Sunday, September 18, 2011
Saturday, August 13, 2011
(MA) Roundup of the presentation in April
Forgot to add this to the blog, but its still quite funny how many things changed during all that time inbetween.
Unfortunatly I don't have the presentation in written form, I like to show pictures while doing a presentation and speak while doing it, explaining the facts, which I believe does make a difference, compared to reading it from a paper.
During the presentation I spoke about the map of Edinburgh and how I could find some imagery looking at the streets layout of the map.
Well, that didn't work quite well as I hoped.
The two factions we talked about in the presentation were witch-hunters and cultists, both trying to control the city by laying down symbols and such around. That changed as well. I will explain a bit more later.
The symbolism and the style approach of my style is still the same though.
That's about it really, I will explain what changed into what later on.
Unfortunatly I don't have the presentation in written form, I like to show pictures while doing a presentation and speak while doing it, explaining the facts, which I believe does make a difference, compared to reading it from a paper.
During the presentation I spoke about the map of Edinburgh and how I could find some imagery looking at the streets layout of the map.
Well, that didn't work quite well as I hoped.
The two factions we talked about in the presentation were witch-hunters and cultists, both trying to control the city by laying down symbols and such around. That changed as well. I will explain a bit more later.
The symbolism and the style approach of my style is still the same though.
That's about it really, I will explain what changed into what later on.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
(MA) The final push!
Last night with a final push I finished editing the movie and rendering it.
I ran into several problems, apparently my camera records in quicktime and the movie editing program I use couldn't work with it. I tried several converters to turn it into .mpeg but they didn't work on several clips for some reason. Strange.
Anyways, I dodged that problem by taking screenshots from the movies and putting them together. In a way its much better since it was raining the day of our shooting (and every other day) and the videos were kinda hard to see, so picking out each better scene as a screenshot is quicker to understand for the viewer.
The video is about 3 minutes long now, but I'm planning on adding some more stuff, maybe 1 more minute of explanations as I think it covers the whole project in a very fast way. Considering how we are graded by the explanation of our work, I believe I need to add more details.
Apart from that, I think I'm about done now and prepped for the final show and the assessments. We'll see how it goes.
I ran into several problems, apparently my camera records in quicktime and the movie editing program I use couldn't work with it. I tried several converters to turn it into .mpeg but they didn't work on several clips for some reason. Strange.
Anyways, I dodged that problem by taking screenshots from the movies and putting them together. In a way its much better since it was raining the day of our shooting (and every other day) and the videos were kinda hard to see, so picking out each better scene as a screenshot is quicker to understand for the viewer.
The video is about 3 minutes long now, but I'm planning on adding some more stuff, maybe 1 more minute of explanations as I think it covers the whole project in a very fast way. Considering how we are graded by the explanation of our work, I believe I need to add more details.
Apart from that, I think I'm about done now and prepped for the final show and the assessments. We'll see how it goes.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
(MA) progress..
Well, the trip is done, and a week of massive workload is finally came to a stop thanks to the weekend.
Which brings us to...more MA stuff! yay!
So basically, me and serkan finally got the project running online, and we did a mockup run with QR tags last weekend, recorded it as video to show a short movie at the end of the year show.
I did about 4-5 drawings over the weekend to go on the websites for the project. I'll explain how it works.
The background//story, the first thing the players see:
The players see a QR tag, availible to both factions, click on it and read the storyline. They pick a faction, either choose to hide the "truth" or to spread it. Then they find more QR tags, scattered around with clues where to find them. Which leads them deeper into the layers of the story, with more artworks and fun! - well hopefully
Some of the artworks I've done, they're quick jobs, as we were pushed by the time limit (I had to get back to work - thus London) but if the project continues, I can make more detailed ones.
Before you ask, the writings are just gibberish, I've looked at several oriental and non-latin alphabets and just drew similar images.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse
So what will happen now? Tomorrow and next weekend I'll make the small video. I need to make some pages and some explanation writings for the video, edit it and render it afterwards. I'm not very experienced in the subject but hopefully all will go well =)
See you later!
Which brings us to...more MA stuff! yay!
So basically, me and serkan finally got the project running online, and we did a mockup run with QR tags last weekend, recorded it as video to show a short movie at the end of the year show.
I did about 4-5 drawings over the weekend to go on the websites for the project. I'll explain how it works.
The background//story, the first thing the players see:
The players see a QR tag, availible to both factions, click on it and read the storyline. They pick a faction, either choose to hide the "truth" or to spread it. Then they find more QR tags, scattered around with clues where to find them. Which leads them deeper into the layers of the story, with more artworks and fun! - well hopefully
Some of the artworks I've done, they're quick jobs, as we were pushed by the time limit (I had to get back to work - thus London) but if the project continues, I can make more detailed ones.
Before you ask, the writings are just gibberish, I've looked at several oriental and non-latin alphabets and just drew similar images.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse
So what will happen now? Tomorrow and next weekend I'll make the small video. I need to make some pages and some explanation writings for the video, edit it and render it afterwards. I'm not very experienced in the subject but hopefully all will go well =)
See you later!
Sunday, July 17, 2011
(MA) part2
Well, some advances today, we seem to be making some advances. We'll do some tryout videos tomorrow if the weather holds. Its been raining like hell lately.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
(MA) Some advances
Some ideas!
a- The design aspect of the game changed a bit when we realised we wanted to use hidden signs on the photographs. The cellphone screens are quite small to see photo manupilation on a detailed scale, and giving massive glowing signs on the buildings seems like a better idea.
The game will have a webpage where we can hopefully get people logged in via facebook. There, when they click on the QR tags on the specific zones, they will get a small "scenario" and a photo, moving their "account" or the player into the next layer of "reality"
It kinda sounds confusing, but bear with me. Also I have found out by accident that you can insert other imagery into QR tags up to 15% of the whole image(Although you have to avoid touching the squares on the corners) and get away with it. The phone still reads, although you have to try several positions. This could be a nice idea to make the QR tags more of our own. I will practice with them a bit more.
The glowing signs I'm talking about are going to be something similar like these;
Something like this.
Meanwhile, I did more drawings, in a dark mood lately, it's raining mad here in Edinburgh.
While I'm working on these ideas, Serkan is trying to get the website running now.
a- The design aspect of the game changed a bit when we realised we wanted to use hidden signs on the photographs. The cellphone screens are quite small to see photo manupilation on a detailed scale, and giving massive glowing signs on the buildings seems like a better idea.
The game will have a webpage where we can hopefully get people logged in via facebook. There, when they click on the QR tags on the specific zones, they will get a small "scenario" and a photo, moving their "account" or the player into the next layer of "reality"
It kinda sounds confusing, but bear with me. Also I have found out by accident that you can insert other imagery into QR tags up to 15% of the whole image(Although you have to avoid touching the squares on the corners) and get away with it. The phone still reads, although you have to try several positions. This could be a nice idea to make the QR tags more of our own. I will practice with them a bit more.
The glowing signs I'm talking about are going to be something similar like these;
Something like this.
Meanwhile, I did more drawings, in a dark mood lately, it's raining mad here in Edinburgh.
While I'm working on these ideas, Serkan is trying to get the website running now.
Friday, July 15, 2011
(MA) Edinburgh trip part 1
Hello all,
Today I've arrived to edinburgh to finally finish our project, or atleast take giant steps forwards. I will be uploading the blog everyday. So....lets begin!
Today I've arrived to edinburgh to finally finish our project, or atleast take giant steps forwards. I will be uploading the blog everyday. So....lets begin!
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
(MA) Update
Hey everyone,
The project is going well. In about 2 weeks I will head to edinburgh to finally finish up everything and record the documentary for the final show.
Busy with the art side of the project these days, trying to get the design ready. I will hopefully post some pictures soon with some of the 'layers' I'm preparing for it.
The project is going well. In about 2 weeks I will head to edinburgh to finally finish up everything and record the documentary for the final show.
Busy with the art side of the project these days, trying to get the design ready. I will hopefully post some pictures soon with some of the 'layers' I'm preparing for it.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
(MA) Written Paper
Hello all, below is the written paper for this year.
A look into the structural design aspects of Massively Multiplayer Online games and trying to understand the types of addiction it may lead.
A research paper by Sinan Atamer
March 2011
alfachicken@hotmail.com
MA Digital Arts
The Abstract;
A long time has passed since the first MMO games came to the surface. Around 1991 video game designers realised that a multiplayer base for games offers much more to the players than straight storyline single player games. Having other players around you in a living world and sharing the experience with others is for many a much better experience. The first fully graphical multi-user RPG was Neverwinter Nights, which was delivered through America Online in 1991 and it all snowballed from there, as the NSFNET (National Science Foundation Network) restrictions were lifted, the Internet was up for game developers, which allowed for the first truly "massively"-scoped titles. From there, many titles were made up to now, most recognisable are World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XI. These games started a whole new phenomenon, people playing, levelling and role-playing their characters, which then became an addiction on several levels for some.
