Okay first of all lets get the fanboyish gushing out of the way *deep breath*
HOLY CRAP SMT IS AWESOME! AND DIGITAL DEVIL SAGA RATHER THAN PERSONA! ALTHOUGH IT IS STILL SLIGHTLY PERSONA WHY CAN'T I DO A DEMON TRANSFORMATION! I LOVE THE STORIES AND THE ART STYLE AND THE DEMONS ARE AWESOME ALONG WITH THE MOVES! AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME!

*cough* Ahem, right then back to my game experience.
This is my second time playing Digital Devil Saga online and I gotta say, I am stuck about the same place I was last time. Except last time my demon went into the tunnel and came out with the thing I needed on the first try, I did not lose three demons like I have now! AND I am having trouble leveling up because I seem to get crappy experience from what ever I am fighting and have no Wilder/Avian/Brute type Demons so I am not happy with the Demon families I am using and that is just making the experience that much harder even though my guy looks awesome (The Bull Comp is Sweet) But I am trying to Balance Spear Melee type attacks with Debuffing while still keeping room for Zio skills because well, lightning magic is always the best magic (Duh, although wind is a decent substitute IF you have no other choice) But still I am a little too unspecialized I am tryin got be a one man party and as always it is hard. Can Anyone help me get out of this and up to at least level 16 quick with a level 12 demon? AND I CANT FRIEND A JACK FROST WTF!? I CANT HAVE THE FLAGSHIP CHARACTER! BOO! Well thats about it for now....Peace!

Maybe I can try some Conan online....meh....need a Mechwarrior MMO lol

Ja Ne!

Hello all, I guess I have to explain who I am to all ya'll taking a look at the researcher profiles huh? Well lets just say I am a crazy Irish man who smiles too much and is way too loud...so just an Irish man. Hahaha sad but true no? I am a Trinity Communication major named Matt or Robert which ever you would like to call me. Or Zanthor, the choice is yours. I am a long time gamer who finally found a research project that fits his desires! AWESOME RIGHT!?I have played video games for fun since I was a kid on the NES starting with the crappy NES Power Rangers game (WHICH WAS SUPER HARD) and that one mech game I can never remember but was always awesome (IT HAD THAT HUGE MECH WITH FOUR HUGE VENT PORTS THAT WERE LIKE SUPER MISSLE LAUNCHERS!!) ...I digress. I was kind of a casual just playing on occasion gamer till I found Mechwarrior 2 and became a full on gamer. I found I really like FPS games and RPG as well as any Mech game, I have literally played every single Mechwarrior/Battletech video game released to date that I know of including the original RPG ones. So yea I have been gaming for a while and loving every moment of it. I started MMO's with FFXI as a SAM/RDM (HAHA later it was a SAM/DRK and then finally I conformed and became a SAM/THF) named Shast on the Carbuncle server. Gotta say those were fun times, I played most of the way through high school and became an absolute addict for a while before breaking the games evil spell over me and freeing myself! To return to console games. I still play MMOs but never to that depth again, I have played Star Wars Galaxies, Espada: Sword of the New World, Digital Devil Saga Online (BTW Digital Devil Saga may be the greatest RPG to date bar NONE! I like it better than Final Fantasy [insert number, yes even seven I know blasphemy right?]) as well as various other free MMOs and am currently playing Aion in my spare time ASMODIAN FTW BABY! I love to talk to people and would be thrilled if any of ya'll dropped me a line here or in any game! I am also on Deviant Art as a beginning writer with the name Airkelsier (Try to figure out those two refrences, i'll give you a cookie!)
THANKS FOR LISTENING CHIIIIIILLLLLLLDDDDRRRRREEEENNNNNNN This is IRISH DOG! Peace!

Ja Ne!

Okay, I gotta say it and I know it is not going to be academic or becoming in anyway but GAH FREE REALMS INFURIATES ME! I WANT TO CRUSH THERE SERVERS WITH A BAT. Okay...berserkery aggression statements out of the way the two games are very different. I could not really get into Free Realms because I am a Killer type player I like to fight, slay and destroy everything around me I guess its closer to a Berserker but anyway it was hard to do that in Free Realms. Sure you could fight and do instances and what not but there was no depth or strategy to it, and in PVP it seemed just who would hit last and who was a higher level that determined who one (especially in Ninja vs. Ninja PJ!) It was very different in DDO, as a Fighter/Barbarian even though I was a melee class I had alot of depth and scope to my abilities which allowed me to think up patterns and strategies to take down opponents other than just WARFORGED SMASH (which admittedly is very effective.)

