I think Brendan's "Hide and Seek" game is pretty interesting.  For last blog assignment , most of the people posted the parlor games which are played by chat log a lot rather than active and motion game. But "Hide and Seek" is more active and it maximize the fuction of character's motion as well. 
 Moreover, we also use the chat log during the game. Actually if we play the "Hide and Seek" in real world, chatting with the other team member is impossible because we should be hidden somewhere and try to be silent. However, in the MMO world, we can use chat log everytime and it would be more fun for the game. We can give the clues of where we are and sometime we can also play tricks.

 I choose the 'Twenty questions' for the parlor game in Vanguard. It is very traditional and worldwide game, and also I used to playing this game in the car with my friends. As everybody knows, the game rule is very simple.

In the traditional game, one player is chosen to be the answerer. That person chooses a subject but does not reveal this to the others. All other players are questioners. They each take turns asking a question which can be answered with a simple "Yes" or "No." In variants of the game (see below), multiple state answers may be included such as the answer "Maybe." The answerer answers each question in turn. Sample questions could be: "Is it in this room?" or "Is it bigger than a breadbox?" Lying is not allowed, as it would ruin the game. If a questioner guesses the correct answer, that questioner wins and becomes the answerer for the next round. If 20 questions are asked without a correct guess, then the answerer has stumped the questioners and gets to be the answerer for another round.
[by Wikipedia]

In the world of Vanguard, the only thing you need is to use chat log. This game is totally non-active game compare to mafia. Also, we can set the rule of this game as 'You can only choose a subject which is in the Vanguard (e.g. mobs, tools and player types). Moreover, it doesn't need to be in the same space, so if the players in the same world or use the same channel, then you can play this game in everywhere.
 

There are 3 main questions of my research : 

1. Does Players' behaviors follow their motivation ?
2. What is the common characteristics of MMORPGs players?
3. What attracts the players attention in the game world?

My research will be based on the tracking the players' movements and interview. For the first question, my research is based on the thoeries which examined the players' types by motivation ; Bartle's player type and Whang's player type.  I will examine the players' movement like where's the most interesting part for the players and what is the route of most players passed by. Through the examination, I expect that I will figure out where is the most popular points for the players and why. Also, I expect to categorize the player type by the behavior and compare to the theories about player type by motivation.
 

     How can we achieve unbiased research? In a guideline for social science study, there are various standards you should consider before start research. To choose the participants, you can use the random sampling tool to minimize the sampling problem. When you make out the question lists for the survey, you should consider that is there any comments that allude to the assumption of research. In my opinion, the most important thing to consider before design the study is being careful to common sense.

     There are phenomena which are seemed to be natural based on our common sense. For instance, if the topic for my research is "differences between players from different culture",  there is an assumption that I would be find any kind of differences among the players. When I set a hypothesis for the research, I should be careful of this kind of assumption. What is the reason that I think the cultural difference is natural?

     If I have a certain assumption like this, it would effect the partipants' anwsers. "In your opinion, what is the cultural difference between players from different culture?" This question inclueds that there is a cultural difference. Even though the paticipants did not realize any difference before, the above question makes participants think that there was a difference.

     In my research, the weakness for the impartiality is recording the behavior. The basic process of my research will be consisted of the observation of players in Vanguard. The problem is, the hypothesis of my research is "the behavior stem from the motivation." so even a small, unintended behavior, it is possible that I would consider it as a serious and intended behavior of player. Of course, it would be results from the unconsciousness, however, what if the behavior is from accidentality? It is easy to maximize the meaning of behavior because of my assumption.

There is an article written by BonnieRuberg, which serves an explanation of the new game "Lila's Dream." This is still on developmental stage, but this game starts free service as a demo. Most of MMORPGs are based on Fantasy World such as Warcraft. This game, Lila's dream also based on fantasy world, but not as a Tolkin's fantasy but as a dream! And also this game is very artistic and matched to the sensitiveness of female. These days, the number of MMORPG players is steadly increased, and also the population of female players is increased. As one of the female player, I'm glad to hear the news of the free service of Lila's Dream.

Also, from the list of contributing authors, I found an author who is a senior manager of the game company and also works in school as a faculty.  His name is Yoon, Unggi and actually at first I was just interested in his blog because it is written in korean. His blog is about his experience of work and his research about the classical games. And I found a interesting article from the UK which posted on his blog lately, which crticizes the students from the game major college.

In the work places, a lot of employers do not consider to hire student who majored in game in the college, because their professional knowledge of game is insufficient to work in the practical environment. It is because they don't have any background knowledg related to other social-science area, and because of lack of knowledge, they cannot bring out creative accomplishment for business. The author, Yoon, totally agreed the opinion of article of situation of UK and he also had same experience that he disappointed to the game major student. In spite of the problem, there's still more than 80 schools which serves the game major.

In Terra Nova, different authors from different place participate in posting with different topic. It could be an introduction of new game or critic of the game society. And the form of the articles are free to post. Why don't we join the member at a contributing reader?

     To identify the guils in the Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, I browsed the website of station.sony.com. They are a lot of guilds categorized by various standard such as number of members, wealth, quest completed per meber rate and even there are most death per member. But the description of this categorization is not enough for me, because there is a category such as "most unique member", but I don't know what does 'unique' mean in this game.

