Tag: Spil

2 hjerner, 1 selvmord

En af de mest interessante artikler, jeg har læst længe. To AI-pionerer bruger næsten den samme metode til at skabe kunstig intelligens – og dør næsten samtidig på identiske måder.

Læg også mærke til den intelligente brug af internettet og links til research og baggrundsmateriale. Den indlagte suicide note fungerer utroligt godt, og var næsten mere interessant end artiklen.

Gamle nørder

Jeg troede, at jeg var en af de ældre spillere i World of Warcraft – min kæreste driller mig i hvert fald tit med at jeg “leger med teenagere” – men her er info om en bedstefar på 80, der spiller wow. Og han er ikke en hjælpeløs n00b. Læs også kommentarerne med rigtig mange sjove eksempler på ældre spillere.

Jeg tror nu i øvrigt ikke, at jeg rent faktisk spiller med ret mange teenagere. De fleste i min guild er et godt stykke oppe i tyverne, så vidt jeg ved. I det hele taget er der ikke meget hold i klicheen om, at det kun er bebumsede teenagedrenge, der spiller computer. Det kan man bl.a. læse om i demografiske undersøgelser.

Min egen mor var for øvrigt også hard-core adventure-gamer i en del år og kendte alle Kings Quest spillene forfra og bagfra. Desværre er kvaliteten af adventure games blevet værre de seneste år, så hun spiller ikke så meget mere. Men det har altid imponeret mine venner, at hun var gamer.

Wow som dannelsesroman?

Min dwarf paladin er nu på lvl 53 (!) og jeg er godt på vej imod Burning Crusade, den store udvidelse til World of Warcraft. Endnu en fortsættelse, hvor man kan komme fra lvl 70 til 80, er dog for længst annonceret: Wrath of the Lich King. Dette interview antyder, at udvidelsen vil inkludere nogle meget interessante forsøg på at stille moralske dilemmaer op for spilleren, som vil medvirke til at udvikle karakteren.

Man vil kort sagt blive stillet overfor de samme problemstillinger som Prince Arthas, og spørgsmålet er, om man bliver lige så korrumperet.

The idea’s certainly an enticing one. And as quick as Metzen is to point out that “this ain’t Shakespeare,” there’s definitely something literate here: a narrative nod to the fact that in MMOs, the designers really are pulling the strings. “We want to add some layers of psychology that put you in strange moral situations of how you fight the good fight that mimic some of Arthas’ own experiences…. By the time you reach level 80 [the expansion’s new level cap], by the time you stand toe-to-toe with this bastard, do you still have your pretty principles and highfalutin morality, or is it a mirror reflection? Arthas is after that as much as global domination. It’s a hook that makes it personal that Burning Crusade didn’t have.”

Jeg synes, det lyder rigtig interessant, for MMORPG-spillene mangler efter min mening personlighed i den forstand, at man kan udvikle karakterer på alle mulige forskellige måder, bortset fra i deres moralske indstilling til verden. Lad os se, om forsøget kan lykkes, for det moralske aspekt kan være svært at kombinere med multi-player elementet, der hurtig opfordrer til karaktermæssig forfladigelse.

P. S. Når jeg skriver, at man ikke kan udvikle karakterernes moralske indstilling (det man i gammel rollespilsjargon ville kalde alignment) er det selvfølgelig ikke rigtigt. Man kan sagtens rollespille en karakter alt det man har lyst til, men selve rollespillet bliver ikke understøttet af spillets funktioner. Det gør fx ikke nogen forskel, om man slår uskyldige dyr ihjel eller ej, hjælper andre spillere eller ej, osv. Karakteren har som sådan ikke nogen historie, der skaber rollens fremtid.

The Demographics of the World of Warcraft

Lots of good stuff about the sociological and demographical background of the users of MMO-games (massive multiplayer online games) from The Deadalus Project. Apparently a lot of the cliches are true: Girls really are more likely to use healing spells than boys. More interesting: young players are more inclined to play evil factions.

Specific World of Warcraft-information and good discussion here.

What’s Wrong With Galactor?

galactorGalactor is a new Danish internet-game directed at teenagers, supposedly to teach them about the pitfalls of buying stuff on the internet. The game has been created by the Finnish government, supported by the Nordic Council and translated into Danish, as yet another “let’s try to speak the youngsters’ language and see if they’ll want to listen to us this time.” Well, they won’t – at least not with Galactor it’s argued in this article from Danish daily Politiken.