The games, having many layers of details, like a living economy, social cultures within themselves, guilds, jobs and worlds to explore, are filled with things to do, just like real life, which enables users to experience a whole different world. The games are designed to have these features in them because otherwise it would be impossible to keep the users continue play the games. Without a strict narrative, things to guide people around or a story focus, it is very hard to keep a user attached to a game when the market is filled with video games, and new ones come out almost everyday.
This is why several companies like Blizzard, creators of World of Warcraft, which is a MMO game that has been going for six years now with countless users, design their games to get the users ‘addicted’ using several systems. In my Research Paper, I will investigate what these systems are, and how they work. How they are aimed towards different types of interest groups and what makes them so addictive. I will investigate a group of players all around the world using forums and other connection means to make my primary research, while I investigate the game itself myself to see what piques my interest and how the people designed it.
Keywords: Addiction, Game Design, MMO, Role-playing, Obligation.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: 1
The structural characteristics of an MMO game: 4
PvE and PvP: 5
Reasons for addiction, and keywords to label: 7
Conclusion and discussion about the future of these online societies: 11
Bibliography: 14
Appendices: 15
The digital world is ever expanding in our millennia, with the fast evolving of the internet it is growing into a massive society where millions of people constantly share and increase the knowledge that is stored within a digital society. People spend hours and days in there, reading, writing, watching and living online lives, some more than others. This digital frontier did add something to our lives apart from Web 2.0 websites such as Facebook and Youtube, and it is MMO games. Multiplayer games were common even before the internet was born, people playing in “hot seat” mode in games, on the same computer, or by other means such as turn based video games, but with the Internet becoming available to everyone, video game developers saw a great vast world of new opportunities. Playing games with other people instead of an artificial intelligence is always more competitive and fun, while leading to replaying opportunities because of the human factor, and the realisation of this led to multiplayer gaming across the internet. The online role-playing games were born even before that, back in 1991 with Neverwinter Nights (Mobygames, 2010), which was delivered through America Online in 1991 and it all snowballed from there, as the NSFNET (National Science Foundation Network) restrictions were lifted, the Internet was up for game developers, which allowed for the first truly "massively"-scoped titles. The massive increase and the foundation of the MMO genre that we now play and speak about were laid much after that. MMO means Massively Multiplayer Online, and when I say Massive, I mean lots, lots of people.
MMO games, having many layers of details, like a living economy, social cultures within themselves, guilds, jobs and worlds to explore, are filled with things to do, just like real life, which enables users to experience a whole different world. This rich environment is created in a long time, and as you can imagine, this gives people to do so many things in these digital environments. The fact that everyone can find something to do in there is true enough, and this multi-aspect game design gets people hooked up into these worlds. The problem with creating such games is the fact that you need to get people to continue playing for a long time because of financial reasons. Creating a massive digital world needs many resources and keeping these digital worlds online needs huge servers with very good bandwidth. You also need to continue evolving your game, adapting it and apply changes to it to keep the interest of the players. These all cost money and many a MMO game plummeted their company to its doom because it failed to grasp the players’ attention. The companies that succeed in this environment are the ones to adapt really fast and create a community that attaches itself to these games, sometimes to the point of addiction to get people playing as long as possible.
So what are MMO games? MMO games are massive graphical game worlds, where millions of players interact with each other in real time. The players interact with each other, gather groups, slay monsters and do business in worlds with complex storylines, politics, economies and physics. This type of detailed virtual environment has led a lot of players into addiction. There are extreme cases, like people playing these games for 40,60, even near 90 hours straight, and then die (Kim, 2005). Though these can be very few, as with any other addictive thing in our world, there are people who exaggerate these games. Even though deaths are minimal, there are several cases of people who cannot cope with playing in these worlds while continuing a normal life, who left their jobs, their friends and became obsessed by the MMO games. Understanding these people and the potential for addiction in games requires that researchers use better materials and sampling methodologies. Defining populations as “addicted” is problematic as most studies fail to describe even their basic criteria. (Clark 2006). My current work attempts to describe the game systems and how they are designed to grasp many types of human characteristics, and try to label them, as there are many types of people who play these games for different reasons, but they can be easily put into several groups for an easier identification, rather than just grouping them up as ‘addicts’.
It is very important to note that, I am connected to these online environments as well. I have been playing video games since I was four when I got my first IBM, and been playing ever since. This gives me a very interesting perspective as I, as the author has been part of what I am investigating, as most of my closest friends and those I have met online. I have started my MMO adventures around 2003-2004, with Star Wars Galaxies, an MMO game based on George Lucas’ most known Star Wars franchise, and moved on to World of Warcraft on 2005. I have been playing World of Warcraft since then, even though I stopped playing at times up to three, four months of breaks for various reasons. While normally I would like to be on the objective side of an argument, I believe that my close connection with this world and my broad experience with the subject will let me analyse it with better understanding, and I believe I can explain the subject to the audience who may have had little experience with these worlds. I also have close connections to many types of communities who play these games, from competitive to social, where my primary research can help a better understanding.
For this paper, I have looked into the MMO game World of Warcraft to describe the design aspects of MMO games, a well known title across the world, with over 10 million active players (Zenke, 2008). Blizzard entertainment has been a very popular title amongst game development companies, their flagship games being the Diablo, Warcraft and Starcraft series, all of them loved and cherished by gamers all across the globe. World of Warcraft was their first MMO, based on their Warcraft franchise, and it has been a great success since its launch, on February 11, 2005 (Autrijve, 2004)
The game evolved a lot throughout the whole 6 years of constant patches and expansions, with increasing map space, more quests, more dungeons for players to adventure, more PvP zones for people to fight on and additions like a constant evolving achievement system which I will discuss later on. Blizzard has been a very smart developer, answering and listening their players from their administrated forums, and applying hotfixes to their game almost every week. This takes a lot of money and manpower to do, but they are rewarded with the interest of their gamerbase, which seem to be growing in size. More people mean more monthly subscriptions that helps them with their development. A basic MMO usually requires a monthly subscription of 10£, and you can imagine how big this business is when you consider the amount of people who are playing it.
I will explain the game structure a bit before starting on the whole design and addiction side, so we can have a clear and solid ground to stand upon. In WoW, players control their own avatars, or characters (or ‘chars’ in slang), level them up by gaining experience via several means, then at the end level (or endgame) create parties or raids with their friends or the people whom they meet online to defeat harder events. The players choose a class to play before creating their character. There are eight classes to pick from, but mainly they can be split into three categories. Healers, Damage and Tanks. Tanks basically lead the parties, while keeping control of the fight, healers heal the wounded players, and damage does the main job of killing the opposition. There are hybrid classes as well, like the Paladin, which can either be a healer, a damage or a tank depending on its character build. This allows a lot of choices for the players to pick from, as each class further divides into three sub classes, and there’s a lot of variety to make the game more exciting. Usually what happens is when a player is bored of his own class, they start all over, which is called ‘rerolling’. Later on these roles they pick will effect their position in a guild, whether it’s a PvE or PvP.
The game can be divided into two aspects to make explaining the workings easier, PvE and PvP. PvE means Player versus Environment, where a player or a group of players compete against computer generated monsters, events or dungeons for a single goal. This could range from simple questing to level up at start, to defeating giant dragons to save a kingdom at endgame, with the aid of forty or more players. According to my personal experience, PvE seems to be more suited towards a social group capable of working together. Guilds are usually formed at endgame to create a gamerbase of same minded folk, and like any company you can imagine, they have officers to guide them, people who actually do in game jobs to gain money, craft items, create tactics and when the time comes, achieve a goal together. They even have applications for people who want to join them, and people who read these and handpick their new members. PvE is cooperation at its best, where you have to coordinate yourself with other players like yourself, against a common enemy, the computer. It is quite exciting to play against a computer with your fellow men, as their flaws can bring you down as well, and the social group tries to work together to achieve a similar goal, covering each others failings.
PvP means player versus player, a more competitive and sport-like environment for players who want the excitement of playing against other players. Some players find PvP more challenging and exciting since it is not a competition against a computer created premade event, which would be controlled by artifical intelligence, but it is competing against other people, where the human mind can have micro-second decisions which could change the tide of the game. PvP can be further split into two in WoW, battlegrounds and arenas. Battlegrounds can be compared to army-like battle scenarios, where the players either capture strategic locations, capture the enemies flag while defending their own, or defeat the opposing faction using various tactical means to control the battlefield. These are small scenarios played under fifteen minutes at most. Arenas are added later on to WoW, in the games 3rd year, as a side thing to do for most players. It quickly evolved into an Electronic Sport, and it is now considered to be the most competitive environment a MMO can have. Arenas can be played as 2v2, 3v3 or 5v5, where your setup meets another and the victor gains points that increase their ladder status. The arena system has a unique way of increasing players’ rating where they compete against players around their own skill, and the better you get the better opponents you get to face. The top 5% players at the end of each season, which goes on about three months usually get unique titles and equipment. Be it PvE or PvP, or just casual adventuring, there’s something for everyone in these environments.
