Of Dice and Men

Gaming for me was a natural progression from the pen and paper genre, to something substantially more persistent and available. My tabletop days were an era of my life that I reflect upon often and fondly, however my core group was often scattered to the four winds and thus, often defunct.

The founding group consisted of my brother, and my two cousins. I write this because just recently we had a D&D reunion of sorts. My cousin is getting married and for his bachelor party we decided to get the gang back together to consume alcohol and slay orcs. Eventually we ran out of orcs and built a bon-fire to sit around while we tried to finish off the beer. The game has changed quite a bit since I wandered the worlds of AD&D 2nd edition, where last I left it. We played mostly in Forgotten Realms at the time (yes, Ed Greenwood is a demi-god) and the flavor and detail of the campaign realm provided us with endlessly descriptive role playing material. Often we would spend hours just role playing our time in Waterdeep or the high seat of Cormyr and never encounter a single skirmish. Those were the days, indeed.

We adventured for years, often in a campaign continuation style of play, with perma-death being the only obstacle to greatness. However, as the years passed and obligations grew, our binge weekends became fewer and fewer. I tried gaming with other groups, but they often lacked the expertise or seriousness that I had grown accustomed to, and I often found myself frustrated and eventually gave up on it all together. Neverwinter Nights, Ultima Online and eventually Everquest filled the fantasy void created by the loss of my d20 days, and though it is hardly a replacement, time erodes those memories and one begins to forget the joys of dice and men.

Virtual Worlds as Virtual Reality

I have been catching up on some reading that I've wanted to do, and the first on my list was Synthetic Worlds by Edward Castranova. I will post a complete review of my thoughts on the book when I have finished, but I wanted to take a moment to look at a very interesting distinction that Castranova draws early in his work.

The difference was this: the science program focused on sensory-input hardware,
while gamers focused on mentally and emotionally engaging software. As you
can imagine, a person can become "immersed" either way: either the sensory
inputs are so good you actually think the crafted environment you're in
is genuine, or, you become so involved mentally and emotionally in the synthetic
world that you stop paying attention to the fact that it is only
synthetic. It turns out that the way humans are made, the software-based
approach seems to have had much more success (Castranova 2005).

The parallel that he draws with regards to the scientific study of virtual reality and the rise of the gaming industry, specifically in the genre of online virtual worlds, is very exciting. I think that great merit lies in the underlying hypothesis that he is able to draw about human nature and our need for the emotional and mental elements that the 'synthetic worlds' provide.

The greatest distinction lies in the relevance of human social contact. In a virtual reality engine, these sensory inputs stimulate our brain to perceive those social bonds with our environment and with other members of the environment, but they do not if fact exist. I believe that on a basic 'gut' level the human brain and body will always be aware of that distinction. However when we transition to virtual worlds, the interactions with other humans through their representative avatars, we experience those same sensory mechanics, however the brain and body knows that the interaction is genuine. The world may be crafted but the fundamental societal and emotional capital within in are fundamentally real.

Trinity Course Update & Observations

Via the comments section of this post, Dr. Delwiche made note that the course currently being offered does not utilize Everquest nor World of Warcraft as the medium for virtual world research. The course material this year revolves around Second Life, and the specifics can be found here.

I left out personal commentary in my last post on the subject, but I certainly have a few thoughts to share on the matter. This type of scholastic undertaking is critical in today's culture and educational environment. While it is true that the main stream media and corporate world has begun to give virtual worlds some attention, it is often from the prospective of tapping into or observing a niche market or freak counterculture. The millions of subscribers and active participants are statistics without recognizable features or social standing, thus they can be dismissed as an exclusionary minority rather than a common thread within our larger global world.

When I walk the lands of the existential worlds that I choose to inhabit, those that walk beside me represent a very fundamental cross section of our entire world community. The days of geek subculture or fringe dominance in the medium are long gone, with family oriented, professional players comprising a considerable cross section of the virtual populations. To ignore this trend and the underlying significance is shortsighted and ignorant, yet sadly indicative of the type of coverage we do receive when the glaring light of media scrutiny falls upon us.

I once read a book called Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community written by Robert Putnam, that struck me as visionary. His basic theory states that our culture is growing more disconnected from one another with each passing year, and our societal structure has become isolationist. More Americans bowl now than ever before, but this is dominated by individual groups of a given social network acting autonomously, rather than forming an artificial community such as a bowling league. This is just one of many examples he provides to document the trends that can be observed in all aspects of our society.

At the time I read this, I pondered whether the Internet and our shift towards an electronic culture was a cause or effect. Has our dependence on this distant medium, weakened our bonds to one another and diluted our instinctual need for 'pack?' Or has this paradigm shift progressed our psychological need for social packs, and pushed traffic to virtual worlds to compensate for the lack of social capital in our communities?

