’re twelve), and was something you could enjoy with friends. Sadly, my days of manhunt ended when I moved from Country View Apartments to England. In England, I found the English don’t play manhunt – they play football. In retrospect, however, I don’t think I would play manhunt now-a-days. Much more complex games are around, like World of Warcraft that dampen imagination a little – and certainly dampen physical activity. I will always look back fondly on those days, though. We were poor kids that didn’t need video games to amuse ourselves – we had imaginations.

Quick entry here:

My Undead Priest, on the glorious server of Garona, is a member of the apparently rather exclusive guild . I was leveling in Ragefire Chasm (one of the lower-level instances in Orgrimmar - lvl 18-22 elites) when I took a peek at the Guild roster. I was the lone level 16 amass about 20 or so level 60s. Funny thing is, I'm a member, and there's about 10 or so level 60 initiates that are ranked lower than me... of my.

Well there are advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are obvious - is a formidable army with rather skilled leadership and connections (and a certain amount of prestige). However, there are consequences - the social atmosphere of the guild is a little impersonal. It rare if any of the members will have anything to do with each other, much less me, level 16 and all. I tend to have to rely on the connections I have with my "real life" friends to get any attention from the guild. But oh well... I'm leveling as fast as I can to be an actually help to the group, but we'll see how that works.

In lieu of updating about last performance's session, I am going to repost about the most current gender "Turning test." Today we did a little bit of gender-bending. Using the identity ambiguities of World of Warcraft, we assumed the guise of WoW characters to role-play as a woman - regardless of our "real life" gender. Four of us were guised as women, and the rest of the class (with the exception of the "watchers") took turns questioning our gender identity. My name was 'Amuna,' a female Night Elf Shaman. Mostly, it was a lot of fun, but I also found out a couple of things about identity during this exercise. Two main points here:

1. It's not as difficult as you would think to play the part of the opposite sex - so long as you get to portray stereotypes or variations thereof. With the situation in the class, some very strange analysis was happening. What I felt was the biggest difficulty was overcoming the impulse to act as a generic woman opposed to a specific woman. In the test, two guys (Matt and I) were with two girls (Katie and Beth). It didn't occur to me until after a few questions that I was answering questions using my perception of a woman; the only problem is, the questions to more or less extent know the people they are questioning. If someone asked Amuna if she liked child-birth, for example, and I answered no, but both katie and Beth were crazy about child-birth, then I wouldn't necessary not be exhibiting the qualities of a woman - I wouldn't be exhibiting the qualities that identify Beth or Katie. It's tricky! Had I realized this a little sooner, maybe things would have been different.

2. Had Katie and Beth tried to double-bluff the questioners into thinking that they were actually men, then this would have been even stranger. What would a man say to a question directed to a woman? Er... a woman respond to a question asked to a woman as a man? How savvy are the questioners to this? In a better test, conditions would be a little different. For example, you couldn't use people that know each other. You would probably want to be in separate rooms. There are limitations to text-based identity representation - including the lack of expression, timing, to a certain extent personality - all missing from text-based chat. It would be easier for the questioners to find out if a female were a female with this extra sensory information.

Beyond this, I would find it difficult to ever be able to tell who is who and who is trying to be what. There are going to be people out there who act however they want whether or not it fits into the category of male or female. This is (in my opinion) a very good thing. Judith Butler, the renown identity scholar, has done much study on the relationship between male and female gender. Or lack thereof. Butler suggests male and female titles are only assumed titles. People are essentially men or women in drag, should they chose to represent a particular identity. Online reality, on the other hand, tosses out the traditional "apparatuses" that categorize us in these two different identities in the eyes of society. My female Undead (or human) Priest is a woman only because of her outwardly appearance. I act her not as a female, her gender, or male, my gender, but rather as Erythrina - an entity that has little to do with gender. It works.

We had yet another groundbreaking lecture in a virtual world. TL Taylor held a lecture in the MMORPG "Second Life." Although I don't think the lecture was quite as productive as Yee's lecture (due to technical difficulties and different, unfamiliar environment), we did discuss a few issues I was interested in from the article, including a kind of socialization of female gamers. I would have liked to have gone into this discussion a little bit further, but again the environment was a little difficult. Also, I would have like to talk a little more... in general. It would have been nice to have a longer, clearer talk about more issues in the article. Maybe in the future...

(Wouldn't post in the comments section of the class account until my account is verified - blah)

Well there is this tendency for men to be terribly attracted to women for some reason, and this by no means fails to transfer to the "other plane." In last class, we were to make a character opposite our gender to play on either a role-playing server or a player vs. player server. On top of this, we were to exhibit personality contrary to usual (eg. introvert to extrovert, timid to aggressive, etc.). Sadly, we didn't get far enough into this to actually use our "selves," so this is a work in progress. Graham, Daly and I are all playing on the Silver Hand server (a role-playing server) as female humans. It looks like great things are in the workings, but it's too early to tell.