I also noticed a lot of the difference in art style. Free Realms seemed more like a Saturday Morning Cartoon than a game to me. It had really soft unobtrusive characters with easy to recognize and categorize people and items, and clearly recognizable good people vs bad/mean people. Where as DDO seemed more like an adventure novel/movie kind of like Lord of the Rings. Alot of earthy tones, clean crisp lines in cities while still seeminging kind of chaotic and ramshackle in certain areas. With the ability to create intricate and amazing features without them seeming over the top or childish or campy (check out the emcampments off of Storm Reaches' Market and you will see what I mean!) It all has the ability to be breathtaking instead of childish overcompensating.

Then there was the chat function. LORD SAVE ME THE CHAT FUNCTION *rage and fury*. In Free Realms I couldn't say ANYTHING my group was laughing at me the whole time because no matter what word I chose it got me in trouble with the censor and caused me to say nothing but "#######################################################################################"
At any time! And yes I understand that they are trying to protect the children from preadators and offensive/obscene ideas but come on now the number one cant be said but Fing can be its absurd! It needs to be tweaked. DDO seems to have no chat filters other than obscenity and I bet if I looked in the options I could turn that off should I so choose, but the reason for this freedom is probably because of the maturity of the audience because yes I do understand that the games are aiming at two separate audiences.

Thats All I Got For Now Children

Peace.....

The most insightful thing about the game mechanics is how basis the gameplay for many games is at their very core. Watching old favorite games, and new games being broken down into their most basic elements was very odd, because you normally only think of those games in terms of their overarching strategies, and stories and visuals never what you are doing at the very core of the in game actions. It makes all of the games people play seem a lot more...simple...when you break them down that way.

One game mechanic that I think all games require to some degree is prior knowledge. If not prior knowledge of a certain area to make the game make more sense, then the prior knowledge of proper strategies and the like because without knowledge of strategies and game abilities many players are at a severe disadvantage and lose games. Besides Prior knowledge, or rather a good knowledge base it is good for players to have this as a basis and many games do rely on players knowledge of certain aspects of our world in order to have them be understood. Another game mechanic I found missing from the list in class was "choice" it is a very large game mechanic especially in newer games. It is the ability for the player to make choices that affect the world around him. "Choice" in different situations and how they affect the game world is a common game mechanic in more modern games.

Well thats what I see...
PEaCe...

The Nintendo Wii has been a break through device since it was first announced a few years ago. When people first saw the controllers they could not believe what they were seeing, they looked like TV remotes, and the fact that they were motion controlled controllers was completely outrageous! People had never even considered such a thing possible or useful on a console system before. It caused the Wii to be mocked and ridiculed by many gamers before it ever even came out.

But then came the reasons why it was a motion controlled interface the controllers weren't wands, they were what ever you needed them to be in the game. all of a sudden they were bowling balls, baseball bats, golf clubs, swords, guns, and even imaginary devices that helped immerse the player into the game. Even though waving the remote looked silly from an outside viewer, the critiquing and complaining vanished seemingly over night and in its absence was a din of praise.

The Wiimote allows for an immersion level into games that has never been seen before, all of a sudden your direct actions are mirrored on screen, one of my favorite examples of this was in the game No More Heroes (EPIC) in which when you weren't fighting you had to do menial labor jobs like cover up grafitti, or pick up dangerous scorpions and you had to act out the actions with the Wiimote in order to have Travis Touchdown do them in the game it was pretty cool. But the devices don't just stop at the Wiimote, there is now a camera for the Wii that allows you to use your voice, there is the Wiibalance board, and the Wii-steering wheel as well as what ever peripherals come out fo the next Tony Hawk game that has an actual skateboard deck in the box. By allowing people to actually have their movements be consequential to the outcome of a game people are burnign calories and becoming more immersed then games (physically) then ever before and because of this deep level of interaction the future possibilities of control inputs is simply staggering.

Or at least thats what I think.

Peace...

Well here it is, time for a second blog assignment dealing this time with the cultural landscape that is available to MMO gamers, and at times gamers in general. I chose to look at Kotaku.com, the Escapist.com and Massively.com to take a look at first general gamer culture, then at the MMOPGER (HA Zeropunctation) subculture.

