Blog 7: Neko

Recently a new style has been exploding across the Second Life scene. Necko is that fashion trend. The Necko style is essentially the addition of cat ears and a tail to one's avatar. Using Necko elements has not always been an element of mainstream fashion though.

Second life fashion veteran Tenshi Vielle says, “Nekos didn't really spring up until about 2007, and wes a deviation off of furries but had no bearing on the fashion community.” As Necko has recently become a very common sight around Second Life and many designers have been adding Necko elements to their designs it is safe to call Necko a new force in the design world.

Necko has roots all over the world. Indeed, Necko or Neckomimi means “cat” and “cat ear” respectively in Japanese. Japanese culture has many instances of specifically the catgirl in their manga and anime. Western examples of human/cat reverse anthropomorphism take the shape of the superhero Catwoman, various characters from Magic: the Gathering, Doctor Who, Star Trek and X-Men. The idea a human/cat chimera is extraordinarily prevalent across cultures both old and new. Even ancient Egyptian culture has left behind some examples of not only cat worship but the human/cat chimera. The Sphinx, both the massive Egyptian monument and the Greek mythological character show that Necko is really not a new concept.

In Second Life Necko sprang out of the furrie community. Some Necko avatars may mourn their community going “mainstream.” Feeling the loss of the close knit, more focused community and the independent identity of using a less well known style. These people need to get over themselves or at the very least, revel in the hipster-joy of being Neko “before it was cool.” Seriously, Neckos around the world should celebrate their culture and style being featured in mainstream media outlets such as the Alphaville Herald.

Necko is not just about adding ears and a tail to your avatar. Many Neckos add more feline characteristics such as whiskers, paws, tattoo stripes or even full on fur. Neckos who keep human form and skin can dress in many different styles. Casual, grunge, cyperpunk, steampunk, kawaii, and more dressed up (think Fancy Feast) styles are seen with Necko. Just as cats have unique personalities, so to Neckos. There are many Necko specific accessories that avatars can choose from. Items such as, backpacks, utility belts (with cat toys), leg warmers, arm warmers and collars (collars are huge).

It is important to note that Necko is not gender specific. Although most popular references to human/cat chimeras are female the population of Second Life has seen that for what it is, lame. Although not quite as prevalent there are mancats prowling the streets of Second Life as I write this. MeeeoooW!

Blog 6: Virtual Collective Action

Blogdett's model for virtual protest is made up of 4 essential ideas, degree of virtualization, legality, cultural homogeneity and the limitations on participation. The degree of virtualization is a measurement of how much of the collective action takes place virtually. Some protests are planned and executed entirely virtually others blur the lines with the planning and execution of the protest occurring both virtually and in the real-world. Legality is the degree to which the protest adheres to the law, actions such as DDOSing are gray areas. Black Hat hacking of networks is definitely illegal and risky for the people involved but frequently has wider impact. Legal actions such as the purposeful violation of game EULA's may result in a response from game developers but will not result in real-world legal penalties. Cultural homogeneity is the measure of how similar the people involved are in ideals. The limitations or participation is a measure of how accessible these virtual protests are to the population. Potential roadblocks to people who would like to be involved are access to a computer, a game subscription and most importantly awareness of when and where protests are taking place. Generally virtual protests are born inside games, image-boards and within chatrooms. For people to take part in these protests they must frequent these places or be in the same social network with someone who does.

Starting in 2006 4Chan's Anonymous as well as the Patriotic Negras began an annual July 12^th raid of Habbo Hotel a Kidworld. The raids started as a protest against the perceived racism of the moderators of Habbo. The virtual action was for a large coordinated group of 4Chan users to crate avatars resembling a black man with an Afro wearing a suit. The protestors then blocked the entrances of a pool in Habbo and spammed messages that said “Pools closed due to fail and AIDS” the Habbo moderators quickly caught on and stopped the protests but the Habbo raids have lived on, obtaining status as a meme in their own right. Looking at the Habbo raids through Blogdetts model, the degree of virutalization was total. Some planning may have occurred between ringleaders in the real-world but the action was completely virtual and there is no reason to believe planning happened offline. The Habbo raid was legal, it was a violation of the EULA and resulted in many avatars being banned but no legal action. The raid was very culturally homogenous, executed but a small group of people who frequent 4Chan and involved with Anonymous. The limitations of participation were very low, requiring a personal computer as the only financial obligation. Habbo is free and easy to use and the actions taken were simple. The biggest roadblock to someones participation would be having knowledge of the raid taking place at all.

