Merge of Diegetic and Non-diegetic video game elements

In class today Shad used a video game example to describe the distinction between diegetic and non-diegetic…stuff. He said that menus etc. are non-diegetic and the stuff that the character in the game would see and hear is diegetic. It reminded me of this video: http://warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=118307

This video is part of a series of cartoony machinima that tells the story of five “citizens” of world of warcraft. The main character is a Tauren warrior who wants to be “Main Tank” (MT). What I think is really interesting about this video is the way the creator is intentionally integrating traditionally non-diegetic aspects of the game in a way that now treats them diegetically (is that a word?). At 2:35, the tauren pulls out a little book and looks at a quest log, which usually would be considered a non-diegetic aspect of the game, or something that only the person controlling the character would be able to see.

Does this make any sense? I’m trying to not be too confusing for the non-WoW players while also trying to explain something in alien language haha.

Jeff’s T600 presentation

Hi all!

Here is the link to a blogpost I did for class on Jeff’s presentation on WoW for T600 with Telecomm on Friday, 2nd March, in case anyone is interested. (It includes a concluding music video from me!) It’s obviously not all-encompassing – it was supposed to be my interpretation of the relevance, etc. – but may be useful for those who couldn’t make it.

There will also be a summary of the presentation in our grad blog, which comes out every Monday – if anyone wants to see that, I can provide the link once it has been updated and made available to me…

http://vickilanoir.wordpress.com/

“Severe” story telling in games

What a cool but slightly annoying way to present your thesis [the voice drives me nuts]. I’m sure Meghan has a boatload to talk about when it comes to “severe story-telling”.

As games evolve and become more complex, so do the stories and the ability to immerse the player. Many games are linear. You play through the same or very similar story as every other Joe, and that’s that. What I’m more interested in are games that are not linear, there is no set questline or storyline that the player follows. Games where players all have different experiences and actually experience totally different stories are much more interesting to me. The stories players have don’t necessarily have to be glamorous, its also what the player makes of it and perceives. Stories can change drastically over time, but only if the game allows for it. How boring would it be to talk to a friend in real life about your “avatar’s” story within a game if your story mirrored his/hers?

Video Games and “Aesthetics”

I’ve recently had the chance to play a fair chunk of the new Star Wars MMO, more so than I’d care to admit, less so than I care to like. But, reflexively, I look back at our readings about Aesthetics and the lack of definition and have found myself left with a bad taste in my mouth. For those unaware, the gaming community has always made a push for more, bigger, or better. And by this, I mean not only in the gameplay and interaction, but also in the image quality. As Leo mentioned in retro gaming, we very quickly moved from Atari games to 8-bit, to 16, to 32, to 64 bit. We went from simple 3D shapes on rendered backgrounds, to poorly made 3D, to the hyper-realistic high definition, photo-realistic qualities we have in games today. It’s a fair assessment to say games will one day give movies a run for their money as the new household activity as they converge in quality as well.

Yes, this ignores any deviation to this model so far, but it leads to my point.

Meanwhile, as this push to the HD moves forward, we’ve seen deviation. Games which say, might not push for graphical prowess, but rather for “aesthetic.” And by this, I say skeptically, because I feel as a whole that the market has pushed this word to a marketing sense (and assuming we keep aesthetic positive, suggesting something is beautiful).  I feel as this push forward, in the gaming community, aesthetic has become synonymous for “lacking power.” It’s not high-definition, or realistic. It’s aesthetically pleasing. Like everyone should know what that means. And don’t get me wrong, I understand that they’re to invoke distinct styles.  Styles that usually hang around longer than their realistic game counterparts.

We see this in World of Warcraft. We see this in Zelda. Okami, and Minecraft. Games that don’t push the limits of the technology that they’re using, at least in a graphical sense.  And once again, we’ve added the new Star Wars MMO to the mix. One I’ve greatly enjoyed, usually due to this use of “aesthetic.”