First is Kotaku, a long time friend of mine who is rather ADD if I must say so myself. For those who do not know Kotaku is a gaming news blog. Which means they post stories about gaming and when they do they post about ANYTHING about gaming almost (At times I wonder if there is any kind of screening process), Lately there has been a blitz of everything Rockband/Guitar hero about upcoming artists and track lists which has just gotten...well...annoying but they report an anything gaming for instance UC Irvine has a Gaming Research Center, Cosplayers of Video Game Characters, what Video Game Execs are doing heck even the video game happenings of the writers, if it has any connection to video games it will be posted on this blog (probably). The articles seemed unfocused, they are like a shotgun blast of information thatyou have a 50/50 chance of being interested in and with an absurd update rate the idea for Kotaku is using quantity to find something for everyone. it is an easily navigated sight through scroll but with the SHEER VOLUME of stories it is much much faster to just use the search function which is very efficient. This resource has shown interest in DDO and FreeRealms but only in a news perspective. I am not sure if Kotaku is subsidized by its advertisers or not because it is connected to a myriad of other cultural blogs such as the Sci-Fi cultural blog io9 and the like all of which may be subsidized by advertising...actually scratch that with the HUGE banner adds and interactive displays about upcoming big name video games the site probably is, OK NEXT. I believe in reporting on transnational gaming issues and when games are region locked or not to inform the public does keep the international picture in mind. They also seem rather accepting and open to transnational play and are interested in it on some level.

ONWARDS TO THE ESCAPIST.

I visit the escapist about every Wednesday to see the newest Zeropunctuation video, which are humorous little videos of Yahtzee Croshaw breaking down all the hard work of game developers everywhere and nit picking their every last flaw. But the escapist has much more to offer than just Zeropunctuation. It offers news and videos based in and around video games and their culture. The website is for the Escapist Magazine, which to me seems to be focused towards people who are avid video game players/Fantasy/Sci-fi/Anime fans. It is not the best resource when looking for news and stories about gaming and MMOs while it has a few they are not as plentiful as other sites and are basically written in a magazine format which is more short and sweet then anything else. It is unclear to me wether or not the escapist has reported on Free Realms but because of the following that DDO has I would assume that there have been some articles on it, however they are very hard to find. There are no big advertisements on the site promoting anything other than the different parts of the Escapist which leads me to believe that the group is self sustained through some kind of subscription fee. And finally as far as I have seen transnational play has never been that large a topic for the website, it is mostly focused on American gamers and their culture/habits.

MASSIVELY MASSIVELY.

Massively is another news site that is centered around gamer culture, but more specifically news about a certain subset of gamer culture: MMORPGer players. The sight mainly talks about New MMO's coming out features of MMO's news in the games, strategies for the games kind of an MMORPG Almanac. It seems to be a very interesting and well written site that can help MMO gamers through their games and learn more about them and keep up to date on other MMOs as well. The site is very search friendly making it very easy to find articles on the MMOs that you really want to know about (*cough*...Aion *cough*). There are actually TONS of articles on the site about DDO, Free Realms and Transnational play since most every MMO is sold in multiple countries. Most of its advertising comes from EVE like many gaming/MMO sites but other than that it seems standard banner fair for the site, all of its sponsers are centered around gaming and MMOs. All and all its a very interesting site with good insight and alot of information about MMOs and the underlying theme of Transnational play.

That is all !....For now.....


Peace...

Well here we go, I'm Matt from Dallas.

There ain't really all that much too me I'm an athlete and a gamer as well as a snowboarder and an amateur novelist mainly who smiles way too much. Im a Senior working towards a Major in Communication and minors in New Media and Politics. I plan to go into the Government towards the State Department/CIA once I am done with school but I got a little bit of jet-setting to do before I can so I will be traveling the world for a bit I guess to get more perspective on our world as a whole. And I am starting to ramble I guess. Oh Well.

In terms of Video Games and things that pertain to this class I don't know. I like RPG's I like shooters, I like games that can challenge me and I like games that can tell a great story. It doesn't matter to me where games or gamers are from, I have played Japanese games and I have played games with people over seas and found enjoyable experiences in both. I guess I am hoping this course will help me take a more analytical approach and in depth study on how video games and virtual worlds are uniting people around the globe and what these Microcosms of our world can tell us about people and their habits. 

Should be interesting to say the least.

Peace...

www.resnet.trinity.edu/rtanner/extracredit.html


There is my extra credit site professor!