GG

DPS-GAMER

Blog 5: Content Creation in Virtual Worlds

One distinction that Ondrejka makes very clear in his article is the difference between crafting and creation when it comes to user created content in virtual worlds. Ondrejka defines crafting as “the process of advancing your character, or “leveling” through the repetitive creation of game objects.” At first glance crafting and creation would seem to be the same thing. Users create in game items which they then have the agency to sell, or auction off. The crucial difference between crafting and creation is that crafting systems are built into games and can be leveled up. Players cannot be truly original, all they must do is gather a certain set of raw materials, walk to the proper area of the game and click the “craft” button. This leads to interesting situations where frequently the raw materials for items are worth many times what the finished products are worth because players repetitively build items in pursuit of advancing their crafting level, not obtaining the item. Creation is a totally different process, players are given tools to make totally original items. There is no “leveling” process. Every player is given access to the same tools and players are limited only by their skill and imagination. Anyone can craft high level items in WoW or LOTRO, all it takes is the ability to gather a list of materials. To create a helicopter or a sex toy in SL requires individual skill and imagination, there is no “recipe”. Ondrejka, goes on to state that if we are to truly create the metaverse users must have the ability to create not craft original content. There is no possible way a teams of developers can create a world large and interesting enough for all of humanity to be entertained consistently without allowing users to design parts of the world.

My experiences with content creation in SL have been very limited. I have used to basic tools to create a few different basic 3D forms. The amount that users have the ability to create is pretty astounding. Users can create 3D forms as well as clothing, animations, textures, atmospheres, environments, sculpture, high quality snapshots and machinima. It is exciting to me that along with the more utilitarian world building tools there are tools that can be used to create what might be considered “fine art”. As a photographer and filmmaker the idea of creating this sort of content within SL is very exciting. Unfortunately from the small glimpse I have seen of SL I don't think I will be taking up content creation within SL as a hobby anytime soon. In the real world we have the exact same tools for content creation as within SL but generally far more refined and dedicated versions of those tools. For 3D modeling and the creation of objects we can use VectorWorks and Auto-CAD software. This software has the disadvantage of not appearing in a persistent world but has the advantage of allowing its users to create content with a higher level of refinement and polish that is still instantly shareable anywhere in the real world via the internet. The same goes for Machinima (film) and photography within SL. The content appears in-world and is shareable but the limitations of SL as a tool for creation stand out when compared to the huge array of dedicated physical and software based tools for film and photography that exist in the real world. The power of the interwebs paired with dedicated tools allows for superior creation of content along with instantaneous sharing of that creation.

Second Life has taken some very important first steps in realizing the metaverse. What holds me back from jumping into content creation in SL is that in its current state the tools available are inferior to the tools available elsewhere. The true heavy hitters of content creation have only now started to trickle into SL. Professional architects, industrial designers and artists of all stripes will gradually move into creating things in virtual worlds such as SL when the virtual worlds can offer everything that is offered in the real world along with the added bonus of their content appearing in a persistent world. Ondrejka, addresses this in the section of his article about computing power and Moore's Law. “Raw processing speed will continue to increase at approximately the eighteen-month doubling rate predicted thirty-five years ago.” That incredible sustained rate of progress has allowed us to realize the functional graphical metaverse that is Second Life. With the improvements in technology that are predicted we can look forward to a larger, seamless and more refined virtual world that will attract a wider variety of people.   

GG

DPS-GAMER

Blog 4: Intellectual Property Rights in Cyberspace

In Jack M. Balkin's article, Virtual Liberty: Freedom to Design and Freedom to Play in Virtual Worlds

Balkin makes some interesting points about intellectual property rights in Virtual Worlds. He states, “Strong intellectual property rights in virtual worlds, however, are a positive nuisance, and may greatly inhibit the freedom to play as well as the freedom of players to design parts of the virtual world...Ironically, perhaps, a EULA that requires all players to surrender all rights to intellectual property in the game space may actually promote the right to play better than allowing players to hold traditional intellectual property rights in what they create in the virtual world.” The developer retaining all intellectual property rights to things created in game potentially stops players from using property rights to inhibit other players from their right to play. The only problem with this is that it requires game developers to continue their role as benevolent dictators of the game space, and not use the intellectual property rights to limit players freedom to play. Game developers take different approaches to how they control intellectual property in their games.