So in an environment as rich and complex as I have tried to describe above, how can we label the types of addiction? We need a system of some sort to find the different types and try to understand them. According to a research done by Shang Hwa Hsu, Ming-Hui Wen and Muh-Cherng Wu, the reasons can be explained in eleven different keywords; ‘challenge, fantasy, curiosity, control, reward, cooperation, competition, recognition, belonging, obligation and role-playing’ (Computers & Education, 2009). This model I believe is one of the clearest ways to find out how the game developers design these games to make the users play as much as possible. According to my primary research done over several online gamers from various age and interest groups, this model partially applies to them as well. Ysnakke, a WoW (World of Warcraft) player of several years said, ‘For PvP (Player versus Player), Challenge is certainly what keeps me driven.’(Ysnakke, 2011) He, for example, ignores almost all the other aspects of the game and just plays competitive player versus player matches, just like a digital sport, against other players. This single aspect of the game continues to excite him even after so many years, and he continues to play the game just for that. Likewise, Ana Sofia Neves (Midus), another WoW player who’s from Portugal said it was the sense of ‘belonging’ which kept her playing the game. She says ‘I have played wow for the past 6 years, tried it because all my friends were playing at the time and I didn't want to be left behind. When I started playing it was fun, I could have a laugh with my friends and we would share a different environment then the quotidian. After while it started feeling like the game was also a part of my life, I made friends and I was also part of a guild which made me feel like I had another family. At this point it started feeling like I belonged there. There was always something I was needed for, to raid, to lead, to advise. Even when there was nothing to achieve I still felt the need of login into the game because it was part of my life and I belonged there as well.’(Neves, 2011) Onotic, another WoW player who also says competition is a great factor continues ‘Recognition could maybe be a factor as well. I like if people call me a good druid’(Onotic, 2011)
There are many other people who one way or another find something to do in these games to keep them busy. Lets take the reward system for example. Many MMO games are designed towards rewarding the players some way or another. World of Warcraft takes this to the next level, as Blizzard usually takes good ideas from other games and adapts them into their own. The reward system in WoW is named as the achievement system and was added on October 2008. ‘World of Warcraft's achievements system launched with exactly 749 individual achievements covering every aspect of game play, including world exploration, PvE, PvP, professions, and character development; from the purely whimsical to the truly epic, there is something for everyone. Some achievements come with in-game rewards such as mounts, tabards, vanity pets, and titles. All of these rewards are purely cosmetic and just for fun, but you’ll certainly stand out when you proudly display them.’(Anon, wowpedia.org, 2008) This achievement system enables players to show off their progress to others, and display their skill. For example, the bosses that you kill with your friends may be easy, but there are several different achievements to kill them in a specific way that requires skill and tactics, which is then rewarded with the things mentioned above. Players will try to get these awards and spend more time in the game. Dominic Crossland, a WoW player says, ‘When you sit in Stormwind and get 5 people asking you how you got your mount or title its nice they recognize your skill and effort.’(Crossland, 2011) They are however, really time consuming. Several achievements take days to complete, from exploring the whole map of the game, to getting reputation from several in game factions, which requires many hours of killing and gathering creatures and items.
This system of achievements and goals also divides players into categories. Simple minded folk will try to find people with similar interests and form Guilds, where they recruit and train other people to reach their goals. There are thousands of guilds in World of Warcraft, ranging from friend guilds to PvP ones, or competitive PvE ones. There are also others who take things easily, just explore the world or have a small adventure. The competitive guilds take the game very seriously, they actually race each other to defeat the new content, post it online and get recognition for themselves. This could lead to sponsorship, website hits and commercial possibilities. Luke Frost, a competitive PvE gamer from UK says “‘E-fame’! A sense of purpose for being well known for a good reason- such as being a well known PvE competitor.” He also adds; ‘I am controlling the actions of my in-game self every time I log on, as well as controlling, or at least steering the actions of other peoples. That is slightly compelling. I personally have an obligation on making sure people can raid. I know without me around peoples experiences would be probably worse. That’s obligating.’(Frost, 2011) This sense of obligation leads to logging in almost every day, checking everyone’s attendance, their dedication and making rules to keep a disciplined environment, especially in competitive guilds. The problem with this type of addiction is that you cannot stop and leave it one day, as you have many people looking at you for decisions and leadership.
There are other researchers looking into the same subject with similar ways labeling. Nicholas Yee, one of the most recognizable names in the study of MMO effects, surveyed over 30.000 players from several MMO games. During his research, Yee identified five factors of MMO motivation: achievement, relationship, immersion, escapism and manipulation. Some of these are applicable to the model we used earlier, but the ones that interest me a lot are escapism and relationship here. Yee’s studies indicate that 15.8% of men and 59.8% of the women amongst the 30.000 players play MMO’s with a romantic partner and 25.5% of men and 39.5% of women play with a family member. This would show that women are mostly introduce to MMO games by a boyfriend or a family member.(Yee, 2006) These studies are of course 5 years old now, and I believe the numbers may have changed a lot during these years, as the MMO’s evolved in a titanic portion, but the main idea stays the same, it is mostly young men who usually play these games, and their partners and/or relatives are usually drawn into it because of them.
Escapism is another matter. I and the people around me are quite familiar with the fantasy genre, we were born within, we grew up reading Tolkien and Robert E. Howard’s stories, and the whole idea of another world seems quite familiar to me. But amongst those millions of people who play these games, there must be people who have a different view to these games. The whole game design is made towards communicating people, creating digital communities and getting people to work towards a similar goal, and a sense of achievement. The idea of living in another world and escape the troubles of the real life is quite appealing. SinisterAussie says; ‘For me MMO's fill a void that I am unable to fill in real life. It is my escape I leave everything behind and delve deeper into the cyber world. Escapism is our worst addiction of all we all strive for it.’ It is so much easier to communicate with people and share things in MMO’s that I have seen many people who suffer from types of disorder in real life find happiness within. In fact, I think in a way we can compare MMO games with social media tools, such as Twitter or Facebook. Serkan Ayan, a Turkish WoW player said ‘World of Warcraft is just a prettier looking Facebook for me. There is a chat client, and a tweet tool, and all my closest friends are mostly online.’(Ayan, 2011) This could also explain why people cannot stop playing these games. Facebook utilises a smart design where if you stop your account, you would feel like you would be missing a massive amount of information (which is true) that is going on between your friends and relatives. I believe the same can be applied to MMO’s, where the idea of belonging makes you attach to the game if you are playing with people who are close to you. How could I leave them? Wouldn’t it feel like backstabbing them, leaving them without me? Will they be able to find a suitable replacement for me? These questions would haunt the subject, who is considering leaving.
These games are designed towards creating a social structure. Even if it is a warped version of a real life social group, it somehow works for people, and acts as a surrogate social resource. The problem then is leaving these social groups behind when we need to. They are so easily accessible, and so easily formed, but getting away from them would be extremely hard. Especially when you spend days or even years on a character you have been working on. Leaving your character aside, like said above, it is very difficult to leave these groups just like leaving any social group in real life. How could you cut your bonds from several people at once and stop seeing each other? I believe that the strongest urges here are belonging, obligation and cooperation. Human beings are social creatures by design, and even on a digital environment, they must be a part of a group. The design of MMO games, and most of the Web 2.0 structured web sites such as Facebook or Youtube is to get people into groups as quickly as possible, and get them hooked up, unable to leave, because of these online societies. Getting even a tiny dose of satisfaction for these strong social urges by just sitting at the safety of your home, easily accessing the interface and not going out can lead to addiction.
An interesting theory would be to look into the future and try to see what will happen to the new generations that are now born into these worlds. People around my age were introduced to online gaming when we were around ten years old, around 1997-98, and I believe we are one of the last generations to have that real world experience, things like playing games outside and living through power cuts. The children who were born from 2000 to now are born in a digital world which is ever connected, with smart phones, online societies and MMO games. Even their parents could be playing these games, introducing them to this strange lifestyle from an early age. Since there is no example of this generation of online gamers when they are in their 70’s, it is quite impossible to understand what they will be like. Considering the amount of time and energy spent on these games, and how addictive they are however, it is quite obvious that they will be a generation of people with an interesting way of looking into real life, seeing jobs as a mandatory thing to do to continue playing their games, having friends only online and not going out much apart from getting supplies. How will they meet new people? Get in a relationship? Apart from introducing new people to their society, will they be able to reproduce? These are questions that will have to wait couple of decades as we go deeper into a digital society.
