Playing a fool

Julian Dibbell wrote extensively about the life of a Chinese gold farmer. Without going into details, it is essentially about how these Chinese gold farmers 'play' WoW to work. The description of how these Chinese gold farmers operate sounds nothing close to the normal idea of 'playing'. However, it is worth pointing out that some still managed to find elements of play amidst the routine of 'working'. (for example the power leveler who said that his old gold farming job has afforded him more room to play.) This shows that an activity can no longer be the unit of determinant of whether it is work or play. In other words, in an activity, there are period of time where the person plays and there are period of time where the person works. Perhaps humans have adapted to an extend that one can frequently and seamlessly switch between work and play to an extend that it is impossible for the outsider to determine which is which. Indeed, this ability to switch seamlessly may become so natural that the 'player' is no longer consciously aware of the switch.

Well the melting of work and play just cannot be applied to me and Second Life. Indeed, since I start give Second Life a Second Chance, things just have not changed at all. I was never 'playing' (perhaps the full meaning of this verb has been diluted over time such that it just means “the act of going through a game” now) Second Life. It was a chore from start to finish. All along I have been working (for the module). In fact, writing this blog is more of a play for me than 'working' (as opposed to 'playing') Second Life. Everything I did on Second Life is because I was forced to not because I want to. Now, I realized that the concept of being 'forced' to do something also occurs when one plays. For example, one might hate the drone of (lets avoid the grinding example, for it is done to death. Using grinding as an example would be grinding in itself) traveling in a huge game world. It is boring and I am forced to do it as there is just no other way. But I still do it because of what I can get at the end of being 'forced' to do it is something that I want as opposed to me traveling in Second Life where at the end of traveling is still something I don't want to do (i.e. interact with the weirdos in Second Life). In this case, the end goal of doing something that one is being 'forced' to becomes the key.

With regards to the Mckenzie reading, I think the blurring of the the game world and the real world is quite evident. The RMT of Dibbell's reading supplements this. In addition, in the case of Second Life, it can be argued that the game world can be more real than the real world for the players, especially if their avatar in Second Life is a direct representation of their suppressed needs, desire and personality, free from the confines of conformity of society.

Discussion Question : Should we move away from what deciding what is play or work and what is game world or real world and focus on how the meaning of play and work and Game world and Real world has evolved throughout history and what position do they occupy in the current world?

Fourth of March is tomorrow

Dibbell talks about how the issue of gender gets murky in the world of MOO. Murky because it foregrounds the issue of how gendered one's identity is, and in Dibbell's book, more so for female. I must be careful in trying to mirror or fit Dibbell's experience to my own in Second Life as I believe the interface makes a lot of difference – text based vs visually rich 3D environment. In a text based environment, there is gaps for readers to fill in between the words. No matter how precise the descriptions are, there are always room for ambiguity, imagination and creativity when readers try to visualize the descriptions. These gaps allows the reader to project his/her own perception onto the description and the same description may yield different visualization for different people, especially more so for readers of different culture. After visualizing the descriptions, the reader then try to characterize the descriptions. One good example is how often when there is a movie adaption of a book, readers of the book goes “that is not really how I imagined him/she/it to look and sound like”. As for a visually rich 3D environment like Second Life, the first step of visualization is stripped away and the visuals attack the 'readers' (in this case, viewer perhaps? Hmm lets just use 'players') directly.

I would like to discuss a little on the idea of 'monstrosity' as mentioned in the Mutation.fem reading before talk about some of my experience in Second Life. With regards to the point of female characters in games tending to exhibit unrealistically large bodily proportions, perhaps precisely because the issue of gender is so murky in online world exaggerations have to be made in if they were to come out as a definitive female or male character. As female characters in games, especially First Person Shooter, perform actions that are typically masculine, female character perhaps need to have an exaggerated appearance in order to maintain the notion that they are very female characters albeit doing typically masculine things.

Okay, now the boring bits are over, I shall proceed on to my 'adventures' in Second Life. First and foremost, the thought of cross dressing never occurred to me when I signed up for Second Life. The only consideration I was making when signing up is whether to let my avatar reflect more of myself or should I try to come out as a different character than my real life persona. Perhaps subconsciously, I am like Dibbell towards the end of the chapter that, I was afraid to be found out.

With regards to the issue of monstrosity, all I can say is, it seems that in Second Life, you are a monster if you are not a monster. What I mean is that I see more flying spaghetti monsters or 3 headed ogres or things that I cant even describe (maybe it is due to the way I just randomly teleport around islands. Hmm I should have just stayed in Newbieland or the virtual NUS campus) than beings that resemble human. Even humanoid figures have bleached hair with blue skin or impossibly muscled chest and arms and small frail legs.