    I examine the most wealth guilds. The most wealth guild in seradon is Invictus. They have 200 members and there is 73 unique members( Question again. what is the meaning of 'unique' at here?) and their average level is 37. The interesting thing of Invictus is guild leader. I expected someone who has high level, enough experience and is hardcore player would be guild leader. Sometime, my expectation is correct, because one of the five guild leaders, Anticules, his level is as following

Anticules

50 Dread Knight

50 Blacksmith

49 Diplomat

09/28/08

     And his last played time is yesterday, so I can assume that he would be hardcore player and really enjoy his second virtual life. 

     However, the other guild leader, dracules information is as following.

Dracules

2 Blood Mage

1 Crafter

1 Diplomat

09/07/08

     And his last played time is september 7th, 22 days ago. And even more his portrait is not uploaded yet. I guess he is not active player or he doesn't use this ID for playing game. Then, why is he the guild leader of Invictus? This guild is one of the most active guilds in seradon server. 

     I examine other most wealth guilds' leader. The second wealth guild in seradon is Silky Venom, followed by Saviours. As expected, all of the guild leaders' adventure level is 50. It is same in Savious, there is only one guild leader whose level is 50. So I guess Dracules is very unique case of guild system, because most of guild leaders and officers are in level 50. 

      So, I have questions of Dracules. Who is he and how can he be the guild leader of Invictus?

Explorer

• Develop complex, academic language in and out of schools, something our current educational system fails to do for many students.
• Think innovatively and creatively in science and technology.
• Become "tech-savvy" consumers and producers of knowledge with technology.

2. Vanguard Dev Blog
http://vanguardsoh.wordpress.com/
The author, Thom Terrazas is the Producer for Vanguard and PlanetSide. Employed by Sony since 1998, he has had many positions from Director of Customer Service, Project Manager and Producer.

3. Vanguard Journals
http://vanguard.mmojournals.com/

4. http://www.terranova.blogs.com/

5. Vanguard fan sites
http://www.vanguardlive.com/







Gold Farming

 

The video of the Chinese gold farmer reminded me another documentary about Korean gold farmers. In my memory, it was broadcasted two years ago, and because of this documentary, gold-farming was an issue in Korean society.

            

           I cannot remember the story of this documentary in detail, but the important point of the movie is most of gold-farmers were teenagers. For some reasons, all of them ran away from home and sought to find the job for their living. However, most of them are underage to get a job, so they decided to work as a gold-farmer, of course, in an illegal way. They stuck in the small room where is filled with dozen of computers and keep playing mundane act more than 12 hours in a day.

             So, I have an unfavorable impression on gold-farming because of this documentary. It is not about the gold-farmers, but the system that causes the gold-farming. Like gold-farming, sometime the purpose of the game is distorted by commercial reason. In my opinion, game, which is developed by talented technicians and engineers who love game, should be dedicated to the motive of entertainment. These days the number of population of playing game is increasing precipitously and a lot of interests are connected with game industry, so gold-farming would be natural result from this progress. However, as game players expect, games should be dedicated for innocent players for joyful life, not for the commercials and livelihood.

     At first, I was seriously confused about the way how to play this game, Vanguard : Saga of Heroes.  All of things related to the game were not accustomed to me, and even more, it was my first experience of playing MMORPG game. Until I created my character, it was okay, but after creating my character, I found myself in a strange world. I got confused and i didn't know what do I have to do first. And I realize that I was in a lever 1, so I thought I should increase my level at first. However, I didn't have any skills -because I'm level 1- and I was died soon.

     After my first death(?), I learned how to see the map, where my group members were, and what I have to do now - there was a quest! By completing my quest one by one, I could learn the system of Vanguard and truly I was getting better. 

     I thinks the system of Vanguard is very complicated in detail and the graphic of the scene is mixed together. The stage of the game is dark and depressed war place, so first time, I didn't know who was my enemy. I got confused who is the character that I have to save, and who is the enemy that I should kill. Moreover, I and my group members were not 'human' race, actually all of us were seemed to be evil enemy. I hope my second playing would be better than now. Finally I catch the point and the system of the game, but I'm still confused.

     Hi, My name is Jeonghyun Choo but I'm pretty sure you do have no idea how to pronounce my name. I go by Maria at here and actually it's the name all of my family members call me, so please call me Maria. I'm exchange student from Korea, Yonsei university and this is my second semester here. I'm double-major in Psychology and Communication and also minor in education. 

     Well, I'm from Korea, where all guys are crazy in gaming. My country is much smaller than U.S but game industry is huge as concerns about other industry's size. It is based on a lot of users in Korea and some of them are real hard-core gamers. Few years ago, i read an article that a korean guy died during gaming because he didn't have any breaks and played game over 40 hours. Everybody said it's crazy and of course it's crazy but if you go to the internet cafe in my country it is very easy to find that kind of person. Of course I cannot understand who lives in virtual world longer than real world.

    Apparently, I'm not a MMORPG person. It is so obvious because I tried to play the MMORPG games a lot, but I failed everytime. I have an older brother who is typical korean guy - I mean, the person who thinks 'game is my life' - and he tried to teach me so many MMORPG games before and tried to make me addicted to these games, but as I already said everytime there's no positive results. Actually, I love RPG games and I love Fantasy. However I'm scared about the 'death' in the virtual world, even though I apparently know it's not a real world. I hope I will overcome this fear of the game through vanguard-saga of heros- and have fun with you guys.

Thanks! :)