[MD] RPG's, AI's, Gaming and "Virtuality"

[Case]

Ron and Arlo,

You can actually try out Second Life without giving them a credit card
number of anything else. I setup an account to see what it is like but did
not even get as far as figuring out how to put clothes on. For me this would
be like a fourth or fifth life. 

The point of games like this is that unlike a movie or TV or for that matter
a book where you absorb the story passively in these games you are a
character in the story. As Arlo has pointed out with Deus Ex games have back
story plots often in the form of books, videos and website multimedia. But
instead of following the author's plot you can interact with the environment
and create your own story.

Case

 "The medium is the message", meaning that available media shape human
activity, more so than what media are used for.
-Marshall McLuhan
I think mixing second life with MIT's ispot program would yield a lot of
information about how "virtuallity"
Impacts human activity and changing social values. A "little brother" as
it were.
-X

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of Michael Hamilton
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 11:43 AM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] RPG's, AI's, Gaming and "Virtuality"

Arlo,

Hadn't heard of Second Life before. It's interesting to see MMORPGs
going mainstream. It's getting column inches in stodgy conservative
newspapers here in England. A friend of a friend is doing an
anthropology field study relating to MMORPG behaviour. And now there's
Second Life, using the MMORPG format and sanitising it of the elves and
dragons (and maybe, the excitement) of World of Warcraft etc. The
possibilities are astounding, and in some cases a little worrying,
especially seeing how there seems to be no insulation between the
fantasy economy and the real (or better-established fastasy) economy.
Money-laundering, anyone? Those virtual islands look like a nice
investment...

Anyway, I was wondering how this professor is using Second Life with his
course. Will the students gather in a virtual lecture theatre?

Mike

On 1/22/07, Arlo Bensinger <ajb102 at psu.edu> wrote:
> Case (and anyone interested),
>
> Started a new thread to sort this topic apart.
>
> Since this hasn't been mentioned (unless I missed it), one of our 
> professors is using Second Life (http://secondlife.com/whatis/) with 
> an applied linguistics course this semester.
>
> Check it out.
>
> Arlo
>
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