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Austin Tate :: Blog :: Archives

March 2012

March 02, 2012

I have found it much more interesting to explore the routes, travel mechanisms and locations which can be reached in World of Warcraft rather than just carrying out more quests, which I find are very linear in their design, with seemingly pointless to and fro movements.

I explored Stormwind Harbour, used the boat routes available from there (and Menethil Harbour) to locations on the continent of Kalimdor, and found Thargold Ironwing who kindly gave me a free gryphon tour of the harbour - see http://www.wowwiki.com/Thargold_Ironwing

At level 20 my Dwarf Hunter was able to learn a riding skill to allow for a mount to be purchased and used.  So I now have the steed appropriate to the Dwarf race, a ram. This makes movement between sites much quicker and allows low level attacks to be avoided.

I am now discovering more route and vehicle types including an ornithopter and a (repaired) bomber.

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I have been thinking about the game design asessment since Christmas.  It is my style to make notes and get ideas flowing early on and collect assets before seriously starting any work element.  I had originally thought a game using assets already available to me from a project on the "Virtual World of Whisky" might make a suitable topic for the game design.  See for example:

I have seen other opportunities while exploring quests in World of Warcraft, a number of space-themed games mentioned in this blog, and playing a range of new (to me) games on the course.

I am finding that a number of themes keep arising in my interests while engaging with these games and thinking about their narrative, objectives, and the ways in which they introduce artifacts and skills.

  • Situated Learning and Narrative
  • Levels, Scaffolding and Push to the ZPD (Vygotsky)
  • Use of encyclopaedia resources
  • Community-based Learning
  • "Ancient" style of learning at the feet of teachers

My interests continue to be strongly with games which have a social and community dimension, and a way to engage players with the broader community involved is often something they involve.

So, I have begun development of a game design for a quest style game in the Avatar movie theme areas of a MMO such as Second Life. The game is based on an exploration of the Pandora moon flora and Na'vi culture.  It will have strong community and knowledge sharing aspects, but allow for play that engages with others or not, with consequences.  I call the game "Moon Bloom – The Legend of the Bloom of the Aligned Moons".

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March 04, 2012

In mid 2011, "Kirstens Viewer" based on Linden Labs' open source Second Life Viewer code, added support for 3D stereo vision using a variety of 3D methods, including simple red/cyan glasses.  This viewer is no longer maintained and is not available for download.  but the last version created - Kirstens S21(9) - still works with current Second Life servers. Here is an example image from Kirtsen's Viewer in red/cyan 3D (click on image for a full sized copy and get out your 3D glasses to see the effect):

There was an earlier patch for an early version of  the Second Life Viewer from the University of Michigan to support 3D stereoscopic views in Second Life. See http://3dvision-blog.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=142 and https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2972?

Keywords: 3D, I-Room, Kirtsens Viewer, Red/Cyan, Second Life, Stereo

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March 06, 2012

The Introduction to Digital game-Based Learning class met Frank Lassard at the Virtual University of Edinburgh's Sandbox in Second Life for a demonstration of Holodecks for creating scenes for role play and meetings.

Keywords: Holodeck, Second Life

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March 09, 2012

The Introduction to Digital Game-Based Learning class met Elena Northmead at the Virtual University of Edinburgh's Vue South Beach Pavilion in Second Life for a discussion on Augmented Reality Games.

Keywords: ARG, Second Life

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March 15, 2012

I tried the free to play Aion MMORPG available for download from http://www.aionfreetoplay.com/. I am on EU server "Anuhart".

I entered as one of the races of Daeva (assigned to me on account creation), and selected the Elyos faction and Scout class. It was raining, hence the leaf umbrella.

The free to play Aion game allows for only 2 characters to be created, but gives access to all 55 levels, nearly 4,000 quests, and all territory travel, unlike the level 20 restricted World of Warcraft free starter edition.

Entering a new world, with a new character, even though the interface had many similarities to World of Warcraft, reminded me how important scaffolding was, and the value of the community created wiki information sites. I will hold off creating my main (male) character with my usual name prefixed aith "Ai" until I know more about the game and the factions. 

Keywords: Aion, IDGBL

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March 16, 2012

The Fellowship of IDGBLers met once more on 15th March 2012. This time to take on the challenge of a "Dungeon" available through a portal which takes you into a separate "instance" of the game.

I think we had fantastic teamwork. If we had just sailed in to the Dungeon with 4 strong players and even my short legged dwarf we could have wiped out everyone. Without much stratgey. But Coranich left to pick up a classmate.. and we all got wiped out! We tried again with much more care and planning and despite a few "deaths" we won through. Folks covered one another better, and we went to find lost characters - like myself once too. We had to learn new tricks for blasting open doors too. We were definitely in our ZPD.

 

Keywords: Deadmines, IDGBL, World of Warcraft

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March 17, 2012

The Fellowship of MSc folks met at the Aerie Peak gryphon point to fight our way North towards Shadowfang Keep. Avoiding death is not an option on this journey, and you quickly become accustomed to making a little progress, dropping dead from the onslaught, appearing as a ghost in the graveyard, returning to your body, and placing yourself as far onwards as possible.  Then looking round for the baddies who may show as ghostly figures near you. Then resurrect and run as fast as you can onwards again. It takes a few goes to get through heavily fortified gates.

Shadowfang Keep is entered via a portal into an "Instance" of the game. These are special areas in World of Warcraft where your group or raid party is able to interact with a dungeon privately; that is, without interference from other parties. See http://www.wowwiki.com/Instance

I also learned that taking in plenty of food in advance, to sit down("x" key), and preferable to eat as well, is important to allow a quicker recovery. Free to play accounts cannot receive health boosts or food supplies from other players.

Good team support meant that weakening players, like my dwarf, were assisted when set upon by multiple "mobs". Carnage did at times occur.

The team prevailed and completed the quest.  We all now have stronger bows thanks to the rewards given by the grateful occupants of the Keep.

 

 

Keywords: MSceL, Shadowfang Keep, World of Warcraft

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March 30, 2012

The University of Edinburgh has chosen Blackboard Collaborate as its virtual classroom. It provides Adobe Connect style tools with multi-way video and audio teleconferencing, particpants lists and profiles with hand raising and AFK indicators, and text chat with emoticons. A tools area can be used as a whiteboard with slide upload and markup by participants. It can also be used for application sharing and co-browsing.  The session can be recorded and played back.  Elements like the text chat, participants list and whiteboard contents can also be saved either during a live meeting or from a rercording.

One possibility for use could be to record a synchronised speaker and presentation, and make that available via the recording.  Screen capture tools such as TechSmith Camtasia can be used to capture off a recording to allow for transcoding into a regular video format for other uses, YouTube, streaming, etc.

   

Keywords: Blackboard, Collaborate, IDGBL, Recordings

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For my MSc in e-Learning IDGBL Game Design exercise I have created an exploration style game with a Na'vi/Avatar theme.

The web site for the game information and links to allow access to the areas in which some elements of it can already be played in Second Life are at:

 

More details of the elements that went into the design are in this blog entry - Game Design Preliminaries.

Keywords: Game Design, Moon Bloom, Na'vi, Pandora, Second Life

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