Can you grief a top-down fully competitive racing game?
Would anyone?

Both are trick questions of course. You can grief (practically) everything and someone always wants to.
But how do you grief this one?

Well, playing the game I thought it was a lot of fun to bump into other cars. But the thing was that at one point my car would be disabled with a reference to the "pro rules". So I was wondering why on Earth the designers would instate this rule against bumping into other cars. But of course: Anti-griefing. Turns out that an earlier version of the game had huge problems caused by some players driving in the wrong direction to wreak havoc. As one player puts it:

"The main reason is to prevent backward driving. It was unbelieveably popular in version 0.86. There were times where one couldn't find a server where there wouldn't be 1-2 jerks driving backwards and destroying everyone else's fun. "

These players did not respect the "spirit of the game" but found it more appealing to go against expectations, found pleasure in causing displeasure or whatever.
The present rules, on the other hand, cause great deals of discussion as they also inhibit playing styles that are not actually meant to be grief (newbies, for instance, find it hard not to bump). On the whole, the solution is quite a good example of unelegant grief control (not that I have any alternative suggestion ready).

posted by Jonas Heide Smith  # 28.1.05 0 comments  

In a world of cut-scenes, Steam service, and endlessly immersive gameworld experiences what can be more therapeutic than small cars in a top-down perspective?
Turbo Sliders is free (the demo version) and can be played online. Care to test your driving skills? Drop me a line.


posted by Jonas Heide Smith  # 28.1.05 0 comments  

There's something just not right.

Here's what effect researcher Craig Anderson writes:

...venting fails. Different terms have been used to describe this idea, but in the United States “venting” refers to things like hitting something or playing a violent video game to get your aggressive tendencies out in a relatively safe and socially approved way. This has been called the “catharsis hypothesis”, an idea that comes from the ancient Greeks, was brought into western civilisation by the writings of Freud, and is now a part of our culture. It is a beautiful idea, but it is not true: catharsis does not work. There was clear proof of this by the late 1960s, and catharsis is one of the most widely tested and discredited notions in all of psychology,
yet it continues to reappear in different guises again and again. An Australian government-sponsored report published in 2000, for example, quotes a socalled “video games expert” saying that some of these violent games might actually provide a catharsis-type effect. It is incorrect.

This seems familiar, it is a conclusion on the "catharsis hypothesis" often heard.
But something's bugging me. If I were to look inwards and explain why I enjoy playing games one very large component is certainly a catharsis-like feeling. But maybe "the release of tension" is not on target. Maybe it's more a bracketing of the outside world to engage with a predictable (if complex) system. Either find, gaming to me is really therapeutic (some games at least). And so it is that I'm wondering: If catharsis has been so repeatedly disproved, what label should then be used for that very specific anti-stress feeling of playing a good game...?

posted by Jonas Heide Smith  # 24.1.05 0 comments  

Daniel Pargman's fascinating PhD dissertation Code begets community is now online.
It was a great piece of inspiration for me when I did my master's thesis.

posted by Jonas Heide Smith  # 24.1.05 0 comments  

[Via Terra Nova)
A series of State of Play 1 papers have been published in edited form. Get them.

posted by Jonas Heide Smith  # 24.1.05 0 comments  

I don't know, maybe it is just me.
But I am amazed that in 2005, running an online game requires an advanced degree in military cryptoanalysis. OK, so the game itself is not new, but still..
Wanting to play good old Age of Kings (Conquerors) I had to spend a considerable number of hours opening ports on my standard-setup router. If you don't know what that means, take heart - I had no clue myself until I entered the misty lands of router arcana. "Considerable number of hours" was the main point.

Then, when I get to zone.com where one goes to play this timeless (if hard-to-get-to) masterpiece the system repeatedly fails to accept that I am logged in, the ActiveX applet which lists game rooms fails to load several times, and getting to the AOK sub-site I have to go back to the front page two or three times on every visit because of the obscure redirect system at work.
Mind you, this does not happen once. It happens every time I (and you, probably) go the The Zone. Now, if this had been some freeware hobby-developer creation then by all means I would not have ranted, but this is Microsoft displaying that they cannot get a reasonably simple player matching system to come anywhere near working order.

