Interesting college course.

Akaran_D · Post by **Akaran_D** » July 18, 2003, 9:49 am

http://faculty.washington.edu/redwood/com480/index.html
I'd take it if I lived near..

Raistin · Post by **Raistin** » July 18, 2003, 11:10 am

Like

My biggest scare came when I was tag-teamed by two beetles who I was unable to defeat. I spent a great deal of time and energy trying to run away from them but they gave chase. I couldn't shake them no matter what I tried. I guess I'm not that intimidating

I think she tried to cyber the wrong things!

Adex_Xeda · Post by **Adex_Xeda** » July 18, 2003, 11:25 am

Heh, they can't figure out the source of EQ addiction.

How do they expect to figure it out, if they're limited to lvl 1 halflings running around Riverdale?

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » July 18, 2003, 11:32 am

I bet anything that we all clicked on the hottest chicks and read their journals. Either that, or its a wild coincidence that you posted quotes from the same one I read

Chidoro · Post by **Chidoro** » July 18, 2003, 11:44 am

Belh, firewall blocks the journals. Can anyone post one of them, any of them? I'm dying to read someone's take on eq

Adelrune Argenti · Post by **Adelrune Argenti** » July 18, 2003, 1:32 pm

There is actually a lot of research being done in this area. Mainly looking at using gaming technology and the hooks of gaming in the educational arena. EverQuest is in many ways a social experiment. The communication, community building, and interaction are what makes it so addictive. Look at this board, we have built a community, some would argue a dysfunctional one, based on our past or current experiences within a game. For the most part, that is the commonality we all share.

vn_Tanc · Post by **vn_Tanc** » July 18, 2003, 1:53 pm

Yes when you consider that Verant essentially gave us a virtual world to fill and shape however we wished it's pretty depressing to see how it turned out.

Xyun · Post by **Xyun** » July 18, 2003, 1:55 pm

Here are some snippings

Well, last Wed. we did an in class exercise, that was really fun. In my communications class we divided up into teams of four, and started in a certain city of Everquest, and went from there. The object was to travel to different cities using one person as a leader, and following the instructions given to us by our teacher. My group came in second, and it was pretty exciting. I like the social aspect of the game we played, and it think it only added to the Everquest experience. It was definitely a game I would like to play with other people on-line. It gave me an immediate goal to focus on, and we won prizes for coming in first, second, and third. I play Everquest for social reasons any way, and not for the role-playing side of it.

AROUND DA WORLD IN 80 mins PART II
Ok back by popular demand! Here we go again I'd like to refelct upon the lessons learned in response to our in class exercise on WEDNESDAY. The exercise was fun and very entertaining and provided for relief as we move into finals week. I learned that interpersonal communication is the must important about being in a group. You must be able to chat effectively with one another in order to accomplish your gaming objectives. Communication is key in life, in EQ, I guess everywhere. Though we got lost and our group was seperated, killed, or whatever happened it happened together and required us to chat quickly and efficiently in order to move from world to world, referre to referre. I'm bumbed my team didn't win cause I really wanted that candy I was starving in class, however I took away from the game that the social aspect of the game is much more fun then the combat aspects.
I stand behind that premise because when you are just being social and having fun with one another there is no competiveness to it;l you just have fun in an entertaining setting. There is no frustration or stress about not having enough money or the best armor, or havig a high level, you are just being friendly and having fun. People are drawn to this aspect of the game b/c not everyone out there is trying to having the biggest and baddest sword or the highest level....people get kicked around enough from day to day by bosses, spousesl, professors, enough...why should it carry over to EQ? It shouldn't the game should be fun, entertaining, and lighthearted..and that is what the social non combat episodes bring you.

Last week we split into groups and had a online race in Norrath. I was chosen to be the leader of a group and I was placed with a very competent group who were willing to work together and cooperate to win the game. Before the game I looked over all the maps and got a broad idea of where and how we were going to get from one area to the next. This helped because I could later work quickly to direct my group without wasting time pouring over the maps during game time. In addition, I always was thinking one or two steps ahead of where we currently were, so that I could seamlessly direct the group and wasted no time. We employed the empty computer next to us to use as a second map so that everyone in the group had an idea of where we were going. We used the /follow command every time we moved so that we could efficiently move together. We never spoke together online using the chat box. If the race had occurred at some point where we weren’t sitting next together in the same room, it would have been much more challenging to communicate and work together. But to communicate verbally and in real time sped things up tremendously. I couldn’t have led the group alone and succeeded like we did. The input, comments and contributions of the entire group made it possible to come in first place.