I tried to explain the design aspects of a basic MMO game as clearly as possible using World of Warcraft’s system and tried to give examples of labelling the addiction types it may lead with examples. I’m hoping that in the future there will be some detailed research done on these games and how they may affect the future of our societies, as it is obvious that more and more of these games will come out with better ideas and better concepts, which will eventually lead to more people playing them. Unless the developers somehow find a way to keep the addictions to a minimum, I believe that many people won’t be able to use their maximum potential in real life, and use their energy, time and intelligence in online gaming. This rises serious concerns in my opinion, as the gamerbase for these games multiply in a massive amount.
Bibliography:
Autrijve, Rainier Van. (2004) World Of Warcraft Launch Date Announced. [online] Available at: http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft/563565p1.html
Battlemouse, (2008), Why do you play MMO's?, Whirlpool,[online] Available at: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1040070
Brian D. Ng, Peter Wiemer-Hastings. CyberPsychology & Behavior. (April 2005), 8(2): 110-113. doi:10.1089/cpb.2005.8.110.
Clark, N (2006). Are Games Addictive? The State of the Science. [online] Available at: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2575/are_games_addictive_the_state_of_.php
Clark, N (2006) Addiction and the Structural Characteristics of Massively Multiplayer Online Games. [online] Available at: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.118.264&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Crowley, Lain (2010) Neverwinter Nights Description. [online] Available at: http://www.mobygames.com/game/neverwinter-nights
Hsu, S.H., Wen, M.-H. & Wu, M.-C., (2009). Exploring user experiences as predictors of MMORPG addiction. Computers & Education, 53(3), p.990-999. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2009.05.016.
Kim, V. (2005). Video Game Addicts Concern South Korean Government. [online] Available at: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/2005-10-06-korean-game-addicts_x.htm
Yee, Nicholas, (2002), Facets: 5 Motivation Factors for Why People Play MMORPG’s [online] Available at: http://www.nickyee.com/facets/method.html
Yee, Nicholas. (2001). The Norrathian Scrolls: A study of EverQuest (Version 2.5), [online] Available at: http://www.nickyee.com/eqt/home.html
Zenke, M. (2008) World of Warcraft hits 10 million players. [online] Available at:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/01/22/world-of-warcraft-hits-10-million-players/
Anon (2008) Achievement. [online] Available at: http://www.wowpedia.org/Achievement
A look into the structural design aspects of Massively Multiplayer Online games and trying to understand the types of addiction it may lead.
A research paper by Sinan Atamer
March 2011
alfachicken@hotmail.com
MA Digital Arts
The Abstract;
A long time has passed since the first MMO games came to the surface. Around 1991 video game designers realised that a multiplayer base for games offers much more to the players than straight storyline single player games. Having other players around you in a living world and sharing the experience with others is for many a much better experience. The first fully graphical multi-user RPG was Neverwinter Nights, which was delivered through America Online in 1991 and it all snowballed from there, as the NSFNET (National Science Foundation Network) restrictions were lifted, the Internet was up for game developers, which allowed for the first truly "massively"-scoped titles. From there, many titles were made up to now, most recognisable are World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XI. These games started a whole new phenomenon, people playing, levelling and role-playing their characters, which then became an addiction on several levels for some.
The games, having many layers of details, like a living economy, social cultures within themselves, guilds, jobs and worlds to explore, are filled with things to do, just like real life, which enables users to experience a whole different world. The games are designed to have these features in them because otherwise it would be impossible to keep the users continue play the games. Without a strict narrative, things to guide people around or a story focus, it is very hard to keep a user attached to a game when the market is filled with video games, and new ones come out almost everyday.
This is why several companies like Blizzard, creators of World of Warcraft, which is a MMO game that has been going for six years now with countless users, design their games to get the users ‘addicted’ using several systems. In my Research Paper, I will investigate what these systems are, and how they work. How they are aimed towards different types of interest groups and what makes them so addictive. I will investigate a group of players all around the world using forums and other connection means to make my primary research, while I investigate the game itself myself to see what piques my interest and how the people designed it.
Keywords: Addiction, Game Design, MMO, Role-playing, Obligation.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: 1
The structural characteristics of an MMO game: 4
PvE and PvP: 5
Reasons for addiction, and keywords to label: 7
Conclusion and discussion about the future of these online societies: 11
Bibliography: 14
Appendices: 15
The digital world is ever expanding in our millennia, with the fast evolving of the internet it is growing into a massive society where millions of people constantly share and increase the knowledge that is stored within a digital society. People spend hours and days in there, reading, writing, watching and living online lives, some more than others. This digital frontier did add something to our lives apart from Web 2.0 websites such as Facebook and Youtube, and it is MMO games. Multiplayer games were common even before the internet was born, people playing in “hot seat” mode in games, on the same computer, or by other means such as turn based video games, but with the Internet becoming available to everyone, video game developers saw a great vast world of new opportunities. Playing games with other people instead of an artificial intelligence is always more competitive and fun, while leading to replaying opportunities because of the human factor, and the realisation of this led to multiplayer gaming across the internet. The online role-playing games were born even before that, back in 1991 with Neverwinter Nights (Mobygames, 2010), which was delivered through America Online in 1991 and it all snowballed from there, as the NSFNET (National Science Foundation Network) restrictions were lifted, the Internet was up for game developers, which allowed for the first truly "massively"-scoped titles. The massive increase and the foundation of the MMO genre that we now play and speak about were laid much after that. MMO means Massively Multiplayer Online, and when I say Massive, I mean lots, lots of people.
MMO games, having many layers of details, like a living economy, social cultures within themselves, guilds, jobs and worlds to explore, are filled with things to do, just like real life, which enables users to experience a whole different world. This rich environment is created in a long time, and as you can imagine, this gives people to do so many things in these digital environments. The fact that everyone can find something to do in there is true enough, and this multi-aspect game design gets people hooked up into these worlds. The problem with creating such games is the fact that you need to get people to continue playing for a long time because of financial reasons. Creating a massive digital world needs many resources and keeping these digital worlds online needs huge servers with very good bandwidth. You also need to continue evolving your game, adapting it and apply changes to it to keep the interest of the players. These all cost money and many a MMO game plummeted their company to its doom because it failed to grasp the players’ attention. The companies that succeed in this environment are the ones to adapt really fast and create a community that attaches itself to these games, sometimes to the point of addiction to get people playing as long as possible.
So what are MMO games? MMO games are massive graphical game worlds, where millions of players interact with each other in real time. The players interact with each other, gather groups, slay monsters and do business in worlds with complex storylines, politics, economies and physics. This type of detailed virtual environment has led a lot of players into addiction. There are extreme cases, like people playing these games for 40,60, even near 90 hours straight, and then die (Kim, 2005). Though these can be very few, as with any other addictive thing in our world, there are people who exaggerate these games. Even though deaths are minimal, there are several cases of people who cannot cope with playing in these worlds while continuing a normal life, who left their jobs, their friends and became obsessed by the MMO games. Understanding these people and the potential for addiction in games requires that researchers use better materials and sampling methodologies. Defining populations as “addicted” is problematic as most studies fail to describe even their basic criteria. (Clark 2006). My current work attempts to describe the game systems and how they are designed to grasp many types of human characteristics, and try to label them, as there are many types of people who play these games for different reasons, but they can be easily put into several groups for an easier identification, rather than just grouping them up as ‘addicts’.
It is very important to note that, I am connected to these online environments as well. I have been playing video games since I was four when I got my first IBM, and been playing ever since. This gives me a very interesting perspective as I, as the author has been part of what I am investigating, as most of my closest friends and those I have met online. I have started my MMO adventures around 2003-2004, with Star Wars Galaxies, an MMO game based on George Lucas’ most known Star Wars franchise, and moved on to World of Warcraft on 2005. I have been playing World of Warcraft since then, even though I stopped playing at times up to three, four months of breaks for various reasons. While normally I would like to be on the objective side of an argument, I believe that my close connection with this world and my broad experience with the subject will let me analyse it with better understanding, and I believe I can explain the subject to the audience who may have had little experience with these worlds. I also have close connections to many types of communities who play these games, from competitive to social, where my primary research can help a better understanding.
