Games, shooting spree and strategy for an election win

GamePolitics alerts me of this article in Spiegel Online translated from German to English by Google. It reports Germany's Interior Ministers have asked their parliament to ban all violent games. The move is in respond to shooting spree by a youth who plays shooting games during his free time. If you read further, it also reveals that the move is orchestrated with the hope that the parliament will approved the ban before the coming election. So it is more likely that call for the ban is political motivated than a serious attempt to go to the root cause of the violence.

This is somewhat similar to incident in Thailand which I have made a commentary here. Serious attempt to understand why teens kill have to go beyond from looking how they spend their leisure time, into investigating their socio-background to find the root causes what motivate them to have the instinct to kill. Ken Hardy and Tracy Laszloffy, family therapy scholars, warn us from blaming simple environment factors like video games and guns, but trace the roots of teen violence to four things: devaluation, erosion of community, dehumanized loss, and rage. I have a commentary of that here. Fascination to link media with violence will there all the time and if we read in between the lines, we can see that much of the euphoria is because playing the blaming game is easy, taking advantage public paranoia, than to uncover social ills as a result of bad political governance and our own neglect.

Games and suicide: Exploitation of public paranoia

Article summary in Bangkok Post

What happened?
A 12-year old boy jump to his death from the sixth-floor balcony of his school building.
Why he did that?
It is perceived that he did that because his father banned him from playing computer games.
What happened next?
No investigation was done to establish why he committed suicide but the government had ordered the closure of 72 websites offering access to online gambling and games.

If you ask me, what happened here reminds me of what the government of a middle-eastern country did when H1NI virus first came under the spot many weeks ago. The government decided to cull all pigs in farms within the city. The farms were in squalid conditions but the government did not have the political will then to order their closure for re-operation on the condition that operators must place high regard on cleanliness of the farms. So, taking full advantage over the H1N1 virus scare (which was popular under the name swine virus even though it is not established that the virus comes from the poultry) and heighten public concern over hygiene resulting from the virus scare, the government ordered the culling.

While I do not support any form of gambling and welcome the closure of the gambling websites, I feel strongly it should not be done or be seen as a respond to the suicide. I see no link between the suicide with online gambling and games (unless a thorough investigation is done and is proved to be the case). The Thai government here too lacks the political will to order the closure and rides on increasing public concern over the suicide and its perceived link to gaming to order the closure. One repercussion (which is likely to be intended) will be continued public association of games with addiction and other ills fanned from this incident. What a pity.

GamePolitics are against gambling too but feels that "it would seem reasonable for the Thai government to at least conduct some sort of investigation before closing down online game websites".

The attractions of Granado Espada

I found a number of websites here, here, here and here featuring interviews with key players in Granado Espada - Hak Kyu Kim (imcGames CEO), Grantley Day (Vice President of Product Development at K2 Network) and Peter Cesario (Operations Producer also at K2 Network). K2 Network is the publisher and distributor of Granado Espada in North America and Europe under the name Sword of the New World. In MMOBase, Granado Espada setting is described as (brackets added):

" ...it takes place, as the title indicate (Sword of The New World), during the time when European explorers, adventurers and colonists braved the lengthy, perilous Atlantic crossing in small, sailing ships. Some did so in search of riches, whether by establishing new, profitable trade routes or by taking them through force of arms. For others, the vital motivation was to build a better life in a land where they could escape tyrannical oppression and openly practice their beliefs. However, the game’s primary focus is not historical accuracy. Rather than trying to simulate the harsh and frequently unappealing realities of the period, it transports players to a romanticized version that seems likely to provide a suitably sweeping yet somehow familiar backdrop. "

Interesting excerpts of the interview are below.

On what are the attractions of Granado Espada...I wordled excerpts of the interviews related to GE attractions and this came out.