Where I deviate is in the thinking that for the gaming community, aesthetics are not talked about in games like Heavy Rain, or dead space. We talk about how shockingly realistic they are, whether or not it outputs to 1080p, how bloom affects the overall settings, what settings on your graphics card will make the best experience for you. And by all accounts, these are all questions involving an aesthetic experience. But, we don’t talk about it in the same way. As I’ve worked towards, “aesthetics” in video games has become a buzz word, a marketing tool to key people to enjoy a game despite obvious shortcomings to the standard that has been created.

Design as Text and Second Life

Dunne mentions in the “Design as Text” section of (In)human Factors:

A ‘space’ of chains and layers of meaning between the object and the viewer, continuously expanding with no fixed origin or closure (36).

Writing and reading, the pre-and post-textual, are of equal value, and both writer and reader are required to exert an equal effort of imagination. Similarly, in the case of a design object as text, designer, and viewer play equal roles. This approach lends itself easily to electronic products, because their components can be freely arranged, unlike mechanical products where the arrangement of components is determined by technical constraints: (36)

Reading through this again I wanted to illustrate what I thought was an interesting example that I think fits this quote and that is Second Life. The big part I want to discuss is the bolded text because, quite literally, the designers created a world where the user (viewer) can create within that world. In a sense they end up “playing equal roles” where the user can create an infinite amount of unique objects and actions within the virtual world, a major point being that both the designer and user are creating. Further, because there is no “endgame” in Second Life, the user can continually create and interact with virtual objects and other people in an endless virtual environment where the constraints are limited only to what the game world does and does not offer.

 

 

Using science-fictionality in ID

Csicsery-Ronay talks about the concept of science-fictionality:

“This widespread normalization of what is essentially a style of estrangement and dislocation has stimulated the development of science-fictional habits of mind, so that we no longer treat sf as purely a genre engine producing formulaic events, rather as a kind of awareness we might call science-fictionality, a mode of response that frames and tests experiences as if they were aspects of a work of science fiction.”

I tried to think of a few places in interaction design where the user is called upon to use science-fictionality in their experience with a design. Many video games that require problem solving skills do this, by setting up a set of rules in a reality that doesn’t necessarily mirror ours precisely, and asking us to solve problems by following the alternate reality’s rules. I know there must be other examples, maybe in our day to day life.

Examples of Realism in Machinima

After discussing realism in Machinima, I thought it would be helpful to find four examples that correspond to the four styles of Machinimatic realism, other than those presented in the paper.  I’ll also mention that I have no background with Machinima, and little background of the actual games many of the Machinima videos are created in.  I will be using Halo for the examples in this post, as that is what I have most experience in.

I’ll start with the first style:

[1a] Simply recording game play, using screen capture software, a practice that may or may not include the UI (depending on whether diegetic vs non-diegetic aspects of the game play are important)

Although I feel this style seems the most straightforward, I wonder if it is being naive to assume this is the reality of gameplay.  This goes back to the idea that once a camera (or screen capture software) is introduced, does this change how players interact with others, as well as the game?  I would have to assume it does, unless it is not known that the gameplay is being captured.

So below is the first example.  It is simply a multi-player battle between a red, blue, and green team.  There is no communication that can be seen in the video, and is simply following a member of the red team as he plays.  As I mentioned before, very straightforward.

Now lets move on to the second style:

[2a] Stylizing the presentation of the game world to express internal psychological phenomena or fantasies, that is, events that have no literal place in the diegetic world of the game or in the typical experience of playing it.

The example I have provided below is once again created using the game world of Halo, and is a troubling story simply about a man (a soldier because of the constraints of Halo) that is walking the desert alone, after somehow losing somebody that they have loved.  This story ends with the soldier raising his gun towards his head, implying suicide.  This also is contradicting in Halo, because you simply ‘re-spawn’ and little damage is done, but an emotional connection is created through the video.  I believe this would fit in this category, but I am not quite sure.  Video is below.

