Attaining level 10

I made it; finally!
Last night after a very long day, which is characteristic of my Tues, and Weds, I might add, I decided that I wasn't going to bed before I got to level 10. The previous night I had gone onto level 9.5 but could not stay up long enough to get to the end of that level. I simply couldn't bring myself to slay any more forest spiders, or bears, or even kobloids and humanoids.
It was off to bed for me to be continued the next day.

Which brings me to a the ambivalence I felt in the game. Killing to get ahead. Then again, that notion is not new to human relations. In fact, the creators exploit that aspect as it reinforces an ideological framework that equates success with stepping on other people's toes so as to get ahead. And if stepping on toes means killing then so be it.

On Warcraft

Tasking me with playing World of Warcraft has got to be, arguably the most difficult tasks I have had to undertake. To be fair, WOW is not the difficult of a game to get into. What is difficult, however, is growing up in the ranks.

When I fist signed into the game, it wasn't 15 minutes before I was at level 2. So I thought to myself, making 10 levels will be a piece of cake. I got into the game with gusto, knowing that it was just one of the many on my to-do list. I ran errands and killed stuff; I ran around using my new found powers to live an let die when I realized that killing was the way up the level ladder.

After a while, I tired of killing. I know now that were I an avid gamer, I'd be an achiever. That's all I wanted. Were it possible to achieve without killing, I'd be very happy with that option. So I circumvented the errands, since they involved a lot of killing and made do with looking around outside of my comfort zone. I got into trouble soon, though. I learned that just because I wasn't interested in killing didn't mean the meanies out there would leave me alone. I died. I resurrected; died and rose again so many times I lost count. The last time I died, however, even though I found my corpse myself, I was without a weapon. What to do; what to do!

I killed one of those defiance nuts and got myself a shield as loot. Gotta love a good loot; one that you an use! That helped along in my battles. Most of all, I discovered that I could actually take on opponents with my bare hands and take them down!

Still I felt this urge to get me a weapon and so I wondered from my safety zone only to find myself in a completely different city/region altogether. First I was in a fascinating city that had canals, and parks, and squares, libraries, and all indicators of modern civilization. What I needed was a trainer, and none of those uppity folks in the city would give me the time of day. So off I I wondered, only to find myself in some military lair; there was a tunnel in which I went around and round until I stumbled, or in WoW speak, discovered what I prefer to call the Tundra region.

It was miles of forests, deserts, snow-blown mountains, and exotic-looking places. What I noted was its frost-molded landscapes, frozen roads and even more blood-thirsty killers to match the frozen temperatures. It was all I could do to get myself out of there. Try as I could, I succeeded in embedding myself even more. Suddenly Elwyn Forest seemed like the SC Botanical Gardens. I longed to return there and so I got myself killed, thinking that would oust me from the cold. No such luck! I was resurrected after failing to scale the frozen mountain to locate my corpse. I lost all the copper I had obtained from grazing the defiance nuts in the area. Still, however, no weapon. I got fatally attacked by about 9 level 9 lepers twice. What's interesting is that when you set out to find your corpse, just when you are about to reenter it, the killers can sniff you or something, if you happen to be in enemy territory.
And they pounce as soon as you are alive!

As a Paladin, I found myself fighting back the evil forces with one mighty hammer. I couldn't help thinking that there was more to being a Paladin than my lacklustre performance accorded me. For example, I was unable to cast spells or heal even myself. I did not resurrect dead players, could not find armor to wear even though I had some Plate armor in my loot. I figured I need training but somehow I could never find the trainer nor the school. As a result, my which defense was greatly compromised.

It's easy to understand the attraction of WoW; who can match the satisfaction for gamers that comes with the very real sense of accomplishment they get when they gain a level in experience and strength? Floods of light, noticeably rising levels and a daring adventuresome thrill that can only come from such reckless abandonment.

Still I was baffled by this idea of game in a war game. WoW is rhetorically a war zone. You fight or you are fought; you kill or get killed. You cannot simply sit around and socialize; there is no fun in that. What is the motive behind WoW? I hope avid gamers can respond to this query.

Perhaps the concepts of game/play are understood differently in WoW. Wikipedia defines WoW as a "is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG)," a fantasy. Granted, my Paladin character was fighting the environment--the landscape, the monsters, etc. And Wikipedia adds that "it is also through the use of quests that much of the game's story is told." Quests are the way the player is led through the game. However I found the quests rather repetitive and, in way, mindless. It felt like having 500 channels to surf and still wondering weather or not there is something else to watch.

