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3847_WoW character

Posted by choi! on Sunday, January 30, 2011 , LABELS: | comments (0)




A Blood Elf Priest.

From a gameplay standpoint, I choose a priest for the character class. In a ROLE-PLAYING game, people play in groups and each person has a specific job to cover in order for the group to overcome challenges presented to them, in World of Warcraft's case surviving and beating down on wave upon wave of monsters and other uglies. WoW's (and any other RPG to date since Dungeons & Dragons) group dynamic has 3 major roles. Tank, the guy who keeps the group alive by directing as much damage as possible away from the group to himself. Damager, the guy who does the bulk of the damage to the enemy party. And the Healer, the guy who erases any damage sustained by the group. As a character class that works as a healer, I pick the priest because it's a big challenge to play (keeping 5 people alive and in working condition is much harder to do than it sounds), it's an important and relatively rare role (majority play as damagers for the sheer power trip of watching something crumple in pain to your 99999 damage strike), and there's a certain different feeling of accomplishment to being the one guy that everyone relies on to stay alive.

From an aesthetic standpoint, I pick female blood elf. Nope, the "I'd rather be looking at a girl's butt while playing" excuse doesn't apply here (though it would influence why I'd pick a blood elf female over, say, an undead or troll female). It's more of a chance to try and flesh out a concept character by bringing it out into an online rpg (for this character, it's a meek, naive girl trained by monks in the ways of White Magic).

That, and as one who grew up immersed in the Japanese Anime aesthetic of cutesy teenagers with big eyes, the blood elf is the only race that fits =)

2917 - Michael my WoW char

Posted by Yao on Friday, January 28, 2011 , LABELS: | comments (0)



My wow character is a female Worgen. Unlike I told in class I will play Human. Because I don't know that I can
have 10 days cataclysm trial, now I can play new race. I think to be able to change form between Human and Wolf is awesome.
Her class is a rogue, speedy and agility class. Rogue has sprint ability while worgen racial skill has another sprint. No one can run away from me with 2 sprint!!!!.

ps. Why I choose female? I always play female character but it is not because I wanna be female or something.
In this game, I must look at the back of my character right????
I just prefer looking at female butt rather than male!! hahahaha

2644_WOW_Character

Posted by Teresa on Thursday, January 27, 2011 , LABELS: | comments (0)



This is my character, she is a druid for Worgen race. Worgen is the new race in the Cataclysm, and another one is Goblin. I choose this race cuz I love the wild and handsome outside, of course their debauched aristocratic temperament attracted me. And Druids are shape-shifters with an affinity for the plant and animal kingdoms. They have three types, Balance, Feral and Restoration. They can be turned into a variety of animal forms to attack, heal or travel in the world. So I choose this amazing occupation.XD




2715_WOW_Character

Posted by karis on , LABELS: | comments (0)



my WOW character is a female Undead and she is a Mage. i think "Undead" is a cool race because they can't dead?! lol~
i choose Mage as my occupation caz i am not good at fighting but i still want my character can has so cool and  magnificent moves so i choose Mage.
and~i wanna it is a girl that can represent me ^^

2930_ World of Warcraft _ My character

Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, January 26, 2011 , LABELS: | comments (0)



I chose my WOW character to be female same as myself,and similar hair style. She is a hunter, a night elf, I like her pet "Big Cat" which is my chinese zodiac, and I think "night elf" sounds cool, also I like her weapon.
I named her "Blinglien".

mini homework

Posted by chris on , LABELS: | comments (0)



Draw comparisons between Mark Zuckberg and Steve Jobs



Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American computer scientist, software developer and philanthropist best known for creating the social networking site Facebook.he is CEO and president.


Steven Paul Jobs is an American business magnate and inventor. He is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Apple.


Both of them are the successful man in the world. They create their own business and company and get their career when they are young . however the different between Mark Z and Steve J


Mark Z is a genius programmer and he know that human need communication in the usual life even on the internet so he focuses on the social communication  that he made the platform for the people on net  which is the famous facebook.


Steven J is one of the most  creative producer in the world . what he does that is personal electronic products.such as IPHONE IPOD and IPAD. And the product that he produce always can be the most popular 
thing in the world.


Bayonetta - focus group report

Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, January 25, 2011 , LABELS: | comments (0)





The purpose of forming a game focus group is to find out the out come of a particular game. Our focus group members are Jenny, Arial, Denise, Viviane, Anita…and we’re focusing on the game-Bayonetta with 20 questions to interview.
During the discussion we’ve interviewed 8 people. These 8 people are around age 18-30. 8 of them are males, and all of them are full times student, some have a part time job.
The game seems to have a positive outcome. In general, they all enjoy this game, they know this game from internet and friends. During the discussion they all agreed the main character Bayonetta is the centre selling point of the game. Bayonetta appears to the audience that she has a fantastic body shape, fancy movement, attractive and cool. Bayonetta is very dynamic; the focus group has demonstrated that she never bored them. A great example quoted by Chris: “Her hair transforms to a wolf when she does special tricks….she looks cool in that form”. And in addition, Choi also made a comment: “when she gets necked I see it as a player reward.”
The result finalized that it is a very successful characteristic game.
Neverless the world in the game is unique. The whole environment is a godly world. The focus group thinks they’re greatly influenced by the environment and surrounding during the game play.
The group also indicated they like the style of the game a lot, including the fancy movements, environment design, background music and graphics. Quotes form Michal “I even download its background music, because it is awesome! I love it”. It became quite obvious that the graphic has reached a high standard of audience’s expectation, 8 of them gave a 10/10 for the graphic.
The game play is quite simple. Knowing what to do in the game play is easy to understand. Audiences can easily find out their missions by simple hints or notice by the NPC. They reckon there’s no need to look at the instruction booklet; instead they preferred the tutorial during game play. E.g., help page.
The interviewees have diverse opinions, some people think the buttons combinations are a lot bit complex not easy to master while some of them think it is easy to remember the controls. They all agreed that the control id vary handy and has a fast reaction during game play. It’s easy to get used to the buttons, however they reckon it is going to cost time for them to master the control and performs perfect moments on the character-Bayonetta.
The group also comment on the loading page, they liked the idea of having a trial play on the character while loading, for the purpose of getting used to the buttons, the reactions before the game starts. Michal says “it’s cool to practice”
The music has been applied in the game has also gave the audience a good taste about the game. The sound effects are excellent; the background music draws the players in even more, easy to get into playing and the character. It in includes rocky and classic style music, very unique component and interesting to experience.