There are a few times I go up to a female looking avatar and ask if they are really female in real life, most would immediately reply 'yes'. I had one incident where this fella got so offended by that question that she (or he or it? I dont know) chased me around the island scolding until I logged out of the game 10 mins later (hmm I should have just teleported away on hindsight but I am not sure if that fella can track my location).

Discussion question: Is the ambiguity of the text based world a better arena for gender and identity experimentation than a rich visual world?

Third Strike

With regards to this week's blog, i shall discuss the experience of 'playing' (well, perhaps role-playing would be a better term but can one role play himself/herself?) Second Life as a whole.



Arendt mentioned the Aristotelian idea of the 'beautiful'. That is the concerning and doing things that are "neither necessary nor merely useful" but rather doing for the sake of the bodily enjoyment. I would also propose that the word 'bodily' not only encompass the physical body but the mental and psychological body. In that case, i would argue that the activity (not the distinction as made by Arendt as i will not be discussing the distinction of work, labour and action; just merely the act of doing) of playing Second Life pretty much encompass the Aristotelian idea of the 'beautiful'. With my experience of Second Life, I can see different people playing it differently but mostly all (those ardent players at least, myself not included, for me, 'playing' Second Life is the Arendt's definition of Work) do it because they enjoy it. Some choose to become another personality altogether, some stay true to their own personality, some go into the virtual world seeking companionship, not unlike going to a new city or new country to make new friends, some go into the virtual world just to design and 'publish' the various skins and models that they have made, showcasing their talent and ability while some just go in with the intention of making money. Some do it as an escape from their physical world (their real life so to speak) while some see it as an extension of their physical world, but most do it because it is 'beautiful'.



Connected to the last sentence is Arendt's idea of the private, the public and the social. However, there are challenges when trying to apply those concepts on virtual worlds such as Second Life. Perhaps virtual worlds should not be seen as analogous to our present physical world but a different entity altogether. Arendt mention the 'seeing and hearing' as what constitutes our reality. However, 'seeing and hearing' has a different dimension in virtual worlds. One don't see the physical and hear the physical but see and hear the representation ( i.e. the avatar) of the physical. If what one saw or heard is secondary to what one and everyone sees and hear, what does that make of the things that one saw or heard via Second Life? In addition, Second Life (or virtual worlds in general) is unique because it messes up the boundaries between private, public and social and meshes them together. It is at once private and public. Private because ultimately the person controlling the avatar is deprived in the physical world as well as in relation to the virtual world. Public because despite the 'privacy' the user's action is immediately visible. The user can participate in the public domain of the virtual despite the lack of a household. Even if the user gets married in Second Life and owns a house in it, ultimately that marriage is not legal and recognized if it is has no physical world relation (that is the couple also gets married in the physical world) and the ownership of the house does not belong to the user as it is ultimately a set of data and the set of data belongs to the company that owns Second Life.



Thus if one were to apply Arendt's concept into the virtual world, one should exercise extreme caution in doing so.

Second Chance (at second life)

So, onto my quest to turn around my negative image of Second Life. Right from the very beginning, when I register for Second Life, I am engaging in (using Caillois' term) mimicry. I had to choose a First name and the system will generate a Last name for me. As a Singaporean Chinese, I immediately have to suspend my disbelief (more about that later) and role play as a 'westerner', if you may, even before I started playing the game. Right from the start when I enter the Second Life world, people are just standing around staring at each other. It is as if either talking is taboo or just waiting for someone to break the ice. Being the reserved and shy person that I am, I did not make the initiative to break that ice and I promptly teleported elsewhere. Yes you fly and teleport everywhere. Well, you can walk but flying around is about the only fun thing in SL.

Since exiting that Tutorial Island, I was thrown into another island. I had no idea what to do or where to go.There were quite a few people around again standing and staring into empty spaces, as if doing their virtual meditation. Again no one is talking to one another. Feeling bored, I search for Singapore under locations and ended up at Temasek. I promptly left the place upon arriving. It is a dead town with no one there (maybe more of the fact that I was there at the rush hour of 5am). I searched for Japan under location (for you see I am studying the language right now, so I think I may want to have a space to practice it) and ended up at Tempura Island. I noticed behind the coordinates of that island (every place is an island, hmm interesting dont you think?) had a “mature” behind it. I check my search properties, I have left Mature unchecked. Hmm... is the game trying to tell me something? Anyway I promptly exited that place again.

I ended up at Help! Island. Things get a little interesting here. I was suddenly approached by a female and she start speaking to me a lot. Except that I dont understand her language. After I apologized and inform her that I cant understand her. She replied with a crisp “ You Hair”. I was taking a back. Firstly I was somehow not my avatar but a blob of white smoke. I cant even change my appearance. I was like the Wisp in WC3. After a little exchange, things start to lag badly for me just as I was in conversation with a few others regarding learning of a new language. And then I lagged out.

Moral of the story? Do not bet your chance (Alea? hahaha) at a Second Life with a laggy computer.