For this paper, I have looked into the MMO game World of Warcraft to describe the design aspects of MMO games, a well known title across the world, with over 10 million active players (Zenke, 2008). Blizzard entertainment has been a very popular title amongst game development companies, their flagship games being the Diablo, Warcraft and Starcraft series, all of them loved and cherished by gamers all across the globe. World of Warcraft was their first MMO, based on their Warcraft franchise, and it has been a great success since its launch, on February 11, 2005 (Autrijve, 2004)
The game evolved a lot throughout the whole 6 years of constant patches and expansions, with increasing map space, more quests, more dungeons for players to adventure, more PvP zones for people to fight on and additions like a constant evolving achievement system which I will discuss later on. Blizzard has been a very smart developer, answering and listening their players from their administrated forums, and applying hotfixes to their game almost every week. This takes a lot of money and manpower to do, but they are rewarded with the interest of their gamerbase, which seem to be growing in size. More people mean more monthly subscriptions that helps them with their development. A basic MMO usually requires a monthly subscription of 10£, and you can imagine how big this business is when you consider the amount of people who are playing it.
I will explain the game structure a bit before starting on the whole design and addiction side, so we can have a clear and solid ground to stand upon. In WoW, players control their own avatars, or characters (or ‘chars’ in slang), level them up by gaining experience via several means, then at the end level (or endgame) create parties or raids with their friends or the people whom they meet online to defeat harder events. The players choose a class to play before creating their character. There are eight classes to pick from, but mainly they can be split into three categories. Healers, Damage and Tanks. Tanks basically lead the parties, while keeping control of the fight, healers heal the wounded players, and damage does the main job of killing the opposition. There are hybrid classes as well, like the Paladin, which can either be a healer, a damage or a tank depending on its character build. This allows a lot of choices for the players to pick from, as each class further divides into three sub classes, and there’s a lot of variety to make the game more exciting. Usually what happens is when a player is bored of his own class, they start all over, which is called ‘rerolling’. Later on these roles they pick will effect their position in a guild, whether it’s a PvE or PvP.
The game can be divided into two aspects to make explaining the workings easier, PvE and PvP. PvE means Player versus Environment, where a player or a group of players compete against computer generated monsters, events or dungeons for a single goal. This could range from simple questing to level up at start, to defeating giant dragons to save a kingdom at endgame, with the aid of forty or more players. According to my personal experience, PvE seems to be more suited towards a social group capable of working together. Guilds are usually formed at endgame to create a gamerbase of same minded folk, and like any company you can imagine, they have officers to guide them, people who actually do in game jobs to gain money, craft items, create tactics and when the time comes, achieve a goal together. They even have applications for people who want to join them, and people who read these and handpick their new members. PvE is cooperation at its best, where you have to coordinate yourself with other players like yourself, against a common enemy, the computer. It is quite exciting to play against a computer with your fellow men, as their flaws can bring you down as well, and the social group tries to work together to achieve a similar goal, covering each others failings.
PvP means player versus player, a more competitive and sport-like environment for players who want the excitement of playing against other players. Some players find PvP more challenging and exciting since it is not a competition against a computer created premade event, which would be controlled by artifical intelligence, but it is competing against other people, where the human mind can have micro-second decisions which could change the tide of the game. PvP can be further split into two in WoW, battlegrounds and arenas. Battlegrounds can be compared to army-like battle scenarios, where the players either capture strategic locations, capture the enemies flag while defending their own, or defeat the opposing faction using various tactical means to control the battlefield. These are small scenarios played under fifteen minutes at most. Arenas are added later on to WoW, in the games 3rd year, as a side thing to do for most players. It quickly evolved into an Electronic Sport, and it is now considered to be the most competitive environment a MMO can have. Arenas can be played as 2v2, 3v3 or 5v5, where your setup meets another and the victor gains points that increase their ladder status. The arena system has a unique way of increasing players’ rating where they compete against players around their own skill, and the better you get the better opponents you get to face. The top 5% players at the end of each season, which goes on about three months usually get unique titles and equipment. Be it PvE or PvP, or just casual adventuring, there’s something for everyone in these environments.
So in an environment as rich and complex as I have tried to describe above, how can we label the types of addiction? We need a system of some sort to find the different types and try to understand them. According to a research done by Shang Hwa Hsu, Ming-Hui Wen and Muh-Cherng Wu, the reasons can be explained in eleven different keywords; ‘challenge, fantasy, curiosity, control, reward, cooperation, competition, recognition, belonging, obligation and role-playing’ (Computers & Education, 2009). This model I believe is one of the clearest ways to find out how the game developers design these games to make the users play as much as possible. According to my primary research done over several online gamers from various age and interest groups, this model partially applies to them as well. Ysnakke, a WoW (World of Warcraft) player of several years said, ‘For PvP (Player versus Player), Challenge is certainly what keeps me driven.’(Ysnakke, 2011) He, for example, ignores almost all the other aspects of the game and just plays competitive player versus player matches, just like a digital sport, against other players. This single aspect of the game continues to excite him even after so many years, and he continues to play the game just for that. Likewise, Ana Sofia Neves (Midus), another WoW player who’s from Portugal said it was the sense of ‘belonging’ which kept her playing the game. She says ‘I have played wow for the past 6 years, tried it because all my friends were playing at the time and I didn't want to be left behind. When I started playing it was fun, I could have a laugh with my friends and we would share a different environment then the quotidian. After while it started feeling like the game was also a part of my life, I made friends and I was also part of a guild which made me feel like I had another family. At this point it started feeling like I belonged there. There was always something I was needed for, to raid, to lead, to advise. Even when there was nothing to achieve I still felt the need of login into the game because it was part of my life and I belonged there as well.’(Neves, 2011) Onotic, another WoW player who also says competition is a great factor continues ‘Recognition could maybe be a factor as well. I like if people call me a good druid’(Onotic, 2011)
There are many other people who one way or another find something to do in these games to keep them busy. Lets take the reward system for example. Many MMO games are designed towards rewarding the players some way or another. World of Warcraft takes this to the next level, as Blizzard usually takes good ideas from other games and adapts them into their own. The reward system in WoW is named as the achievement system and was added on October 2008. ‘World of Warcraft's achievements system launched with exactly 749 individual achievements covering every aspect of game play, including world exploration, PvE, PvP, professions, and character development; from the purely whimsical to the truly epic, there is something for everyone. Some achievements come with in-game rewards such as mounts, tabards, vanity pets, and titles. All of these rewards are purely cosmetic and just for fun, but you’ll certainly stand out when you proudly display them.’(Anon, wowpedia.org, 2008) This achievement system enables players to show off their progress to others, and display their skill. For example, the bosses that you kill with your friends may be easy, but there are several different achievements to kill them in a specific way that requires skill and tactics, which is then rewarded with the things mentioned above. Players will try to get these awards and spend more time in the game. Dominic Crossland, a WoW player says, ‘When you sit in Stormwind and get 5 people asking you how you got your mount or title its nice they recognize your skill and effort.’(Crossland, 2011) They are however, really time consuming. Several achievements take days to complete, from exploring the whole map of the game, to getting reputation from several in game factions, which requires many hours of killing and gathering creatures and items.
This system of achievements and goals also divides players into categories. Simple minded folk will try to find people with similar interests and form Guilds, where they recruit and train other people to reach their goals. There are thousands of guilds in World of Warcraft, ranging from friend guilds to PvP ones, or competitive PvE ones. There are also others who take things easily, just explore the world or have a small adventure. The competitive guilds take the game very seriously, they actually race each other to defeat the new content, post it online and get recognition for themselves. This could lead to sponsorship, website hits and commercial possibilities. Luke Frost, a competitive PvE gamer from UK says “‘E-fame’! A sense of purpose for being well known for a good reason- such as being a well known PvE competitor.” He also adds; ‘I am controlling the actions of my in-game self every time I log on, as well as controlling, or at least steering the actions of other peoples. That is slightly compelling. I personally have an obligation on making sure people can raid. I know without me around peoples experiences would be probably worse. That’s obligating.’(Frost, 2011) This sense of obligation leads to logging in almost every day, checking everyone’s attendance, their dedication and making rules to keep a disciplined environment, especially in competitive guilds. The problem with this type of addiction is that you cannot stop and leave it one day, as you have many people looking at you for decisions and leadership.
There are other researchers looking into the same subject with similar ways labeling. Nicholas Yee, one of the most recognizable names in the study of MMO effects, surveyed over 30.000 players from several MMO games. During his research, Yee identified five factors of MMO motivation: achievement, relationship, immersion, escapism and manipulation. Some of these are applicable to the model we used earlier, but the ones that interest me a lot are escapism and relationship here. Yee’s studies indicate that 15.8% of men and 59.8% of the women amongst the 30.000 players play MMO’s with a romantic partner and 25.5% of men and 39.5% of women play with a family member. This would show that women are mostly introduce to MMO games by a boyfriend or a family member.(Yee, 2006) These studies are of course 5 years old now, and I believe the numbers may have changed a lot during these years, as the MMO’s evolved in a titanic portion, but the main idea stays the same, it is mostly young men who usually play these games, and their partners and/or relatives are usually drawn into it because of them.
