Well, people play games for different reasons. Some to kill boredom, some to kill time, some search for the sense of excitement, some search for the thrill of wining. Personally, i don't play games, neither computer games nor video games nor handphone games. No games in my life.
However, right now i think that game is actually a reflection of life. People get motivated to play when there is something ahead to be achieved, to get to another level perhaps, or to the end of that story...
It's the same in life. We will be motivated to do something when we have something to achieve. When there is no clear goals, we get out of focus immediately, it's the same with games. When the games is not interesting enough, or there is no attractive rewards in the games, people will not continue to play.
In life, or more specifically in studies, i do my assignments only because i need them to help me to finish my degree. As simple as that. I must admit that i'm really a lazy bum. I won't study for no reasons, or maybe sometimes i'll, to kill time kill boredom or just get something to do.
Motivations happen throughout different stages in life as time goes by we'll have different things to achieve and different goals in life. It all depends on how the goals are set and achieved.
Perhaps this is something that i should really focus on when i did my final assignment last week. Oh well, too late for it.
That's fine. End of semester, i hope everyone has a great holidays ahead!
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
Software and Online Distribution
This is for the week 7 topic, however i'm not really focusing on the software side, i would like to discuss more about online distribution and privacy/security.
Like what i've commented in the forum earlier, i think online is no longer safe. There are plenties of softwares or spywares or whatever it is called that actually traces your daily activities on the internet, mostly for marketing purposes.
For instance, the spyware will trace which kind of websites you usually visit, if there are more fashion websites, the next time you log into the internet there might be a small pop-out window with some sort of advertisement for an online fashion boutique.
Besides, what you do on the internet is permanent! What i've been blogging here can still be seen many years later even if i've deleted this blog entry. I don't know how things really work here but for some reasons, deleted items can be seemed from archives or something..
Therefore i urge the people out there to always be really careful on what to be done and posted on the internet or you might really regret in future. Like how Kim Kardashians and Paris Hilton got their sex tapes on the internet, these things will never be erased and might seriously impact your future, even if you are no longer that person many years after.
Speaking about online distribution, i think being in Australia is really a blessing for having the "freedom on the internet". Basically i think Australia is free for doing most of the things online, and the online distribution for any softwares, games or other materials are equally free (the free as in freedom, not free in terms of money).
Compared to other places like China, or even worse, North Korea, whereby the governments control the website distribution that the people do not have the freedom to get exposed to things online, internet is almost useless, in my opinion. This is because here, when we online we get to see things from all around the world, whereas in North Korea, most websites are banned and only 4% of the households get connection to the internet, i think it is really sad!
Well, not too much talking, some listening as well. If you happen to come across this entry, let me know what you think as well, for online distribution and "who controls the net"...
Thanks for your time! XD
Like what i've commented in the forum earlier, i think online is no longer safe. There are plenties of softwares or spywares or whatever it is called that actually traces your daily activities on the internet, mostly for marketing purposes.
For instance, the spyware will trace which kind of websites you usually visit, if there are more fashion websites, the next time you log into the internet there might be a small pop-out window with some sort of advertisement for an online fashion boutique.
Besides, what you do on the internet is permanent! What i've been blogging here can still be seen many years later even if i've deleted this blog entry. I don't know how things really work here but for some reasons, deleted items can be seemed from archives or something..
Therefore i urge the people out there to always be really careful on what to be done and posted on the internet or you might really regret in future. Like how Kim Kardashians and Paris Hilton got their sex tapes on the internet, these things will never be erased and might seriously impact your future, even if you are no longer that person many years after.
Speaking about online distribution, i think being in Australia is really a blessing for having the "freedom on the internet". Basically i think Australia is free for doing most of the things online, and the online distribution for any softwares, games or other materials are equally free (the free as in freedom, not free in terms of money).
Compared to other places like China, or even worse, North Korea, whereby the governments control the website distribution that the people do not have the freedom to get exposed to things online, internet is almost useless, in my opinion. This is because here, when we online we get to see things from all around the world, whereas in North Korea, most websites are banned and only 4% of the households get connection to the internet, i think it is really sad!
Well, not too much talking, some listening as well. If you happen to come across this entry, let me know what you think as well, for online distribution and "who controls the net"...
Thanks for your time! XD
Interactive TV
Interactive TV can actually be divided into three categories, low interactivity, medium interactivity and high interactivity.
Low interactivity refers to actions like switching channels, volume up or down and etc. Moderate or medium interactivity is like simple movies on demand without player control. High interactivity refers to high involvement from the audiences from where their decisions or participation can alter the whole storyline or the outcome.