Well I just got done adventuring around different area's of second life and it was pretty interesting to say the least, with all the islands that are stores its surprising anyone actually does ANYTHING other than donate and get LBs. Which was a problem for me, seeing as I  had no money and was not inclined to buy any. I spent most of my time at the MCM- Mech Combat arena trying to get their free battle mech to work...to no avail, I just ended up walking around with a big poster sticking out of my hips. I then went over and checked out the other side of the MCM where it was a Battletech "role play" area but only found a shop so I was kind of disappointed. I really wanted to participate in a mech fight considering there are no Mechwarrior games left and there actually is one on Secondlife! but nothin doin. After that I wandered from place to place, mainly newbie zones and free shops and a place called money tree island. And other than money tree island being a COMPLETE AND UTTER RIP OFF there was nothing really to do but wander, I diddnt try any of the flying things because since your character can fly it seemed kind of pointless, I couldnt gamble The only part I really enjoyed was messing around in the MCM area, the rest was kind of odd. I even detoured through Luskwood again, and sure enough the furries were out in force, just goes to show you there are all kinds of people in the world. It was interesting to wander through the area but nothing too engaging, most of the people either ignored you or greeted you as soon as you warped into an area so I guess it takes all kinds on Second Life, and it goes to show that there is market for complete freedom to do anything. Because to each their own, as it should be.

A website with second level menus would be Hulu.com where when your cursor goes across the menu the main area of the site changes to show the various options

www.hulu.com

Worst Website Ever: http://www.havenworks.com

Reason: It barely looks like a website, it is extremely cluttered and impossible to understand. When you first look at the website your are assaulted by a cacophony of colors and letters and are not able to figure out what does what, and what the website is trying to say. There are, what appear to be articles in the text itself that probably have some information in them, however because of the odd page layout, and the distracting features thrown about the page it is hard to read through any of the articles on the site.

However that is not the largest problem with the site, if you were to stumble onto havenworks.com more than likely in the first few moments of finding the site you would have NO idea what this site was for, NONE It took me over a minute to find something about the GOP and the Democrats and I'm still not sure if that is what the website is actually focused on. I am ADD, VERY ADD and with the way this page has been designed I can not focus on any part of it long enough to make sense of the site as a whole, and without being able to make sense and concentrate on the site, people will not stay at your site for very long. I am willing to bet that the site has very few constant users, no way there is enough to warrant it sticking around for long.


Runner-up: http://www.angelfire.com/super/badwebs

Reason: this is a runner up because it is a satire of awful websites, and does everything wrong with websites that can possibly go wrong.


Best Website: Amazon.com

I chose amazon.com because as websites go, it is probably one of the most successful and most used websites on the web. The site itself, has millions of pages but it easy to navigate to get from page to page and find what you want. For a website with so much information, Amazon is extremely user friendly most of its menus and search functions are extremely intuitive helping you out all the way, and able to customize searches, and even offer up similar products based upon your past searches and purchases.

  What I would like to learn from amazon.com would be how to create similar navigation bars to make it easier to navigate amongst my pages. I also like how they have the ability to add user content to the site with how people can sell their own items on the site, if I were able to I would like to leave a discussion board on my future websites so people could talk out the ideas and opinions expressed on my site. I also like how the lay out of the information on the site, with the scrolling menu's and the like allows amazon to present a large amount of information and options at the user's disposal without it being cluttered.

A new set of websites about the Google's interactions with the comming singularity and the companies growing place in today's world

http://www.resnet.trinity.edu/rtanner/midterm

Well here is my survival guide for the 21rst century, it deals mostly with forethought and traits people whould have, and skills they should have. It should deal with most problems seen today and those coming further down the pipe this century


http://www.resnet.trinity.edu/rtanner/survival21/index.html


....Enjoy
Peace

www.resnet.trinity.edu/rtanner/Feb2109

Well, here is my first venture into web design...enjoy!

Boy oh boy, what to to do what to do. When I turn fourty (Gah what an odd thought) I think the world techonologicaly will be a very different place. You may be known not by your social security number, or your drivers licence number but by your Genetic code.