" It has a really unique feel and position in the marketplace, both in terms of the game play and feature sets, and in terms of the consumer model

a huge quest system, trading houses, diversity of classes, and depth in game play

a huge PvP system that will offer something to every type of player. What we do not have from the Korean side is the dreaded grind, that Korean titles are often associated with

the level progression is similar to other MMO’s released over the past few years in the American market.

a few that really stand out such as the game’s unique setting, stunning graphics, and its one of a kind multi character control scheme

there is room for a highly unique and exciting MMO such as Sword of the New World Vis. The fact that no other title in the genre offer’s the player the ability to control up to three character’s at once is almost enough in itself! But add in the distinctive setting, highly detailed and striking visuals, and almost unlimited character skill combinations, and Sword of the New World Vis is a title that no MMO fan should miss out on!

you are given the option to create a party of three characters to explore and conquer the world

Granado Espada was the winner of the 2006 Grand Award for Best Game in Korea. Gamers highly valued the creative game system and appreciated the beautiful graphics, the dynamic action, the fast-paced gameplay, multiple character control system, the NPC creation, etc.

some of the most amazing visuals I have seen in an MMO - and not just another clone of a current MMO, but rather something that looks new and different.

The art-style of the game caught the eye of many MMOG veterans, who saw something familiarly fantastic yet altered just enough to make the game feel new. Gun-slinging was just as prevalent a combat style as swordplay, and the multi-character control system stands as a brilliant gameplay adjustment on a tired old formula.

At first, we were definitely attracted to the setting and the graphics...On top of that, we really enjoyed the unique player characters. There’s really nothing that Sword of the New World compares to in the Western market. The Baroque style is unique, the UPCs certainly are a draw, and the setting is fantastic.

Set in an original world with a story modeled after Europe’s exploration of America, the developer of the title, IMC Games, looked for a period where there was little exploration and development in the game world, and settled on the 17th century. Not to mention the access to such great content including architecture that is used in the game.

Sword of the New World’s Multi-Character Control (MCC) enables players to control up to three characters at once. No longer limited to playing just one character at a time, with MCC players can access their favorite classes immediately and combine them for fast-paced, dynamic action.

The multiple stances per character class that allow for diversity in play styles without the downside of having to create or go through some elaborate process to change you characters skills will also be of huge benefit to players. Not enough healers for your RAID, simple, move your scouts from Assassin style back into Healing style (when the combat has died down) and proceed. The level of flexibility will be a refreshing change to players.

On why change the title to Sword of the New World...

The title is being changed for the West to remove the steep entrance curve that exists in the game currently, and to change the flavor of the name to be more interesting to the western marketplace

On what changes to be made to the game for Western markets...

The primary changes to the title are in character creation. We are offering many more options to the North American players when they start the game. Each character class is going to have many costumes and outfits available for selection. We are also making subtle changes to the control scheme so that players who have been playing other MMOs will be able to slip into SNW vis’s control scheme and feel “at home”. Additionally, we are adding a significant storyline to the title and revamping the whole quest structure. I believe that the snw vis players of 2007 expect great stories and interesting quests when they play their games.

On whether MCC will encourage less socialization...

Sword of the New World still contains many dungeons, bosses, quests and PVP instances where parties are essential; the bonus that players can achieve by forming social groups and fighting for prizes will be of great boon to most. On the positive side, you want have to spend hours trying to find a healer for your party, since most groups have the ability to have their own!

On why less buzz now...

One of the things that hurt us concerning release was the fact that we launched the same day as E3. And E3 this year garnered even more interest because it was in a new venue and the focus of the expo had changed. When E3 hits, people shift their focus on to what’s new and what’s upcoming, not so much what’s just released.

Moving on from Chapter 1...

This will be the last time I work on my Chapter 1. It has gone through more than 20 iterations already. In its present form, I think it is good enough but I can confidently say that it will not the final form when I submit my dissertation. My boss, sharing his PhD journey, had advised me not to be so hard-up on trying to improve it. He said that Chapter 1 would be the first and the last chapter you would write for your dissertation. He is right. I can sense that some sections need improving as my thinking is continuously shape from my reading, writing, reflecting and blogging - a never ending process. I am determined not to touch it anymore until my ideas are more concertized. And this means that I will only visit it again when I have written all my other chapters.