Commonly, interactive tv refers to a show or a program whereby people can participate by actively voting for a certain contest to reach the kind of result they want. A return path to the program provider is not necessary to have an interactive program experience.
Matthew Timms, head of programming at Two Way TV in London describes this digital revolution you have heard so much about:
"..somehow they feel they're sitting there, it's just them and the television - even though the reality is it's got a wire leading straight back to somebody's computer. So it actually gets sort of interesting information back."
David Burke in his article reviewed that interactive tv, from the surface, might seem to be a new way of interacting with the audiences, to get that "return path" or response from the audiences, there might be another hidden motive or issue at the back.
For some interactive tv programme, it's about pressing some buttons on the remote control to move on to the next step or choosing the path you want. Every press that you have done will be stored. According to Burke, interactive tv might be promoting another form of invasion of privacy.
Somehow i think it is true. Just like what we've done in the internet can actually be traced as well. Things are no longer simple. From Burke's point of view, it could be another marketing tool as he says:
"This is called your TV set’s “click stream”, and it can be analyzed to create a surprisingly sophisticated picture of who you are and what motivates you (sometimes called “telegraphics”). Such profiles of households or individuals can then be used to target consumers with direct marketing techniques, through their television, in the mail or over the phone."
I personally think it is an insightful article and worth a reading. After reading it, suddenly i feel like interactivity with the media might not be a good thing after all. Oh well, depends on how you look at it actually. The article can be found through this link below:
http://www.whitedot.org/issue/iss_story.asp?slug=shortSpyTV
And there is another website that i found, which is basically an online interactive tv channel. Have a look as well:
http://www.itvt.com/
Till then. Cheers!
Low interactivity refers to actions like switching channels, volume up or down and etc. Moderate or medium interactivity is like simple movies on demand without player control. High interactivity refers to high involvement from the audiences from where their decisions or participation can alter the whole storyline or the outcome.
Commonly, interactive tv refers to a show or a program whereby people can participate by actively voting for a certain contest to reach the kind of result they want. A return path to the program provider is not necessary to have an interactive program experience.
Matthew Timms, head of programming at Two Way TV in London describes this digital revolution you have heard so much about:
"..somehow they feel they're sitting there, it's just them and the television - even though the reality is it's got a wire leading straight back to somebody's computer. So it actually gets sort of interesting information back."
David Burke in his article reviewed that interactive tv, from the surface, might seem to be a new way of interacting with the audiences, to get that "return path" or response from the audiences, there might be another hidden motive or issue at the back.
For some interactive tv programme, it's about pressing some buttons on the remote control to move on to the next step or choosing the path you want. Every press that you have done will be stored. According to Burke, interactive tv might be promoting another form of invasion of privacy.
Somehow i think it is true. Just like what we've done in the internet can actually be traced as well. Things are no longer simple. From Burke's point of view, it could be another marketing tool as he says:
"This is called your TV set’s “click stream”, and it can be analyzed to create a surprisingly sophisticated picture of who you are and what motivates you (sometimes called “telegraphics”). Such profiles of households or individuals can then be used to target consumers with direct marketing techniques, through their television, in the mail or over the phone."
I personally think it is an insightful article and worth a reading. After reading it, suddenly i feel like interactivity with the media might not be a good thing after all. Oh well, depends on how you look at it actually. The article can be found through this link below:
http://www.whitedot.org/issue/iss_story.asp?slug=shortSpyTV
And there is another website that i found, which is basically an online interactive tv channel. Have a look as well:
http://www.itvt.com/
Till then. Cheers!
Ergodic
Aarseth, 1997, in his work "Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature" mentioned that the term "Ergodic" is borrowed from physics to describe open, dynamic texts with which the reader must perform specific actions to generate a literary sequence.
Judging from this definition for Ergodic, i would say most of the games are Ergodic. Like Eliza, it requires the audiences to key in a sentence, more of like talking to the character, to make it generate another sentence back. It is like a two-way interaction that connects the audiences with the media.
Something to be discussed here, is videogames ergodic, or not? At first i thought it should be, because the players will need joystick to input their actions that lead to the next step in the game. However, i found an article that says otherwise.
"While they may contain interactive or ergodic elements, it is a mistake to consider that they present only one type of experience and foster only one type of engagement." (Newman, 2002).
Newman suggested that players dont spend all the time on non-trivial action while playing videogames. Videogames are said to be not present in a singularly ergodic experience that they are highly structured and compire episodes of intense ergodic engagement.
"However, these sequences are punctuated and usually framed by periods of far more limited ergodicity and very often, apparently none at all." (Newman, 2002).
