Ethnographic Observations of Minecraft Player Community

The server I chose to do my ethnographic study on is one called Minecraft HG Build Server (build.MinecraftHG.com).  

The first thing I noticed upon starting my journey in this server is that the spawn point is actually infested with flaming zombies, who will kill any unsuspecting player (ie me). As I was confused by what was happening, I did not manage to get a screenshot of what happened. Given that one of the options of project 2 is to do an educational game, I would like to speak against this way of learning. I feel that this is akin to dropping a new swimmer at the deep end of a pool to swim or sink. Such a method seems works to a certain extent, although it might be due to the fact that those who sink did not live to tell the tale. I believe that if this is done, the students will actually be just reacting and therefore, does not learn much at the end of the day. I feel that it is more important that there is some form of guidance at the start.

After I respawned, I quickly ran from the zombies. This allowed me to begin my exploration of the rest of my surroundings.

One pretty obvious alternative use of Minecraft can be for training in the aesthetics. Lessons can be held here that allows students to exercise their creativity with the drawings or structures that they can construct in Minecraft, such as the ships or the Marriage building.

   

There are all sorts of players in this server as you would expect to see in a world connected through the internet. Most players as I mentioned are at the spawn point farming for items by killing the flaming zombies. Some other players have slightly more bizarre behavior. At the Marriage building, there was this player who was floating, on fire and dropping diamonds. Maybe he was under attack from someone? After all, this is a Hunger Games server.

There was another player that I saw who paused the game for a very long period of time. If you notice the difference in the time in my two screenshots, it seems like the player has not moved at all. I am actually guilty of that too as there are many times when I paused the game and minimized Minecraft to type my thoughts in the blog. Like now.

   

Minecraft players are also not expected to be gracious enough to close doors behind them. This is what I inferred after I saw the sign at the backdoor of a shop with the following sign.

 

Of course, the door was open when I saw it. Being a good and obedient player, I closed the door behind another player who walked through the backdoor. This displeased the other player as I received a few hits as a result.

Reading Blog 3

This week, we read about games which are created to serve a particular purpose – education.  Therefore, the success of this game hinges on both the entertainment value and the students actually learning something valuable, a balance that, according to the two readings, seem harder to achieve than getting an elephant to balance on a rope.

For the educational game, I have chosen to play the game Ludwig, a game that teaches about physics concepts and renewable energy sources. This game caught my eye last week when I was browsing the games in the Games for Change website (www.gamesforchange.org). Being an educational game with elements of a role-playing game, it looked pretty promising.

From its description in the website, Ludwig is built specially to address education and entertainment as it uses scientific curriculums as a framework that game play is based on. And hence, the player would expect it to have achieved a balance between content and participation, the first dimension discussed in the Thomas Duus Henriksen. However, as the version of the game that I downloaded was only a demo, the only event with educational value was the lesson on combustion and the only component with physics was putting a concrete block to tilt a see saw.  Therefore, the answer to whether the game is really such a good combination of education and entertainment remains unknown. 

There is a portion in Richard Van Eck’s work that mentions that the game might contain missing, inaccurate or biased information. To solve this issue, it seems that the developers of this game have included links for the students to look for information online. In the example in the demo, it is a link to Combustion on Wikipedia.

This link is to compensate for the lack of information on Combustion in the game, which shows that the developers have considered this problem. However, I feel that instead of providing the link for the students, it might have been better if the students were encouraged to look for the information themselves. Perhaps a search bar could have been integrated into the game (powered by some search engine) to allow the students to do so. This would also encourage students to be more independent learners.

While the future prospects of DGBL are promising, it should not be taking over the traditional classroom setting for learning any time soon. One of the issues not mentioned in both articles is the social aspect of learning through traditional means (ie the classrooms). What most of us remember long after we graduate, are not the laws of physics and the axioms of mathematics. But it is the time when we spent talking to our friends during lessons, making plans for what to do after class, or looking at our eye candy in the front row. Such experiences, while having nothing to do with making students learn better, are wonderful memories which will always be treasured.

