Lamar's Blog Post #5

Game designers are responsible for the morality of their games. I have said this to people because designers develop games online that involve big controversy, wrong choices, and a bad habit of ethics for users. Users sometimes find themselves in a wrong situation that has to deal with domestic violence, virtual stealing, and mayhem. A bad moral choice doesn't pop up in the virtual world every day of the week, but there are certain days when strange users loose their mind online. In Second Life, users go out and play mini games in a world that involves shooting, looting, and fighting. Online users think they are making the right choices, but they can harm people online without even knowing it. You can even go in a world and commit destruction by entering a code that drives other users crazy. Hacking into the system can cause servers to crash online. Critics have been going against the bad morality of games for a long time. The developers who have designed games like Ever Quest, should prevent avatars from harming friendly online users for good. It's not like we are all online criminals even though we make bad choices that end up in a massacre. Speaking of bad choices, it is not hard to put in a string of code to stop avatars from committing such destruction in the virtual world. I would also suggest that online users write letters to the developers to have a discussion on this issue because the programmers and designers choose to make games that force users to do good deeds and bad deeds to others. On the other hand, designers develop games that force most users to do great thinks like aiding health, killing monsters, and discovering other important areas in virtual reality. People have done some great things in the past by accessing new areas, getting rid of enemies, and socializing with their online friends.

A game can dictate the moral choices of its players within the virtual space because the players are forced to do good things that have consequences and they are forced to do bad things that have consequences as well. Mr. Bungle was considered to be a psycho online, but the students were with him. They gave him suggestions and encouragement for the scenario. If players receive rewards for their actions, then that means that the moral choices they made were already designed for the game. Don't get me wrong now. Players should be judged by their actions at all times whether they are right or wrong. People just need to have fun playing their games in the future. Just don't ignore what the designers have done on certain games to make them irritating.

Lamar's Blog Post #4

Playing a certain game places an interest on what goal you want to reach out of playing a certain card game. For instance, some people want to explore the cards, decks, and instructions as well as the game itself. Some people want to socialize in the game in order to become friends with players or become enemies with them. Others are winners or achievers who want to win the game regardless of what other players do. When I was playing Guillotine with my classmates, I noticed that Dan wanted to win the game because it is so easy to play and he loved competing against us. Jesse is like a socialist because he uses strategies to gain levels or higher points and talks about what he should do next. As far as me, I am a explorer because I play card games without talking and I want to learn how to play the game instead of playing to win. Paul Peterson designed this game to take place in the French Revolution in three days. He wanted to create noble cards and action cards so that players can execute nobles by using a number of action cards. People who play this game will enjoy the concept of it because it actually makes them become addictive enough to play again and again. Addictive players will not only play to win, but will also become better at collecting higher ranked nobles every time they play.

Paul made the concept of putting people to death in order to create a game of massacre. This impacted card gamers to get engaged into a physical world of combat. It makes them feel like they go to steal other action cards. Paul also creates the situation of "interested realism". I am saying that the game is based on real events from the French Revolution. So, players want to experience the role of chopping of a head or setting nobles up for execution. They can have fun doing this and it can influence them to create their own card games. Paul wanted to put humor in to the game to just make it more interesting. That's why I played this game again on the break on Wensday. I noticed that Anastasia took the two cards from the other classmate in order to execute those nobles. I believe revenge plays a big part in Guillotine. The game was designed to convince players to execute nobles and use revenge in order to get as many points as they want to become a master of some sort.

Lamar's Blog Post #3

Cheating in the virtual world is different than the real world. In the real world, a certain card game can be appropriate at times to cheat in order to win the game. Particular card games like munchkin, set the standard for cheating to reach a goal. When we played this game together as a group, Jesse pulled other players cards so he could have winning cards in his hands. In this way, he played it smart. Jesse played the game by out doing other opponents in a good manner. Now using cheating strategies to out do others in card games are appropriate only if those card games allow players to cheat. Communication is an effective tool in the real world of card games if you want to learn how to cheat. You have to play it smart without getting caught by someone. But in the virtual world, cheating is not good to do most of the time. This can make online multiplayer games frustrating and prevent other subscribers from playing the games for good. Some games get shutdown just for cheating. Some say that hardcore gamers have too much fun and take it too far online. In Everquest, guilds may have the same player with multiple accounts just for that one guild. All of a sudden, you start noticing that this one player can go from level 3 to level 40 in one month. Now you start saying to yourself, how in the world did this guy crush me and my group the whole time. People don't even realize what is going on with online cheating. Gameplay changes online when this happens but it can stop only if there are casual players out there. Hardcore gamers play not only to win, but to get to different levels. I think that there should be a high amount of casual players online with a lower amount of hardcore gamers because the hardcore gamers can take the fun away from using multiple guilds. It is still good to be a hardcore gamer. You just have to get to higher levels and help others out. Cheating in a virtual environment is serious than cheating in a multiplayer game that is appropriate. For the the online multiplayers, you can put everything in one jar. This is true because players can hurt their group members in their guilds to betray others. It seems wierd to do this, but people have to understand what they are doing online sometimes. Multiplayer gaming in the real world that involves cheating is fun and recommended. You can create good tricks to get to higher levels without dying. Obviously, the whole object of the game is to reach the maximum level or power from the cards. Online gaming can have cheating for hardcore gamers but it only lets the selfish players take away the fun in the virtual world.

Lamar's Blog Post #2

After playing Clue, I thought that the game did have some good benefits. The game had benefits such as finding out who is lying, moving to different rooms, and using strategy to find out who killed the victim. I haven't played Clue in a long time because me and my parents were too busy doing other chores around the house. The game is fun and it helps you to solve problems just like a real detective. This type of game involves being alert, aggressive, and intelligent to some degree in the game. You can even use process of elimination to narrow your search down to one weapon, one building, and one suspect in Clue. There are some things that are not good about the game. One disadvantage is that Clue does not have enough weapons for all of the rooms. Even though the game has a small number of weapons for the rooms, you should have more weapons for this board game. I am bringing this problem up because we couldn't find out who had the knife card. This made the game complicated on Wensday. Another disadvantage for the game is that there were no set of cards to help you along at the end of the game. I understand that you have to make an accusation and then pull the solution cards from the envelope, but players start to get confused when they can't find the victim towards the end of the game. On the second round of clue, we spent like 20 minutes playing the game. One player didn't find out who was the suspect until the last minute. I can make the game better by making process of elimination cards for the suspects. This will make the game go by a little faster than before. It shouldn't go by too fast but, Clue can get complicated at times and you can get the cards mixed up sometimes. Just like I said before, I would create more weapons so that every player would be able to compete against each other instead of having one player winning every single game of Clue. I would add in another rule that says to put all of the cards that were shown to the opponent during an accusation in a disposal box. For this way, nobody won't have to worry about cheating. Cheating in Clue disobeys the rules and most of the people I played with have cheated before. After adding these items and rules in Clue, I would just make the board and the game pieces in different colors. Overall, playing clue gave me and my partners a learning experience on Wensday.