For further reading of this insightful article, please kindly visit:
http://gamestudies.org/0102/newman/
Judging from this definition for Ergodic, i would say most of the games are Ergodic. Like Eliza, it requires the audiences to key in a sentence, more of like talking to the character, to make it generate another sentence back. It is like a two-way interaction that connects the audiences with the media.
Something to be discussed here, is videogames ergodic, or not? At first i thought it should be, because the players will need joystick to input their actions that lead to the next step in the game. However, i found an article that says otherwise.
"While they may contain interactive or ergodic elements, it is a mistake to consider that they present only one type of experience and foster only one type of engagement." (Newman, 2002).
Newman suggested that players dont spend all the time on non-trivial action while playing videogames. Videogames are said to be not present in a singularly ergodic experience that they are highly structured and compire episodes of intense ergodic engagement.
"However, these sequences are punctuated and usually framed by periods of far more limited ergodicity and very often, apparently none at all." (Newman, 2002).
For further reading of this insightful article, please kindly visit:
http://gamestudies.org/0102/newman/
Interactive Story Telling
"Interactive Storytelling, as a long-term endeavour, is largely present in popular culture as being the future of entertainment, for instance through the Sci-Fi vision of the Holodeck™. Although the development of new media is always difficult to anticipate, the re-introduction of narrative and high-level interaction in gaming has a significant potential to develop next-generation entertainment technologies. This could even extend the population of gamers across gender and age barriers."
I got the above statements from a website mainly concerns about interactive storytelling.
The author claimed that interactive storytelling is probably the best illustration of an AI concept that would open the way for new games genre. AI (Artificial Intelligence) in the early days referred to all behavioural aspects, rather than to the techniques it is known to the academic world.
Interactive storytelling for me is a new way to reconcile narrativiy with interaction. To let audiences have high level of involvement with the story, there must be a little bit of interactivity in between.
Interactive storytelling sort of letting the spectators to have influence on the action. However, we must remember that not all spectators or audiences have the ability to organize their progression according to the narractive elements.
Generating the story in real-time will technically solve this problem to propagate the consequences of user interaction at the same time retaining the overall logic of a baseline plot.
In the website also it mentions that as a story can be described as a series of actions, Planning is much needed to support interative storytelling system.
More of the article can be found from this website:
http://www.ercim.org/publication/Ercim_News/enw57/cavazza.html
Have a read and i believe you all will have a basic concept for interactive story telling.
I got the above statements from a website mainly concerns about interactive storytelling.
The author claimed that interactive storytelling is probably the best illustration of an AI concept that would open the way for new games genre. AI (Artificial Intelligence) in the early days referred to all behavioural aspects, rather than to the techniques it is known to the academic world.
Interactive storytelling for me is a new way to reconcile narrativiy with interaction. To let audiences have high level of involvement with the story, there must be a little bit of interactivity in between.
Interactive storytelling sort of letting the spectators to have influence on the action. However, we must remember that not all spectators or audiences have the ability to organize their progression according to the narractive elements.
Generating the story in real-time will technically solve this problem to propagate the consequences of user interaction at the same time retaining the overall logic of a baseline plot.
In the website also it mentions that as a story can be described as a series of actions, Planning is much needed to support interative storytelling system.
More of the article can be found from this website:
http://www.ercim.org/publication/Ercim_News/enw57/cavazza.html
Have a read and i believe you all will have a basic concept for interactive story telling.
characters in films and games
This post is to discuss the differences between characters in films and games.
I can hardly find any relevant topics from the Internet, i mean i cant find any actually, perhaps my searching skills need plenty of improvement, so i'll just briefly discuss about the topic based on my own understanding.
I think the major difference between these is the interactivity. As when we are watching films, all the characters are pre-set and they goes along the storyline without us interrupting any of the processes. Meaning, us as the audiences follow the flow, watch the stories as how scriptwriters and directors want them to be. We do not have the chance or the right to change the storyline or the character like how we want them to be.
However, in the games, we can choose our own character, which character we want to be (if there is a list to choose from), or even customize our own characters. We can choose a character that best represent us, choose how it looks and mostly how it works in the game. The flow of the game depends on how we play it. So in a game, characters are customizable and controllable. Mostly we are the ones to decide the next step to take, or the next place to go.
Another main difference between characters in films and games is the level of involvement by the audiences. I would say generally the level of involvement for games characters will be higher than that of film characters. This is simply because in a game, you are the character itself and you'll need to give more attention to bring the character to the next step whereas in a film, the most that you can do is to "feel" the character. There is no much interactivity therefore only low involvement for the film characters.
