Zon: Chinese language learning MMO

 Posted by (Visited 12205 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: , , ,
Jun 042008
 

This is cool: an MMO devoted to language learning via full immersion.

Welcome to Zon! | Enter Zon

Zon is an unique interactive massively multiplayer online role playing game for learning Mandarin Chinese.

By interacting in the Zon environment you will be exposed to Chinese language and cultural knowledge in a new and exciting way. Everything that you do in the game is another chance to learn new words, phrases and cultural info about China. Never before has learning Chinese been more fun.

Not at all the first time this has been tried, of course; at SOE we supported a few college campuses that were doing full-immersion language learning via EQ2, for example.

Building the human algorithm

 Posted by (Visited 8738 times)  Misc  Tagged with: ,
Jun 042008
 

Some academics (including Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, author of the excellent Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means) have been doing analysis of human movements based on where people are making cell phone calls from.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Mobile phones expose human habits

The results showed that most people’s movements follow a precise mathematical relationship – known as a power law.

“That was the first surprise,” he told BBC News.

Is it really a surprise anymore when something happens to have a power-law distribution?

In any case, it does seem like we are inching ever closer to Asimov’s psychohistory. Given enough data, why wouldn’t we be able to build predictive algorithms for large-scale human populations and social trends?

Lila Dreams: a very cool concept

 Posted by (Visited 7411 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: , ,
May 302008
 

Lila Dreams – Home

What the heck is Lila Dreams? It’s a massively multiplayer online game where you become a mental entity (called a “memekin”) and live out an adventurous life inside an 11 year-old girl’s psyche.

They also have a blog with interviews and the like; looks like it’s in Flash and will be on Kongregate. Based on the concept art, I’m betting it is a side view game…

Here we go again: Harrison Says Single-Player Games Are Doomed

 Posted by (Visited 7234 times)  Game talk  Tagged with:
May 292008
 

It’s Phil Harrison’s turn to get beat up, and PCWorld begins the process.

Of course, in the process, they beat up on me a little bit too, saying that I only advocate multiplayer for the money in it, or something. 😉

For those just joining this particular multiplayer game, you may want to read these older posts of mine:


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