Golublog: An Anthropology Blog

Just. One. Column.

Category: games, mmogs, etc.

21 Feb 2006

Yeah Civ IV Music!

by Alex

I admit: like everyone else who plays Civ IV I am in love with “the opening track”:http://sushi-delight.blogspot.com/2005/11/baba-yetu.html composed by “Chris Tin”:http://christophertin.com/biography.html and performed by “Talisman”:http://www.stanfordtalisman.com/html/frames.htm. Sure, in a post-Graceland, post-Lion King world this sort of thing sounds derivative, and Talisman’s website has loud music playing by default. But “just listen to it”:http://christophertin.com/samples/BabaYetu.mp3 (link to MP3)! I think Civ IV is one of the best-designed games EVER, and the entire thing oozes with classy, thoughtful presentation. While the soundtrack concept owes something to EU II, it avoids being a ‘greatest hits’ soundtrack (with the exception of the Allegri Miserere) and features John Adams in the modern period. That’s classy. Also the game has managed to jettison most of the ugly racist unilinear evolution evident in earler incarnations, and the opening sequence is heavy on the optimistic hope of global progress and low on blood and gore quotient. And there are, afaik, no Hot Coffee sequences squirrled away in any of the wonder movies. Way to go Sid — and especially way to go Chris Tin and Talisman!

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25 Oct 2005

Civilization Anonymous

by Alex

While I have managed to aboid preordering Civilization IV, I know that not everyone is as strong as I am. And I think that this is a good tome to remind people that if they have had a hard time dealing with Civilization in past, “there is help”:http://www.civanon.org/home.shtml. Don’t be afraid to reach out.

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07 Mar 2005

All Hail Lord Vader

by Alex

Super geeky but also stirs my fancy somehow: The 203rd Tatooine Expeditionary Stormtrooper Legion in Star Wars Galaxies has been so well organized that the game developers rewarded them with “a visit from Darth Vader himself”:http://www.corpnews.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=40594 — follow the link to see screen captures of Vader encouraging the troops. “The Emporer Knows Your Loyalty!”

There’s something going on here about fantasy and fandom in MMOGs that is interesting — instead of playing Just Another Elf you get to play Just Another Elf who has been cool enough to meet Legolas (or any other named character from the stories that a fandom is based on). I would talk about it more, but I must Work On The Dissertation instead. Bah Humbug.

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14 Feb 2005

James Grimmelmann on law and virtual worlds

by Alex

An IRC homie of mine recomends “Virtual Worlds as Comparative Law”:http://www.nyls.edu/pdfs/v49n1p147-184.pdf by “James Grimmelmann”:http://www.laboratorium.net/, whose blog shows him to be, indeed, worthy of IRC-homie-reccomendationdem.

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08 Feb 2005

The Everquest Reader

by Alex

It had to happen: The Everquest Reader is in the works, by Edward Wesp and Eric Hayot (CV here). Hayot has also been blogging at Printculture on all manner of things, including Freedom, Leverage, and Outlaws in Video Games. The site is powered using Nucleus CMS, which I hadn’t heard of before. Printculture is a pretty sight, but the fact that you can’t search for entries by authors is a pain — I wonder whether it was Nucleus or Printculture that saw fit not to include it.

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23 Jan 2005

Correction to Virtual Worlds Syllabus

by Alex

In an earlier version of my Anthropology of Virtual Worlds syllabus I incorrectly attributed the pieces “bow, nigger” and “possessing Barbie” to Jim Rossignol when they were in fact by always_black, who runs the the website (wait for it) alwaysblack.com. Sorry for the confusion, AB. It’s a good site and if you haven’t yet read Bow, nigger you should definitely check it out.

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15 Jan 2005

Virtual Worlds Syllabus

by Alex

Unfortunately I will not be able to each my course on the anthropology of virtual worlds at HPU this quarter. It was underenrolled — mostly due to the fact, I believe, that the administration decided to schedule it at noon, right during lunch. *sigh*. On the one hand, this means I don’t get to have the opportunity to be the second person in the nation to teach a course specifically on virtual worlds. On the other hand, this means a lot more time for other projects such as the dissertation.

One good thing to come of this is that I do have a syllabus which will hopefully be helpful for others. As you can see it’s not entirely finished — there are a few swaths of vague readings, but the basic outline is there. Take a look if you’re interested.

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14 Jan 2005

Journal of Computer Mediated Communication

by Alex

I’m probably The Last One On The Block To Hear About This, but The Journal of Computer Mediated Communication has tons of interesting stuff like The Social Affordances of the Internet for Networked Invidualism. The current issue has a few articles on virtual communities too.

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13 Jan 2005

Jill’s Ph.D. available!

by Alex

Huzzah! Jill’s Dissertation (note: link to ginormous PDF) is now online (link broken atm try in a bit) for all to download and page through. In a perfect world I’d start reading it right away. Thanks for making this available, Jill!

1 comment
11 Jan 2005

Armchair Arcade

by Alex

Armchair Arcade: a journal on retrogaming. Truly good stuff for those of you looking to level up your knowledge of intelligent, non-academic writing about video games.

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