So these are the differences that i can identify so far. Might add more when i discover more about this topic.
Happy reading!
I can hardly find any relevant topics from the Internet, i mean i cant find any actually, perhaps my searching skills need plenty of improvement, so i'll just briefly discuss about the topic based on my own understanding.
I think the major difference between these is the interactivity. As when we are watching films, all the characters are pre-set and they goes along the storyline without us interrupting any of the processes. Meaning, us as the audiences follow the flow, watch the stories as how scriptwriters and directors want them to be. We do not have the chance or the right to change the storyline or the character like how we want them to be.
However, in the games, we can choose our own character, which character we want to be (if there is a list to choose from), or even customize our own characters. We can choose a character that best represent us, choose how it looks and mostly how it works in the game. The flow of the game depends on how we play it. So in a game, characters are customizable and controllable. Mostly we are the ones to decide the next step to take, or the next place to go.
Another main difference between characters in films and games is the level of involvement by the audiences. I would say generally the level of involvement for games characters will be higher than that of film characters. This is simply because in a game, you are the character itself and you'll need to give more attention to bring the character to the next step whereas in a film, the most that you can do is to "feel" the character. There is no much interactivity therefore only low involvement for the film characters.
So these are the differences that i can identify so far. Might add more when i discover more about this topic.
Happy reading!
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
web 2.0 and characters
Creating avatars is definitely not something new to all the internet users. Most of the time avatars represents characters on the internet and serve as a image of oneself.
Creating avatars on the internet can be really interactive. People can choose the name to be used, the image that represent themselves. All information can be customized. Avatars basically show how people want to be represented.
However, we as internet users must always be careful while playing around with avatars. Although avatar only serves as a virtual character, sometimes it can go beyond control.
For instance, what you do on the internet with the avatar, its accomplishments, the wanderings around in the cyberspace might determine how people perceive or look at you. Eventhough sometimes avatar is just a representative and does not fully live up to the person's real character, the avatar will still serve as a personal archive.
I roughly searched about avatar in the web 2.0 and i found something that is quite insightful. The author made statements like this:
"The relationship between a person and their virtual character can end up being very productive: hybridism is an inexhaustible source of creativity and discovery, making the Internet a fascinating place for exploration. However, this creative relationship has its own perils: the trails we leave behind as we go about our exploratory processes become actual material that anyone can manipulate. We keep our virtual character “alive,” but we are not always free to choose what happens to it… and therefore what happens to us. " (Mackrous 2009)
I'll provide a link to that website as well if any of you intend to do some further reading.
http://dpi.studioxx.org/demo/?q=en/no/15/virtual-characters-creations-personal-archives-by-paule-mackrous
Therefore, i think everyone needs to be extra careful with things they do on the internet, even just with avatar as anything will stay permanently and might reflect you in the wrong way.
Well, i've found a website that allows some practising to create your own avatar. Just have a look and relax for a while. There is the link:
http://web2educationuk.wetpaint.com/page/Avatars
Till then, cheers!
Creating avatars on the internet can be really interactive. People can choose the name to be used, the image that represent themselves. All information can be customized. Avatars basically show how people want to be represented.
However, we as internet users must always be careful while playing around with avatars. Although avatar only serves as a virtual character, sometimes it can go beyond control.
For instance, what you do on the internet with the avatar, its accomplishments, the wanderings around in the cyberspace might determine how people perceive or look at you. Eventhough sometimes avatar is just a representative and does not fully live up to the person's real character, the avatar will still serve as a personal archive.
I roughly searched about avatar in the web 2.0 and i found something that is quite insightful. The author made statements like this:
"The relationship between a person and their virtual character can end up being very productive: hybridism is an inexhaustible source of creativity and discovery, making the Internet a fascinating place for exploration. However, this creative relationship has its own perils: the trails we leave behind as we go about our exploratory processes become actual material that anyone can manipulate. We keep our virtual character “alive,” but we are not always free to choose what happens to it… and therefore what happens to us. " (Mackrous 2009)
I'll provide a link to that website as well if any of you intend to do some further reading.
http://dpi.studioxx.org/demo/?q=en/no/15/virtual-characters-creations-personal-archives-by-paule-mackrous
Therefore, i think everyone needs to be extra careful with things they do on the internet, even just with avatar as anything will stay permanently and might reflect you in the wrong way.
Well, i've found a website that allows some practising to create your own avatar. Just have a look and relax for a while. There is the link:
http://web2educationuk.wetpaint.com/page/Avatars
Till then, cheers!
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