As for being female: it's interesting being a woman on a server, "being a spectacle" for others. I'm not misleading anyone by flirting and giving the impression that I'm a woman; it's just a lot of people assume. And I suppose in the whole role-playing spectrum, playing a role to the fullest is natural. I just imagine the shock from someone should they discover by some means that I'm not "Erythrina, lvl 16 priest." A certain amount of how I'm perceived as a woman comes from my role-playing. In the days of Diablo II, you were confined to a gender based on which class character you played. My favored class was the Amazon - a women. Now there were Amazons that were unmistakably men - you can tell by the way they acted, "carried themselves." But things have changed a little bit for World of Warcraft. Even though I'm not on a role-playing server, I've caught myself a couple times in the role of Erythrina. For example, there was a situation where someone in our group looted a chest without consent from the rest of the group and was consequently kicked out. This person mailed everyone (I assume) with a letter of apology and attached loot. I found this terribly considerate and opted to write back with thanks. At the end of the letter I impulsively signed " - Ery " for reasons very startling to me. Why? How? What? Anyway, I didn't back out and sent it as is. I'm not denying I'm a guy playing a female character - I'm just slightly supporting it.

Well in any case, the nature of role-playing is something that has greatly interested me, and I think I'm going to analyze the situation a little more to discover how I and others role-play different characters and for what reasons.

That's right, I'm a killer.

#include

The "trolls v. orcs" exercise illustrated the need for teamwork - we were given a certain amount of time to find loot and gain experience, and one of the easiest ways to do this is to form groups with others. The trolls won the exercise (and the bonus - 5s - woo) most likely because we had the best teamwork. Here's a run-down of what we did. We agreed to split into two groups, composed of the various class. The first group had a warrior and a mage, the second a hunter, shaman, and rogue. There was talk between the teams via the teamleaders. We completed quests to gain as much XP (experience points) as possible. Inside the team, we designated leaders that knew the terrain; but more than leadership, it was more of a collective. But I'll get into that a little later. At the end we had completed about 4 quests and sold all of our possessions to ensure victory. Ans we were victorious.

About leadership: The Chinese philosopher Sunzi, author of the famous (or infamous) book "The Art of War" once said "The best leadership comes from followers who don't know they're lead. If a leader can lead without commanding or giving the impression that he commands, then he can be called a truly great leader." (So I wasn't quoting directly - it's in Chinese). But think about this - if those that lead do so with discretion, then the opportunity to best lead can pass through the group without abrasion. I'm not trying to say the success is due entirely to the leaders - that's never the case. But leadership is an important - and very delicate - matter.

Yee suggests that group behavior and leadership in virtual worlds are directly transferable to real-world situations. If boars and scorpions roamed around needing killing, then I would whole-heartedly agree. But, at the same time, it would be silly to suggest that the teamwork-building exercises in WoW didn't have any real-world application. The ability of similarly skilled individuals to work together to achieve a goal otherwise impossible is something realized in WoW. The notion that gamers are mindless button mashers is a stereotype I think is rapidly dissolving. I'd think the most impressive teamwork seen in WoW is probably some of the best teamwork you can find; and I think businesses realize this.

Today in class we formed into groups of four and did various quests together. Quite an excellent thing to be doing during class time. The exercise was designed to get everyone familiar with the chat function of WoW. As far as I can tell, it worked wonderfully; everyone in my group was quite capable by the end of class (although they were quite capable at the beginning).

As for the teamwork my team displayed, I was surprised we worked as well as we did. I mean I thought we'd be able to move around together and do basic things, but my team was astonishingly apt at teamwork. Now - I think we should have won the little contest and received 5s (silver). The contest was a little unfair: the goal was to take photographs at a couple of locations, and collect a few items; understandably, not every group could be given the locations in the same order, otherwise the groups wouldn't really be groups so much as one mob running from place to place. Here's the unfair part - groups were given the locations in different order, randomly. The distance between these locations could be little or small, and the locations could be positioned in a more favorable order for different groups. Despite our incredible teamwork, my group didn't get as many locations as other groups for this reason. It's a problem I don't know how to fix, and I'm not too worried about it; but still...

On a different subject, I've thought of an idea for my ethnographic study. I'd like to study the level of and reasons for addition to massively multiplayer online games. I'd like to compare WoW to other MMOGs or similar games, with relation to ease of play, graphics, and complexity. This is just speculation, but I think this subject would be a good challenge for me to take on, considering the resources at hand.

World of Warcraft is the first *true* massively multiplayer online game I’ve played. I do have experience with online gaming, most notably Diablo II, so this isn't a complete shock to me - but it is definitely a huge step, as I'm sure it is for anyone. WoW has proven to be a great stride in the world of online gaming, and being a part of this world is extremely exciting. In a way, I see this as training for things to come - someday massively multiplayer online games won't be multi*player* games so much as they are communities and ways of engaging in society just like walking around downtown. That's optimistic, but I don't think being skilled at such a world as WoW is doing any harm to it's players... with a few expectations (people who forget to eat and go to work and close the curtains on the sunlight, for example).