Bonus question: Jeremy’s group must have employed a strategy of using Kelethin as a central point. They probably would have spell bound there in Kelethin and gone to the needed places, then died and gone back to Kelethin to save time traveling by foot. The strategy might have worked but they still would have taken quite a bit of time going out of their way to all die, wait for each other, and so on.

Well, I guess I need to start off by saying that the "on-line" communication wasn't happening for me because I was sitting next to all my team mates, and it was infinitelyeasier to lean past Sarah to tell Cynthia that Jasmine had died and we needed to wait. Which was fine with me. While I like communicating online in the game, it is sometimes slow and tedious, and I, being a spazz, have not figured out how to follow someone at a run and type a message. I fine that if I stop, I lose them. Whatever. If we wanted to make this game really challenging, we wouldn't have sat near each other, which would have forced more on-line communication.

As for things I learned, I realized that within a group, it doesn't really slow the group down to have an inexperienced player with them. I was concerned that being a middle range character I wouldn't be able to keep up, but I think I did quite well. And, I don't know if is a gender difference, but us gals were very polite toward one another, and very differential. In that I mean, none of us were really willing to grab hold of the group leadership and take control of the direction we should travel. But that didn't stop us from implictly(Sarah might not agree with that term) giving the leadership power to someone and then fully supporting all decisions made by that person, good or bad. And they were ALL good decisions.

I guess one aspect of group cooperation was that early on, Jasmine died, which gave us the opportunity to realize that the characters were revived outside of the city, where we wanted to be. So, in sister solidarity, we committed group suicide. Yes, not the most glamorous exercise, and true to female stereotypes of suicide, two of the three ladies, myself include, chose a manner of death in which there was nothing "ugly" to clean up afterward. That being said, drowning: not a pretty way to go. The twitching? Yikes. But, by trying to drown ourselves, we realized that we could swim, which later came in handy, right before the system crashed.

Did we have a stategy? I don't think so. Sarah had a plan to follow the map, but other than that, no. And I did like a group activity that didn't center on killing as many things as possible. Thanks again for all the prepwork done for this exercise.

Chidoro · Post by **Chidoro** » July 18, 2003, 2:54 pm

Not too many Havard potentials in there ehh? It's amazing to me what passes for written communication these days

I'm surprised there wasn't any "ringers" in the class.

Adex_Xeda · Post by **Adex_Xeda** » July 18, 2003, 3:49 pm

Heh they needed a 12 year old addict to drop by class one day and tell about all the phat lewtz his lvl 50 druid has.

THAT would add insight.

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » July 18, 2003, 4:56 pm

vn_Tanc wrote:Yes when you consider that Verant essentially gave us a virtual world to fill and shape however we wished it's pretty depressing to see how it turned out.

It's also interesting how each different server is a different microcosm of culture, whose values were generally impressed upon them by the most powerful guild. It's like different countries. There is probably quite a bit of things to study about how humans behave socially by looking at EQ. This course seems like its a joke, however.

Sabek · Post by **Sabek** » July 18, 2003, 5:01 pm

I love this excerpt from the reading schedule.

May 19 + 21 Week Eight

M Gender bending and cyber-sex

Raistin · Post by **Raistin** » July 19, 2003, 12:13 am

bet anything that we all clicked on the hottest chicks and read their journals. Either that, or its a wild coincidence that you posted quotes from the same one I read

Hahah that was the first thing I did. Check to see what they looked like.

Do you know how much fun it would be to have them start this on Veeshan? Just think of their reports as in

" Some Highelf Wizard kept casting life damaging spells on my critters I was attacking for experience."

Or

" While I was a level one Hafling in Rivervail, everytime I would enter the world, I would be attacked by nurmous skeletons over and over. I could not even "camp" out to get away from it. Also during this time, I had a few messages sent to me by a Raistin who asked me "if I liked to keep getting boned?" Was he attempting to Cyber-Sex me as we were warned? Perhaps I shall send him a message next time I'm able to load in to the world and stay alive.I still have no idea about this Undead agro thing.

Kilmoll the Sexy · Post by **Kilmoll the Sexy** » July 21, 2003, 3:43 pm

Am I the only one just praying that they read one of the Sparty threads on the EQ widows site?

Deneve · Post by **Deneve** » August 4, 2003, 1:12 am

it would be great to find one of these races going on and just fuck them up, or log a wizzy and offer to give them rides wherever they needed to go, either that or just train them all constantly so they can't get anywhere