Reading Blog 2

When I first enrolled to enter into this course, I was told that “making games is very different from playing them”. Of course I already knew that. Games do not randomly appear in your consoles just like books do not randomly appear in community centers (but more on the books later). However, I did not realize that games are a lot more than just typing lines of code that will translate into interactive interfaces and pretty pictures. It also contains messages that the developer of the game is trying to bring across to the players. In the case of Frasca, I believe he plans to use video games to draw people’s attention to social issues, which is a really good cause though there are some points in his thesis that I disagree with.

To begin with I would like to address the issue of “problematic… or even illegal” modifications (mods) in the game, The Sims of the Oppressed. Frasca’s suggested solution to this problem would be to release the package as a collaborative, open-source project, so that there would not be a company that is responsible for the software and thus, the company can avoid prosecution when problematic or illegal characters are released. I do not think that releasing the game as an open-source project actually solves any these issues. Open-source projects are still owned by companies or individuals even if it is free (free as in freedom, not free as in beer), just like how Google owns the open-source Android. To solve the issue of illegal modifications, I would suggest different servers for different countries, so that restrictions may be set depending on country. I acknowledge that setting restrictions is equivalent to censorship. However, the possibility of having a homicidal mod in the game still disturbs me.

Next, I would like to talk about the game of “Play My Oppression”, the goal of which is not to present a solution to the participant’s problem but to use it to think and discuss. I feel that while this is a valid goal for the developers of the game, the participants of the game might be more interested in looking for proposals to their solution. This is actually what the author himself said in Chapter VI when he said that “this does not mean the solutions themselves should be discarded”.  Therefore, the participants should be allowed have different purposes for playing the game, and not have the view that ‘discussion is of paramount importance’ imposed on them.

One of the points that the author brought up was the awareness of bias that the player should have when playing the game. Since the game was created by the developers to convey some of their ideas, it is almost inevitable that their ideas will convey some of their bias. As I started playing Half the Sky (https://www.facebook.com/HalftheGame), I became quite skeptical about the gameplay. Although I am pretty sure that the non-profit organizations that provided support for the game have good intentions, I am doubtful that the solutions that they proposed in the game will always work. It does not encourage players to explore multiple perspectives either. For example, in the second quest, it does not matter whether I “Argue the Case” or “Offer a Solution”. Either way, I will always end up carrying books from the community center. It seems to overly simplify the problem and therefore, does not really bring across the message of helping women really well.

Scenario 1: Argue the Case

 

Scenario 2: Offer a Solution

When I first enrolled into this course, I wondered what kind of games I will be able to make. Looking at the mainstream popular games in the market, it seemed like I will just be helping my prospective bosses (if I even get employed in the first place) earn more money. However, there are now these other games (http://www.gamesforchange.org/) that are more meaningful. Perhaps games might really have the ability to do good for the world. 

Minecraft Classic Tutorial

For this tutorial, we have to create a gamified classroom in Minecraft Classic, much like the objective to build shelters in to survive attacks from monsters in the survival mode of Minecraft. Admittedly, I knew nothing about surviving monster attacks in Minecraft as I have never played the game and only realised that there is such a mode after some googling. However, in my defence, there are no monsters in Minecraft so the features in my classroom can still be justified.

 

A feature in my classroom that might probably ensure my character’s death are the two doors I have built at the sides of my room, unless the monsters may be turned away by the appearance of an arc in the wall, However, since this is a classroom, I felt that doors are needed. In fact, I would recommend two doors to facilitate the students’ entry (the back door is especially useful for latecomers) and exit (in case of monster attacks).

On my own exploration though, I tried digging “underground” outside my classroom to see if I might be able to find the boundary of the game.

And I found mushrooms!

Initial Draft of Game Design Concept

Introduction:

The game I have in mind is a single player RPG. The player plays as a character trapped in a building. The only way to escape seems to be to retrieve the main key from level 5 of the building. However, one does not simply walk to the top floor. Each floor can only be unlocked by a key found on the floor below. And each floor is guarded by non-playable characters (NPCs)

Device:

The game I have in mind will be making use of mobile phones. The mobile phones will be equipped with the technology that allows the location of the device, even the storey that the phone is on, to be determined. This is critical to the gameplay which I will go into further detail later.

