[MD] Food for Thought

[David M]

Hi Case

They call it virtual reality for a reason.
Emphasis on reality. Seems to me we
are aware of many realities: inner, outer,
shared, private, imaginative, possible,
actual, experienced, beyond experience,
linguistic, no longer existing, not yet
existing, etc, etc.

MOQ fails to pick up this multi-spheres
aspect of experience.

David M

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Case" <Case at iSpots.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 11:10 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Food for Thought


> [Arlo]
> No, I don't think the majority of these players are remotely concerned 
> with
> theories of identity construction, but it has given sociolinguists and
> cultural psychologists a lot of clay to play with.
>
> [Case]
> Vernor Vinge's short story "True Names" was one of the first thoughtful
> treatments of this topic back in the late 70's. While people may or may 
> not
> intellectualize identity construction online, it is what they are doing.
> Study of the phenomena is obviously very new but there are cultural
> anthropologist studying the formation and transmission of culturally
> practices online. Linguists are studying the net's effect on 
> communication.
> We have touched on 1337 speak before. But gamers also have a whole
> vocabulary of words to describe situations and activities that are unique 
> to
> virtual space. A sufficiently advanced technology can not be distinguished
> from magic. Computer technology sure fits that bill.
>
> [Arlo]
> I'll tell you that I don't personally play (although I have "wasted"
> countless hours playing Civilization and SimCity. But I have had kids in
> language classes tell me that they were learning a language because people
> in their online gaming worlds were from these places. Nothing drives
> language learning so great as a personal desire to communicate with 
> others.
>
> [Case]
> Exactly, there is no there in virtual there. The planet shrinks to a 
> point.
> Games can and do provide instant interaction with people on opposite sides
> of the planet not to mention political spectrum.
>
> [Arlo]
> But, while I think there is leverage to be had (historical simulations, 
> for
> example), and I think that there is a real, social, negotiative experience
> in forging identity to be had, I think there are also negative aspects 
> (such
> as social withdrawl from other venues) that can impact the player. Have 
> you
> seen the South Park parody of World of Warcraft?
>
> [Case]
> There is one style of game mostly based on Microsoft's Age of Empires 
> where
> players begin the game as cavemen, hunting and gathering resources.
> Milestones like the development of agriculture and the invention of the
> wheel are achieved. Construction techniques improve as a player passes
> through the cultural ages and stages of time. Some of these games last up 
> to
> 2 or 3 hours. I can tell you first hand how depressing it is to have 
> finally
> developed gunpowder only to find your village being strafed by bi-planes.
>
> It is interesting how cultural values are transposed into an environment
> where they are not necessarily valuable. The rules of any particular game
> dictate to some extent what kinds of interactions will succeed. But social
> groups tend to form in typical primate fashion with dominance hierarchies,
> and social roles determined by both real world personality factors as much
> as in game traits.
>
> That South Park episode is legendary among gamers but other more obscure
> bits of cultural expression are also prone to propagate in cyberspace. The
> "All Your Base Are Belong to Us" flash presentation made the rounds. There
> is one segment of video captured from a WOW expedition where the group
> leader goes through a careful exposition of the strategy for an upcoming
> fight for a few minutes. Then one player Leroy Jenkins disregards 
> everything
> runs into a room and gets everyone kill. Pulling a Leroy Jenkins is now a
> term of derision in all games. Leroy is a legend.
>
> There is also a whole genre of movies and shorts that are constructed by
> using the underlying code of a game, (the game engine). It is called
> machinima and virtual actors play their roles on a virtual stage. As game
> engines improve this offers the potential for a whole new form of
> expression. Ah, but I go on and on....
>
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