However on the other hand, there are also a few suggestions in a subjective view. The focus group thinks the game should have a partner; it may not have to be a second primary character, but a guider or a helper, to allow players fight easier and have a character to corporate with, other than just Bayonette herself.
The instruction book needs to be more appealing to the player or else it can be eliminated, due to all the tutorials are already included in the game, there is no need for a paper document tutorial.
The player thinks there are too many monsters/enemies appearing all at once. It was a bit hard for the player to handle, at the same time challengeable.
Some player from the focus group also comments on Bayonetta’s personality, her movements and attitude are sometimes overacting. May offence some players in someway, however this is another subjective point that can be discussed.

HEURISTICS!

Posted by Hellray on Monday, January 24, 2011 , LABELS: , , | comments (0)





Hi there,


For the remaining two weeks of class-time, you will be researching your choice from one of two games - using heuristics.


Heuristics just means rules or techniques which have been worked out from real-world experience. Games companies now routinely use heuristic questionnaires to evaluate gameplay.


Your choices are between the following two games:


1) America's Army - http://www.americasarmy.com


2) World of Warcraft (WoW) - us.battle.net/wow/


Here are your rules of engagement:


1) You will be playing your game-choice for the remainder of term (about ten days).


2) As soon as you have created a character, you must screenshot them and submit an explanation of your character details on the blog.


3) You must play no less than ten hours of gametime (the evidence for this will be provided by submitting details of the level you reached at the end of week 12).


4) You can select between any of the three heuristics questionnaires that you are provided. You need to survey yourself and AT LEAST two others who are playing the same game as you...I recommend that you form a guild-group before you start gameplay.




WHERE ARE THE HEURISTICS QUESTIONNAIRES?
In the GOODIES box on the right of the BLOG, you'll find:
a) An excel spreadsheet with the HEP and PLAY questionnaires pre-made for you.
b) Two pdfs which have paper versions of the same
c) In the READINGS you will find the original published papers that the research teams first wrote about these questionnaires!


Have fun playing =]







2917 - Mini homework

Posted by Yao on , LABELS: | comments (0)



Bill G. vs Mark Z.

There are countless games released since microsoft create MS-DOS OS system. Games keep developing
alongside with the improvement of microsoft OS platform. From DOS to Windows 3 then Windows 95,98,... until Windows 7,
right now games on windows have incredible graphic. They are look so real. Beside, microsoft released directX which
give game developers power to create more powerful graphic. Even the game console, best gaming platform nowaday is
XBOX360 from Microsoft.

But for Mark Z. who created facebook. Games on facebook is quite simple and may can be addicted by non-hardcore gamer.
Graphics on facebook also really simple and cannot put much more contents inside it because it is web-base game.
Sociallizing from facebook game may look silly when compare to "Real" PC/Console online games.

In my opinion, facebook games are great for casual gamers who doesn't like to play more complicate games.
While PC/console games are for hardcore gamers who like to see impressive quality of graphics, novel level of storyline
and EPIC soundtrack. And hardcore gamers are the group of people who drive the developing of gaming industry nowaday.
So Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft is way moreeeee important than Mark Z.

2524_MINI HOMEWORK

Posted by Vivienne on Sunday, January 23, 2011 , LABELS: | comments (0)



Bill Gates & Mark Zuckerberg
 Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg, the boy wonder who created Facebook and currently the youngest billionaire in the world, is  the subject of a successful Hollywood biopic (The Social Network). Zuckerberg, although admitted to the renowned Harvard University, but he is a dropouts of the school computer and the Department of Psychology. Facebook can be say the most popular social nework service. It was bulit in 2004 Feb 4th by Harvard’students (Mark Zucherberg and his friends). Zucherberg been dubbed “Gates II ”in the world.According to Yahoo estimates,Facbook in the United States in 2015 will reach 52.5million registered users, 60% of students and young people will use the website, and the website will have 10billion registered users in all of the world. So all of the game company want to publish game in Facebook.Nobody will stop to play the games.

Bill Gates
Bill Gates is a chief software architect and chairman in Microsoft. Microsoft is global leaders in the personal computing and business computing software, services and internet technologies.He is also the founder of Corbis,a digital mage archiving company.Gates never desigen any games, but he provide a platform for many games to development. Follow the MS_DOS and windows be updated continually, to provide a broader platform for game companies. In 1995, Microsoft introduced the Windows 95 operating system, which is a truly epoch-making software. Allow users to get rid of the tedious boring DOS commands, so that the personal computer becomes extremely easy to use. Nowadays, Micrisoft have provided new game platform (Xbox and Xbox 360), that will be a new wave for the game world.

So we cannot say who is more important to gaming, they are all do outstanding cotribution for gaming.

