life, and life in WoW; Blogger failing again

My working life and other such trivial things have been getting into my way, and keeping me from spending all my time in World of Warcraft, like any proper MMORPG addict should do. I have realised that you actually do need some hours of sleep too (at least if you are closing on to your fortieth birthday, like I do). But the design of WoW is not ideal for such concerns. Many quests are structured to be achieved by teamwork, and social collaboration and joint adventuring with your friends is that little thing which makes all the difference between mindless grinding or endless running through of FedEx quests. But what to do, when you are falling behind in experience, due to spending less time in that achievement-rewarding environment? At some point it becomes apparent that you are so much lower in levels that it is not worth hanging in the same adventuring party any more.

We have been investigating “socially adaptable game design” within IPerG with Interactive Institute, Nokia and other partners, and the ability to stop and return to game as needed, without social punishment is one important criteria to consider.

And now I just have to run; I am severely behind in all those 20 quests that my quest log can hold…

Edit: Actually my Saturday night was spoilt by Blogger.com. I tried three hours to post these notes, reloading the screen, and only getting message “Error. We apologize for the inconvenience, but we are unable to process your request at this time. Our engineers have been notified of this problem and will work to resolve it.” Or the even more common variant: “Not Found. Error 404.” And I had only reserved three hours to use for online access, total, so there was my adventuring time, gone. Apparently they are upgrading their network access in Blogger.com this Saturday; it is just unfortunate that you get no such explanation when you are trying to use the service. – I have just got so tired of Blogger, there has been too many of this kind of incidents lately. But the move into Movable Type or similar system would in practice mean that I’d also have to do the transfer into a Linux server (because of PHP, Perl, MySQL, and similar basic services, that I can currently do without, running all from this Windows XP Pro machine). Surely, that could be done, but I just do not have the time; already, the hours used for debugging technology and these unreliable network services are just taking way too much time. (Update: It is now 4 am – the case closed.)

greyness and colour in november

Autumn is getting very gloomy here, indeed. We were out today, and at early afternoon in Armonkallio (a nice, old district in Tampere, really), it was as dark and wet as you can see in these pics. Luckily, there was Emma’s second birthday party also, so we got some colour and cake in our life from there. Some of the birthday pics are in here. Posted by Picasa

epos experiments, nvidia power trouble

My curious experiment in connecting a pair of hi-fi speakers with really cheap amplifier moved forward today, as I got my pair of M5s. With their polished cherry-tree, hand-made feeling they are easily the most beautiful thing I have possessed. No doubt serious high-end is something else completely, but I am happy for my ignorance. Experimenting with some nicely produced CDs (Pink Floyd, Chris Rea, some classics and other acoustic music), I finally conclude that it is not so much the T-Amp (which seems to be doing surprisingly good work) but the portable CD player I have hooked up in this bedroom extravaganza. Finally, I will give up and dig my old “heavy” system out of hibernation and plug the M5s with a decent mid-range amplifier, and hi-fi LP & CD player set (NAD & Sony). It is not only the sound quality though; the mobile equipment are designed primarily for battery use, and using them regularly indoors will conclude plugging in couple of power converters, and without remote controls, the usability just isn’t up to it. Nice experiment, though.

My other week-end operation was replacing my old PC power source with Antec TruePower 2.0 ATX 430W. But I ran out of power connectors: the Nvidia GeForce/3D Blaster 5600 FX Ultra I use seems to require its own dedicated 12V power cable, and I ran out of 12V connectors – the other free cables in Antec are SATA connectors, I suppose. Wonder if there is an adapter to use them for connecting regular 12V CD-ROM and DVD-ROM units? And the original problem remains, despite this power source update: I am constantly kicked off from WoW and other games by the Nvidia “sentinel” which claims to do this to protect the graphics card, “because it cannot get enough power”. Well, it got its dedicated cable from Antec now, and I have even plugged off all CD-ROM and DVD-ROM units for debugging this — how much more power can it demand! I am coming to suspect this is some kind of bug. Perhaps the 5600 Ultra’s bios needs to be flashed… but where to get a new bios? Questions, questions. And this is just a weekend in a life with IT. Posted by Picasa

neverending cable spaghetti

I got the Sony dvp-ns92v today, and all seems fine. Peter Gabriel’s “Up” as a SACD version is the first musical work that I’ve heard that has been designed for 6 audio channels – intriguing! But all these connections; who shall relieve us from this spaghetti?!