Can players be duped or not?

James Gee dedicated the last chapter of his book What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy, to discuss whether players can be duped by videogames. He concluded that just as learners may not necessarily take the view propounded by authors when reading their books, and in some instances may take a totally opposite and unexpected view, in MMOG too there is likelihood that players may not necessarily “read” MMOG as game designers and developers would want them to. But this did not stop protesters, marching and chanting out “War is not a Game”, calling for the closure of the "Army Experience Center" in the Franklin Mills Mall. The centre, while meant to increase recruits into the army, allows kids to run an iteration of America’s Army from playing videogames,and it is fear that it is likely to promote violence among teens and “create a generation that is wired to kill and think that killing is something that is easy”. I was quick to brush this off as another paranoia until I found this post below in GamePolitics.com.

I won’t risk having my kids play RapeLay even if all the James Gees of the world were to unite and assure me that my kids are above the negative influences of this game. Game like RapeLay is rich with experiences that will allow in Loyers's word, "dynamic experiences of subjectivity, affect, and emotion". I wonder to what extent can players' discerning ability of what is right and wrong influences how they respond to such experiences. While it is natural to expect discerning ability to be positively related to age, but is this true for every players? Perhaps the protesters against the "Army Experience Center" is concerned about teens not being able to be discerning on what can be taken into the real world from playing and what should be kept purely within the confine of the gaming environment. I wonder what the field of psychology has to offer to enlighten us on these issues.

2-year research study plan

I have completed my last assignment for Dr M's class this afternoon. It was a paper entitled, Massively Multiplayer Online Games: Productive play "sandpits". 15-page paper and it took me 5 days. I brain is aching and if I only could take it out, massage it and leave it in a fridge for a week. I am mentally exhausted and drained. Looking back, with all the assignments for Steve's and Dr M's classes put together, I could possibly have written more than 100 pages (single space). Yes, I deserve a break. Anyway, above is the study schedule I am committed to. I have written Chapter 1 and my methodology chapter is halfway through. I have till end of June to finish it. Comfortabe runway for me since my work has started to pickup pace.

How players "read" a game?

It's is funny that while I blog what I am doing for my study, I never mention what my research topic is. My research topic is to find out how players "read" a game and the game genre I am interested in is MMOG. I am confident that we can develop a theory that describe how players "read" game and grounded theory approach will help me achieve that.

Just as learners may not necessarily take the view propounded an author when reading a book, and in some instances they may take a totally opposite and unexpected view, in MMOG too there is likelihood that players may not necessarily "read" a game as game designers and developers would want them to (Gee, 2003). We can better understand what players take away from playing a game by looking into the conversations and interactions players have with other players (Shaffer, 2007), and answer question that will broaden our understanding of social interactions, culture and practices in MMOG. So I will be focusing on a phenomenon or process and my study would look into evidences that will allow understanding of the process that links the two dynamics - players' interactions and conversation that emerge form social structures in MMOG, and their playing experience.

My study has potential to contribute to research on games for learning, because educators who are interested in exploring MMOG as a learning tool have to be aware of the nature of social play and community dynamic found in MMOGs. Furthermore, different learning opportunities are afforded in MMOGs based on different social context found in them (Squire & Jan, 2007). As such, designing MMOG for learning entails not only structuring learning activities to cover an intended syllabus, but also to view MMOG as a social system and to design game and social structures in MMOG that will engender interactions and conversations that are favourable for learning.

I have explored other qualitative approaches during my qualitative class but I feel social constructivist approach to grounded theory by Charmaz (2006) is most suitable (and I am also exploring Adele Clarke's situational analysis on top of Charmaz's approach). Many will argue that qualitative research is not aimed for generalizability but I feel constant comparison method to draw theoretical categories and theoretical concerns to the point of category saturation will end me up with a theory to describe the phenomenon I am investigating.

