Monday, July 30, 2012

MMO Anthropology Interviews Magicman Editor-in-Chief of MMOBomb.com

Magicman (Michael Byrne) editor-in-chief of MMOBomb.com came onto MMO Anthropology to speak about his experience with MMO gaming. The meeting took place in Aion Online and brought up topics such as having friends in game, the free-to-play model, and how people interact through MMO game worlds.

Link, via YouTube via MMO Anthroplogy.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

The Critical Path Project and the importance of games

As an anthropologist—and in particular one who studies cyborg culture through video games—the fact that games change the world is something never lost on me. We’re in an advantageous period of development for human communication and culture, that splendid moment when spark meets fuel in the luminiferous aether of social gaming.

We have entire communities that evoke themselves from simple MMO games, where Minecraft can become a cult phenomenon just because of its simplistic form and infinite creativity, and where Call of Duty and other similar online games have minor Internet-celebrities on YouTube pulling in millions of viewers a month.
Gaming is the next-bright horizon that culture will-yet-consume and we’re watching it happen.

http://criticalpathproject.com/

Visit the page, click on a few of the links and, if you’re at all culture minded like I am, perhaps you’ll enjoy some.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Visiting Minecraft: Little House on the Quarry (Part 2/2)

A castle and a beach home—in Minecraft

Let’s see where this takes us, shall we?

via MMO Anthropology.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

MMO Anthropology Interviews Nelson Williams Editor-in-Chief of Vox Ex Machina

Friend-of-the-blog MMO Anthropology interviewed Nelson Williams, editor-in-chief of Vox Ex Machina recently and here's the resulting footage. I hope that you forgive the fact that apparently the normal transition zoom is missing from the beginning--but otherwise it seemed to come out rather well.

Link, via YouTube via MMO Anthropology.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Visiting Minecraft: Little House on the Quarry (Part 1/2)

Minecraft, a place to make homes…

Not a bad examination of how Minecraft can be used to build and create – a sort of organic approach to constructing a world.

via MMO Anthropology.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Around The Secret World: A Problem with Zombies

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Funcom’s The Secret World is a wonderful MMORPG with powerful, deeply atavistic Lovecraftian stories – this screenshot it from the first town that is being besieged by zombies.

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Many of the quests have cinematic and even fully-voiced animations that have your character mostly standing dumbly and listening to a story about the reason for the quest and why. This is the hallmark of plot quests and it’s good to watch them at least once.

This has been put to good use by Star Wars: The Old Republic but it takes on a different quality in horror-themed The Secret World.

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Kingsmouth has a zombie problem – I have a solution.

Fire. Kill it with fire.

 

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Okay…

So zombies aren’t the only problem Kingsmouth has. RUN! RUN!

At least, that’s what I thought to myself until I recollected that I have an AK-47 that shoots lightning and that particular problem ended up deep-fried very quickly.

The other player helping out didn’t hurt either.