Now on level 7, I am still struggling with the concepts of game and war. They are binaries to me and yet they are at the core of WoW. And examining other forms of play perhaps reveals that these two are not peculiar to WoW. Think about ball games, racing, riding, boxing, even politics, I suppose; all invovle quashing one's opponent. Gamers in those worlds have perfected the art of doing what it takes to be on top of their game.
I don't know if my fascination with WoW will survive beyond this class.
We'll see!

Discussing Bartle and World of WarCraft

Key terms:

• Achievers--play to win are driven by in-game goals, usually some form of points gathering - whether experience points, levels, or money.
• explorers--social are driven to find out as much as they can about the virtual construct - including mapping its geography and understanding the game mechanics.
• socializes--use the virtual construct to converse and role-play with their fellow gamers.
• killers--use the virtual construct to cause distress on other players, and gain satisfaction from inflicting anxiety and pain on others.

Bartle and procedural rhetoric...the code sets out rules that govern the interaction between players. It's procedural; a process that's governed by rules and where winners have a defined path.
Achievers play to win


Espen Aarseth: World of Warcraft as Spatial Practice

Players in the MUD

       ACTING

               Killers            |                  Achievers

                                  |

                                  |

                                  |

                                  |

                                  |

       PLAYERS -------------------+------------------- WORLD

                                  |

                                  |

                                  |

                                  |

                                  |

               Socialisers        |                 Explorers

Bartle writes about four proposed types of players, who he maps into a two axis chart copied here according to playing styles. These are

• Action versus Interaction
• World-oriented versus Player-oriented

These two then have four labels to their style of playing. Bartle writes that players have one of these styles as the primary, and will only shift to other style sto keep advancing in their goal.

The four labels are:

• Achievers; achievers are fall in the action-world category of getting treasures, killing mobs
• Explorers; as the terms suggests explore by interacting with their world. In so doing, they discover the topology, physics and mechanisms of the world
• Socializers are in it for the play—they primarily interact with other players and communicate with them
• Killers, like achievers are action-players; they can't leave well enough alone and get off by hassling other players and being a nuisance.

It appears that Bartle’s goal is to promote balance in MUDs. He goes into a rather insightful explanation as to why less sympathetic human behaviors should be avoided even in-game. Prejudice and oppression are just as despicable in the real world as they are in virtual worlds. He advocates design reasons to demote evil.

Look again at the interest graph. Bartle suggests several ways in which graphs can be brought into equilibrium. Caution is in taking away the play, which is the main attraction in the first place.

Players—emphasis on players

World—go global and don't allow players meet

Interacting—focus on interaction rather than action; entertainment

Acting—put into practice what has been learned "without depth you have no MUD" (765).

Consider the following abstract graph:

                         





You can Deconstruct "game/fun versus real life seriousness"

Gaming with Madrid

So I got onto the website watercoolergames.org and decided that I was going to play MADRID.
The instructions were simple: click on the candles make them shine brighter.

There were "persons" holding up the candles, who were also wearing T-Shirts emblazoned, presumably, with the names of their respective cities. I was curious about the choice of cities and wondered what narrative they held that tied them together. On further examination, I noticed that all these cities are those that have been affected by acts of terror. They include in no particular order: Oklahoma, NYC, Madrid, Baghdad, Beirut, Tokyo, and some other city I couldn't quite make out. Although I couldn't quite recall a time when Tokyo came under terrorist attack--I corrected myself with the help of history: the atomic bomb!

The game, like the instructions is simple enough: to keep the candles shining brighter. But there is nothing simple about that task. For starters, although the candles are not that many, by the time you do the rounds, the ones you lit-up first are fading and it's a frantic effort to move from one to the other while keeping them not just ablaze but bright/er.

At the bottom of the screen frame is a brightness-o-meter that indicates how you are doing with keeping the candles bright. Mine was pretty bad; I couldn't get it to the middle let alone keep it in one place for a while. In the end I quit when I began to see that I was not getting far in my efforts and that I couldn't possibly keep this up much longer. I don't know what I missed in quitting but there were no signs of winning.

What I know is that this game is not for amusement. It is a serious game that makes the case for keeping the fire burning; keeping that candle burning bright on behalf of victims of terror. How true! We get smitten with a disaster right after it occurs. And we vow never to forget. But then as time goes on and as the pressures of life make demands on our attention; we move on. And we forget. That is until another disaster comes bearing down on us. Then we take up our arms again.
Sad but true.

This game can certainly affect the way we honor the memory of those who are gone before us; particularly those whose lives were cut short, either through man-made or natural disaster. At the height of the cold war, leaders toyed with the idea of the atomic bomb, and even now, we have countries out there wanting to own one as the ultimate defense. They obviously do not remember what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And all those people been on inflicting terror, London, NYC, Madrid, Oklahoma...those were precious lives that were lost. Katrina may have been a natural disaster but it could have been prevented.