Escapism is another matter. I and the people around me are quite familiar with the fantasy genre, we were born within, we grew up reading Tolkien and Robert E. Howard’s stories, and the whole idea of another world seems quite familiar to me. But amongst those millions of people who play these games, there must be people who have a different view to these games. The whole game design is made towards communicating people, creating digital communities and getting people to work towards a similar goal, and a sense of achievement. The idea of living in another world and escape the troubles of the real life is quite appealing. SinisterAussie says; ‘For me MMO's fill a void that I am unable to fill in real life. It is my escape I leave everything behind and delve deeper into the cyber world. Escapism is our worst addiction of all we all strive for it.’ It is so much easier to communicate with people and share things in MMO’s that I have seen many people who suffer from types of disorder in real life find happiness within. In fact, I think in a way we can compare MMO games with social media tools, such as Twitter or Facebook. Serkan Ayan, a Turkish WoW player said ‘World of Warcraft is just a prettier looking Facebook for me. There is a chat client, and a tweet tool, and all my closest friends are mostly online.’(Ayan, 2011) This could also explain why people cannot stop playing these games. Facebook utilises a smart design where if you stop your account, you would feel like you would be missing a massive amount of information (which is true) that is going on between your friends and relatives. I believe the same can be applied to MMO’s, where the idea of belonging makes you attach to the game if you are playing with people who are close to you. How could I leave them? Wouldn’t it feel like backstabbing them, leaving them without me? Will they be able to find a suitable replacement for me? These questions would haunt the subject, who is considering leaving.
These games are designed towards creating a social structure. Even if it is a warped version of a real life social group, it somehow works for people, and acts as a surrogate social resource. The problem then is leaving these social groups behind when we need to. They are so easily accessible, and so easily formed, but getting away from them would be extremely hard. Especially when you spend days or even years on a character you have been working on. Leaving your character aside, like said above, it is very difficult to leave these groups just like leaving any social group in real life. How could you cut your bonds from several people at once and stop seeing each other? I believe that the strongest urges here are belonging, obligation and cooperation. Human beings are social creatures by design, and even on a digital environment, they must be a part of a group. The design of MMO games, and most of the Web 2.0 structured web sites such as Facebook or Youtube is to get people into groups as quickly as possible, and get them hooked up, unable to leave, because of these online societies. Getting even a tiny dose of satisfaction for these strong social urges by just sitting at the safety of your home, easily accessing the interface and not going out can lead to addiction.
An interesting theory would be to look into the future and try to see what will happen to the new generations that are now born into these worlds. People around my age were introduced to online gaming when we were around ten years old, around 1997-98, and I believe we are one of the last generations to have that real world experience, things like playing games outside and living through power cuts. The children who were born from 2000 to now are born in a digital world which is ever connected, with smart phones, online societies and MMO games. Even their parents could be playing these games, introducing them to this strange lifestyle from an early age. Since there is no example of this generation of online gamers when they are in their 70’s, it is quite impossible to understand what they will be like. Considering the amount of time and energy spent on these games, and how addictive they are however, it is quite obvious that they will be a generation of people with an interesting way of looking into real life, seeing jobs as a mandatory thing to do to continue playing their games, having friends only online and not going out much apart from getting supplies. How will they meet new people? Get in a relationship? Apart from introducing new people to their society, will they be able to reproduce? These are questions that will have to wait couple of decades as we go deeper into a digital society.
I tried to explain the design aspects of a basic MMO game as clearly as possible using World of Warcraft’s system and tried to give examples of labelling the addiction types it may lead with examples. I’m hoping that in the future there will be some detailed research done on these games and how they may affect the future of our societies, as it is obvious that more and more of these games will come out with better ideas and better concepts, which will eventually lead to more people playing them. Unless the developers somehow find a way to keep the addictions to a minimum, I believe that many people won’t be able to use their maximum potential in real life, and use their energy, time and intelligence in online gaming. This rises serious concerns in my opinion, as the gamerbase for these games multiply in a massive amount.
Bibliography:
Autrijve, Rainier Van. (2004) World Of Warcraft Launch Date Announced. [online] Available at: http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft/563565p1.html
Battlemouse, (2008), Why do you play MMO's?, Whirlpool,[online] Available at: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1040070
Brian D. Ng, Peter Wiemer-Hastings. CyberPsychology & Behavior. (April 2005), 8(2): 110-113. doi:10.1089/cpb.2005.8.110.
Clark, N (2006). Are Games Addictive? The State of the Science. [online] Available at: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2575/are_games_addictive_the_state_of_.php
Clark, N (2006) Addiction and the Structural Characteristics of Massively Multiplayer Online Games. [online] Available at: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.118.264&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Crowley, Lain (2010) Neverwinter Nights Description. [online] Available at: http://www.mobygames.com/game/neverwinter-nights
Hsu, S.H., Wen, M.-H. & Wu, M.-C., (2009). Exploring user experiences as predictors of MMORPG addiction. Computers & Education, 53(3), p.990-999. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2009.05.016.
Kim, V. (2005). Video Game Addicts Concern South Korean Government. [online] Available at: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/2005-10-06-korean-game-addicts_x.htm
Yee, Nicholas, (2002), Facets: 5 Motivation Factors for Why People Play MMORPG’s [online] Available at: http://www.nickyee.com/facets/method.html
Yee, Nicholas. (2001). The Norrathian Scrolls: A study of EverQuest (Version 2.5), [online] Available at: http://www.nickyee.com/eqt/home.html
Zenke, M. (2008) World of Warcraft hits 10 million players. [online] Available at:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/01/22/world-of-warcraft-hits-10-million-players/
Anon (2008) Achievement. [online] Available at: http://www.wowpedia.org/Achievement
(MA) 31 MAY ASSESSMENT
Hello!
Well here we go with the assessment, first of all, the links;
Porject proposal :
Mid Point Review:
Written Paper
So those are the links! I've got some drawings I do ocassionaly in lunch breaks during work on the blog, just ignore them for the purposes of this assessment, although some of them have connections to the project itself. I believe I also did some short storyboards way back around october/november There is also lots of written things connected to reality, perception and society, which are connected to our project. They can be found in the blog, just watch for the (MA) tags!
I tried updating this blog as much as I could, but as much as I understand the merits of keeping record of everything I do, I work quite fast and without much organization, which doesn't work well with this type of system. I do try to adapt and learn though, and I believe this year I evolved a lot, both artistically and the way I take responsibilities. I tried to keep this blog alive as much as I can, if you focus on the (MA) tagged posts, you can find anything I updated for the course.
Basically what remains to do with the project is to map what we need on the Hoppala layout. LINK HERE FOR HOPPALA After that, I will do a small documentation of someone actually running about using our program on a smartphone to make a video for the final project. What we are trying to do here is to get people from somewhere to somewhere else. The power of actually mobilising people can open ways for advertisement and many other things, and doing this using a simple application like a smartphone-farmville can actually spread amongst users like a virus.
I want to document what makes people tick. Is it rewards? Appreciation from others? Recognition? Can a small thing like a title for your game character make you go to places in a city and clicking one button? How can we reward people and get them addicted? These are some of the many questions I want to look into. My research paper also looked into this, using Massively multiplayer online games as an example.
What I learned so far during this collaborative project is that working with people is hard. Very hard. Organization, timelines and ideas fly around in a mess, and you do need someone to actually take charge and make decisions at some point. It has been quite fun though, I believe we actually created so many ideas that we can support maybe 3-4 more projects now, if we were given the time and the money. It also has some nice sides as well, someone to share your troubles and hardship is nice to have around, and like I said, bouncing ideas off someone whenever you need is a fantastic opportunity.
The project did change a lot. We started off as a narrative smartphone based application. It had its own problems though. The narrative base gives us a nice background to use, but it also creates a lot of problems programming wise and we realized it could also hinder the game itself, if the people who play the game got stuck within the narrative. Easy interface and fast game play is a bonus for us, we need as many players as we can get.
So we changed into a small one-button game that can be played on the map itself. We will still test-drive the game in Edinburgh, it's a small city where you can walk from one edge to another in 20-30 minutes max. And it will also have a small narrative, but it will be just one page, optional to read, to get people in the mood if they wish. The game itself will be just the map of the city in a grid, where players of two teams just click something like 'sign in' or 'make a mark' button on the grid they are. The more marks a team gets, the more they own that zone. Individuals who click more at different spots get more points, which will lead to small titles and other rewards. The trick here is that we will randomly assign different zones which give bonus points when you sign in from there at a given time space. This, we hope, will get the players to go to these zones. This is the main idea of the project, controlling people with small achievements.