2644-Mini Homework

Posted by Teresa on Saturday, January 22, 2011 , LABELS: | comments (1)



Bill Gates is a founder of Microsoft. He served as CEO and chief software architect for the Microsoft. In 1970, Bill Gates and his companions are designed computer programming language, Microsoft BASIC. It is also was based on MS-DOS operating system. Because of the emergence of this system, it led to the development of DOS games. Thus it derived a number of different computer games now. It is can be said that computer games were born from the computer program that he created. Without these epoch-making invention of the computer programming language to be created, I am afraid there are not have such a wide variety of computer games.

Mark Zuckerburg is the CEO and chairman for the well-known social networking site Facebook. He was dubbed "Gates II" in the world by people. Because when they were 19, they established a company and started their business. They also born and educated in middle-class families. They were also a Harvard dropout and the same young people to gain respect. If Microsoft is a milestone in computer programs, then FACEBOOK is the leader of the world network. Microsoft is allow people to get a better understanding of the computer and FACEBOOK is allow people to get better understand the world from computer. It reforms and promote the Development and application of the Internet. It also makes the online game increasing emphasis on user experience as well as exchanges and cooperation between people. We can be said that Mark and his predecessors Bill Gates have made great contributions on IT industry and gaming industry.

3255_who is more important to gaming, mark z or bill gates?

Posted by Ariel Chou on Tuesday, January 18, 2011 , LABELS: | comments (0)



Bill Gates:

Bill has never designed a game or not exactly like a gamer, but he and his platform has always been the strongest  supportive backing in all time. From the earliest days, Microsoft has started to support PC game and publish game, they brought out bunch of famous known game engines and publishers, also provides game developers a  platform to free their minds on creating genres and being innovative on game design.
Through these years, bill was always there point game design community a right direction and giving them encouragement, meanwhile, making continuous changes on the MS-DOS and windows operating system to adapt to the fresh needs from game industry. therefore bill with his Microsoft has never stop to contain the new technologies into the operating system and keep conquest all sorts of difficulties all together with the most of game developers.
Nowadays, console industry is amazingly developed and grown up become ever strong, bill and his company never fall behind of the evolution, they launched xbox and xbox 360 console which helped a lot of PC user or gamer to smoothly jump from PC platform to a console platform.
All along the journey, i think bill made these investigation on gaming just because of he likes game, and his recognition on the gaming history reinforced its growth, and bill with his trustworthy system could never be neglected as the most important part of gaming development history.

Mark Z:

Mark is a genius hacker and understands what people likes his age needs the most. Differ from Bill Gates, Mark has planted a social network platform on gaming industry, it seems tiny small and can be totally submerged among the whole strongly developed game industry, however, nobody ever dare to not to integrate Facebook based game in game industry, and nobody ever stop playing those games on Facebook.
Obiviously, Mark established a world wide net socialized community, the Facebook, so just the game published inside is socialized as well. instead of leaving message, publish photos or sharing information, Facebook game became another way to social and convinced people to be connected from everywhere. Because of Mark's contribution, increasingly numbers of people gets to play web-based free game, large scale of game designer comes to endeavor in the design of web-based game.
Mark is a smart guy to earn money not only from the website he creates but also from the potential of web-based game developing.

Bill Gates and  Mark Zuckerberg are all make huge impacts on gaming industry that nobody could exceed, thanks to their contribution, we can have so much fun in our daily life.

3847_mark zuckerburg vs steve jobs

Posted by choi! on Monday, January 17, 2011 , LABELS: | comments (0)



Mark Zuckerburg vs Steve Jobs

Based on what was shown in the two movies, there's certainly a good deal of similarities between the two people beyond the fact that they each own a multi-billion-dollar entity that is a household name for anyone even remotely literate with computers. The most obvious is their means of rising to their high status, precisely the drama that both movies clearly intended to highlight and showcase: dropping their closest friends and allies, especially those who supported them and were a very great help in their projects from the very beginning. Related to this is the personality change that both people undergo; from happy-go-lucky fun people who do their projects to prove something to the world, to self-centered pricks who are more than willing to step on everyone around them in order to keep their business going, starting with using someone else's ideas as their own. Admirable raw talent notwithstanding, the two movies seem to make it a moral lesson to "steal someone else's ideas instead of making your own", and "forget being a nice guy, I'm rich and famous!". The only difference between the two seems to be the targets and strength of their bad attitude. Steve Jobs is VERY nice to customers and when there's a lot of people around, but VERY offensive to co-workers when no one else is looking. Mark Zuckerburg is only mildly offensive, but he's mildly offensive to everyone.
Note, this observation is based only on the two movies. As to how much of it is truth, and how much of it is a massive exaggeration to help sell the movies, is anyone's guess.

2837-Mini Homework

Posted by Anita on , LABELS: | comments (0)



Who is more important to gaming, Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates?

Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates both are important to gaming.
In my opinion, Mark Zuckerberg is more important to gaming. Because Zuckerberg is standing on the shoulders of giants. Zuckerberg announced Facebook Platform on May 24, 2007. Facebook Platform is a development platform for programmers to create social application within Facebook. Facebook platform is a new platform in gaming. According to the statistics, as of January of 2011, there are more than 600 million active users on Facebook. Moreover, the applications ssuch as FarmVille and CityVille are very popular online games besed on facebook today. They are probably the future canon games.

I think Mark Zuckerberg is more potential and innocative to gaming in the future.