I decided to test the game myself, but gave up after ten minutes (so my analysis might be limited), because the game simply doesn’t work. But why? It’s got internet, it’s got mobile phones, it’s got stuff about dating, it’s got a cool name and a flashy game-in-the-game. But the language is archaic and half-swedish and the drama mainly takes place in a series of long emails posing more or less sneaky questions, which you have to read and read and read in order to play the game – playing here means answering your friends’ calls for advice on buying stuff on the internet: Is this legal? Is this safe? And of course it’s not, most of the time. And that is the problem with Galactor – it has no story. Only a series of events.

Let me explain: Stories are about two – and only two – things: Choices and Consequences of Choices.

Choice means dilemma: It means choosing between good and better or bad and worse, not between good and bad. But in Galactor, the choices are all very obvious, most of them variations of: “If it seems too good to be true, it probably isn’t”. Don’t buy stuff from people you don’t know, don’t believe that you can get wonderful brand-stuff at 1/4 of the price and so on. So, no dilemmeas there.

But what is even worse is that even these very simple choices have no consequences. Yes, your answers are followed by other emails from friends asking you even more questions. But if you answered the first question “wrong”, they simply ask you to repeat your answer, giving you the choices again! There are no consequences from giving the wrong answer, because you simply are not allowed to do it. This is not learning through storytelling, this is badly disguised lecturing. At the same time I have no idea what my relationship is with these people or why I should want to answer them truly or not – which is the reason I don’t want to be so limited in my choices: If I can’t get involved in the story, at least I should be able to have some fun by screwing around!

But hey, as the Danish official Mathilde Mei Jørgensen responsible for the Danish version says: The point of the game is not the game in itself, but only to make young people think about legal questions about consumption. Apparently, young people are very stupid and they will never by themselves take steps to buy stuff securely on the internet. You have to trick them into it by playing their favorite song while you whisper good grown-up advices subliminally in their ear. Even if people only play once, this priority is achieved, she thinks. I’m afraid I didn’t play the game long enough to reflect on that rather discouraging concept.

Don’t I know the feeling

Science fiction forfatteren Iain Banks (der bl.a. har skrevet den glimrende The Algebraist, som jeg er ved at læse) har måttet bede om en tre måneders udsættelse på sin næste roman på grund af sin afhængighed af computerspillet Civilization. Banks har udtalt til The Independent:

“It’s all because I became a serial addict of the computer game ‘Civilisation’,” Banks said at this month’s Edinburgh book festival.

“I played it for three months and then realised I hadn’t done any work. In the end, I had to delete all the saved files and smash the CD.

“It is very unprofessional of me. I had to ask for an extension for the first time, which made me feel just like I was a student again.”

Jeg kan godt genkende fornemmelsen, og det tror jeg de fleste, som har spillet Civilization kan … just one more turn … Men det berører jo et dybere problem: trangen til at udsætte opgaverne. Computerspil er en af de væreste prokrastinator-hjælpemidler derude. Men hvad er endnu værre? Internettet. Internettet er den største – og bedste – tidstyv, der har set dagens lys. Mens jeg skriver dette, kunne jeg skrive mit filmmanuskript færdigt. Men det gør jeg ikke. Hvorfor? Nogle bud?

Måske giver udsættelse af opgaverne værdifuld tænketid. Det har jeg i hvert fald selv oplevet. Man sidder med et problem, men løser det egentlig først, når man begynder at lave noget helt andet – fx gå sig en tur eller vaske op. Ideerne kommer dog desværre sjældent, når man i stedet bruger al sin energi på at udtænke strategier til, hvordan man bedst kan sende sine legionærer ind over grænsen til de stygge indere, så man kan erobre deres værdifulde ressourcer. Og så alligevel. Måske bliver Banks’ nye roman hans bedste, fordi han har haft mere tid til at tænke sig om? Måske ikke.

Under alle omstændigheder må den store gåde i det kreative arbejde være at styre, hvordan man forhindrer inspirationsøvelserne i at få overtaget. Lidt inspiration er konstruktivt – fx et godt spil Civilization – men for meget er katastrofalt. Måske har man bare brug for en manager – eller en dyretæmmer?

Fra bakterie til verdenshersker

Et nyt spil – Spore – har den vildeste skala, jeg nogensinde har hørt om:

(fra patrissimo)

You start out as a microorganism, playing sort of a pac-man game. You evolve to an animal, and are now playing sort of a 3d pac-man game. When you evolve to have a big enough brain, you start controlling a tribe, and it’s like an RTS game. When the tribe gets strong enough, you control a city, and its kinda like SimCity. When your city gets powerful enough, it can start exploring and conquering the world, and it’s kinda like Civ. When you’ve conquered the whole world, you start working on the Solar System, like terraforming planets. When your solar system develops interstellar technology, you are exploring the galaxy, and get to do diplomacy, exploration, abduction & crossbreeding, trading, etc (MOO?).