Connecting back to the readings, it seems as if mimicry is the predominant form when engaging in a persistent world. It is obvious that I am trying to role play as a habitat of the Second Life world. I will have to add a point to Caillois's mimicry in the importance of suspension of disbelief on the player's (me) part. To mimic and simulate something, one has to let go of the 'present' reality and embrace the 'alternate' reality. I would argue that ilinx is also present as I myself did spin around and fly round and round, not too different from a child spinning around to achieve that dizzy effect.

Two questions for discussion.

1) Should Ilinx be a separate form from the other 3?

2) It seems to be paidia and ludus are treated as mutually exclusive in Caillois's point of view. However I do see paidia in ludus and vice versa, should they be treated as opposite end of a single spectrum or common factor of a larger system?

First blood (my blood)

I could not decide which game to use. I was a staunch ABSL (anything but second life). So i set out to find open world multiplayer games that are NOT 2nd life. And the following is what i have found interesting.

Sociotown http://www.sociotown.com/
Onverse http://www.onverse.com/signup/
Taikodom http://taikodom.com/

Before i get to the games, i thought it would be interesting to share that as i tried to google "open world multiplayer" and the likes, i hit upon very few games (mostly games for furries). Then i hit up wikipedia for massively multiplayer online games in general. Then i realized that presently those sandbox games are more like MMOSC (SC = social games). Googling for,MMOSC proves to be more of a success. Which may bring us to the Will Wright interview in that why isnt there more GTA styled MMO out there? I may add that i didnt purposely google for FREE MMOSC, but it seems that most MMOSC are free anyway (or maybe the Googly One can read my thoughts and show only the free ones anyway).

Anyway, First up, Taikodom.

Interesting setting and story, it was nonlinear in a way but more defined and narrower than say 2nd life (cringe). But still basically nonlinear. Unfortunately for me, i gave up halfway as the ancient contraption that is my desktop is too slow to handle the graphics. A pity as i am most interested in this.

Second on the list, Sociotown
First impression : "Wow, browser based 3D MMOSC"
Logged in
2nd impression: "where is the sign up page?"
I then realized that they world the signing up process into the game itself, which i thought is quite fresh and interesting. It certainly adds a stronger feeling of being part of the game world. That you are born and bred there (even though you start out in a jail....find out for yourself!). The camera angle kind of suck and the movement control is of the point and click variety (like Diablo)
There is this interesting leaderboad thingy at the right hand side (outside of the game world) that shows the biggest blah blah blah and the strongest slah slah slah. In my horror, i discovered that there must be at most 5 players in the entire game as i count only around 5 unique username. I ran around the town after being freed to find that a piece of rusty nail probably have more life and more vibrant than the place. It had potential but i skipped it due to lack of players (not much of a community if there is only 5 and you cant find the 5)

Third up, Onverse.
Horrible movement.
Horrible camera angle.
Horrible interface
Horrible game world.
I didnt even complete the tutorials (yes it was that bad)
Skip.

So i listed 3 and i rejected 3. Which means.... yes, i am back to 2nd Life.

Oh the horrors!

Oh well, it would be interesting to set out in 2nd life and challenge myself to change my perception of 2nd life. The bit about how it should really be named NO LIFE.

So much for being a staunch ABSL.

On to the readings.

For the interview reading, i was just thinking about how emergent storytelling is an important aspect of sandbox games like The Sims. In non sandbox games (ie games with clearly defined goals and where there is an 'end state'), the game designer is a dictator. The game designer dictates what you should feel and how you should feel, what you should do and how you should do. Sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly (by perhaps using affordances within the game world). For the sandbox game designer, he/she is shaping up himself/herself to be a tool of the game world, tool of the players and tool of the community. The game designer do not dictate, but instead encourage. There are no goals, only possibilities. Thus, the game designer is also a helper. The player/community is the producer + consumer.

For the Callois reading, he mentioned when play crossed over and became work. That seems to imply that 'play' and 'work' are binary oppositions. Examining the 6 factors of identifying activity as play (free, separate, uncertain, unproductive, governed by rules, make believe)  These factors, in my opinion are mainly positivist. Perhaps more focus should be given to the circumstance surround the actor, not just the activity itself. I am not saying that these rules are bad, just that perhaps they can be further improved upon by perhaps considering the cultural context of the actor, that present mindset of the actor and the social status of that actor. From the reading, i get the impression that a profession soccer player is not playing but working. But what about passion? He plays because he likes to play and choose that as his line of work because it is one job which he will get the most enjoyment out of it. Taking the factor of being governed by rules, it can be made more in depth by saying what exactly constitutes 'ordinary laws'.

Oh, going back to the games, is just me or does bad controls and camera angles really kill off such a game for me? Does things 'outside' of the game world like control system and camera angles affect the 'culture' and set up of the game?