My thoughts on experiments

After two weeks of fun with the experiments here are some of my thoughts and comments. Many of them are really cool to play with, while some of them make quite an impact in my memory.
Let's start with whinning: First of all, it is kinda suck to jump in the experiments with the stupid computer in school. I wish I could do all that in a better computer, so everything would be much more exciting. Then we have few tech problems. That totally destroy the mood on some of the experiments. But hey, this ain't human-related error, who can I blame? About human-related error, I have one: people just don't read the post and instruction! Everything we need to know about the process is in the post, though they could be unclear sometimes. Please, read before going into the experiment.
One of the experiment I did is really cool. It is the little Obama press conference. Danny created a good experiment. It captured my attention because I was completely engaged in the process, and he made it looked real. Some of the questions are politically related, but some are just plain jokes. It is fun to participate. However, the host didn't call on everyone, and he kept letting the same people asking question for many occasion. I had my avatar's hand raise for the whole entire time, and came up with no response! I felt left out. Anyway it was an exciting experiment.
We also have the group who ask the class to look for baseball. That one is just excellent. They were able to create convergence with both world. In order to complete the whole task, one must have a computer and present in the building. Moreover, not only they have a solid theme to begin with, reaching the goal by finding a baseball feels rewarding (but we can't keep it damn!). So far this is the project that requires certain among of team work, and it is great to work with others.
The next cool one is the virtual news experiment. I really love the concept of jumping in and feel the news. I like how they set up the tone by making news print, so the users are all attach to that. It is another example of combining both real world resource with online resource. I feel the pain in this thing. God, in a way it is disturbing, but in a good way. Just like finish watching a good horror movie. Although the graphic isn't even close to real, but the team was able to provide background information to make us feel the pain. However, I do not wish to see this come true in our world, what's worst than watching/feeling being a 16 year-old girl getting raped, or how a psychopathic daddy shoot his entire family with a shotgun, or people in other countries who suffer from war and disease. A little bit carried away, but great project!

My final project

This is my first individual entry for my final project. It is because I am working with a couple of partners, and we set up a group blog. It is a great idea.
At this very point of our project, I feel like I have to blog about the whole project, just to do a little progress check for myself.
First of all, I did a lot of research on trading card games; I read the rule book for Magic: the gathering, and I asked my partners to show me how the game is supposed to play. I played two games as well, just to get a grip on the system. Although I still have a lot of question marks in my head regarding the whole trading card concept, I am at least able to understand many of the vocabs.
In this project, my role is more on the techinical side of the design. I am more involve in building things in second life, whereas my partners Chris and Steve are more engaging in designing the trading card game ( which includes rules, systems, characters, etc). With that said, I take the design from Chris and Steve and execute their ideas on the virtual reality. My tasks are looking for unqiue costumes, getting scripts for objects, and researching for whatever neccessary.

Battle (Bartle) Tested

As a result of taking the Bartle test as both of myself and my avatar's persona, I discover a lot of interesting things. I thought I might have problem doing it as my avatar's persona, but it was not that bad. I get the expected. However, I was a little surprise by my own videogame personality.

First let's talk about my own result. I end up being a half-explorer and half-social videogame player. As I mentioned above, I was surprised by that! When I play online videogame (mainly First Person Shooter), I never talk to anyone; as a matter of fact, I don't even have a mic. Not that I am not a good team player, I just don't respond that well to others. I will always, and always do what is needed to be done to get my team the victory. I just don't output my thoughts. May be I should buy a mic and see...

However, the test is right about my competitive nature. Nothing taste better that a win. I absolutely don't care about achievement at all. If I have to be the guy to draw enemies' fire so my team can take'em out, I don't mind at all (as long as they get the job done). Or, when my team is timid, I would go out and take that last charge to turn things around. I play to win.

I like to explore a lot. I want to reach every corner of the virtual world, see every building. I always try to find the best way to get to the destination, so I will play a videogame (that I like) more than once. I finished Metal Gear Solid 4 at least 10 times! Because the way they structure the game allows player to have their own way of getting through the game. It is always satisfying to find hidden items in the corner of the map.

As for my avatar. Mr Tsuyoshi Kimono...
I designed Tsuyoshi as a timid, shy person. So being anti-socialist is part of my expectation. On top of that, Tsuyoshi is even a bigger explorer than myself. He is a 87% explorer, while mine is only 53%. I am happy to see this result, since my avatar loves travel a lot. The competitive level is ZERO for Tsuyoshi. This is a good news, too. My avatar is supposed to be a peaceful, calm person; I can't imagine him get pissed off and go mad on other players. He is not a achiever at all. Videogame isn't his biggest interest, getting all those medal doesn't fit Tsuyoshi anyway.