Location:     

The game will be played at the Mochtar Riady Building at NUS Business School.  I have chosen this place due to the many levels of this building. There is also plenty of space for the player to roam, and there are also a lot of places for the player to rest (although being a 45 min game, there will hardly be enough time for him/her to do so). Thus, the levels could also represent the literal levels of the game (thus, the importance of the detection of the levels).

Gameplay:     

The player starts out with his or her phone on the first storey of the Mochtar Riady Building and the player can only make his or her way up after completing a minor mission (puzzles etc.) on each level, thereby obtaining the key to the floor above. The game will be paused when the player leaves the building or goes to a floor that has not been unlocked.

On each floor, the player is required to find the key to unlock the door in the game that leads the upper floors. There will also be NPCs to fight and items to pick up along the way. As the player progresses to a higher level, the NPCs will also be more powerful but the players will also be able to pick up better items too. Both NPCs and items are not part of reality and are elements of the game.

When the player is ambushed by a NPC, his or her mobile phone will notify the player, signaling an attack. The player will then fend off the attack by fighting off the NPC on the phone. The battle will be turn based.

The items on the levels will be picked up automatically by the player when he or she goes near it. The players can use or wield the item, depending on its nature, through the mobile device that the player carried around.

The player will have to proceed up the building until he or she reaches the level 5 (since that is the height of the atrium and asking the player to explore 9 levels in a 45 minute game might seem too much) and on level 5, there a boss battle. The boss will be another NPC and the player conducts the boss battle in the same way as with other NPCs. Defeating the boss before 45 min is up will allow the player to escape. If not, the game ends and the player lose the game.

Post Ethnographic Observations of NUS

The part of the city I chose for my ethnographic observation is the National University of Singapore (NUS) campus. I chose this place as it is one of the places where I spend the most time in, besides my home. Or maybe, it might be more true to say that I spend more time in school than at home. Anyway, I feel that NUS with its many buildings, corridors and rooms will be a perfect venue for an augmented reality game.

Slopes and slopes

The slopes in NUS, which are plenty and all over the place, presents a physical challenge to the players of the game and will provide a good work out for the players, as they move around as they play the game.

Stairs and stairs

Accompanying the many slopes is the even greater number of stairs that can be found in school. With so much climbing to do, perhaps the players should be given some incentive, such as experience points, to climb even more slopes and stairs.

Given the many wonderful buildings in NUS, it will be a waste not to explore some of them in detail in the game. In particular, I will be looking at the Mochtar Riady Building, the flagship building of NUS Business School, COM1 and COM2 of the NUS School of Computing and the Alumni House. It also helps that they are air-conditioned for the comfort of the players (though not the original purpose of the air-conditioning, I am sure the players will appreciate the cool air).

The interior of part of the Mochtar Riady Building

The Mochtar Riady Building is a nine-storey high building, with a five-storey atrium so there is plenty of space for the players to explore. There is even a series of informal interaction zones which perhaps the players of this game can use these spaces for some real life interaction with other players.

The corridor leading to…more corridors

COM1 and (some levels of) COM2 are also air-conditioned and although they are not as tall as the Mochtar Riady Building, their combined width is quite a walk and the labyrinth of rooms can perhaps act as an interesting location for a side quest.

Since NUS is after all, an educational institution, the locations where people play the game should be away from the study areas in order not to disrupt those who wish to focus on their work. Yet, because it is a school, a majority of the players would be students (though faculty members are also welcomed) and I would like to minimize the disruption to the studies of the players too. The Alumni House appears to fit both conditions as it is a place where people will not be studying and is close enough to a few faculties (namely, Computing, Business and Arts) so that students can have a small break from their studies near the building. Interestingly, it is currently also one of the key locations in Google’s augmented reality game, Ingress (search for National University of Singapore at http://www.ingress.com/intel).

Highly sought-after location for Ingress players in NUS

Thus, the possibility of making the NUS campus part of an augmented reality game is a really exciting one given the many diverse spaces available for different styles of gameplay that can be deployed.

