Tag Archives: mod

Enrollment of Threat Meter Addon: work in progress

Here’s some of what I’ve written on a new paper/chapter. Feedback would be lovely. I mean to showcase data from some of the various fights in WoW, what it was like before threat meter, what changed after the addon was introduced, and especially how we actually adopted it and then used it to diagnose the Rags fight (and discover that threat wasn’t the problem).

The Enrollment of a New Actor and the Redistribution of Responsibilities in a World of Warcraft Raid Group

In World of Warcraft, each individual actor in a raid group is in charge of certain tasks and responsibilities. At one point in the life of the raid group I studied, a new actor was allowed into the group. This newbie rendered new services to the rest of the group. The services rendered were essentially rating the actions of the others in the group—that is, assigning a specified number value to their actions—and then remembering who did what to add up the ratings from each particular player. This newbie, though, didn’t actually care one way or the other if these services were used by the others, but if another decided to use them and have his or her rating displayed, that player had to abide by new rules associated with these new services. The newbie wouldn’t verbally announce others’ rating. Instead, a sign was held up and players had to manually look over to read what their ratings were. In that way, the newbie not only served but also demanded, not only taking on the burdens assigned with this new role but also prescribing new responsibilities on the others. Yet others in the raid group, first slowly then readily, came to adopt the use of these new services into their practice as the services’ benefits became increasingly clear. The group came to consider the new tasks as essential parts of its raiding activity, and players could barely remember a time when the rating-remembering services were not used. The newbie became one of them—not a newbie but a veteran—and the group merrily went on its way. But this veteran wasn’t one of them. In fact, it wasn’t even human. It was a technological device, a program, a construct, an “addon” modification to the game.

(More after the break.)

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Oblivion mods

OblivionThis post is old, but… I figure I should publish it rather than intend to edit it more…

After getting a new hard drive and video card, the first game I reinstalled was Oblivion. I wanted to check out all the cool fanmade mods that’ve been made over the last 2 years since I first played. To the left is a screenshot of the mods I’m running.

Basically, running the official mods plus the Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles expansions, Francesco’s overhaul mod, a couple of mods that make NPCs look better, the Natural Weather series of mods (plus a bunch of texture packs which aren’t listed to make the game look even more awesome), and some quest-type mods. The most amazing one is the Tales of the Fiend quest mod. I definitely recommend it.

You can find it and other mods in several places. First, TES Source and Planet Elder Scrolls are great sites with ratings and such, but I tend to look for links off of those sites to sites run by specific modders to read up on the latest happenings and download the latest versions. For good lists of recommended mods check out TOQL and UESP’s must have mods.

Half-Life 2 mods

I got The Orange Box two days ago and tried out Team Fortress 2 for the first time. It is a lot of fun, and I really, really suck at it. I figure a lot of my suckage is my noobness but even after I learn the game and the different classes well, I’ll probably still not be your first pick as teammate. 😛

Team Fortress 2


Anyway, Aaron actually gifted me copies of Half-Life 2 and Episode 1 about two months ago after he bought The Orange Box. The Orange Box comes with HL2, Eps 1 and 2, TF2, Portal, and Peggle. I’ve paid Aaron’s generosity forward now and gifted HL2 and Ep1 to another friend of ours.

While in Portland last month, I played Portal on Scott’s computer in the mornings while waiting for guildies to wake up so we could do our days of boardgaming. (Awesome game.) So, TF2 was really the only new game for me, though I really wanted to play Episode 2 after having HL2 and Ep1 fresh on my mind.

Yesterday, I spent some time downloading a bunch of HL2 mods. Here’s a list:

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