Ease of use and simplicity is our main goal now. We need to get this program running as fast as we can. Anything else can come later, be it artwork, design or background for the game. I believe if we can get a simple model running, we will find our problems and start fixing them.
There are several other application types that we can look into but we had to decide quick now as there is only two months left in our schedule. One really nice application that may suit our needs is; Hawlett-Packards Mscape but we will stick with Hoppala, as we started working on it.
During our discussions in the class I've gotten quite positive feedback which made me reflect on the project in a more critical way. While you're working with someone who is close to your ideas and thinking system, it is quite easy to get lost within the dialogue and stop seeing what you're doing objectively. The meetings and the crits we had in class, and the presentations really helped me to hear myself from a 3rd person perspective, and find the problems in the project that I'm doing. After each session I met with my collegue and we sat down and went through what was spoken. Interestingly enough, he has similar cases of meetings with his peers and the feedback we take became quite important for us.
I tried adding what I could to others as well. I hope I aided them. I would try to remember everything I said but what ideas I had while we were talking were lost within the conversations. I could only remember asking Jes about her Low/high quality image differences, and the movies on the internet and how users downloaded these low quality images next to the high-def blueray rips.
Darren seems like he knows his business with programming. I believe he just needs some push towards the design aspect. He seems reluctant to do anything creative. This is understandable although I believe if he leaves his comfort zone, he can accomplish fantastic things considering the technological advantage he has under his belt.
That's about it, I hope I didn't miss anything out. Like I said, feel free to check the blog around, there might be some interesting stuff connected to the project. Thanks for reading!
-Sinan
Well here we go with the assessment, first of all, the links;
Porject proposal :
Mid Point Review:
Written Paper
So those are the links! I've got some drawings I do ocassionaly in lunch breaks during work on the blog, just ignore them for the purposes of this assessment, although some of them have connections to the project itself. I believe I also did some short storyboards way back around october/november There is also lots of written things connected to reality, perception and society, which are connected to our project. They can be found in the blog, just watch for the (MA) tags!
I tried updating this blog as much as I could, but as much as I understand the merits of keeping record of everything I do, I work quite fast and without much organization, which doesn't work well with this type of system. I do try to adapt and learn though, and I believe this year I evolved a lot, both artistically and the way I take responsibilities. I tried to keep this blog alive as much as I can, if you focus on the (MA) tagged posts, you can find anything I updated for the course.
Basically what remains to do with the project is to map what we need on the Hoppala layout. LINK HERE FOR HOPPALA After that, I will do a small documentation of someone actually running about using our program on a smartphone to make a video for the final project. What we are trying to do here is to get people from somewhere to somewhere else. The power of actually mobilising people can open ways for advertisement and many other things, and doing this using a simple application like a smartphone-farmville can actually spread amongst users like a virus.
I want to document what makes people tick. Is it rewards? Appreciation from others? Recognition? Can a small thing like a title for your game character make you go to places in a city and clicking one button? How can we reward people and get them addicted? These are some of the many questions I want to look into. My research paper also looked into this, using Massively multiplayer online games as an example.
What I learned so far during this collaborative project is that working with people is hard. Very hard. Organization, timelines and ideas fly around in a mess, and you do need someone to actually take charge and make decisions at some point. It has been quite fun though, I believe we actually created so many ideas that we can support maybe 3-4 more projects now, if we were given the time and the money. It also has some nice sides as well, someone to share your troubles and hardship is nice to have around, and like I said, bouncing ideas off someone whenever you need is a fantastic opportunity.
The project did change a lot. We started off as a narrative smartphone based application. It had its own problems though. The narrative base gives us a nice background to use, but it also creates a lot of problems programming wise and we realized it could also hinder the game itself, if the people who play the game got stuck within the narrative. Easy interface and fast game play is a bonus for us, we need as many players as we can get.
So we changed into a small one-button game that can be played on the map itself. We will still test-drive the game in Edinburgh, it's a small city where you can walk from one edge to another in 20-30 minutes max. And it will also have a small narrative, but it will be just one page, optional to read, to get people in the mood if they wish. The game itself will be just the map of the city in a grid, where players of two teams just click something like 'sign in' or 'make a mark' button on the grid they are. The more marks a team gets, the more they own that zone. Individuals who click more at different spots get more points, which will lead to small titles and other rewards. The trick here is that we will randomly assign different zones which give bonus points when you sign in from there at a given time space. This, we hope, will get the players to go to these zones. This is the main idea of the project, controlling people with small achievements.
Ease of use and simplicity is our main goal now. We need to get this program running as fast as we can. Anything else can come later, be it artwork, design or background for the game. I believe if we can get a simple model running, we will find our problems and start fixing them.
There are several other application types that we can look into but we had to decide quick now as there is only two months left in our schedule. One really nice application that may suit our needs is; Hawlett-Packards Mscape but we will stick with Hoppala, as we started working on it.
During our discussions in the class I've gotten quite positive feedback which made me reflect on the project in a more critical way. While you're working with someone who is close to your ideas and thinking system, it is quite easy to get lost within the dialogue and stop seeing what you're doing objectively. The meetings and the crits we had in class, and the presentations really helped me to hear myself from a 3rd person perspective, and find the problems in the project that I'm doing. After each session I met with my collegue and we sat down and went through what was spoken. Interestingly enough, he has similar cases of meetings with his peers and the feedback we take became quite important for us.
I tried adding what I could to others as well. I hope I aided them. I would try to remember everything I said but what ideas I had while we were talking were lost within the conversations. I could only remember asking Jes about her Low/high quality image differences, and the movies on the internet and how users downloaded these low quality images next to the high-def blueray rips.
Darren seems like he knows his business with programming. I believe he just needs some push towards the design aspect. He seems reluctant to do anything creative. This is understandable although I believe if he leaves his comfort zone, he can accomplish fantastic things considering the technological advantage he has under his belt.
That's about it, I hope I didn't miss anything out. Like I said, feel free to check the blog around, there might be some interesting stuff connected to the project. Thanks for reading!
-Sinan
Monday, May 16, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
doodling
Some drawing done today at work during the lunch break. Like a friend says, just a "quickie" ;)
Monday, May 2, 2011
(MA)Tuesday 3 May - group tutorial
Hey everyone,
Sorry for not being there, for some weird reason istanbul was really cold and rainy, got really sick, I managed to get to UK on monday but I got a high fever running and should stay at home.
Here's the presentation and the tutorial of the Hoppala User interface we'll be using, I don't recommend watching it over the presentation day as it's quite boring (the guy who's explaining stuff has a really boring voice for some reason) but if you have some free time at home it's quite interesting how easy they made the user interface.
Hoppala Augmentation opens up mobile augmented reality to non-technical creatives as it takes away the hassles of technology. No matter if you set up a quick demo for the next pitch, build an AR application for your next event, or if you just want to explore this new technology. Hoppala Augmentation allows you to build your own personalized augmented reality experiences with just a few mouse clicks.
This is basically a breakthrough for our project, as it will take away all the pain of programming, which we were facing as the n1 problem. We will start testing this user interface the next few weeks.
I will add some artwork I've done over the holidays in the following couple of weeks, sorry again for the inconvenience =)
I hope you all had a nice holiday, see you all soon!
Sinan
Sorry for not being there, for some weird reason istanbul was really cold and rainy, got really sick, I managed to get to UK on monday but I got a high fever running and should stay at home.
Here's the presentation and the tutorial of the Hoppala User interface we'll be using, I don't recommend watching it over the presentation day as it's quite boring (the guy who's explaining stuff has a really boring voice for some reason) but if you have some free time at home it's quite interesting how easy they made the user interface.
Hoppala Augmentation opens up mobile augmented reality to non-technical creatives as it takes away the hassles of technology. No matter if you set up a quick demo for the next pitch, build an AR application for your next event, or if you just want to explore this new technology. Hoppala Augmentation allows you to build your own personalized augmented reality experiences with just a few mouse clicks.
This is basically a breakthrough for our project, as it will take away all the pain of programming, which we were facing as the n1 problem. We will start testing this user interface the next few weeks.
I will add some artwork I've done over the holidays in the following couple of weeks, sorry again for the inconvenience =)
I hope you all had a nice holiday, see you all soon!
Sinan
Sunday, May 1, 2011
(MA)Hoppala! , to look for the project ;
http://www.hoppala-agency.com/
Hoppala Augmentation provides an easy-to-use graphical web interface to create augmented reality contents with just a few mouseclicks. It provides a login and a full screen map interface, and images and 3D models can be easily uploaded to a personalized inventory. Created once, Hoppala Augmentation publishes your contents to all major mobile augmented reality browsers.