Next the third style:

[3a] Presenting the game’s reality in a truthful and clarifying way, whether it is some aspect of the diegetic game lore and/or an aspect of non-diegetic game play.

For this style, if I am understanding it correctly, is presenting ‘real’ gameplay, but it can have been edited or planned, as long as it is bringing to the forefront actual characteristics of the game/gameplay.  So for this example, the video shows a battle paused in time, with a dramatic soundtrack playing in the background.  It eventually turns into a slow motion battle scene, specifically showing teams in battle, and soldiers falling in defeat.  I feel this could also have some aspects of style [2a], but fell more into this category.  It visualizes to the viewer how hectic the gameplay is, even though they would not experience this scene in normal gameplay.

Now to move on to the final style:

[4a] Presenting game reality in a way that corresponds to our experience, regardless of the means by which the finished video is actually constructed.

I’ll be honest, this is the style that I find confusing when looking for examples.  I understand the example that is presented in the paper, but have a hard time actually applying that style and finding other examples.  Maybe if somebody knows of a good one, they could leave it in the comments.

Age of the Avatar

<I posted this on my tumblr account, and decided to post it here for a couple of reasons (in addition to just being lazy.) For one, I’m probably ripping this idea off from Jeff and Shaowen and not even realizing it. Other reason, this is a sort of critique of the social context in which we use and view live-action role playing.>

I spent some time today with a student in one of my labs. We talked about an upcoming project in which the student will need to compare a digital and analogue version of some thing in society. He wanted to focus on the RPG “Second Life” for his digital component, but did not know what would appropriately compare to it in analogue.

I introduced him to Live-Action Role Playing, or LARPing, as a comparable social exercise. Found a couple of videos online, such as this gem:

It’s a quick and dirty way to spell out the differences between just living life in analogue and living a second life in analogue, so I used it with the student so he could understand what I was talking about. However, even though we laughed (pretty hard) at this example, it’s important to remember that we’re possibly less removed from this type of behavior than we’ve ever been in the past (facebook, twitter, etc.) The feeling I have is that we have all moved into a era where we deliberately construct an external representation of ourselves which highlights what we choose to highlight, and subdues that which we wish to suppress.

One could say that this is just the same as it’s always been, and I’d be inclined to agree. However, this tendency to exhibit a certain perspective of ourselves has evolved into a representation which is completely physically separate from physical bodies. I believe this separation is significant.

This separate form of ourselves is a living thing. It lives and breathes. It interacts with other beings like it. It speaks its own language (ever try saying LMAO to someone in person?) If this separate form stops functioning, the community moves on without it. It essentially dies, like my myspace profile. There are times when some of us have “friended” or “followed” someone we’ve never met (in “real” life,) and they’ve done it back, in turn. At this point, this is one external representation of ourselves accepting another, and choosing to interact with it. How different is this from “Second Life?”

I personally believe that we are in a stage of era in which external representations of ourselves are not only accepted, but considered a social norm. I believe that while these external representations (avatars) only slightly deviate from what we consider our “real” selves now, they will deviate more as we continue into this era. We will be just as attached to these future representations of ourselves as we are to our current ones.

So as I was saying before: when we laugh at LARPers throwing lightning bolts at ogres, we’re essentially laughing at our own behavior. Which is awesome, as long as we know that’s what we’re doing.

Analysis of World of Warcraft FigurePrints

This is a beast of a post (although not as long as some others).  I am attempting to make some sense of my argument for my paper, so I am being thorough in the hope that I can get some good feedback.  Thanks in advance if you read all this.   Enjoy the journey:

A close reading of WoW tear-jerker

So I decided to look at a bit of machinima made from WoW clips set to the song “Here Without You” by 3 Doors Down. It has been an interesting journey. It is incredible to think that some clips from World of Warcraft set to a cheesy late 90′s love-rock song could make me misty-eyed. I dare you to watch this video multiple times and not be moved at least a little bit.