Choosing the right methodology and methods are important to give credibility to our findings and for readers to take our work seriously (Smagorinsky, 2008). Stories I write if I were to use narrative approaches (Polkinghorne, 1995), would at best explain a phenomenon with respect to a local setting (my specific research site). The same can be said with case study research (Yin, 2005; Stake, 1995). Phenomenology (Moustakas, 1994) would leave me with categories so thin that I can hardy pull them together to draw out a theory. Traditional grounded theory (Rock, 2001; LeCompte & Preissle, 1993) is a no as explained in my earlier post. Mixed method is interesting and Johnson & Onwuegbuzie (2004)'s approach is one version of a few versions of mixed methods approaches. I have heard a seminar by Dr Chen W. who said that in mixed method, quantitative methods may be used to affirm findings from qualitative methods (a turn around from Johnson and Onwuegbuzie). Anyway, I have explored the possibility of getting quatitative data by mining one the game servers of the MMOG I am researching on. However, the game distributor company chooses to put on deaf ears to my request. Ah well, I understand perfectly why they are doing so. : )

Research is storytelling

It was a good critique session I had with Dr M today. While how I position my paper will depend a great deal on how my analysis turns out, at least now I can see possible paths that I may want to look deeper into from suggestions given by Dr M. One thing I learn today from Dr M which Prof DH also underscored in a sharing session I attend last week is that it would be best if we have research that challenge conventional thinking because it makes it a good story to read. So research is like storytelling. Well it's not about cooking up lies but how to position your research from an angle that is never thought of before. Like this book.

The conventional thinking is that it is wise to follow an elite few instead of the masses but his book tells a different story that many are actually smarter than the few. I am wondering now what is conventional thinking about some phenomenon in MMOG that I can show the contrary. Hmmm. : ?

Second best to this kind of story, I think, is what Prof DH said. If you can't tell this kind of story, then tell a story that goes well with conventional thinking but which people cannot describe in details. So your research is like providing the "thick description" of something people have accepted but can't describe. Well, I can think of Steinkuehler research on cognition and learning in MMOG. The conventional thinking is that people know learning occurs in MMOG but cannot describe how it takes place.

So what what kind of story will you be telling from your research?

Superstition and Powepuff Girls???

I was watching Powerpuff Girls cartoons with my kids this evening from youtube when I saw this one below. The theme for this episode it seems is too teach kids to kick out superstitions. People love it and it gets 5-star ratings. Wonder how should I read the ratings. I didn't realise that the entertainment industry sees great need to educate kids about superstitions. It makes me wonder how prevalent are superstitions among kids? I remember reading somewhere that says kids drop their superstitions as they grow older. So superstitions affect all ages. I wonder what superstitious belief my kids have. I'll go find out. ^^ You may want to find out what superstitious belief your kids have. Glad if you could share. : )

Understanding superstitions in MMOGs paper completed

Phew! I have just completed my "Understanding superstitions in MMOGs" paper for Dr M's class about five minutes ago. 17 pages in all. It took me 9 days to finish writing it! I am pretty much breathless now. Let me catch my breath first. huh..huh..huh..*panting* : )

This paper was meant to support certain conjectures I make about MMOG in my Chapter 1 but the analysis and findings portion took it to a different path. I did not anticipate this but I guess that what happen when you do research, I mean you have to expect that you research may not turn out what you though it would. Any case all is not lost. This experience is a good reflective exercise for me to look deeper into my research site. There are links to my research topic which I need to uncover.

My next paper for Dr M's class is a follow up paper to this where I will provide more evidences to support my findings and suggest how superstition in MMOG can be redefined. I have identified two forum threads and will analysis the discussions there. I will be focusing on the interplay between individual cognition and community cognition. I have written a nice abstract for that. I look forward to the critique session with Dr M this Wednesday.

