Writing

Stuff that I have written.

GTA cartoon idea needed…!

 Posted by (Visited 11821 times)  Game talk, Writing
Oct 242004
 

Sorry for the lack of updates–I was on the road all week.

I am up to chapter 11 (of 12) in the edits and rewrites. The copy editor has made it up through chapter two. I expect that we’ll have finished all the edits by the end of this week. I’ve updated the excerpt page with the new text, which hopefully reads exactly the same only shorter. I also put a table of contents on there.

It’s amazing how much editing can tighten up text. The downside is that I have been cramming a lot into the endnotes. They are getting rather long. Hopefully that won’t be a problem, but I guess we’ll see! So far, the endnotes range from discussing Laban’s notation system for dance to describing the effects of dopamine on the frontal cortex to a careful description of the gameplay in Defender.

My first CD, After the Flood, has been re-issued with a new bonus track–or rather, an old track that we didn’t include on the MP3.com edition because of space. The new edition also includes a lyric sheet in the booklet. You can hear little snippet samples on the website there too.

I’m having to redo one cartoon because we want to avoid any hassles with trademarks. If anyone has any ideas what would make a good cartoon to represent Grand Theft Auto, let me know. 🙂

Oh, and before I forget… signing up for the newsletter will let you get notified when stuff goes up on the store.







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Grimwell discussions

 Posted by (Visited 9853 times)  Game talk, Writing
Oct 172004
 

Over on Grimwell.com there’s a discussion about the book and some of its ideas. Some quotes:

AFFA:

Learning is fun. But so is doing–so is applying knowledge. I continue to play games (and enjoy them) after I’ve learned everything there is to know about them.

In fact, the only games that I stopped enjoying due to knowledge (or familiarity) were the ones I worked on. In those cases, I think testing the game 100 hours a week for 6 months in debug mode at .004 fps was the most important factor, not my insider knowledge.

Edit: Actually, I partly take this back. I’ve stopped playing new games, not because of my knowledge of that game, but because of my knowledge of the genre. I knew after only an hour or two of play that this game would not offer anything I hadn’t already seen before.

This still doesn’t explain why I’d re-play Planescape or Deus Ex ten times or more, even if I was taking the same path through the game and had read every guide and walkthrough… Gaining knowledge is only part of my motivation.

Darniaq:

I know for myself, Learning is the end and all of “fun” in these games. I enjoy the fighting and socializing, but when I quit a game, it is always because I feel like I’ve learned everything I’ve wanted to. This doesn’t mean I know everything, nor that I’m all that good at what I do know. It simply means I’ve looked ahead and see nothing more available to do but apply what I already know.

Unfortunately, that means for me Learning has a built in warranty.

In a player skill game, that’s not as big a problem. I can learn everything I need to know in an FPS or RTS shooter fairly quickly. But to become good at applying that learning requires manual practice.

Not so much in MMORPGs though. The need for me to respond faster hasn’t always grown as much as my need to respond smarter. Which is that warranty.

geldonyetich:

I’ve been kicking around the idea of a game that is about learning. Albeit this may have been because of long hours studying math books thinking, “There’s gotta be a less boring way to learn math than this!” Yes, I know there’s math games already, but they’re generally geared towards kids or the fun trappings are removed.

It’s got me thinking, if we could combine a first rate education with the addictive mechanics of a MMORPG, we’d have a lot more brilliant people walking around.

Castle in the air or realistic goal?

AFFA:

Learning isn’t the core fun for me. It’s a factor, but not the biggest one. I’d put at least two things far higher than Learning:

Winning
Belonging

I’m always up for a game of Tetris, even if I can’t “learn” anything from the game or improve my nearing-middle-age reflexes any further. Why? It’s fun. And I might “win,” even if I’m playing against myself.

Is just hanging out with friends fun? How about going to a concert? I don’t learn much, especially if I drink… But I have more fun than any game can provide. This is Belonging and closer to the core of most on-line games than Learning.

And I usually get Bartle typed as ESA or EAS. If I, as an “explorer” don’t place Learning first, who does? I enjoy figuring out the game, but I wouldn’t consider it my primary motive.

If learning is the core, how come it’s so hard to make educational games “sticky”?

If you’re interested in joining the discussion, head on over..

I turned in two chapters of edits, plus the first two chapters of endnotes late last night (VERY late). It’s amazing how much tighter you can get your text if you work at it! The endnotes are something that a lot of advance readers have asked for, so I am going back through my research to put them together. It’s been fun, because I keep finding things I forgot to mention. I haven’t settled with the editor whether or not the endnotes will take this form in the book, but if not, I’ll toss them up on the website.

In other news, I think I need to get real blog software. I installed the one that came with the web hosting, and I am not impressed… I can’t get it to point to a page other than the index, and I can’t customize it as I would like, either.

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Final edits

 Posted by (Visited 22710 times)  Game talk, Writing
Oct 152004
 

Today Stratics.com ran a little blurb for the book. They said it was a “sure-to-be-great book.” Hmm. I better get back to rewrites.

I hooked up the little Amazon.com thingy so you can order the book through here.

I mentioned before we’re in final edits… I got back a ton of edits from the publisher, the editor, and also from some friends who are reviewing the book for me (Thanks, Dave!). So that’s what I am doing all weekend…

A Theory of Fun website launched!

 Posted by (Visited 10844 times)  Game talk, Writing
Oct 142004
 

Well, I’ve gotten a web host, I’ve gotten a domain name, and I am halfway through making the website. The old-fashioned way: coding HTML by hand. Horrible, isn’t it? But at least it’s forcing me to keep it simple!

I sent a copy of the manuscript to Cory Doctorow, he of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and of course, BoingBoing. He said some very nice things about it on the blog, and BAM! the book pre-sales rank on Amazon went from somewhere in the vicinity of 2,844,936th to somewhere in the 400’s. It’s slipping back down now, but that’s made me catch the promotion bug!

I am going to try to keep this blog updated semi-regularly with status of the book, emails or reviews or whatever that get written about it, and maybe that way those who are interested can follow the progress of the book from final edits through to when they get it in their hands.

Apr 142003
 

If you are here today, odds are it is because of reading this.

Revisiting the Garden of Remembrance

A few years back, I wrote that some of the events from the Ultima Online days were going to get seized up by the playerbase and turned into some of the formative myths of cyberspace. I never expected that one of the things that people would seize on most fervently was A Story About a Tree. In the end, sadly, it has turned out that like most myths, it has a kernel of truth circles by layers of fiction and wishes.

A few weeks ago, I started trading emails with Tracy Spaight, a documentary filmmaker who was researching Karyn’s story. He came to the conclusion that it was a hoax, and you can read about his investigations in his article for Salon.com..

How do I feel about this? To be honest, very much like I felt at the time that the events in A Story About a Tree took place. Stages of disbelief, anger, and sorrow, the all-too-familiar pop-psych litany.

Right now, as I write this, members of the LegendMUD community are going through the same stages, a few weeks behind me, as they learn for the first time of this deception.

Here’s the thing, though: we come back to myths not because they are true, but because they are True. So I am going to state this as bluntly as I can: I am not ashamed about having been taken in. Frankly, it’s not the first time, and I am sure it won’t be the last. But I would much rather be willing to approach other people online without endless layers of hardened cynicism, than to have to live a life online always skeptical of others’ intentions.

To me, the heart of the story still stands: that the bonds we form with others online are real. Realer, it seems, than the people themselves, sometimes. The crux of the matter is that real or not, Karyn is lost to us. And to me, that fact will always be deserving of a Garden of Remembrance.