Blog One

“Stop playing and start studying!” I am sure that is a familiar line that most of us heard when we were young. Having been raised in Singapore, where the pressure to perform academically has always been high, I did not expect that play, which has always been considered as the antithesis of academics can co-exist in such a manner. And as I read on, it seems that I am not the only one to feel that way. Despite being first mentioned by the German philosopher Schiller as early as 1795 and despite having an influence on many philosophers that followed, the study of play, or “ludic” as Raessens called it in the article, has been a long neglected field.

However, according to Raessens, we are now about to witness a ludic turn, a historic moment in play and media theory, which “opens up new objects of study” and brings about 10 different concepts (as listed in the article) applicable to play and applying them to media studies. I feel though, that instead of it being a momentous event like what a turn should be, the ludification process took place gradually over a long period of time. Even Raessens himself mentions in an earlier part of the article about how the process can be broken down into three parts and the three parts spanned over a period of more than 10 years, with the third stage still in the process of happening. The decision of whether a ludic turn did occur is better decided on hindsight and not by us, the participants who are directly involved in this moment.

Raessens also mentioned the current changes in media and he specifically pointed out that “new media appears to exemplify this process of ludification”. It is undeniable that the online community and the netizens’ actions mostly fall into the definition of play provided by Huizinga, which was used in the article. However, I believe that the relationship between ludification and the new media worked both ways. The growth of new media is also what had allowed the process of ludification to flourish as it created the environment where people can be playful and if I may say, it actually encourages them to be more playful. The development of new media has created an unreal world with its own boundaries of space and time, where our needs for survival are not taken into consideration. It has also allowed the democratization of the creation, publication, distribution and consumption of media content. This allowed the common man to escape the rules set by the traditional estates of power. And it is at this point when the process of ludification stepped in. Therefore, I would not say that new media is an example of ludification, but rather, the process of ludification was complemented by the advent of new media and vice versa.

The process of ludification is, without a doubt, still ongoing. It will be exciting to see how this trend eventually plays out, although after saying that, it seems that perhaps I am also guilty of the “tendency to overestimate the significance of (our) times”. We shall see.

Blog 1

“Stop playing and start studying!” I am sure that is a familiar line that most of us heard when we were young. Having been raised in Singapore, where the pressure to perform academically has always been high, I did not expect that play, which has always been considered as the antithesis of academics can co-exist in such a manner. And as I read on, it seems that I am not the only one to feel that way. Despite being first mentioned by the German philosopher Schiller as early as 1795 and despite having an influence on many philosophers that followed, the study of play, or “ludic” as Raessens called it in the article, has been a long neglected field.

However, according to Raessens, we are now about to witness a ludic turn, a historic moment in play and media theory, which “opens up new objects of study” and brings about 10 different concepts (as listed in the article) applicable to play and applying them to media studies. I feel though, that instead of it being a momentous event like what a turn should be, the ludification process took place gradually over a long period of time. Even Raessens himself mentions in an earlier part of the article about how the process can be broken down into three parts and the three parts spanned over a period of more than 10 years, with the third stage still in the process of happening. The decision of whether a ludic turn did occur is better decided on hindsight and not by us, the participants who are directly involved in this moment.

Raessens also mentioned the current changes in media and he specifically pointed out that “new media appears to exemplify this process of ludification”. It is undeniable that the online community and the netizens’ actions mostly fall into the definition of play provided by Huizinga, which was used in the article. However, I believe that the relationship between ludification and the new media worked both ways. The growth of new media is also what had allowed the process of ludification to flourish as it created the environment where people can be playful and if I may say, it actually encourages them to be more playful. The development of new media has created an unreal world with its own boundaries of space and time, where our needs for survival are not taken into consideration. It has also allowed the democratization of the creation, publication, distribution and consumption of media content. This allowed the common man to escape the rules set by the traditional estates of power. And it is at this point when the process of ludification stepped in. Therefore, I would not say that new media is an example of ludification, but rather, the process of ludification was complemented by the advent of new media and vice versa.

The process of ludification is, without a doubt, still ongoing. It will be exciting to see how this trend eventually plays out, although after saying that, it seems that perhaps I am also guilty of the “tendency to overestimate the significance of (our) times”. We shall see.