Category: Computer Games

Kids are now modding the interface of WOW (World of Warcarft by Blizzard). Blizzard doesn’t support such mods, but has made it possible. See their tutorial, Tutorials – The Unofficial WoW UI Site. According to the tutorial, “The interface of World of Warcraft is built from XML files which describe the look and layout, and lua files which contain scripting functionality.”
My son tells me that it is hard to draw the line between a mod that makes it easier to play, and a hack that gives you information or an advantage you shouldn’t have.

Allied Weapons Of Truth Aura of Truth Avatars of Truth Champions of Truth Chaotic Truth Citadel of Truth Dawn of Truth Defenders of Truth DemiGodsOfTruth Followers of Truth Forgotten Truth Glaive of Truth

Heros of Truth And Might Illusion of Truth Keepers of Truth Perversion Of Truth Prevailing Truth Prophets of Truth Rangers of Truth Savage Truth SavageTruth Saviors of Truth Seekers of Truth Sentinels of Truth

Sovereignty of Truth The Brutal Truth The Convictors of Truth The Guardians of Truth The Savage Truth The Seekers Of Truth TornTruth Truth Divine Truth and Justice Truth and Law Truth or Consequences

So who says gamers are not interested in the truth? This list from Thottbot World of Warcraft (a Google for WOW) is of guilds with “truth” in their name. I rather like “Truth or Consequences”.

MMOGCHART.COM is a research site on MMOGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Games) that charts subscribers and other issues. In the first chart you can see the phenomenal success of Lineage, a game popular in South Korea. There is a neat text section on analysis and conclusions. You can even download the data set to study yourself.

Wired News: Manhattan Gets Pac-Man Fever describes a game Pac Manhattan where people run through Manhattan wearing coloured ponchos playing Pac-Man characters. They get instructions from generals over cell-phone who have some sort of control panel. Now this is an idea for a wired city! This urban game was an experiment by New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications graduate program. Pac-Manhattan is the NYU site on the game.
For some reason I thought I had blogged this before … obviously I am having a blog identity crisis.

NFG Games Nintendo Official Magazine Present – A Mario Sprite History is a cute story about the evolution of the Mario character on the Nintendo game platform. This is from a neat news/blog site I discovered on gaming called nfg.2y.net – Games Division. The author claims it is not news, but more fact, analysis and opinion – in other words longer articles less often.

According to a Reuters story, Doctors Use Video Games to Hone Skills (Ben Berkowitz, Dec. 19, 2004) a Dr. Rosser of the Advanced Medical Technologies Institute says, “Surgeons who play video games three hours a week have 37 percent fewer errors and accomplish tasks 27 percent faster”. No word on whether it makes you a more moral person.

Grand Text Auto has a blog entry about, Another undergraduate game program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Thanks to StÈfan for this.

Earlier I mentioned the need for game engines for games research. Brad Nickerson at UNB sent me a link to Panda3D from the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon. Panda 3D was originally developed by Disney and it sounds like it was used by them for some games.
Continue reading Open Source Game Engines

The Guildhall at SMU (Southern Methodist University) offers a 18 month certficate in digital game development. They seem to have a serious facility and faculty complement. The program allows students to specialize in Art Creation, Level Design and Software Development. The program appears to have been designed with industry people and aims to be responsive to the industry. I don’t see a lot of theory or narrativity, but the curriculuar sections are behind a password.
This came to me from Paul Taylor.

Serious Games is an initiative “to help usher in a new series of policy education, exploration and management tools utilizing state of the art computer game designs, technologies, and development skills.” (Serious Games: About from “Our Goals”). the project is directed by David Rejeski of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. They talk about the “emergence of a serious games industry”. I feel about serious games what I feel about the hype around games in education – it isn’t really a game anymore when you “play” it in a utilitarian context. What makes playing a game is the entering into a non-utilitarian context where invented rules apply. Of course, any game, in the sense of a technology or instatiation (like Monopoly) can be “played” for reasons other than fun, and that is the beautiful irony of the phrase “serious games.” It is a contradiction that provokes sense.
In the philosophy of play we have the problem of professional poker playing. Is a card-shark still playing the game of poker if he/she does it for the serious purpose of making money? Some would say that the shark is not playing poker, but working at poker. Are games of chance played for money now serious? How does the money change the play? Tough issues.