2848_mini homework

Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, January 16, 2011 , LABELS: | comments (0)



Draw comparisons between Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs

 Zuck and Jobs are both Genius and leader in the industry. Jobs was the inventor of many ideas which completely changed the computer world. Zuck did kind of same thing but in the social network part. There are so many similarity of both of them, but the most important one is their business sense. That's why they could do such a good job. They both have special personality. Zuck found the great method to deal with the social connection. Jobs has many brilliant ideas on the personal computer.
The biggest difference between them is that Jobs is good at presentation and selling ideas. But Zuck is not that good in presentation stuff, he is a more technique guy. He even rejected a meeting with Microsoft company just because the meeting is at 8am, which is too early for him to get up.- - Although I think it is a great chance for him and he wasted it, I still want to say I like him, because I can not get up that early either.

2930_Questionnaire for FarmVille

Posted by Anonymous on , LABELS: | comments (0)



2668_Jenny_MiniHW

Posted by Kanga on , LABELS: , | comments (0)



Draw comparisons between Mark Zuckerverg and Steve Jobs

Steve Z:

* Genius Coder + Hacker + Computer Geek
* Ideas inventor (social web-facebook)
* Has brilliant business ideas
*CEO of his own company
* Knows what people want/need/desire
* Invented a new platform to play games on
*Has great guts

Steve Z knows what the people need for social. Through out many issues between friendships, partnerships,  law, and money. He finally developed a social site named Facebook. 
This social web is smartly amazing. People who sign up for a facebook account (free) can access to photos, status, videos, information, even relationship status of their friends, as long as you're connected to your friend. It becomes a new platform where people play web games, including interacting with friends on friends list. You could connect/find people easily simply type in their full name or email address. You can even find your kindergarten friends as long as they've signed up for a facebook account. People are surprised how easy and magical it is.
The idea stared simply form a breaking up with his girl friend. Wanting to tell the whole world has inspired him to have this brilliant idea. Girls are the main ingredient/purpose when he first stared. Targeting on students mainly then slowly spread out to worldwide use.
Games company are crazy on making facebook game. It is a huge pooptunity for company to expend by making web game on facebook, according on the number of users on facebook:

Statistics

People on Facebook
  • More than 500 million active users
  • 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
  • Average user has 130 friends
  • People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook
Activity on Facebook
  • There are over 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages)
  • Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
  • Average user creates 90 pieces of content each month
  • More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month.
Global Reach
  • More than 70 translations available on the site
  • About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States
  • Over 300,000 users helped translate the site through the translations application
Platform
  • More than 2.5 million developers and partners from more than 190 countries build with Facebook Platform
  • People on Facebook install 20 million applications every day
  • Every month, more than 250 million people engage with Facebook on external websites
  • Since social plugins launched in April 2010, an average of 10,000 new websites integrate with Facebook every day
  • More than two million websites have integrated with Facebook, including over 80 of comScore's U.S. Top 100 websites and over half of comScore's Global Top 100 websites




Steve J:

*Genius Tech inventer
*Ideas Inventor (Macintosh- Apple)
*CEO of his own company
*Brilliant in Business
*Knows what people need/want/ desire
*Has a several inventions that allowed a great convenient for people.
* Has great guts

Steve J stars at the beginning of 1970s. He has many different brilliant ideas on the technology, especially on Personal user computers. Recently the iphone, iTouch, iPad had become extremely popular, and has beat the salls of Microsoft for the first time in 2010.
The iPhone, iPad, iTouch had developed a new platform for games as well. The iTune is now the most popular online shopping application for users.
It has games, musics, books, applications...ect.
The perfect match of iTune and apple device has provided an incredible convenience for people in society.


(So tire of typing. I ran out of my energy. I think I will stop here.)

2921_Comparisons between Mark Z and Steve Job

Posted by Yao on , LABELS: | comments (0)




2715_Mini HomeWork

Posted by karis on , LABELS: | comments (0)



Who is more important to gaming Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates?

Mark Zuckerberg, a young man who has a great ambition, is the CEO and president of the facetious social network site Facebook.
He is a clever software developer and website programmer.

Facebook is launched in February 2004 that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. As of January 2011, Facebook has more than 600 million active users.[1]

There are many free games in Facebook like Farm Vile that has over 62 million active users and over 24.6 million Facebook application fans as of September 2010.

Bill Gates created the famous software Microsoft Windows.
As of October 2009, Windows had approximately 91% of the market share of the Client operating systems for usage on the Internet [2]
For Microsoft, Xbox is the represent product in game industry.
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft .

Foe me, i think Mark Zuckerberg is more important than Bill Gates.
Mark Zuckerberg offers a much more large developing space for the game industry. The selling point of Facebook is "free". It attract many user to use the website and that also means it attract many user to play the games on the website.
Farm Vile gets a lot of potential to become a future Canon Game.
Facebook offer a big platform for more games and there will be more future Canon game would be found on the website by themillion users. You just need to click into the website and you can play those games.
Compare with Xbox, Microsoft, there are not many people can support the expensive console and the expensive games. However, you can't compare the animation and images of the game version as a point between Xbox and Facebook.
In my opinion, both Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates are important for the game industry. If there're not computer that connivence for people, games can't be developed well. Games have a big part related to computer. That gets a big part of attributing to Bill Gates.
But for the future, Mark Zuckerberg offers a more large space for the new game which can still developing by the game company. Those small games inspire more other games to be the best.
Reference:
[1] Facebook,Wikipedia,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook
[2] Microsoft Windows, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows

3004_ Who is more important to gaming Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates?

