Hi All, I'm Tony Bowes from Australia.
I've been playing video games for 30 years and it has been a large part of my life, as has computers in general as I am a contract programmer and systems administrator. During the mid 90's I was an admin for
QGL, one of the largest LANs in Australia that attracted 500 gamers for a weekend. I then went on to be an admin for
AusGamers, an orgainsation running national LANs…
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Added by Tony Bowes on November 25, 2008 at 6:50pm —
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I'm very pleased indeed to announce that James Portnow will be our first senior fellow who's also an "industry insider." Formerly of Activision, James is the CCO and founder of Divide by Zero Games. He is a prominent industry journalist and has been a regular columnist with Edge and Game Career Guide. He is a noted industry and academic speaker, having spoken at events ranging from the Penny Arcade Expo, to AGDC, to Meaningful Play and at Universities from U Penn to MSU to…
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Added by Roger Travis on November 24, 2008 at 12:12pm —
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I noticed events do not state what time zone they will occur at. Given the hour, I'm assuming 11pm EST. Additionally, I am not seeing GamerTag info which we'll need to set up meetings on XBL.
My GamerTag is TFBnat.
Which brings me to my introduction. My name is Nat Loh. I've been working in the games industry for around 5 years, mostly at a studio called Toys For Bob located in Marin County, California. In 2005, Toys For Bob was purchased by Activision, who in 2008 merged…
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Added by nat.loh on November 21, 2008 at 3:04am —
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In our last featured discussion, Geza Eder brought up some very important possible objections to the rosy picture some of us want to paint of games in education. It seemed to make sense to start a fresh discussion on this topic, so I've done so. :D
Have at it!
Added by Roger Travis on November 19, 2008 at 11:48am —
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Over on the
wiki, there's a page for planning multiplayer gaming. It would be wonderful to get some regular gaming sessions going--I'm proposing some Burnout on XBox Live for this Thursday, but please add whatever you want to the list of candidate games.
My plan is to propose a session for each Thursday at 11 Eastern, starting with Burnout. Of course I can only propose games I have, so everyone should feel free…
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Added by Roger Travis on November 18, 2008 at 7:01am —
6 Comments
One thing that's been really wonderful about the ramping up of VGHVI is that I've heard from a lot of people who are interested in the same issues we are at VGHVI and who are approaching the central topics in different but very complementary ways. In that spirit, I want to point everyone here to
Values@Play, one of the most exciting projects of what tends to go by the name of the Serious Games Movement. A lot of the questions we debate here are going…
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Added by Roger Travis on November 17, 2008 at 6:42pm —
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We've had a week of publicity, and I've got a new title out of it: "The Occasionally Baffling"! (Thanks, Maggie! :D)
Here we are. . .
in the
UConn Advance;
on
Kotaku;
and on our own Michael Abbott's…
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Added by Roger Travis on November 16, 2008 at 8:30am —
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I thought it might make sense to see if we could hit a big issue head-on: I've started a thread in the forum on the subject "What's the best argument against those who say video games are destroying society?" Feel free to take the topic in any direction you want, including arguing for some version of the thesis "Well, actually, they are destroying society, albeit in the following complex and nuanced way."
Added by Roger Travis on November 15, 2008 at 8:00am —
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Thursdays at 9:15 Eastern Time or so, some of the fellows get together on the Landroval server in
The Lord of the Rings Online. If you're at all interested in MMO's and are available at that time, I heartily encourage you to start up a
free trial and check it out. Jeff Howard and I are the usuals, and Michael Abbott (the brainygamer) comes when he can.
Post in the comments with questions and/or interest!
Added by Roger Travis on November 13, 2008 at 9:30am —
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Hello, I am Jason and I have been a beta tester for the new expansion of Wrath of the Lich King as well as Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3. It turns out being able to decipher the algorithms involving rare spawns gives you appreciation from Blizzard. At any rate, I shall be writing a full detailed paper as well as blog posts on some more interesting parallels of the games. For instance, in Wrath, players are challenged, depending on their faction, to either charge or defend an Acropolis. Ancient Siege…
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Added by Jason on November 12, 2008 at 5:46pm —
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. . . could be the best way to keep VGHVI members in touch with one another's work, and perhaps even with each others' gaming schedules. I just had the bright idea of subscribing to it in my newsreader--searching on "vghvi" brought it up. If you're like me, at this point one more subscription won't mean any additional clutter, so go ahead and subscribe to the feed!
More importantly, I urge you to put a note on this blog when you've got something going on that intersects with VGHVI's…
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Added by Roger Travis on November 11, 2008 at 7:00am —
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Over the past week, I've been playing
Fallout 3 and
Gears of War 2. Of course, both of these games are different, and with that fact in mind, I have two different observations. Before I delve into those, I noticed that both developers' mentioned that each game is the "player's." The
Fallout 3 team says, "it's your game, so play it the way you want." Cliffy B. says, "We wanted the gameplay experience to feel like a summer blockbuster where you, the gamer, are the star."…
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Added by Matthew Teutsch on November 10, 2008 at 9:03pm —
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A very hearty welcome to those who are coming in on the second wave!
Two things to think about:
1) Mike Young has had the brilliant idea of a series of machinima dialogues (in World of Warcraft and, perhaps, other game worlds) that will both introduce the initiative and demonstrate its potential. Ideas for topics of conversation, as well as offers of assistance in the creation of the machinima, are very welcome! (Mike, do you want to post the script on the wiki,…
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Added by Roger Travis on November 10, 2008 at 11:30am —
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In getting familiar with Jeff Howard's work, a Senior Fellow here at the VGHVI, it occurred to me to ask about Quests and how they end. After the labarynthine struggle for a Quest, what do you get when you get to the goal? Often, anti-climax. Sometimes just a text congratulations, sometimes a boss that has some high quality drops, but usually nothing to equate with the hours of getting through the maze itself. Could it be the questing itself is fun and rewarding?
If so, this is…
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Added by Michael Young on November 6, 2008 at 10:00am —
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James Portnow of Divide by Zero Games joins VGHVI
Introductions and Event time? Gamertags?
Wrath of the Lich King
Two Items That Have Struck Me Recently
Anti-climax