The approach Eve Online takes to property rights and what I believe is the most common approach across game developers is that the makers of Eve CCP own absolutely everything in the game. CCP takes a very strong stance on property rights in Eve Online. CCP retains the full rights to your character, account and any in game items you acquire while playing. CCP can take any of these things from you at any time for any reason. Not only does CCP retain the rights to all of the in game items and money on your account they also retain all the rights to your communications within Eve. The section of the EULA that really clinches their policy is, “You hereby grant CCP an exclusive, perpetual, worldwide, irrevocable, assignable, royalty-free license, fully sublicensable through multiple tiers, to exercise all intellectual property and other rights, in and to all or any part of your User Content, in any medium now known or hereafter developed.” They even retain the rights to use player's content in future future mediums.

The developers of World of Warcraft, Blizzard entertainment take a similar approach to copyright protection as CCP the developers of Eve Online. Blizzard is not quite as draconian as CCP in their intellectual property claims. Blizzard claims all rights rights to the game and demands that players acquire all virtual goods in the game fairly. Blizzard also makes it clear they are not liable for the loss of any player's in-game items/currency. Blizzard makes no claim to the rights of their players in-game communications but does allow themselves to monitor players communications as well as computer performance to control inappropriate communications/software use. The effect of this is a very similar game experience/governance system to CCP. Blizzard can still monitor what their players do and seize their virtual items/currency. The WoW EULA is just not as explicit as the CCP EULA.

Linden Labs handles intellectual property rights in a very different way from CCP and Blizzard, this is because the Second Life virtual world is a very different space from the CCP and Blizzard worlds and Linden Lab has created a world with very different experience for their users. Linden Lab states in their EULA that players retain the rights to what they create in Second Life. This property cannot be taken from its creator against their will by other players but Linden Lab reserves the right to take the property themselves. Users cannot take Linden Lab's intellectual property and Linden Lab places restrictions of what sort of content users can create, barring things that are obscene, illegal or discriminatory in real life from being created. While the SL EULA gives players protections from eachother it gives no protection to the players from Linden Lab. I see the SL EULA as being sinister in a way. They create a world where players have protections from each other but absolutely no protection from Linden Lab, a more diabolical company might steal content from users and utilize it to increase profits. Linden Lab retains the exact same benevolent dictator governance system as Blizzard and CCP.

The Minecraft EULA is easily my favorite EULA of the four. The only rules that the creators of Minecraft dictate in regards to intellectual property are that they politely ask users not to distribute copies of the game and that users are free to create tools/plugins for the game but that they may not distribute these tools and plugins. I really like Mojang's solution to the issues of copyright protection. They lay out a ground rule that their software cannot be freely distributed which is entirely reasonable given that they are a business. They allow users to freely build upon the world they have created. Their policy allows users to pursue their own creative desires to the fullest but stops anyone from monetizing their creativity. I am sure this policy is a disappointment for users who wish to use new and interesting tools/plugins and would be happy to pay for them and/or do not know how to create them. The policy is excellent for maintaining the fun/integrity of their virtual space and they keep the commoditization out of their world while allowing creativity to flourish on an individual level. I find the Minecraft EULA to be the most innovative of the bunch, Mojang maintains the integrity of their virtual space without controlling everything that goes on inside of it, giving players the utmost in freedom to play without inviting real world governments inside.  