Let us value humanity from Rwanda to Bosnia to Lebanon....all human beings.

We must never forget!

For the Record

"Rhetoric is only part of a president’s power, but it’s an important part. Building public enthusiasm for your efforts helps overcome legislative and administrative barriers."
James Fellows

Understanding narratives and systems in the Game industry

Games as story telling devices, as narrative systems. Games tell stories in as far as gamers tell their own stories. These stories are told in as many and as deep narratives as possible.
Industry designers are people from the game industry who started this, before academics became interested in games as a phenomenon. Academics, particularly from English departments, fell for the notion of games as narratives; the other groups of industry designers examined games as more than narratives, and then there were just gamers.

Ian Bogost, who writes Persuasive Games, represents all three. He has roots in academics, gaming, and designing.

Bogost examines games from a procedural perspective, a different take from narratives and systems. An example of a persuasive game: that uses procedural rhetoric
A serious games is not intended to be played out for amusement (Serious Games)

For games. How about Alice?
However, games have to have rules and winning conditions.
There is a rhetorical and persuasive element to games. He is interested in games that affect change in the material world, making that a political project. They are a persuasive power that can be traced to procedural roots that make up games.

The Expressive Power of Video Games

The Expressive Power of video Games? What a provocative title! More importantly, what a well written treasure....!

Spanning from the very foundations of rhetoric; from Gorgias' description of rhetoric to validating the need for rhetoric as practiced by the Greeks--useful for self-defense, Bogost takes us on a refresher journey of rhetoric that resonates with my 801 course in so many ways.
What I find interesting, however, is not simply the review of rhetoric but how he weaves that conception of rhetoric into what he calls procedural rhetoric--which is what he wanted to arrive at in the first place.

Interesting points:
Sophistry
Dialectic--Socrates/Plato, who debase rhetoric as more pleasurable than substantial
Causality--Aristotle: how rhetoric is practiced through four aspects:

• material--substance from which to make
  
• formal--structure
• efficient--process
• final --purpose (telos) to persuade

An enlightening take on the purpose of rhetoric as being to correct judgment (15). Perhaps Aristotle wasn't so opposed to philosophical rhetoric after all given that rhetoric equaled knowledge and that philosophical rhetoric called to use all the mental capacities to find, to craft, to argue, to persuade.
---------------------------------------

Ways of performing rhetoric

• induction; e.g using examples
• deduction; as in syllogism (18) -----See also the enthymeme
  

Rhetoric has pervaded literary and artistic modes manifesting itself in such forms as writing, painting, sculpture; This trajectory has seen it morph from persuasion to effective expression engaging the audience while accomplishing the rhetors' goal. To Aristotle, where there is persuasion there is rhetoric and where there is meaning there is persuasion (21).

Bogost references Kenneth Burke, who posited that rhetoric is more than persuasion; it is, in a word, identification. The necessary component for rhetoric to accomplish identification is language; a symbolic system necessary to achieve identification (20). Along with identification is the notion of consubstantiality, which is a process resulting from identification. In other words, identification is a supplement to persuasion. Therefore, a rhetor begins with identification, which, once achieved, replaces persuasion in the form of consubstantiality. Following Burke, even more forms or variations of rhetoric have evolved, or perhaps been revealed; these include visual, digital, and one I'd never heard of till now, procedural rhetoric.

Visual rhetoric, ostensibly emerged from shortcomings perceived in oral and written forms of rhetoric. Reason: images evoke visceral responses (Helms and Hill [50]), which do not capitalize on conscious decision-making.
Visual rhetoric is at work in video games but how does it operate procedurally in representation?
At any rate, VR links to digital rhetoric

Digital Rhetoric: Procedural media is video games--process takes over image through construction, sequencing necessary to show how traditional modes of persuasion are being configured in a digital context (25). It involves interaction and it involves feedback. Rather than work with the old to fit in the news, the digital process of procedurality makes room for that interaction. The computer then should be seen as the executor of processes that underscores procedure.. So what is procedural rhetoric then?

Procedural Rhetoric: uses process persuasively (28).
The argument; the procedural argument is authored through a process effectively. Procedural rhetoric involves rules and codes through programming. At issue is how things work. How does procedure plus vividness work?
In this case procedure represents dialectic. Procedural involves moving images, sound is interactive (users get involved) all vivid aspects of rhetoric.
Dialectically, procedural rhetoric mounts propositions, they make claims about function. Question is: can players change the rules?
Also emerging from Derrida: is speech central to language because it is (presumably) closer to thought?