Definition of superstition

I enjoy my literature review on superstition a lot. I have been reading these books and an immediate sense I get is that there is a difficulty to pin down what it is as there is no way to differentiate superstition from other belief and action. On whose authority do we take a belief or an attitude to be superstitious? If we turn to religious authority, there is a continuing debate whether superstition can be distinguished from religion or is the latter itself, as Cattell puts it, just “silly superstition”. If we turn to science, experts often have different opinions and even if scientific community can come to a consensus, other group may not necessarily agree with them. If we leave to “the reasonable man in present-day Western society” or the consensus of the educated people to decide what superstitious belief is, we cannot avoid complicating the debate with cultural and historical issues. I know that it is beyond my paper to enlighten how superstition should be defined. For the aims of my paper, I think it is best to stay away from the above contentious areas and settle with Zusne & Jones’ (1989) definition that superstition is a “(a) specific, circumscribed belief or act that (b) involves magical thinking, either actually or as a remnant, held or engaged in because (c) it is culturally transmitted or learned through fortuitous reinforcement and (d) is resorted to under conditions of uncertainty. To act on a superstition is to become momentarily a magician on a small scale” (pg. 242).

More reading and writing for now...

Values embedded in formal schooling

Dr M’s class discussion last Wednesday about informal and formal learning has opened up a lot of insights for me. What came out strongly from the discussion for me is about values embedded in teaching being carried out in schools. I am thinking about values and games a lot now and wonder what values players derive from playing. Do they derive values from conversations with other players or from overall interactions with players and game environment? Do they derive similar core values from playing or does each player take away with them different values? And how do values affect how they read the game? Is there a relationship between values and reading of games, and if so, how tight is the relationship?

Problematic values
One of the papers Dr M discussed with the class was the Scribner & Cole's paper (see left). That paper is a canonical piece because papers from the last three decades that talk about informal learning or compare it to formal learning, have their roots to that paper. An excellent read because not only did it contrast cognitive consequences between informal learning and formal schooling, it also implied in its argument the different values schooled and unschooled learners drive from their learning. For example, one of the cognitive consequences between informal learning and formal learning mentioned in the paper is where “...unschooled populations tended to solve individual problems singly, each as a new problem, whereas schooled populations tended to treat them as instances of a class of problems that could be solved by a general rule” (pg 554).

Dr M says that the value that is problematic here for formal learning is that learners see that they SHOULD generalize different sets of problems when searching for a solution. We all know that embarking on an inquiry to find out whether different sets of problems have enough attributes that warrant us to draw some form of generalization can be considered a scientific pursuit. However, the act of thinking that all problems can be and should be generalized without first making an inquiry and investigation whether they can be generalized in the first place is problematic.

I remembers there is a paper by John Seely Brown and Allan Collins (see right. They make reference to works by Lave who himself references to Scribner & Cole’s paper) that also follows this line of argument about problematic values when they mention how schooling culture negatively impact learning and is detrimental in preparing learners to get initiated into the practices of experts in related profession when they leave school.

Learning and performance
Dr M also talked about how the relationship between performance and learning differ in informal learning and formal schooling. In informal setting, learning collapses with doing and performance, while in school, there is this duality between learning and performance, and assessment is used to evaluate whether learning lead to performance. The presence of assessment is problematic on a number of counts but one that interest me a lot is that it comes with a certain value that views all learning can be measured to the point that even learning that cannot be measured are also assessed and reduced to number and symbols. Like how do you measure reflection? Or collaborations, how do you measure learners' collaborative learning?

This fascination with assessment cause teachers and learners to lose sight what is the real value and object of learning and in acquiring knowledge. And doing well in the assessment takes centre stage. Learning is geared more towards assessment. It happens to all of us. We get many ‘A’s for our O and A level exams but our knowledge lack depth that we are not confident enough to talk about our understanding and how can we apply what we have learn in real world setting.