GG

DPS-GAMER

Blog 3: Law in Cyberspace

In David R. Johnson and David G. Post's article Law and Borders: The Rise of Law in Cyberspace they describe some ramifications of the World Wide Web in terms of global law. Johnson and Post state, “Global computer-based communications cut across territorial borders, creating a new realm of human activity and undermining the feasibility—and legitimacy—of applying laws based on geographic boundaries.” The essence of the issue for governments around the world is that the physical locations of the machines is irrelevant. A machine may be physically located in one country, the domain it is accessing registered in a second and the activity in a third country. “The system is indifferent to the physical locations of those machines, and there is no necessary connection between an internet address and a physical jurisdiction. This is a problem (depending on how you feel about it) for users as well because they may not know the laws of the place they are accessing because, “physical borders no longer can function as signposts informing individuals of the obligations assumed by entering into a new, legally significant, place, because individuals are unaware of the existence or those borders as they move through virtual space. When navigating physical space, for instance driving from one state to the next an individual is aware when they cross a state line and they know that they are subject to the laws of the new State they have entered. Maybe they can't buy beer on Sundays or there is no right turn on red. Whatever the rules, the individual is aware that they will be required to abide by them. On the Web not only do we not know when we move from one jurisdiction to the next but it is unclear who actually has jurisdiction over the user, the country the are sitting in or the country the website they are accessing is hosted in?

Nate Anderson's article, Explainer: How can the US seize a “Hong Kong site” like Megaupload? Attempts to shed light on exactly how the US went about taking Megaupload offline and extraditing its employees for US prosecution. The reasoning of the US government is that Megaupload purposefully targeted the US as a place to do business, hosted servers in the US and payed some US residents for providing content for their website. By paying people in the US, hosting servers in the US and using US ad services to generate revenue the United States Government claims that Megaupload knowingly did business with United States residents and in United States markets while in violation of US law. The crux of the argument is this section of Johnson and Post's article, "Because events on the Net occur everywhere but nowhere in particular...no physical jurisdiction has a more compelling claim than any other to subject these events exclusively to its laws." The flip side was that every jurisdiction might make a claim—after all, Internet publishing is "borderless," right?”

Nate Anderson's article expands upon the ideas laid out in Johnson and Post's article. The net is everywhere so it could be subject to everyone's jurisdiction. I find the idea that every country where the website in question was accessed having a claim to prosecution of the people responsible for it ridiculous. What happens when the United States want to prosecute someone along with other countries, who gets to prosecute the person in question? One could argue that the country who was most affected by the offending website has precedent but how exactly does a country go about proving this? The amount of legal work it would take to prove this would be incredibly complex and time consuming. The other consideration is that powerful countries will most likely just prosecute whoever they want. If the United States really wants to prosecute someone who is located in another country they will make it happen. Less powerful countries do not have the same amount of pull. This is plainly evident in the case of Richard O'Dwyer a 23 year old British citizen who faces extradition and prosecution in the United States because he ran a website called TVShack that posted links to copyrighted content. I find this situation very unappealing. How would we react if Saudi Arabia wanted to extradite an American citizen for hosting a pornographic website and making its content available to Saudi Arabians? The American would have been in violation of Saudi Arabian laws; would their claim be any less legitimate than American appeals for extraditions?  

GG

DPS-GAMER  

Virtual Politics

 In James Grimmalmann's Virtual Power Politics Grimmelmann proposes that “Every decision made by designers of a virtual world is a political decision. Every debate over the rules and every change to the software is political. When players talk about the rules, they are practicing politics.” Grimmelmann breaks up players into what are essentially different constituencies; people play games for a very wide range of reasons and these players will view changes made to their game differently depending on their motivations for playing. The range of reasons for playing is huge and when designers make changes they end up necessarily altering a certain set of player's game experience. Grimmelmann says, “Players with differing motivations and abilities must agree on a common set of rules that provide a satisfying set of constraints. The rules are the framework within which the game takes place; they are a compromise among the players.” This is all fine and dandy until players begin discovering bugs, exploits and imbalances within the game. At this point the designers must decide what course of action to take, do they remove the bug/exploit/imbalance that players have put time and effort into discovering or do they decide that the bug/exploit/imbalance is merely a “feature” of their game and will remain open to those with the wherewithal to take advantage of it? These decisions put game designers in a very difficult position; forcing them to choose between letting a group of players damage the game experience for everyone or stepping in and changing the game world themselves risking the player's wrath. Weather they choose action or inaction it is ultimately up to the designers to make all the decisions about the game world and “this imbalance in power casts a long shadow across virtual worlds, and frequently arouses concern among observers.”