This might basically do the whole programming job for us, letting us focus on the game itself, some experimentation will be done though.
Hoppala Augmentation provides an easy-to-use graphical web interface to create augmented reality contents with just a few mouseclicks. It provides a login and a full screen map interface, and images and 3D models can be easily uploaded to a personalized inventory. Created once, Hoppala Augmentation publishes your contents to all major mobile augmented reality browsers.
This might basically do the whole programming job for us, letting us focus on the game itself, some experimentation will be done though.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
(MA) Mid Point Review presentation
Hello all!
Since its a powerpoint presentation I'm having difficulties uploading every image. I'll write down everything, but the end might be a tad different than the presentation. Atleast you won't get bored!
Anyways;
You all know the project, I'll just speak about the changes/news.
I've got the Edinburgh map in grid now, and I've done some research into old maps and other funky "occult" stuff that might be found about edinburgh. This is to find some symbolic references on the map. I'm talking about streets, buildings etc. shaped in some specific way for something. If I cannot find many, I'll just make them up as I go along.
We've decided the game will be played by 2 factions. The players will choose them from the start, and they cannot change it. The two factions will try to "capture" the grids on the map, or specific points, by being there and clicking on the program. The GPS on their smartphones will understand their position, and add a point to their faction.
This could be visual as well, where the factions actually imprint/write/spray their logos on the streets, although I think the governement could be a bit angry about that. We could also use barcode readers for it as well. So many ideas!
Anyways, the factions will be witch hunters and the pagan cultists. I chose them because they're quite recognisable. The storyline will be written later, but the pagan people are basically searching for occult symbols and trying to capture relics/artifact while the witch hunters are....hunting them!
Well what else? There's good news on the funding front, where my friend can get a programmer with his university funding, which would ease up our situation a lot. After this whole business with the research paper is done, I will sit down and create the artwork for the game, and the design of the maps.
Thats about it! thanks for reading and see you on tuesday.
Since its a powerpoint presentation I'm having difficulties uploading every image. I'll write down everything, but the end might be a tad different than the presentation. Atleast you won't get bored!
Anyways;
You all know the project, I'll just speak about the changes/news.
I've got the Edinburgh map in grid now, and I've done some research into old maps and other funky "occult" stuff that might be found about edinburgh. This is to find some symbolic references on the map. I'm talking about streets, buildings etc. shaped in some specific way for something. If I cannot find many, I'll just make them up as I go along.
We've decided the game will be played by 2 factions. The players will choose them from the start, and they cannot change it. The two factions will try to "capture" the grids on the map, or specific points, by being there and clicking on the program. The GPS on their smartphones will understand their position, and add a point to their faction.
This could be visual as well, where the factions actually imprint/write/spray their logos on the streets, although I think the governement could be a bit angry about that. We could also use barcode readers for it as well. So many ideas!
Anyways, the factions will be witch hunters and the pagan cultists. I chose them because they're quite recognisable. The storyline will be written later, but the pagan people are basically searching for occult symbols and trying to capture relics/artifact while the witch hunters are....hunting them!
Well what else? There's good news on the funding front, where my friend can get a programmer with his university funding, which would ease up our situation a lot. After this whole business with the research paper is done, I will sit down and create the artwork for the game, and the design of the maps.
Thats about it! thanks for reading and see you on tuesday.
(MA) Research paper
It's been a while :(
I've been busy with many things, I've started as a trainee in splash london as a photo retouching artist and it's quite time consuming.
The best thing is, I've learned so much over these past 4-5 weeks. Probably more than I've learned the last year. I am quite confident with photoshop now, although I think I'm barely scratching the surface, there's SO MUCH to learn.
Anyways, the research paper.
My research paper will be on Online gaming, focusing on Massively multiplayer online games (or MMO's) and how their design gets people addicted.
This will be purely an investigation of the gamer society, and the game design. I have many resources that can help me with Primary research, and after our tutorial with Jonathan last week, I feel really confident about the subject at hand.
I will add a picture of my sketchbook, need to type everything down later in a clearer way, please click on the link;
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v104/boyacininevi/IMG_2172.jpg
I've been busy with many things, I've started as a trainee in splash london as a photo retouching artist and it's quite time consuming.
The best thing is, I've learned so much over these past 4-5 weeks. Probably more than I've learned the last year. I am quite confident with photoshop now, although I think I'm barely scratching the surface, there's SO MUCH to learn.
Anyways, the research paper.
My research paper will be on Online gaming, focusing on Massively multiplayer online games (or MMO's) and how their design gets people addicted.
This will be purely an investigation of the gamer society, and the game design. I have many resources that can help me with Primary research, and after our tutorial with Jonathan last week, I feel really confident about the subject at hand.
I will add a picture of my sketchbook, need to type everything down later in a clearer way, please click on the link;
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v104/boyacininevi/IMG_2172.jpg
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
(MA) Presentation 2
Well, it's been two weeks.
Haven't done much since I've started work though. ah well.
Things to look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_%28mind_game%29
http://www.losethegame.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code
Haven't done much since I've started work though. ah well.
Things to look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_%28mind_game%29
http://www.losethegame.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
(MA) Group crit reflection
Many things were said, what I need to remember;
In a collaborative project, The key is to document what I do clearly.
The end product isn't the most important part, what I did in it and how I evolved is more important.
The project could be more of a work of art, instead of an application
Most important;
Instead of the barcode reader, may use OPEN CV, (computer vision) a program that understand silhouttes.
In a collaborative project, The key is to document what I do clearly.
The end product isn't the most important part, what I did in it and how I evolved is more important.
The project could be more of a work of art, instead of an application
Most important;
Instead of the barcode reader, may use OPEN CV, (computer vision) a program that understand silhouttes.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
(MA) Group Crit Presentation
Project presentation;
This project is creating a GPS based smart phone application, which will enable the users to interact with the real world in a series of mini-quests that will take them around a specific city.
We are doing this project with a friend of mine, who is a sociology student. Even though we both are looking into different subjects, the project is deep enough to fulfil both our research, and will be much faster to accomplish.
The project will be an application that will send the user around the city to complete a series of quests. It’s not decided yet whether or not for these quests to pop up whenever the player runs through a specific part of the town he lives in or he will be strictly sent to the places we want him to go, but basically as he completes these quests, he will get more complicated visions of several more buildings/monuments etc. that will give him the clues where to go next.
The objective of the game is to help the user experience the fact that the real world might be unreal, and what he sees is not what everyone else does. The idea of perception is quite important here. Although the project has various aims since it’s a joint project, I personally want to see how art and games can effect the perception of reality, and how the player experiences these steps his feelings and his emotions throughout the process. I really like the idea of using the mobile phone or any other object as a “looking glass” to the other side, and this "looking glass" idea could be investigated as well.
So what we’ve done so far is to go to Edinburgh and visit several places, take some photos for me to work with, and start the small storyline that will be the scenario for the game.
We will finish this process in two weeks, where I will go to Edinburgh one last time to go sight-hunting, find proper places for our scenario and gather enough data to work from London, and start the artworks. Then we will use the script and the artwork into a game.
Next will be the hardest part where we will work with a programmer to write the code for Android mobile phones. If we can’t find a programmer, we have a backup plan where we will use open-source barcode reader programmes which will again work with this project.
This project is creating a GPS based smart phone application, which will enable the users to interact with the real world in a series of mini-quests that will take them around a specific city.
We are doing this project with a friend of mine, who is a sociology student. Even though we both are looking into different subjects, the project is deep enough to fulfil both our research, and will be much faster to accomplish.
The project will be an application that will send the user around the city to complete a series of quests. It’s not decided yet whether or not for these quests to pop up whenever the player runs through a specific part of the town he lives in or he will be strictly sent to the places we want him to go, but basically as he completes these quests, he will get more complicated visions of several more buildings/monuments etc. that will give him the clues where to go next.
The objective of the game is to help the user experience the fact that the real world might be unreal, and what he sees is not what everyone else does. The idea of perception is quite important here. Although the project has various aims since it’s a joint project, I personally want to see how art and games can effect the perception of reality, and how the player experiences these steps his feelings and his emotions throughout the process. I really like the idea of using the mobile phone or any other object as a “looking glass” to the other side, and this "looking glass" idea could be investigated as well.
So what we’ve done so far is to go to Edinburgh and visit several places, take some photos for me to work with, and start the small storyline that will be the scenario for the game.
We will finish this process in two weeks, where I will go to Edinburgh one last time to go sight-hunting, find proper places for our scenario and gather enough data to work from London, and start the artworks. Then we will use the script and the artwork into a game.
Next will be the hardest part where we will work with a programmer to write the code for Android mobile phones. If we can’t find a programmer, we have a backup plan where we will use open-source barcode reader programmes which will again work with this project.
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