Brainstorm

For our group, we came up with many different ideas. At this stage, we have huge array of contribution from everyone in the group. Since most of us are big time video game fans, many of our ideas from brainstorm session related to that area. I am so excited.
To go into more detail of our idea, I would like to credit Steve for many wonderful ideas and support. Outside of our group, we have our own share of discussions, and those led to many great thoughts.
First of all, I want to do TV production in virtual reality. This is the big picture. To be more precise, I want to have a functional TV production with different avatars involved. In other word, some avatars would do technical aspect, like uploading our work, putting special effect, generating graphic, etc. At this point, the TV we want to do is not just uploading drama from TNT, but we want to create something original on our own. Our TV would be something that revolves around the virtual reality itself. Just like what they do in Grand Theft Auto. Hopefully we can produce more than one channel. A sport channel, cooking, history, anything that might fit our interest.
Above that, we want to make racing in virtual reality. We can build our own race tracks indoor/outdoor, or a place where people can gather together and race. The track design could be as challenging as level design in video game, so this is the aspect we need to look out for. Not only we can have different tracks, we would like to also offer different types of racing. Some races are only allow certain types of vehicles to participate, or some races have much higher stake, and some are for more advance compeition. Vehicles can be created by users themselves. The appearance of vehicles could be openly modified with the least among of limitation. However, in order to improve the performance of the vehicle, users must spend points which earned via racing. The created vehicles not only is designd for racing, they can serve as a mean of transportation. Avatars have the ability to travel around with their favorite vehicles. Or they can use the vehicles to pick up other avatar.
From here on, we will continue to develope our ideas, hopefully by the end of the week we have things to work with and start jump right into the project.

My virtual persona is Tsuyoshi Kimono. He is a very polite, shy, and Japanese young man. Tsuyoshi has strong interest in art and food. His favorite activities are traveling solo, drawing, and Yoga. Tsuyoshi really hates dirty places (both literally and figuratively), likes to keep his place clean.



Just to clear up on my virtual persona, I can speak decent Japanese, and my Japanese name is Tsuyoshi. Not only Kimono is the only Japanese name they offered, it also reminds me of my first Japanese friend, because her last name is Kimura.

I coincidentally picked a event loaded with Japanese art. I just randomly, blindly picked a place, and I find myself in a world full of Japanese art. Inside of this event, there are many kinds of Japanese art, including, traditional painting, drawing, gardening, tea cermony, and fashion (happened to be Kimono!). I was early for the event, otherwise there would be lively music and people. I bumped into two French chicks I tried to interact with them, though I didn't get any response (perhaps I still haven't get a hang on the communication aspect). As my polite and shy avatar, I tried just once. After that, I just enjoyed the art around me. I am excited to enter this event, since they offered Tea cermony, but I just wish they have Japanese food, which would satisfied my avatar's stomach.

My Thoughts on ToonTown

5. How are various tasks and goals communicated to you at the start of the game? How and why does this evolve as you gain more experience?

At the very beginning, most of the tasks and goals assigned to players are used as tutorial, so players know how toontown works. These tutorial missions are also used as a way to get players to understand rules and limitation of the game. As players are more familar with the setting, missions get more challenging because nobody wants to keep doing the samething over and over again. Moreover, the beginning part is more individual, as we go deeper into the game, we have to work with other toons to complete some objectives.

10. Attempt some collaborative actions such as EZ Chat and teaming up to fight Cogs. Describe the basics of what you did and the results. What were the limitations you experienced?It wasn’t a great experience when it comes to teaming up fighting cogs.

I met players who want to conserve their ammo by jumping into a fight, wait for other players to expand their ammo to eliminate the cogs, and in the end, that person get experience point for doing nothing but sit around. I was very upset because not only I expanded my own ammo, I also get hit by the cogs all the time because I “provoke them” with gadgets, and the other person didn’t take any damage at all. At the end of the fight we both get the same among of experience, but I had all the dirty work.

16. What was your favorite activity in Toontown?

Customizing my own house is perhaps the best part. It makes gives the game higher replay value. Although I haven’t get far enough, I think the weapon system sounds interesting. Different weapon has their own perk, weakness, and strength. As a player gain more experience more weapons will be unlocked, it is just like a FPS (first person shooter) which is type of game I am very familar with. This weapon system is in my comfort zone.

My first post

This is my first post to my blog for my 627 class. I'm here to share my design and its process with everyone who is interested. I hope I can make it exciting and entertaining.