Game balance is a huge topic and applies to any game ever created where humans interact with other humans in some way. I cannot really talk about it as it applies to LOTRO as I have been playing for such a short time and at such a low level. For this assignment I will talk about my experiences with game design as it applies to StarCraft 2. While StarCraft is not a virtual world, it is a thriving eSport with a very large community. Balance is a huge deal to this community. The difficulties of creating a consumer game that is played at a professional level are massive. The game has three races with totally distinct units, play styles and mechanics that must be equal in terms of strength and difficulty to play at the beginner level through the expert level. Furthermore the three races must be equal in any combination against each other in 1 vs 1 through 4 vs 4. Blizzard has a specific team dedicated to nothing but the balance of StarCraft 2 and this team catches a ton of hate in their pursuit of the noble goal of a fun and balanced game for every player at every level. I agree with Grimmelmann that these decisions are political for players but I do not believe that they are for designers. Designers do not (or should not) care about what class or race is OP or IMBA and they have no attachments to race/class/spec in the same way that gamers do they only want balance.

I have been playing StarCraft since the day it launched and there have been maybe 15 or 20 patches that have made thousands of changes the the game. Most of those changes are quite small things like “Barracks build time increased by 5 seconds” or “Warp Prism health increased by 10%” very, very small changes that reverberate through the metagame eventually. These changes have not really effected the way I play the game in any measurable way. Similarly to the changes made in WoW no patch ever made me want to quit playing because of its impact on me personally. Maybe I would do a little bit more or less damage with my Warlock or my travel time would be a tiny bit shorter or longer but no change in a game has affected me enough that I would throw away the effort and time I had invested. The transparency of the patch process adds to this, knowing exactly what will be done and what has been done gives a feeling of control to the player (at least god is letting me know what he's up to). A well designed and well run game will try to make sure the average player will barely feel changes; when they do feel these changes they can understand them because of the transparency of the process and accept the changes in the context of improving the game for the entire community. I believe that at the end of the day the game designers really do want their players to be happy.

GG

DPS-GAMER 

Second First Post

Bartle breaks gamers down into four basic categories, Killers, Achievers, Socialisers, and Explorers. All gamers fall into one of these categories and most gamers will drift in-between them. Killers like to impose themselves upon other players, usually by ganking them. Socialiseres utilize the communication abilities of games to role-play or just interact with other players in a benign way. Achievers give themselves game related goals and try to achieve them. Explorers seek to know as much as possible about the game world, they frequently push the limits of the game engine to find things such as bugs, exploits or the most effective farming routes.

After seeing Bartle's breakdown of player types I see that I am most definitely an Achiever who dabbles in Exploring. In MMO's such as WoW or EverQuest I try to max out my level as fast as possible and then begin conquering the end game content. Bartle says in reference to Achiver-gamers, “Exploration is necessary only to find new sources of treasure, or improved ways of wringing points from it. Socializing is a relaxing method of discovering what other players know” this resonates very much with me as a gamer. I generally only use the zone chat when I am trying to find something out or I am helping another player with a question. I tend to only explore to find more efficient ways to gain gold/xp/mats.

I have decided to roll a Loremaster in LOTRO. The Loremaster has a very interesting mix of traits. Loremasters are support characters that do ranged dps, aoe, dots, healing, buffs, debuffs, cc and can even summon a few different pets. Loremasters are similar to a Warlock/Shaman/Mage mash up. The Loremaster is listed as one of the 'Advanced' classes. The beginning of LOTRO feels very noob-friendly I am only level 4 and I have not felt challenged yet. I am sure once I get closer to 20 things will become a lot more complex. It seems like the Loremaster has a huge range of abilities and pretty soon I will have to start specializing in something. I look forward to finding out how easy it is to re-spec in LOTRO, I would like to do DPS when soloing but I think we will really need some heals as soon as we group up.

GG

DPS-GAMER

First Post

I realized we had to get our blog set up a little late but here I am I guess.

I have not decided what LOTRO class and race I want to play. Most likely I will play as whatever class offers the most ranged DPS. (hence the blog name) I will most likely end up playing as a human unless any of the other races have fun/interesting racial attributes.

I took a glance at the MMO terminology post and it was pretty funny for me to see those terms in the context of a vocab quiz. I feel as though I have a bit of an unfair advantage when it comes to this nuts and bolts aspect of gaming because of how long I have been playing. I remember how frustrating it was to figure out what the hell people were talking about when I was learning to play MMO's. Trying to make sense what they all mean out of context must be a bummer.

I think I am going to go back to watching the Starcraft 2 Homestory Cup 4 semi-finals now.

GG
DPS-GAMER