"Why yes I happen to be ATCGGGTCAATCCTATTGTAC...."you might end up sayin! WOW, I hope they just put it on a scanable card. The most disturbing part of what I see happening in twenty years time is the explosive expansion of the urban areas. To think that natural and undistrubed land will be at a PREMIUM that we may never see again. At some point the enviroment will fall, and what are we going to do without an enviroment? What ever it is it wont be pretty. Even today, companies are destroy the rainforrest which provides large portions on the earth with not only fresh air but wind. In twenty years, will we still feel the wind on clear days or will the air of the world stagnate at our level? In order to help the enviroment as much as I can, when I get older I will be as minimally  invasive to the enviroment as I can be, ride a motorcycle or low impact car, get a house that is "eco-friendly" Use Solar energy, recycle all that Jazz so I can at least feel like I am helping. If I make bukoo bucks though, I will begin to plant my own forrest around my freakin' house so if they destroy the rain forrest that won't be able to TOUCH my private one...had to jump off the deep end there for a second sorry.

The next hurdle to overcome would be dealing with the encraochment of human rights, as the readings put it. But honestly, I can not think of much that will change in that way. Because when ever the encroachment of civil liberties becomes TOO blatant or TOO hostile, people rise up and get up set, law suits are thrown down and things change, that is how it worked with civil rights and other changes in our past. When ever the personal rights of the people is encroached upon eventually people rise up and fight back about it. Thats just how these things work, that is one of the beauties our society. Me, I will just keep my eyes open so I can be aware when things get goin too far.

 

Now as for the unchecked, uncontrolled acceleration of human technologies goes, I can not see much that cna be done by just me alone unless I happen to hold alot of sway in the things I do and say. I as a person will do all that I can to keep up with technology as it speeds along down its course, and will probably end up a cyborg in the process. (Exciting, No?) But we should try as we let technology run free, to create technology in harmony with the world around us. How bout a computer that grows a tree? Something of that nature that will put us less at odds with our enviroment, and more part of it, It would be an interesting thing to see.

As for genetic engineering, I think that is something in which we should keep an open mind. Sure we will use it for serious advancements in making our race be "all that it can be". But we should also be open to people who want to use it as a way of expression, I can see thousands of people changing their genetic code and splicing in animal and maybe even plant DNA just for a change, to see what its like. I would hate to see these people ostricized and shunned because of their desires to explore and alter their outter appearance. Not gonna lie, I would probably give this a whirl to, just to see the world as a geneticly altered human. But what I would like to see happen, is even though people will change their genetic codes recreationally, for their own enjoyment, that we not treat them like monsters. Remember, no matter how people might look, at their core, their soul if you will, they are still a human being.

Finally there is Aritificial Intelligence, and frankly it makes me uneasy. I played the game Mass Effect and it made me think about Artificial Intelligence differently. In the game, AI called the "Geth" had run rampant and kicked their creators out of their own star systems, and became hostile to all living creatures. Sure you could beat the Geth in the game, but still they were always evolving and changing and had limitless numbers it seemed, since it is easier for a machine to evolve and reproduce in short times spans than it is for organisms. But the civilizations of the game had found a way to simulate intelligence to be as helpful as an AI without actual self awareness, these were called VIs or Virtual Intelligences, they had all the abilities of an AI but they were not self aware, they could  not choose for themselves really, or rise up in rebellion. I think that in the future we need to be careful of the power we allow thinking machines, if a machine can decide for itself, it may decide that it doesn't like fleshy things manipulating it. We should probably find a way to deal with that before actually letting a computer become self aware. For me personally, I will stick with VIs and always be wary and untrusting of Aritificial Intelligence, for what it could be. I will use it, in limited circumstances, but I dont think I could ever be fully trusting of it, no matter how benign it appears.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm................. what to do what to do............... I think for my website in this class my over-arching topic will be Bionics, but I am going to have to be very specific about what kind of bionics, since bionics in general is the use of technology to mimic natural states and processes. So the topics I will probably cover will be:
- Technology inspired by animals such as ship hulls and sonar, basically the ideas of technology and engineering that we have already taken from nature
-Artificial Neural Networks, and Swarm Intelligence programs which have been using technology to replicate neurological processes and abilities
- Actualized prosthesis, which is  prosthesis that are capable of independent movement,life-like physical appearance, and the ability to be controlled by the human brain as a real limb would.
- And finally full biological/technological integration and the idea of Cyborgs. How do we know when we have reached singularity and are truly cyborgs? will be able to tell the difference between enhanced/altered humans and the rest of society, and how should these people be treated in our society?

These topics should make for a very interesting website and be good for interesting discussion and deliberation on the subjects.


Well kids, thats all from me today,

Peace.