Ahh, you might be thinking, this is just some anti-MS crusader who's actually just enraged that his Firefox is not welcome on The Zone. Well, there's also that of course. But in fact I don't consider this a particular MS issue. In my unsystematically formed opinion, and feel free to express your own, this year of the Lord, 2005, continously sees the release of games which suck (in the academic sense of the word) in terms of basic usability. Oh no, the gameplay parts often work fine. But the setup screens... The menus... All that which is the subject of basic go-look-it-up user interface design is often embued with a logic directly out of the darkest dreams of H.P. Lovecraft. Often these games will be fun to play, but they're really, really, really hard to use.
No idea what I'm talking about? Go play Need for Speed Underground online. But don't tell me I didn't warn you.

posted by Jonas Heide Smith  # 23.1.05 2 comments  

OK, I did it. I let myself be logged on to World of Warcraft (EU beta). Just to have a look, purely for research purposes, and with no intention of staying. Taking the form of a purple-haired female gnome I went for a bit of sight-seeing. There's no denying that this world looks extremely stylish and it all feels awfully atmospheric (in a comic book kind of way). Whether or not it's actually fun to play (casually) remains to be seen. But I think I'll continue the wolf-slaying a bit once the actual game opens (late feb). See you there.


posted by Jonas Heide Smith  # 16.1.05 2 comments  

Read Lessig's "They're not worthy" comment in Wired.
Is anybody, I wonder, publishing lists of the (interesting) material that enters the public domain every new years eve...? Is anyone taking steps towards making some of it accessible, e.g. online...?

posted by Jonas Heide Smith  # 14.1.05 0 comments  

Lisbeth Klastrup's dissertation "Towards a Poetics of Virtual Worlds: Multi-User Textuality and the Emergence of Story" was just put online. Get it while you can!

posted by Jonas Heide Smith  # 14.1.05 0 comments  

Prof. Henry Jenkins is visiting today and will be speaking at 16:15 under the heading Searching for the Origami Unicorn: The Matrix and Transmedia Storytelling.
Read more...

posted by Jonas Heide Smith  # 14.1.05 0 comments  

As I write Huygens plunges towards Titan. Latest news is that "Huygens reaches 'interface altitude'The 'interface altitude' is defined as 1270 kilometres above the surface of the moon where entry into Titan's atmosphere takes place. "
Small pod, powerful forces. Good luck, little saucer.

posted by Jonas Heide Smith  # 14.1.05 0 comments  

I'm a die-hard Endnote fan but my Great Expectations regarding my dissertation work are rapidly approaching ground level as I realize that the blessings of EN really doesn't scale to large-size documents. It... really... doesn't...

posted by Jonas Heide Smith  # 13.1.05 0 comments  

In the very near future I'll begin work on studying the concrete social interaction of real people playing various types of multiplayer games (games with different patterns of collaboration). The project involves both qualitative interviews and structured observation.

There are many possibilites for (ITU) students to collaborate on this project, so if you are one or know one, with interests running in this direction, get in touch.

posted by Jonas Heide Smith  # 13.1.05 0 comments  

If you're a Danish speaking/writing undergraduate student and feel less than 100% confident of your project writing skills, by all means consult Rienecker and Jørgensen's book "Den Gode Opgave - opgaveskrivning på videregående uddannelser". This book is full of excellent observations and great advice.


posted by Jonas Heide Smith  # 13.1.05 0 comments  

The ICEC 2005 CFP is out. Japan, anyone?

posted by Jonas Heide Smith  # 13.1.05 0 comments  

The recent earth-shattering (and server-crashing) news of Age of Empires III being in the advanced stages of development made me tackle the technicalities of encouraging the prequel to run on (through) my DSL. It was worth every bit of geekish tinkering.
Meet me on zone.com ye who dare (ask for Lord_Wumpus).

Interesting bucket of mixed emotions on the forums. Mainly the 3D extravanganza has a few people worried (me - and certainly my trusted laptop - included).


posted by Jonas Heide Smith  # 5.1.05 1 comments  

Forgot to mention that Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen's and my report "Playing with Fire - How do computer games influence the player?" has been published by NORDICOM.

posted by Jonas Heide Smith  # 5.1.05 0 comments