The interface of WoW is easy to grasp for the moderately experienced gamer. It says in the instruction manual something along the lines of "our interface is so easy to use, you can use it without ever having to read the manual." This is quite true, I found as I read this aloud to my roommate, who agreed. I found the world decidedly un-confusing... the only thing I think would bewilder "transfer" gamers is the changes in game play as a result of the other players in the world. You know what I mean if you walk into a "trade" channel in any big city. Abbreviated items, skills for sell, gamers paying or selling spots in their guild, etc. If you've ever played Diablo II without having any friends join with you (like I did), you would wonder for weeks or months what an "soj" was (It's a "Stone of Jordan," one of the best rings in the game, and consequently a makeshift form of currency among traders). I suppose this matter of confusion is to be expected, and if you aren't ashamed of losing face by asking someone you don't know what an abbreviation stands for, or the way something works, then everything will be ok.

Comparing Diablo II or WoW, in my mind, isn't a stretch. They are both extremely popular games among the people I know, and the same kinds of people play them that you wouldn't see in a "Sim's" - "Counterstrike" relationship. I played Enemy Territory, an expansion of Wolfenstein for quite a while, and a migration from that game to WoW would be another matter, but DII and WoW are more alike. To begin with, DII and WoW are made by the same company, which helps the cyber-migration. This is one of the reasons I find similarities in the game play and interface. Both use similar methods for building character stats and using and cataloguing items. The culture is the most similar, in my opinion. The organization of guilds in WoW is awfully reminiscent of DII's clans. However, in DII, these clans weren't built into the game quite the same way WoW does, and I think this is something Blizzard did quite intentionally. Finally, graphics-wise, DII is a joke compared to WoW, but then again, it came out much earlier. Overall, it looks like both are amazing games. Blizzard really knows what they're doing.

Identity can be a tricky thing. We talk about "shards of identity..." I think this is an accurate description of the nature of the way people can identify themselves and others. One of the easiest ways to break down identity is to take a look at the relationships you share with others. Mostly, you can't treat all people the same way; the different ways you treat different people can be an insight to the way you identify yourself.

In this sense, I play different kinds of roles for different people; and this makes my identity as a whole hard to place (as I imagine it would anyone's). That's why you generally only see one side of a person - the way they treat you. For example, I am friend to my friends, but son to my mother. But when I act as son to my mother in front of my friends, (classically, but this is not always the case) this would be regarded as strange or humorous to my friends.

I have non-relationship identifiers as well; for example, I am a swing dancer, more specifically a lindy hopper, most specifically a Swingbum. I am also a gamer (surprise). I am something of a car enthusiast. An electronics/computer geek. Student, specifically Communication/Chinese Major. Chinese culture enthusiast, and so on.

I have other relationships that identify me. Most notably, I am a swing dance teacher with the San Antonio Swing Dance Society and the Trinity University Swingbums. This is an interest twist, because this dynamic of "authority" is a little unusual. I am also the president of the Trinity University Swingbums. But again, therein lies another twist; although I'm the president of the organization, I'm not the most experienced, or necessary the "go-to" person for problems, my roommate is. And before he handed the presidency off to me the same happened before. This order of secession identifies us as heads of the Swingbums. (Never mind if that's confusing - it's significant to me.)

When I think about relationship-based identity, I can't help but think of the Confucian (Kongfuxi!) relationship hierarchy. This is, there is always an "authority:" Father and Son, Mother and Daughter, Ruler and Ruled, Friend and Friend (surprisingly), and so on. Respectively, the latter of the pair is the more submissive or subordinate. This is an interesting phenomena, and I find it remarkably applicable to many of the relationships I share. Do others feel the same way?

Having yet to receive WoW in the mail, I spend time watching the action from the backseat. My friends urge me to join server Garona with the Horde, where my entre is guaranteed in guild "Zug Zug" (illusive_zug?). These very same people I played Diablo II with, so the migration to WoW is certainly interesting to see. Catching up to the rest of my friends should present a challenge though.

While watching my friends play, I have begun to ponder what class I will take up when I begin. For the purposes of class, I believe my race is limited to Gnome or Dwarf - members of the Alliance. From my Diablo II experience, with I'm sure I'll often opt to reference, my suited class is that of Amazon - an archer who values Dexterity (in most cases). It's equivalent class in the World of Warcraft? From what I've seen, that would most likely be a "rogue." Now here lies the problem - with my class account, on a separate server and allegiance that what I will usually play, I am limited to the race of either Gnome or Dwarf. Who's ever heard of a fast Dwarf? I still have a lot to learn before I jump into the game, but if there is anything I learned from Diablo II, your first character is never your best, despite how much effort you put into it.

For the time being, I check often at the post office, wait the arrival of my most likely ultimate demise.

I've started a class concerning the ethnography of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs). How great is that? I have some experience with online gaming, but nothing compared to what I think I will be immerse in. We'll be playing a game called World of Warcraft (WoW). This MMOGs is produced by Blizzard, the same production company that produced my last addiction, Diablo II. Naturally, you can understand my concern when I am taking a class where it is required to play a highly addictive game whilst taking 18 hours. I think my Diablo II days will do a great deal for my WoW playing, so more commentary on that to come...