Jayanthy's research
My reflection brings me to Jayanthy’s research (See left). Jayanthy hopes to do a comparative study between the way science is taught with a view to values in schools in Singapore and in India. I am thinking that perhaps it may be more meaningful to uncover problematic values resulting from formal schooling first before Jayanthy contrast the difference in values about science taught in science lessons in India and Singapore. A good way to find out more about them is to read and see how Scribner & Cole paper are cited by others.

Dr M shared an anecdote about Singaporeans students spending most of their out of school time with more formal learning like remedial, tuitions etc. I am assuming here that students in India have a more balanced formal and informal learning experience. If this is the case, I wonder how informal learning impact values about science learnt in formal learning for students in India. Jayanthy is very passionate about her research (from her introduction in class) and I feel her research is very interesting and would be of great interest to many people.

Chapter 1

Finally, I manage to come up with a draft of my chapter 1 - Thanks to my supervisor's help and Steve's class. While I should be happy, I am also humbled by the writing experience. I feel this draft is by no means near to my final envisaged version. I remember going through 6-7 iterations for many parts of the chapter and this chapter will probably end-up with many more iterations before I settle for a final version. Was it Steve who said that you never can say that you have completed your writing. It is at best abandon for a while, only for you to return to work on it again.

So bye, bye Chapter 1 and see you next time. Next stop, methodology chapter. Hope to get that one out by the end of next month. Wish me luck! ^^

Terra Nova

Today I have identified the community that I wanted to get initiated into. The community is housed in Terra Nova - a collaborative weblog featuring several important scholars in the field of games research. General focus is MMOGs and social aspects of online gaming communities which is in sync with my research. I will from time to time write commentaries on the entries posted in Terra Nova here in my blog or post comments in Terra Nova. I am also on the lookout for online qualitative research community that I can be a part of. Do you have any recommendation?

Responds to Epistemic Games post: My replies

My replies to all the responds to my Epistemic Games post are below:

To Abel
Let’s consider the massive online gaming now in the market, I believe the guild leaders would in a way restrict the number of players therefore, it will not lead to total chaos. What do you think?

In Granado Espada, every faction (or guild) can have a max of 100 members. Usually faction will try to recruit to the max but I have seen factions that prefer to remain small so that their members can forge close ties and bond more with one another (it is difficult to do this if you have so many people in a faction). I remember reading a paper from Nick Yee who quote the work of Christopher Allen who suggest that in an online environment the cognitive limit for any individual to hold a reasonably stable relationship with others is around 45 - 50 people. I have also seen one person factions but for reasons which I don't know. I am assuming that these factions are new and are recruiting members. Said that, our idiosyncrasies also prevail in MMOG and so you may still find people who choose to remain as one man faction for reasons not related to game concerns. For example, in Granado Espada, if a faction have completed the faction quest, the faction leader will get a halo each for all playing characters. But these halos are pretty unique because it do not hover over the characters' head, but circle around their waist. Awesome and they glow in navy blue colour. So it's kinda of cool to show them off to people so that they will know that you are a faction leader. ^^

As to chaos management, you will be surprise to find how faction organize themselves by enhancing the social structure designed by games designers and developers. One example is where they created sub-teams within their faction with each teams having their own leader and assistants. Still, by no means these structures are capable to ward off chaos in times of war if players cannot commit to the roles and duties assigned to them (And MS talks about this when her brother mentions about commitments as leaders in a guild - the need to be punctual and virtually present.

Some of you seem to be saying that the members are having a common goal. Could it be possible that some players just wanted to help others to achieve their goals; hence arguably, they are not having the same goals. In addition, I believe different people may also have other self-vested goals. Therefore, I would like to suggest that yes it is a given fact that all of them have goals. However, it is not a given premise that they must have the same goal. What do you think?

