Week 5 reflections
From CTIN482
We drifted toward creating several smaller sub-projects for the class space rather than a huge, cohesive project encompassing the entire island. After reading the Armitage article, I'm even more glad that we did this, even if it was more of a logistical choice (I think?). Small servers, small group interactions, Armitage says, will have the most "genuine social capital." Little projects, little sub-spaces should be great for creating these little interactions.
Armitage's article reminds me of a Lewis Thomas essay. If humans are a social colony, like a termite colony, then what is the larger superstructure that we're building towards? Thomas suggests that humans are working collectively, inherently toward building languages. We're scurrying around, like lone termites, until BAM we bump into each other and try to communicate, and if we keep bumping into each other, pretty soon we'll have a 100-story termite mound of sonnets and XBOX-generated blogs. So how do we contribute a few pellets to the termite mound and satisfy that drive to create? In the context of the censorship project, people will have the ability to alter and edit and contribute--what more can we do? Have takeaway objects? While there's a Buddhist sand-art quality to never saving what people create in the space, there is value too in taking snapshots of the changes...or perhaps tracking changes and mapping them in a visual way? I'm not sure that SL is the most appropriate context...we'll have to see logistically what we can do. --Melissa Niiya
Social Spaces and Film
After reading the games and social software article I was challenging myself to applying what he advocated to the film technique project. I think that the most fundamental application would be to design every space/activity as an inclusive space. What I mean is that if we were to build a kind of film set, SL users should be able to collaborate when 'filming'. Basically we should create something that is functional but simultaneously serving a social purpose. This idea could be applied to everyone's project. As game designers are tasked with continually asking "Is this going to be fun?" so too can we constantly judge whether what we are building can construct or encourage social interaction.
Also, as Tom Armitage suggests in the section titled "As we perform in this spectacle, our actions become part of a collective history" we should consider how everyone using the spaces we create can have some way to scribble on the wall "I was here". For the film technique project that could be as simple as allowing for the users to post the videos they create either in SL or a secondary social space such as a forum. I'm not calling for allowing people to do whatever they want with our stuff, but being able to get some type of ownership on the space. --Ben Reese
There is a lot that we can apply from some of the basic principles that Nike+ exhibits. In fact, although I honestly had no prior knowledge of how Nike+ worked, it is very similar to an aspect of the music arena that I envisioned. In fact, it's almost one and the same with a slight twist.
Armitage writes, "This is Nike+. It’s really simple: a little wireless pedometer in your shoe, sync’d to your iPod. You listen to music and run. When you sync your iPod, it lets you upload your run to the web, and your stats go online." What if we were able to extract data in much the same way the pedometer does but with a few extra additions. We could then use that data, not only in allowing users to compare pure statistical data, but also to cleverly devise a system in which that data is translated into colors, shapes, and sounds. At the end of the day or week or month, a beautiful and completely unique piece of art would be created by the collective effort of everyone who chose to participate their data into the artistic experiment.
Now realistically, this may seem like a daunting task...and it is if we think about trying to morph colors, shapes, and sounds in the small amount of time that we have; however, what if we could create a means for just one of these tasks such as music? For example, every person represents a type of sound or instrument, and each step represents a note, and each step taken at certain heights represent pitch, and certain actions such as sitting or grabbing can then become musical slurs and staccatos, and key words in dialogue such as "I'm happy", "that sucked", and "anarchy!" could help determine keys and time signature. Ahhhhhhhhhh...sorry I got totally sidetracked in how amazing our project can be! Armitage writes extremely eloquently on a topic that is largely speculative and brings together arguments from a plethora of perspectives. We should carefully examine his arguments on social play to ensure that we imbue our interactive space with an environment that truly and stereotypically brings people together.
Jonathan Carmel
One thing I noticed coming out of our brainstorm last week is that we unintentionally divided the “total” experience into one based on visual, one based on audio and one based on language. This corresponds to how people learn, with most people needing a combination of the three. Maybe our overall design, theme or total experience should utilize this in some way? Could the “stage” be a giant head? How can we make these experiences support each other and give the island a synergistic feel?
John Banayan
As Armitage discusses, the styles of play in virtual worlds can be roughly categorized into four categories: killers, achievers, explorers, and socializers. He argues that the biggest potential for digital web tools and spaces lies in engaging the latter three. That being said, how can we do this with our island?
Seeing as it would be a little difficult for us to design a high enough quantity of content to appeal to hard-core explorers, our focus should be instead on designing a few quality spaces that will be engaging and deep enough to appeal to these types of players. Our sub-group projects seem like a good start, as all have potential to become interesting educational tools. But can we take these a step further with a "sandbox design" mentality? That is, can we design these tools so that they can be used beyond their basic functionality? Obviously, this is much easier said than done, but we should nonetheless hold an open-design mentality that places user freedom and control as a first priority. We don't want people to just come and look at a few cool things we have created in our island: we want them to use our objects to explore many different creative avenues.
Same thing could be said with appealing to the achievers and socializers. For our socializers, our space(s) need to provide for easy networking and interaction with other players. A few of our projects are aiming to be group-collaborative spaces, which is great. And achievers? Possibly we can incorporate some sort of voting or comment system where users can acknowledge the work of other users.
Obviously we won't be able to appeal to every type of user. And these spaces shouldn't be seperated into ahiever, explorer, or socializer-specific tools. But we should keep in mind the four basic dispositions of virtual world players that Armitage details, and consider how we can appeal to these tendencies with the spaces and tools we are designing.
-Jeffrey Pfingsten
>>Ben Chang>> For me, the message that stand's out from Armitage's writing is that gamers are social creatures only when connected by a shared object. As our team met and ideated concepts for our Second Life virtual environment, the idea of having a social object join players together became more and more appealing.
Sensible Soccer was a large inspiration for the project -- players can recreate and share memorable moments they experienced with others by creating only storyboards (of sorts). Just as sports provide a social experience, with the objects of interactivity being the ball and soccer goals, our team felt that music would be a great bonding glue to attract people to our project. Similar to Sensible Soccer, players can share in musical experiences by writing, uploading, performing, conductng, or listening to others perform their own compositions online. Or, they can simply partake of another user's musical undertakings.
In a sense, we're aiming for an experience that captures EA's soccer games and Sensible Soccer... but without the soccer. Using virtual avatars, players could cooperate to recreate the musical piece that was originally written by someone else. Whereas Sensible Soccer users are stagnant observers, and EA soccer players are constantly in a state of flux (trying to react to dynamic game elements and opponents), our players will be striving for group cohesion and harmony. The only dischord will be their personal interpretation of sheet music, and I think this could be a valuable tool for teaching players about one another while learning to mitigate and cherish the differences between their fellow musicians.
>>Ben Chang>>