View the file information

enter the super audio?

There are many things that have happened in the digital visuals over the last years, regardless if you are looking at the new games consoles, PCs, or home theatre LCDs, plasma screens or digital projection in general. However, there is the emotionally affective field of audio, where equally interesting opportunities and developments are waiting. In many games there is already some use of surround audio, and in game types like “first person sneakers” (the style of Thief) it is even meaningfully applied to gameplay purposes. But great audio does not only consist of spatial differentiation of soundscape, it also involves high quality resolution and timbre of sound. And to reach that, you need the full sound processing chain, concluding to speakers, to fulfil certain high fidelity requirements.

There has been couple of developments going on in my home lately, as I have studied the opportunities of sound in action. Firstly, I decided to experiment by installing a decent pair of loudspeakers in my bedroom, since I enjoy listening to music while reading in bed. After making some quick compares, I ordered a black-and-dark-cherry pair of Epos M5 speakers, as I really liked their sound when testing it with a Stockfish Records Super Audio CD album (Closer to Music, a sampler worth checking out). The really interesting part is the amplifier, which is a Sonic Impact’s Portable T-Amp model TA2024, which I ordered from a net store, based on some rave reviews. It is really a toy by appearance, very small, light-weight plastic box with only one control knob; but since it has got some people so exited by its sound quality, and it is so cheap, I am waiting to get those M5s connected and make some testing.

Another process was started as my old Philips DVP-720SA broke down (a fault in the optical out, I suppose), and since there was no similarly featured model in Gigantti’s collection any more, I got my money back finally, and now am without a DVD/SACD player and free to invest. After various investigations, there are currently two major candidates left: the first is a Samsung DVD HD950, [see the manual, a 3MB download] which is competitively priced and according to some discussion forums has nice picture (via HDMI connection) and sound. But it appears weak in usability features, and cannot compete with more expensive players in image & sound quality either. The other candidate is Sony DVP-NS92, which is almost double in price, and is so new that I find no reviews, but Sony players get generally higher claims in overall quality, as could be expected, if one thinks what it the common perception of Sony and Samsung as manufacturers of quality home electronics. But I have not made my decision yet; the availability is also a factor. I have several new movies and the entire Peter Gabriel catalog in SACD waiting for the new player.

studying the korean games: gamestudy.org

Interested in the massive phenomenon MMOG are in Korea? Then you should read gamestudy.org, a blog maintained both in Korean and English. It is fine that we see some gaps appearing in the language and cultural barriers.

game studies, issue 1, 2005, out

You might have missed this, but the open-access Game Studies journal is back, with the Game studies, Issue 1, 2005, containing also a feature by Laura and me, titled “Player-Centred Game Design” — good to have it finally out, and see the journal making a comeback!

digital humanities quarterly

A humanist, and interested in digital culture and media? You might find this interesting: “Digital Humanities Quarterly (DHQ), an open-access, peer-reviewed, digital journal covering all aspects of digital media in the humanities”: see their website.

rpg maker?

There has been some experimentation lately in our lab on the Game Maker, for quickly constructing simple gameplay / game concept prototypes which could then be used for research purposes. But I noticed that there is also this PS2 software, titled Rpg Maker 3 — I’d be interested in user experiences if you have been playing around with this one?

addiction, need for closure — WoW

I have recognized this also earlier, but after witnessing it now in WoW, it appears even more obvious: part of the so-called addiction tendency into MMORPGs must be related to its share of people with a certain personality type: one which is has traits of strong sense of responsibility, need for closure in whatever undertaking one becomes engaged with, and related hard-working and thorough behaviour patterns, concluding easily into major investment of time and effort. For some people it just appears very hard to step down from a quest once started: and a game like WoW is built around the principle of endless network of overlapping, always-incomplete quest structure which just goes on. (Signed by: “Running errands around Dun Morogh until six am”)