Posted by Yao on , LABELS: | comments (0)



Bill Gates is an American entrepreneur, software engineer, philanthropist and chairman of Microsoft. He and Paul Allen founded Microsoft Corporation and he has been CEO and chief software architect in Microsoft.
Microsoft are global leaders in the personal computing and business computing in software, services and internet technologies. For game industry Microsoft is definitely very important.
Microsoft has created Xbox 360 game console, the handheld Zune media player, and the television-based Internet appliance MSN TV. Microsoft also offers computer hardware including mouse, keyboards, and various game controllers such as joysticks and gamepads.


Mark Zuckerberg is founder of U.S. social networking website Facebook, who had been called "Gates II" in the world. Facebook is a platform which allows user can easy to find friends, communicate with people and make new friend. In facebook, user can play facebook game with friends. Facebook has been publish many famous game such as, Farmville which has millions users.

Overall, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are all very important in game industry. In my opinion, Bill Gates who created Microsoft is more important for gaming. Because Microsoft involves more game area compare with Facebook which just offer online mini games Microsoft creates many game and also sell hardware which are necessary for gaming.

2930_ Who is more important to gaming Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates?

Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, January 15, 2011 , LABELS: | comments (0)



Who is more important to gaming Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates?
Mark Zuckerberg, founder, CEO, and president of the social networking site Facebook. There is a lot of applications, one of categories is “game applications”. It allows user play many different types of games with their friends. Facebook has more than 600 million users.The mos popular game application on Facebook is FarmVillion, it has over 62 million users.

Bill Gates, founder, chairman of Microsoft. Their softwares dominate the PC operating system. Microsoft, the company that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services related to computing. In 2002, they released XBOX which is video game console. Xbox 360 sold more than 50 million worldwide

From above we can see Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and their companies are all very important in game industry. But personally, I think Bill gates is more important to gaming, first, his company developer XBOX and many games. Second, most of the games(here we are talking about computer game and video game) in the world use computer or related devices to play. So Microsoft in this part has greater contributed. And you also need computing devices to entry Facebook. Therefore I think Bill Gates and his company is more important in gaming, but we can’t deny Facebook is powerful platform for gaming.

3097_cannon_Game_streetfigther

Posted by Yao on Friday, January 14, 2011 , LABELS: | comments (0)


CanonGame_Myst_2848

Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, January 13, 2011 , LABELS: | comments (0)





Before I start to talk about the game, I really want to ask a question, how can I find 135 in this compass?
It seems that I was so silly to ask such a question when I know the answer, it should be not that hard. But, actually, I spent more than 40 minuets to find out the answer, I just don’t know why I cant get it during the game. And, every time I pressed the wrong button, the room became totally dark so I can not fix it by pressing all of buttons, what I can do is load again and go back to the start of the island.
So during solving this puzzle, I was thinking, on what earth can this game be the best selling game for such a long time?
Actually, this is just 1 of many times I stuck in the game, so I want to tell the story from the beginning.
To me, the puzzle started from I choose this game for this assignment. I chose the game that I never heard before (or not cool enough for me to remember it). So Myst, Umm, a graphic adventure video game, released on September 24, 1993. btw, I was 3 three years old. So I started to think, It should be either ugly but fun, same as Mario, or ugly and ugly not fun. But to my surprise, it was kind of famous for its beautiful graphic. So why not give it a try?
So I started to try to install it, I suddenly found that it might be the most complicated install process I ever met. I download Myst, win3, Dosbox, Qtime, Et400. I didn’t know what the Et400 is. I didn’t follow the instruction at first. I installed the Myst directly in my vista system. What I can say now might be just it worth a try. I failed and started work on the Dosbox stuff, after reading the text on blog, I could start to install the win3, but I failed again. So I asked teacher for help and after painfully tried and tried and tried, we finally installed it correctly, with nice graphic and “nice” sound. It took me about 1 week on installation, I felt that, oh my god, I solved the puzzle and got the biggest reward in the puzzle game, the happiness when you solved a problem, though I didn’t do it by myself. And I thought, the puzzle in the game might not even as hard as the process of installing.
I started to play it. It started with a video, a man told something to me, which is hard for me to understand with the sound which is not clear. But I didn’t want to listen to it again, so I just went into the book and started the game.
What I saw is the very “famous” beginning picture of the Main island. To be honestly, I didn’t think the graphic is that good as many commons said. But then I realized that it’s a game released in 1993, the Super Mario’s time for me. At that time, Mario was just 20 color dots?! So the pre-render 3d picture was actually amazing. Then I figured out the way I play the game is just using mouse to point and click. That is a child game mode, click a picture and it will change to another picture, “A child would turn the page, click on items on each page, and those items would react in certain ways”(http://www.nowgamer.com/features/224/the-making-of-myst?o=0#listing). I walked around the island and try to be used to the method I walk, but actually, it was pain for me sometime, especially in the part that in front of the library, I totally lost several times, I guess that happened because when mouse turn to point left or right, it will turn 90 degrees or 180degrees(depends on where you are). Anyway, after that, I tried to figure out what I should do. According to the game experience I had, I thought at least I should beat some monsters, or talk to some npc and then I can know my task. But I was wrong, there is no clue at all. The only thing I can found is just 1 paper with handwriting font words. But that didn’t help me a lot. I was still so confused. But I started to find out that the main building is the library, because in other buildings what I could do is just 1 stuff, but I can do many stuff in the library. So I went into the library. In the shelf I found some books I can read, so that should tell me something. I read 1 of them quickly, it is kind of a diary. I didn’t want to read all of it. So I quitted the shelf, I turn to the map. But I didn’t figure out I can do something with the map. I suddenly found that I can click on 1 picture and then the shelf turned into a secret door. I went into it and found an elevator. I went up and found nothing. Then I got stuck. I had no idea what I should go and what I should do. And because the game is not that cool enough to make me want to solve the puzzle by myself, so I went find some walkthrough strategy. After that, I got the idea that what I should do. I knew the basic part of the world. I needed to find some code and go to another world. Followed the game strategy, I tried to go the stoneship age.(Because the room is just near the library) I changed the map, got the date, went to astronomical room and finally got three pictures of some constellation. But how can I know the meaning of every picture. I tried to ignore the strategy and press the button by myself. I failed. The leaves symbol is easy but the other 2 were crazy. The snake symbol could be every button. So I turned to strategy again. Btw, the fountain area made me lost again and again. I can not even tell which button I just went to. Finally I got to the stoneship age.
That is very first feeling about the game, actually, after I got to the new world, I started to feel a bit fun but I didn’t realize it I think. Now I have a new word to explore. The strategy I found is just a simple one, it just motioned a little about the generator on the top of the lighthouse. I found a key in the light house and a locked box in the bottom of the house(if I get rid of the water in the house by using the pump). The question is the key was tied on the ground and I can not take box. Suddenly I found a switch on the box, I clicked it and water came out, so I thought I found the key to this puzzle. So excited for me and I went back to the pump and fill the water in to the house, I wished the box will float up. But I failed. I thought my method is right. So I tried and tried, repeat many times, the box still stick at the bottom. That nearly made me crazy because I thought I was right. And then, during 1 more try, I suddenly found that I need to switch off the box and then it could store air and float up. Oh my god. Finally got the key inside of the box. When I’m typing now, I’d like to say it is a good detail and good puzzle. Back to game, I got access to the generator. I rotate several times and then I went to the scope and got the code 135. Then I got into the cave hole and started deal with the compass staff what I mentioned in the beginning. Because every time I pressed the wrong button, I should go back to the start of the island, so this part took me long time. I even went to search some image on google about compass. 1 thing I need to mention is that I did realize that the sound in the game is quite good and realistic. When I was outside, I could hear wind blows or water from the sea, that’s normal but realistic. Compared to Mario bros that time, it could not be described by just great or amazing. But when I got into the cave, I felt it’s more than that. In the dark cave, I can hear my footstep with echo, and if I called that is scary, then the alarm(if I pressed the wrong button, there came out the alarm) should be holy scary. That is one of the reason I stuck in this place, it made me feel I really got dazzled and can not get out.
About sound, I have to talk the selentic age. The entry puzzle is kind of testing player’s music skill, if I want to pass, I need to know how the tone high exactly and remember it, which is an impossible-mission for me. So after trying half an hour with helping of iphone’s recording software, I failed and gave up.
Then I went to the Mechanical Age, I don’t want to talk about the puzzle part though I liked it very much, may be because I finished most of the puzzle without hint from the strategy which make me feel great. The story is shown through many details in this world. I found the 2 sons’ room. 1 is the elder brother’s, it is well decorated and in the secret room of it, I can find many gold there, which imply that he is a men controlled by money. Another room is really dirty and filled with weapon which imply that the little son is cruel. In the box in his secret room, I could even find some bloody dead body. I read the story after the whole game, and then I realized though there is no detail story from the game, but player still could find and guess the whole story, which make the game fun enough.
After this section, I passed the last one and finished the game. It has 4 ends, 3 bad one and 1 good one.

