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MMORPG
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
It is often assumed that the problem with virtual reality' – the concept, its various technological deployments and the apparently oxymoronic phrase itself – has been our understanding, or perhaps misunderstanding, of the virtual. The real problem, however, is not with the virtual; it is with the real itself. This article investigates the undeniably useful but ultimately mistaken and somewhat misguided concept of the real that has been routinely operationalized in investigations of new media technology. The specific point of contact for the examination is the avatar. What is at issue here is not the complicated structures and articulations of avatar identity but the assumed real thing' that is said to be its ultimate cause and referent. In addressing this subject, the article considers three theories of the real, extending from Platonism to the recent innovations of Slavoj Žižek and investigates their effect on our understanding of computer-generated experience and social interaction.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
A longitudinal design was employed to collect three waves of survey data over a 14 month period from 2790 online gamers. Respondents were asked questions about their gaming activity, motivations, personality, social and emotional environment, and the effect gaming has had on their lives. Prospective analysis was used to establish causal and temporal linkages among the repeatedly measured factors. While the data provide some indication that a player's reasons for playing do influence the development of problematic usage, these effects are overshadowed by the central importance of self-regulation in managing both the timing and amount of play. An individual's level of self-regulatory activity is shown to be very important in allowing them to avoid negative outcomes like problematic use. The role of depression is also discussed. With responsible use, online gaming appears to be a healthy recreational activity that provides millions of people with hours of social entertainment and adaptive diversion. However, failure to manage play behavior can lead to feelings of dependency.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Because of the huge potential profit, the development of virtual items in massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs) has lately begun receiving attention. As a successful means for developing new products, the quality function deployment (QFD) has been widely used in devising virtual items. In traditional QFD, information about the customers' needs and their priorities can be gained through some marketing methods. However, these approaches heavily rely on the subjective results and cannot identify the demands of each customer because of bewildering amount of information. Thus, we adopt the genetic chaotic neural network (GCNN) technique to identify each customer's needs and their priorities and propose the enhanced qualify function deployment (EQFD). However, in most of the existing literature, the equations to describe chaos dynamics are fixed and rigid corresponding to different nonlinear dynamic systems. In fact, for many chaotic systems in applications, it is often difficult to obtain accurate and faithful mathematical models, regarding their physically complex structures and hidden parameters. Therefore, GCNN is proposed in this paper, where GA is embedded into the chaotic neural network to generate and refine the equations of chaotic systems. By experimenting our methods with several benchmark methods, the proposed GCNN is found to demonstrate a clear advantage over other identifying methods, and EQFD is proven to be a feasible technique for developing the virtual items in MMORPGs.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Scalability is a critical issue for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG). To address the scalability drawbacks of current central server model, we present a scenario to support MMORPG through Pastry, a structured peer-to-peer overlay. In order to closely reflect an advanced MMORPG configuration, the scenario considers bandwidth and latency constraints required by the games based on actual MMORPG traffic pattern. A simulation model is developed to evaluate the performance of Pastry in supporting such a scenario. Results show that Pastry performs well in distributing node stress. However, there is a bottleneck in terms of upstream bandwidth usage, which can be removed by low-cost algorithms. Results also show that using Scribe multicast tree built on top of Pastry to disseminate game traffic is an effective way to save bandwidth usage. In addition, Scribe multicast tree scales well in supporting the scenario with respect to the tree length. When a tree size increases five times, the length of the tree only increases less than two levels.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
We believe that Internet and computing technology have reached the stage where online games can offer an experience that is qualitatively different to what has gone before. To test how exposure to modern games could be of benefit to players, we recruited 12 subjects to play the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) "Nobunaga no Yabou Online", collecting data over two months. We evaluated subjects before and after playing, using psychological tests and tests of communication skill, typing skill and knowledge of the Internet and of online games. While the psychological tests showed no significant changes in the subjects' state of mind, there were measurable improvements in online communication skill, typing skill and knowledge, with the largest increases experienced by the subjects with least Internet experience.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
We have evaluated a game called Garden of Earthly Delights (or GED) with a paper prototype and players. GED is a concept for the extension of conventional Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) mechanics to integrate pervasive, mobile, and location-based play. A pervasive game can be defined as "a game that is always present, available to the player. These games can be location sensitive and use several different media to convey the game experience" [1]. GED is played both on PC and mobile latforms. This poster summarizes the main findings from the evaluations and compares the paper prototype testing method with focus group discussions.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
We are interested in the problem of understanding the connections between human activities and the content of textual information generated in regard to those activities. Firstly, we define and motivate this problem as an important part in making sense of various life events. Secondly, we introduce the domain of massive online collaborative environments, specifically online virtual worlds, where people meet, exchange messages, and perform actions as a rich data source for such an analysis. Finally, we outline three experimental tasks and show how statistical language modeling and text clustering techniques may allow us to explore those connections successfully.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Massively multiplayer role-playing gaming (MMORPG) has become a very popular entertainment in Asia. Along with the success of the massively multiplayer role-playing gaming industry in Asia, online gaming-related crimes have grown at an amazing rate. Most of the criminal cases are related to virtual properties since markets have developed for the virtual properties giving them real world values. There has been little research and resulting technologies for MMORPG virtual property protection. In order to reduce the crimes and protect online gaming systems, one potential solution is protecting the virtual properties in online gaming systems. In this paper, we propose a virtual property management language to meter the use of virtual property. The language provides a framework for managing the use of virtual properties and recording the history of transactions to trace the life of virtual properties.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Research has argued that social interaction is a primary driving force for gamers to continue to play Massive Multiple Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs). However, one recent study argues that gamers don't really socialize with other players but play alone. Part of the confusion over whether players socialize much and/or enjoy socializing while playing MMORPGs may be due to the lack of a conceptual framework that adequately articulates what is meant by 'social interaction in MMORPGs to understand how users experience interactions within the game. This study utilized ethnography to map out social interaction within the game World of Warcraft. It provides a broad framework of the factors affecting social interaction. The framework developed can be further verified and modified for future research.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
In the Game Studies field, the study of MMORPG’s have been approached by four mayor research traditions: social aspects tradition, individual player issues, narratological themes and ludological themes. Although these are not mutually exclusive, focusing in one or two aspects of MMORPG’s usually means omitting elements of other themes. One fundamental theme that has been usually ommited is that of the essential characteristics, or ontology, of the online beings that inhabit MMORPGs. This paper focuses on this aspect, by providing a practical example of how, by applying a theoretical model that has at its vertex the Ontology of MMORPG Being, all the other themes and levels of analysis can be taken into account in one single theoretical framework.
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