The research and time frame of Putnam's works, suggest the latter is the case, as these trends have been observed for more than a quarter of a century. Long before Norrath, Azeroth or the Lindens began to attract visitors, humans were feeling a social void subconsciously, and have turned to new mediums to find their sense of belonging.

Finding Meaning in Azeroth

This list, Seven Things I Learned From World of Warcraft, is really awesome. You should take a minute to check it out.

Thank you to Life in Azeroth for the link.

Existance precedes and rules essence

Over the weekend, I was asked why I consider Massive Multiplayer Online game worlds to be 'existential worlds' and thus why I named my blog as such. The short answer is, My Dad's Blog Can Beat Up Your Dad's Blog, was taken, so I had to go with my second name choice. The long answer is much more involved and takes a look at the very nature of human existence and the functions and roles of our virtual worlds.

The renowned existentialist philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartes, wrote that 'existence precedes and rules essence' in his famous work Being and Nothingness.

This simply means that man first is, and only subsequently is this or that. In a word, man must create his own essence: it is in throwing himself into the world, suffering there, struggling there, that he gradually defines himself. And the definition always remains open ended: we cannot say what this man is before he dies, or what mankind is before it has disappeared. (Action Magazine Dec. 29, 1944)

This analysis of Sartes famous line has always elicited images of charachter creation at game launch. The avid gamer has read up on their most antisipated title for months, begun to define themselves on the forums and establish their identity in the budding community and ultimatly as they unwrap the freshly purchased game, and begin installation and charachter creation.

As the gamer nears the completion of his future identity in this new world, and hits Enter, he is thrust into an unfarmiliar world with no ties, no status and no destiny. It is in his free existance and presence that he defines himself in the virtual world.

Another predominant existential thinker, Edmund Husserl, coined the German term Dasein, meaning being there, in his noted work Being and Time. The basic premise is that temporality and presence in the world, the Dasein as he says, is a more definative existance, than the corporality of the world itself.

Husserl's Dasein, represents a fundamental building block in my 'existential worlds' principle. At the risk of oversimplifing a rather involved concept, our presence in the game, makes it real and our actions and choices there define us. The walls are digital, the npcs are AI, the gold is ephemeral, death is temporary... However, we as sentient beings are there, and in our precence, essence is instilled in our avatars.

So next time you take flak for spending too much time gaming, or for hiding from reality in a game, you can confidently state that they are free to define their existance and essence in whatever manner or forum they choose, and you shall do the same.

Town Square

Today's must read, from Demitri and Constance at Terra Nova. Are MMOs the town squares of tomorrow?

We need time out from our daily grind (oh, the irony), and a chance to meet new people and hang out with the regulars. In a healthy society, these places form the building blocks of good communities and civic life. Classes and ages mix, ideas are exchanged, and the pace of life is moderated. Think the Spanish town square, the Italian piazza, the Greek taberna and the American, err, umm. Ok, America just has the mall, which is pretty sad. The idea we toss out there is that MMOs, and other online spaces, are beginning to take on this key function.

What the hell is a cyndre?

Over at Kill Ten Rats, Oz has a classic post regarding the importance of our virtual identity. In MMOs, the single most defining characteristic of your avatar is your chosen name. Thus, the importance of being 'Blaznarat' as he says.

At character selection, gamers make many decision that will have a lasting impact on our role in the virtual society that we have chosen to inhabit. We can be male or female, gnome or elf, brown hair or black... No matter what choices you make in customization, however, you will still be just another brown-haired elf maiden, in a sea of elves. Thus it is the naming convention that allows us to define and hone our virtual selves.

MMOs are built and sustained on the community that develops and thus remains loyal subscribers despite any number of reasons why they should have moved on. Take Ultima Online for example. They are approaching ten years, and despite inferior mechanics, outdated graphics and a host of newer options in the marketplace, their faithful continue to log every day. It was not the choice to be female, or elf that kept Nightshade playing this long, but rather the virtual person that Nightshade has become, and the friends she has made.

So what the hell is a cyndre, you ask? Well, Cinder was a name I used for many of my D20 characters back in the day, and when I joined the grandpappy of MMOs, Neverwinter Nights back on pay-to-play AOL, my beloved name, the very spirit of who I was in my fantasy life, was taken...

Cyndre was born that day, and I have never had to race against a host of others to be Cinder, Blade, Ghost or any other iteration of oh so sought after, leet identities. I don't have to worry that my friends from UO would see my name on their new EQ server, years later and wonder if the asshole PKing the newb, was the same Cinder they knew, or later still, if I was the clown spamming /1 in Elwynn Forest who they hadn't seen since we uninstalled Norrath.

I don't need to be leet, I just want to be me.