I should give 1 paper to the “dad”, and if I give him red or blue(his sons’ paper), player will be trapped in the book, that’s the bad end. If I give him the white paper, he will be released and it’s the good end.
As we all known, Rand Miller is the father of Myst, and what funny is, he performed the dad and little son in the final video, and his brother performed the elder brother. Btw, he’s also the father of this game species.

So in summery, there are several reasons I think make it as a canon game. The graphics, the sound, the puzzles, the story, which I have mentioned before, but there is 1 more thing, it is the 1st game released by cd. It helped a lot in storing the images and sound, that’s why It can beat Mario easily in graphic or sound effect. It ever changed the way we present games. Last but not least, as the 1st one of the adventure and puzzle game, it might seems so poor nowadays, and the puzzle might really makes many people mad, but if you understand and get into it, you will like it.







2848_Kyle

farmville and cityville_2995_Jie

Posted by Jiechen on , LABELS: | comments (0)



I just know these two online game this semester. I have playing them for two weeks. now I gonna talking about my feeling.


common ground

two game are all developed by Zynga.
they all realtime simulation game.
the two games are all developed for profit.



they are all have a system that use real cash exchange to virtual cash.
in farmville called farm cash and in the cityville called city cash.
these cash are very important, they can used in many place such as
bulid architecture, buy new decorations, skip some process to achieve goal and unlock ability.
they are so important that make people to buy the cash.

they are social community game that mean they encourge player invite friends and classmate in facebook as neibourhood. more neibourhood can be level up more quickly. so this is also a way to promotion.

what's different?



cityville's system is more complex.
farmville focus on farm such as feed animl and harvest plant in the field.
cityville need to build many kinds of building such as shop road community and house.
you need to care your people's happiness level, population and achievement that mean
you are manage a city.

2837-The Comparison of FarmVille and CityVille

Posted by Anita on Wednesday, January 12, 2011 , LABELS: , , | comments (0)



SIMILITIES

FarmVille and CityVille are all free online games which are developed and published by Zynga. They are all a browser based simulation games and aviable as an application on the social-networking website Facebook. They are all very simple and easy game. They have beautiful graphics.

DIFFERENCES

FarmVille is a game where you can farm with your friends. The game allows members of Facebook to manage a virtual farm by plowing land, planting, growing and harvesting virtual crops, harvesting trees and bushes, and by raising livestock.