Oh yes, goals are contextually bounded. You can have shared goals when engaged in a colony war but shared goals can also overlap with personal goals. If the aim of both type of goals do not conflict with each other, by all means you can work on them all. But if they do, then you are face with an ill-problem scenario. Playing involve many decision making processes that, in many instances, warrant higher order thinking. For this case, you need to weigh your options and choose one that suit to serve your interest in one area but at the same time does not jeopardize you position badly in another area.

To MS
You mentioned about shared practices and how rightfully so. James Gee talks about shared practices in the same breath when he mentions 'affinity group'. Similar ideas to COP stuff we have learned so far. So communities exist within and around MMOG and one of the affordances of this interesting feature of MMOG for research is that you can study community dynamics of large scale population (in the hundred thousands if not millions) of people. Interesting. BTW, there is no better way to understand about MMOG than to play it. Trust me. : )

Responds to Epistemic Games post

Wow! I didn't realise my posting on Epistemic Games: Can this work in MMOG environment? which I copy and paste in blackboard for Dr M module has attracted quite a fair bit of responds. I list them below here.

Abel responded to my posting:
I find your point about what would happen when the no. of participants gets too large interesting. Intuitively, I think there will be a certain level of unrest but whether epistemic gaming would still survive under these conditions would be a tricky one to answer. Let’s consider the massive online gaming now in the market, I believe the guild leaders would in a way restrict the number of players therefore, it will not lead to total chaos. What do you think?

MS replied to Abel:
I had a conversation with my younger brother as I know that he is holding some 'leadership' position in the War craft online game. He shared with me that its important for the members to have common shared goals, identities and have trust with their leaders. One simple way to show 'leaderships' and commitment is to be 'punctual' online and be 'virtually present' to provide guidance to the novices and to invite them to join their guilds according to some. Personally, I'm not an online multiplayer gamer so I am still trying to understand what my brother is sharing with me.

WM responded to my posting:
Epistemic games are reflective, knowledge-generating activities that can be used in any classroom, and can be created for any knowledge domain. The theory of epistemic games was developed by Collins and Ferguson (1993) and Morrison and Collins (1995).

Players are grouped into teams of three. Each player draws one card per turn, and places it onto a hierarchy diagram on the posterboard. The player then draws connecting lines to join the new card to existing cards.

For example, the first player draws the card "meat" and places it on the posterboard. The second player draws the card "plants" and places it on the same row with "meat". The third player draws the card "animals" and places it on the same row with "meat" and "plants". The fourth player moves "meat" to the row below. Subsequent players draw cards and place them on the posterboard according to the legal moves.

Players in the same team must have a common shared goal so that they apply the same strategy to achieve their goal.

Abel replied to WM:
Some of you seem to be saying that the members are having a common goal. Could it be possible that some players just wanted to help others to achieve their goals; hence arguably, they are not having the same goals. In addition, I believe different people may also have other self-vested goals. Therefore, I would like to suggest that yes it is a given fact that all of them have goals. However, it is not a given premise that they must have the same goal. What do you think?

I better start thinking how to respond. Hmmm... I can't think now. Liverpool will play Aston Villa in less than an hour. How I hope they win. *on my knees* Please God.... *trembling* : ) I need to calm my nerves first. Will respond soon enough but I am glad to see that my posting has generated so much interest. Cool. ^^

Granado Espada

So below is the site of my research, a MMOG called Granado Espada. I learn that in Spanish it means Fruit Sword. Funny. No wonder not many Spanish speaking players are here because the game title, while sounds cool in English, is a joke in Spanish. ^-^



I have been playing this game since March last year. Wow! I didn't realize that a year has passed since. Anyway, since classes began in this year, I am hardy online. It comes as a surprise to me that my faction leader still keeps me in the faction despite me missing so many faction events, especially colony wars. I guess the deputy, who is a good friend of mine and we join the faction about the same time, must have been buying me time. Now each time I log-in, there so many new faces that I don't even know. While I'm glad that they prune the faction from non-active players, I know I have to start playing regularly. I promise to be around tomorrow for the colony war to defend our colony and play regularly once I clear the two modules this semester.

