3 Jan 2006
Storytelling in Videogames
A conference panel I put together about 5 years ago. The featured speaker was Scott Adams, the creator of the first commercial computer game sold for home PCs. The full audio of the 2-hr panel is available for download, and a full transcript is available as well.
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/mt/mt-tb.cgi/4973
Do you have a link to this download? OR am I missing something?
Posted by: Stephan Puff at January 2, 2006 11:26 PMWhoops, my bad. It's fixed.
Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz at January 2, 2006 11:36 PMWhen clicking the link, it takes me to your other site. And it won't let me click anything. I can click things on the right, but I can find where to click for the download.
Ahhh, I feel so overcome with problems, it's probably this virus overrun computer though...maybe not...bah! haha
Do you see a table of contents with five items? You should be able to click on the name of each section, or the icons (a page with text on it and a speaker) for the text and audio downloads.
It seems to work just fine for me.
Wow, I still can't click it. when I try to it just highlights the text on whole page(eventually). Maybe the version of Internet Explorer is too old on this computer?
Posted by: Stephan Puff at January 3, 2006 11:33 AMHuh. Try clicking on these links.
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/adams/intro.html
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/adams/scottspeaks.html
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/adams/qanda1.html
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/adams/qanda2.html
Well I can at least read it. Thank you for your patience.
Posted by: Stephan Puff at January 3, 2006 02:39 PMNo problem -- I'm happy to help!
Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz at January 3, 2006 02:47 PMI know this is a bit late to post about this topic, but I found it interesting what Adams was saying about violence in video games/movies today. It struck a bit of a chord with me. I agree with his statement about movies, "I don’t need those sort of images burned into my head." But, I don't know if it applies to video games as much.
Posted by: Leslie Rodriguez at January 5, 2006 01:19 PMOne of the arguments against violence in video games is that the player can choose to do violent actions, and that some games reward those violent actions.
Adams has elsewhere said that he would never role-play an evil character, though the thousands of devils, Darth Vaders and Jasons running around on Halloween obviously disagree.
Of course, some people oppose Halloween for a very similar reason, so the simple fact that lots of people celebrate Halloween does not negate the concerns of those who fear the potential negative impact of violence in video games.
Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz at January 5, 2006 03:19 PMThe role-play does not have to be so evil though. Shakespeare often wrote about the British celebration of "Carnival." The rich would act poor and the poor would get to act rich. Role-play is a common human desire, the real danger is not moderating that role-play and letting it overwhelm a sense of self. If children are allowed to constantly play someone they are not, I agree they might later have a weaker self identity in other aspects of life.
Posted by: Stephan Puff at January 9, 2006 12:18 AMThat's a good point. The meaning of the word "subversive" means "turned upsidedown," and that's exactly what happens -- but keeping it within the confines of a temporary festival keeps disruptive forces in check.
Still, even the local church nativity play need someone to play the bad guy, King Herod. Just like a painter needs a lot of shadow in order to create the illusion of bright light, good characters need serious evil threats to overcome -- and in MMORGs, it's probably a simpler matter to have real human players control evil characters, rather than leave it all to AI.
Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz at January 9, 2006 01:21 PM