CityVille allows Facebook members to become the mayor of a virtual city and to oversee its development into a large metropolis. Players can perform tasks, which include farming, construction, and tax collection in their city using energy points. The amount of energy available increases as the user gains in experience levels. The energy points are replenished automatically at a constant rate.

PLAY EXPERIENCE

FarmVille and CityVille become so popular because these games are very interesting. I feel relax and have a lot of fun when I play these games. In my opinion, I am more interested in the CityVille. Because CityVille has more beautiful interface than FarmVille. The sound effect and background music is beautiful. Although sometimes I think the background is anoying, I can close it. This is vevy nice.

3255_Ariel_Cityville

Posted by Ariel Chou on , LABELS: | comments (0)



 Cityville is a construction and management simulation (CMS) genre game, it is web-based and requires the interactions between single player and multiple player, therefore, facebook seems to be the best social platform to provide a solid social network and evolve social relationship in the virtual world.


Cityville game derives from Simcity series, instead of  play in solo, Cityville bring in the grand feature of social interaction inside of the game. Back to the SimCity Classic era, it was the first and foremost touchstone of CMS game in the history, and the design rules they been used are still can be found in the game like Cityville. Despite the common feature of construction, demolition and economic simulation design, Cityville discard of disaster and maintenance design, instead put in social relationship and human resources into game design. From this point view, people who like social work is more likely tended to help each other, gift each other and immerse in the influences that a  strong social network brings. the other awesome features are all learned from the SimCity later series, such as the transactions between money and resources, watch the virtual live people build up house or walking on the street.

 Cityville are so popular, because instead of spending penny on a game you can use your friends to push your game level up and can still get a lot of features that can keep you away get bored. Also the graphic design and interface design are just dazzling the player eyes, very intuitive and vivid style has always attract players to spend time on that and watch the payback of their efforts. Plus zynga company has had a lot of experiment versions of other simulation game,  they understand what is the best pattern to make player happy, and they are smart enough to introduce Cityville game via Farmville game by stand a huge banner on the side of farm and saying Welcome to Cityville. therefore in my point of view Cityville is the most successful simulation version among all.

  People who like play Cityville is on a  wide age range, most of them are VIP facebooker, some of them are only play for friends, but what they all like is the interactions happens by only few clicks and the game would never take long to complete a period of goals.


2802_CityVill

Posted by chris on Monday, January 10, 2011 , LABELS: , | comments (0)



CityVille is a casual online game which related with facebook.`Its owner is the young company Zynga which founded in 2007.There are lots of other funny game be designed and produced.Such as the cafe world, fish ville ,farmville and treasure Isle.

City Ville was release on December 2, 2010 .Genres of the game are City-building,construction and management simulation. The original game of Cityville is the canon game,Simcity.On its first day there are 290,000 players attracted the game. After 12days later, the number of the players become 26 million and a mouth later there are already 70 million players in the game. It creates awesome achievement in a short time.

Why is so popular?I think there are couple of reasons.
First,Huge Zynga user-base that allow them to push players to new game with no additional cost.Free or lower cost always can catch people,especially on the Internet.

Second,extremely well designed user experience. It's just a compilation of the best patterns from all their previous games like Farmville, Frontierville and treasure isle.
It keep the similar control that makes the player easy to play,

Third,the awesome graphics in the game, looks good and cute that attach  player attention .

Fouth,there are a lot tasks to do compared to farmville and TI howerver in my opinion, it's not easy to get bored.That is why I am still on 9 levels

Fifth, the game is related with facebook that it get a huge number of the user as a resource.

Sixth there is still no any other strong competitors to compete with Cityville on the internet.

Overview Cityville is a good casual game to play for relax in our busy work time.

2524_Framville &Cityville

Posted by Vivienne on , LABELS: | comments (0)



2524_Framville&Cityville




Facebook can be regarded as the most popular social nework service throughout the world. It was bulit on Feb 4th 2004 by Harvard’students (Mark Zucherberg and his friends).It is the first website where you can share your pictures with your friends,and everyday there are 8,500,000 pictures being upload.

Now facebook has beaten Myspace to became the first largest social network software in the world.You can share your interests , such as music,games and shows, in your profile.I like games in the facebook.

In my game list of facebook there are FarmVille,CityVille , Cupcake Corner and so on.,but I do not play them often.FarmVille and CityVille are developed by Zynga. Most games of this game company are web games,and are published in Facebook and Myspace. In the FarmVille ,you can plant vegetablesfruitstrees and you can use your harvester and combine. Also, you can allocate your equipments and stuff to any place you want. There is an avatar, and you can design the clothes for her. Besides, you can choose the eyes, mouth, and hair style. My avatar has big blue eyes, and wears a penguin clothes. As the level goes up, your farm zone will become bigger and bigger. When your level become 20, you can get a job. You can visit and help your friends’ farms. Meanwhile, you can complete up to 5 actions per visit.You can fertilize for your friends’ farms.Until 2010 March, there are 80,000,000 person playing the game.

