All posts by markdangerchen

Mark Chen is an independent researcher of gaming culture and spare-time game designer. He is the author of Leet Noobs: The Life and Death of an Expert Player Group in World of Warcraft. Currently, he is looking into experimental and artistic games to promote exploration of moral dilemmas and human nature, researching DIY subcultures of Board Game Geek users, and generally investigating esoteric gaming practices. Mark also holds appointments at Pepperdine University, University of Washington, and University of Ontario Institute of Technology, teaching a variety of online and offline courses on game studies, game design, and games for learning. He earned a PhD in Learning Sciences/Educational Technology from the University of Washington and a BA in Studio Art from Reed College.

50 worst game titles ever.

This is why I like games.  Nuts and Milk!
http://www.gamerevolution.com/feature/worst_names

What’s missing from World of Warcraft and other MMOGs

I've thought of this for about 15 months now, but it recently came up in a great conversation I had with two cool people, Tom Baer and Theresa Horstman, yesterday at the Cafe on the Ave.

There is a quest line in WoW that happens pretty early in the life of a Horde player. Thrall wants you to investigate some baddies in a cave outside Orgrimmar, the Shadow Council or whatever they're called want you to go into Ragefire Chasm, etc….

My memory sucks. Most of the quests in WoW blur together for me.

But I do remember this: I thought there was a build-up happening between Thrall and the Council who wanted to usurp power from him. I thought (thoguht) that, as a player, I would get to choose sides. How silly of me to think the developers would let me decide how to role-play.

It is a sad world we live in right now when players cannot count on CRPGs (not just MMOGs) to let us act and make decisions based on information that we get in the game in interesting ways. It's like they go halfway… they have a cool story, but then don't follow through by taking advantage of the interactivity of the medium.

Summary: World of Warcraft and many, many other computer role-playing games are missing the most important part of a role-playing game. They don't let players choose how their character would act and react in the dynamic worlds that've been created for them. I would love to have to make decisions about who to ally with and who to betray–moral and ethical decisions.

WoW instead has different factions you can gain reputation with… but none of them mean anything. Their only mechanic is to act as a time-sink so you can craft stuff with questionable utility. It would be interesting if the factions weren't so clearly divided into who you are meant to ally with and who you are meant to attack. Wouldn't it be cool if gaining faction with Argent Dawn made you lose faction with Cenarian Circle, for example? That would be a real choice.

Wouldn't it be cool to funnel some of your money and wool and silk and other crap collection into the Shadow Council to secretly work agains Thrall or vice-versa rather than just giving it to the Horde collector?

Bah… I ramble… What I want is a game that actually makes me grapple with who I am, who I want my character to be, and who my friends are.

Mark Danger Chen » Coordination, Cooperation, and Camaraderie in World of Warcraft

As you may have noticed, I posted up my paper on coordination in World of Warcraft.

I have gotten some feedback from players which I hope to incorporate some day. Also, I want to add a beefier section on social dilemmas and the ones I’ve seen in WoW… so working document. gotta love the web.

Mark Danger Chen » Coordination, Cooperation, and Camaraderie in World of Warcraft

Hitman coaching

So, a friend from high school, Grey, was here during the crazy week of papers, professor deaths, and emotional turmoil. My apologies to him for not being able to devote as much time as I had hoped to gaming.

We and another high school friend of ours who also lives in Seattle did, however, get to make it to a monthly boardgame fest held by a couple who work for Wizards of the Coast (well, at least one of them does I think). Anyway, they have a lot of games. We played Killer Bunnies, some color-matching card game, Cartejena, Witch Trial, some ship moving collect and sell resources at ports game, and that archeological dig game with the tokens… Sheesh.. I need to remember the names of these games better.

We also played Hitman Blood Money on my PC. I had played the previous Hitman games and also played a bit of Blood Money before Grey showed up. He played a little on his own at night but one morning we were playing together. One would watch while the other played and we would switch off whenever someone failed. It was pretty clear that I knew the levels and the patterns of people walking around and what events were happening more than he did for any given level/mission. So when he was playing and I watching, I had to think about how much information should I give Grey and how much should I just let him explore on his own.

Actually, it felt a lot like how I felt when I was looking over TEP students' shoulders while they were working on their websites or blogs. Just thought I should write that feeling down before I lost it… What was similar about both was that I could feel the students and I could feel Grey wishing I would just tell them what to do. But in a game, part of the fun is exploration and discovery. I think that should be part of learning, too, and believe strongly that the best way to learn something is to just mess around with it for a while with a goal in mind. Am I wrong?

Education has made me a sissy

Well… maybe the right word is “compassionate” or something… Just that in the last year, I’ve gone to tears in front of people over the deaths of Jeremiah, a TEP student, and then of Bill. Prior to that… how many times have I cried in public? I don’t even remember a single instance.

During Bill’s memorial and other times of remembrance for Bill, while I was crying, part of me kept wondering, why aren’t any of his colleagues crying?

Was it that they are older and have experienced close deaths before and were better prepared? Did they feel like it wasn’t a place for them to mourn given their status and the setting? Maybe it meant more to the students than to his colleagues due to the nature of our relationships with Bill? I dunno.

Anyway, I haven’t posted anything to this blog in a while, partly because a ton of other stuff was going on in my life, but also partly because I just didn’t feel like it. I wasn’t sure what to say next…

One thing has become super clear after hearing from a lot of different people Bill had influenced: he was the Great Connector. He made connections across many disciplines AND he made connections between people. And it wasn’t purely an academic career kind of pursuit. And it wasn’t just a pursuit of knowledge and curiosity satisfaction, either. I think he really did care about people and saw in us all these pockets of information which would help all of us if only we’d just sit down and talk to each other. We needed him to make the connections for us, but now we must take on the torch and make them for ourselves and each other.

When I sit down and think about it, I realize (and I suspect this is true for a lot of educators) that learning stuff is really cool, but helping others learn stuff is even cooler. It’s a step away from power by empowering others, but at the same time it is very empowering in its own right in a soul fulfillment sort of way.

Bill’s death was tragic. Bill’s life was glorious.

Dr. Bill Winn passed away… :(

Though he was not my advisor, I received the most advice from him. He treated me with the same respect whether I was a masters student or a doc student, and he genuinely cared about my progress even though it had no relation to his own career.

Think about that for a sec. Some of the people I’ve met on campus, I don’t think I could say the same thing about. I wish more professors would use Bill as an example and take the time to care about students, even ones who barely know them, whose lives they have a profound effect on.

It was through a meeting with Bill Winn that made me certain that UW was for me. Now? Not so certain.

uh… Bill’s missing?

I got a phone message today from a detective at missing persons, but there were no details in the message… When I got to my cubicle in Miller, I found that the detective who had called was talking to other students about whether they’ve seen one of our professors, Bill Winn. I saw him yesterday at 10 or 10:30. Apparently, he left campus in his car (without his PDA) and had planned to be back for a noon meeting… but no one has seen him since.

During all this stress of writing papers and finishing up the quarter, this situation dropped down to remind me that there are more important things in life than writing papers…

I hope he is okay and is found soon.

Serious Games Source

Serious Games Source

Nice.

Coffee and Comics

Found a great cafe that has a nice comics reading library which are for sale right near campus. Went there with Amit to study… after walking around FOREVER trying to find a place that had an outlet we could use since my laptop battery died. I think I’ll try to go there lots… but a huge problem is there is no restroom! 🙁

Decided to skip…

The logistics of getting to campus and then walking to the off-campus location of my next meeting WITH food seemed like too much a pain. Also, of course, I just woke up and by the time I got there, I’d have to leave in 30 min.