Oh yes, didn't I mention that my 8 years old son too play this game. He's very cool. He owned a faction before (when I never had any experience being a FL before) and called it by my family characters' name. Isn't that nice. That boy of mine really looks up to me. : ) He had trouble recruiting players into his faction. Those that joined him decided to leave once they discovered that it was a one-man faction. I thought I would like to join him, only to learn later that he had quit his faction to join his friends in another faction.

He gets enculturated into the way of being in the game very fast. I see spills over of this into his school works - in his composition where at times he use chat English. I am not too concern about this because I see quite a fair bits of good stuff he has gained from playing. For example, he has picked up many difficult vocabulary (not only games vocab, trust me) as playing affords him many context to learn and apply them. We talk a great deal more now because of our common interest in games and this concurs with many papers I have read where real world relationship get betters when family members play games together. I am not sure whether I am going to do a Piaget here - study my own kid for research, like what Norman intends to do. But I do acknowledge that by looking at what he is going through gives me a glimpse of what I can expect from my research.

Chaos & Bliss

While JL likens her learning journey as living through a long Arctic day, my own experience so far have been many tosses and turns between two states of mind - chaos and bliss. The good news is, every time I am at bliss, I understood a bit more about my research, how and where to move it forward than I was in my last state of bliss. You can call that progress. ^^

So where I am today? I can say that I am in between, turning more closely towards bliss. Yesterday (before Steve 's class) was terrible. I was lost. I find blogging helps me organize my thoughts, consolidate what I have read and learnt and keep me away from chaos. Nice.

Ok that's all for now. Need to tidy up 2 writing pieces before working on another. Will blog again soon.

Epistemic Games: Can this work in MMOG environment?

I have read Shaffer's book on How computer games help children learn and for Dr M's class, two required readings are by him which talk about epistemic games and their links to COP and informal learning. Great idea and nice work, I must say.



Said that, often games for learning are meant for certain audience and by that I mean very specific group of people. Take for example the Whyville.net by Kafai (I am great fan of Kafai and I see Whyville as an ambitious attempt and Kafai is leading the way to push the boundary of research on games in education beyond educational gains into the socio-cultural issues - like race and cheats, that I feel receive little attention) and River City by Harvard Uni as examples and oh yes, local game projects by Dr CYS, you find they share one thing in common - while they are meant or have potential to be multi-user, these games are hardly open beyond students in their experiments.

I wonder whether there is a minimum number of players limit where beyond it, community dynamic comes in and affect players' game play. What would impact interactions and conversations that would determine community dynamic when this happens. Can spontaneous and unintended community events (like players demonstrations and unrests) and social phenomenon (like grief play) happen if the number of players are large enough. How will they impact on the design of the games? Can epistemic games work under these conditions?

While I am confident that Shaffer, folks at Harvard Uni and Dr CYS, have thought through about social aspect of game play, I wonder whether the social structures they have created for their games will stand good and continue to promote interactions that are favourable for learning regardless the number of players.

Well, I can only be certain if I ask them. I know Shaffer will be coming to Singapore soon. Perhaps I will ask him this question.

Symbolic Interactionism and MMORPG

From my Google scholar search, I found only 5 research on MMORPG using symbolic interactionism as theoretical framework and they focus only on two themes - social interaction and culture. Research on social interaction look into exploring possible forms of social interaction afforded in virtual world (Lundin, 2007), mapping out a conceptual framework to articulate in a broad sense what social interaction means in MMORPG (Chen & Duh, 2007), and understanding impact of patches and expansions on social interaction (Chen et al. 2008). Research on culture look into discussing the importance of dress-up play as form of adult play in digital culture (Fron et al. 2007), and explaining the development and maintenance of peer culture within virtual world of games (Adams, 2005).