Compared with the farmville, I prefer cityville, which was pubished in 2010 Dec 2rd. There were 290,000 person playing it when the game on_line in the first 24 hours. When the game on_line in 8 days, the number of total players were 6,000,000. The numbers had transcends FarmVille’s number.And Cityville became the faster development game in all of the games developed by Zynga company. I played a game named SimCity before. It was a famous game and was desigened in1989. Cityville was desigened on the base of SimCity, but models became very cute. In CityVille, the main task is to building houses and streets. The system will guide the player to finish all of the operation. Players just use mouse that can finish all tasks. Timer is useful and can limit player's actions in a certain period of time. In the game, different plants have different growth cycles. When players harvest crop, he will get XP, coin, goods sets or engry. XP, goods and coin are important for players.When plyers collect enough XP,they will level up. Building houses or shops needs players to spend different amount of energy. The maximum energy is 30, and every 5 mins restore 1 energy. There is a special setting that is gate. For example, if you want to build a police, the system will tell you ”Community Buildings need to be staffed with employees.Hire your friends to work in your Police.” If you want to finish this, you need to pay cash or help from your friend. This default setting increases interactions among friends to some extent, so players will invite more friends into this game. The task trees will ask players to finish some tasks, like to build a coffee shop. When the task has been finished, the system will provide some prizes. I like daily bonus which means that when you log into the game every day you will get some amount of coins. And if you help your friends’ city that will get energy, coines and hearts.


For the two games, you can share the messages such as your level up or need some help on the wall. And you can “wall publishing” to show your messages. The notifications can show who leave messages for you. But the terrible thing is that you will get the spam for the requests. Besides, You can send many different gifts to your friends.

Farmville and Cityville are the two most famous games on facebook..They both have amazing numbers of players.I like those two games, but I think cityville are more possessed of comprehensive and entertainment than Farmville.

2890 - CityVille

Posted by Sherlock on , LABELS: | comments (0)



CityVille is a webpage based online game produced by Zynga, the same company which produced farmwille. It was realeasd on November 2010. It is the most popular web game at present. The game is ralated with Facebook so it has a very convinent channel of getting players. It attracts 2.9 millon players on the very first day of releasing,  in 12 days, the number grows to 26 millon and the players reach a peak of 70 millon in a mouth. It is an amazing achievement in game history.

I think the game is popular because it's really interactive with other players. The players can become neighbours with their frinds on facebook. You can visit your frinds city and do some thing to it.
Playing this game makes the player feel they can control the world, they look their city in god's view and have to be responsible for their citizens. Players have to build more housees and shops. And players also need to take care of their neighbours situation.

CityVille is from the classic game SimCity. Zynga is the company that made this game, they made a lot of great browser-based games. The one before CItyVille is FarmVille. Farmville used to be the number 1 popular game until Cityville released. They are hoping to ern money from these "free" web games.

The main compectitor is FarmVilly and a lots games all over the internet.

2668_FarmVille

Posted by Kanga on , LABELS: | comments (0)



FarmVille is a web based game developed by Zynga.
Through out a personal experiencing of the game,
I was slowly getting over it once I hit Lv 13.
It's not because it is a bad game or anything...
but this type of game just doesn't suit my taste,
it doesn't interest me.
Harvest fruits, plants, veges, animals and gain FarmVille gold makes the player enjoy doing,
feels like they're actually gaining something from the game by spending sometime planting and harvesting..
in order to get better in the game, the player either be rich in real-life and purchase gold,
or you can invite as many friends as you could and gain easy gold simply just by visiting their farm and gain exp.
The only way to be awesome in the game without spending cash is to invite billions of friends.
To me it's like spreading a disease all over the world like the movie" 28 days after". People who has being "sucked" or bitten will transform to a zombie playing the same thing over and over again.
harvesting...watering...fertilizing...sending item gifts...receiving gifts...send a gift back....purchasing plants, seeds....wait...harvesting...watering....fertilizing...sending items...receiving gifts...send a gift back....purchasing plants, seeds...wait.....Over and Over again.

FarmVill may had the right intention to the people who loves playing web game. Providing a land and allows the player to build up their own world starting from scratch does make a big difference.
It is a lot more competitive, challenging.... and of course,  it takes a lot of time to do that,
therefore the player is even more proud of themselves when they view/reviews the world they've built. 

I understand the basic concept of social networking.
Engaging the game with friends from facebook friend list,
interacting with each other, communicating by sending invitations, gifts, and leaving messages.
by playing it daily levels you up and allows the player to be competitive with friends.
(to show and proves yourself). It also involves confidence in the game,
people who may not be awesome in real-life maybe super awesome in social web games,
spreading the news of your farm has got bigger, and making heaps of money in farmville. 
this brings them a little more confident to people and makes them enjoy spending time in real time web game. This doesn't only apply to farmville, may also apply to other online web games as well.
FarmVille then becomes a little virtual Farm world that provides a second entertainment life for people.  People who enjoy building up their little virtual world and to be competitive may enjoy this type of game a lot.

I, personally don't like the fact that I could only gain some particular items by asking friends (without spending real cash). If there was another way to gain something by doing some quests would make it more fun. Clciking friend's requests and invites is annoying me A LOT. At the same time I don't want to send any invites or requests to any of my friends, simply because ME, MYSELF & I hate those endless requests so much. If you really do count how many invites I get per day, I would say I will need to click my mouse for more than 1000 times a day just by replying those annoying requests. Even my mouse is complaining by being clicked so many times.  So I guess I'm one of those who has anti-various blood and will not be transform to a zombie in 28 days after.
Maybe I could save the world by sharing my blood sample : p

The graphic is actually not bad, could be better. In fact I was paying a lot of attention on the graphics,
I did one of a facebook game icon assets before as well, pretty hard. so i assume they've spent a lot of time on the graphic, especially when there are a huge number of types of items in the game.

The population of FarmVille is super amazing. I now know how powerful social networking is.
No wonder all the companies is trying to develop a good game to be played on facebook by spending a huge amount of money.


Same Idea to Cityville, Fishbowl, RestaurantCity...ect.
some of the graphics or game might be better than the other,
but all of them have the same intention of making profit by spreading the disease. And I totally understand the powerfulness of game industry. If I was the one who's wanting to make loads of money by making games, i would probably to the same and be super successful in web game.