Aarinfel is closing - an other great role-play MUD goes down, and the politics of fighting over the players start. The original group of immortals are long since spread to other projects, at least two other MUDs in the process of being built have old Aarinfel administrators, at one time Dragon Realms administrators and players, a third MUD has Dragon Realms administrators and builders, as well as Aarinfel builders in the administrator staff, and the present administrator staff are building a new game. Aarinfel will not be closed until the new game is opened.
The world of MUDs is fluid, fluctuating, some good stories surface then fade out, with different levels of passion. I have played Eigar the male gay elf for two years.. the game has existed for not quite three years... some people claim they have been playing Aarinfel for up to four years, that's a slight (but interesting) exaggeration, unless they were the original staff of administrators. This intensity of the role-play, the feeling of ownership and the rush of creativity triggered by a good role-play area is both the attraction of the games and the reason they fall apart. Administrating a game isn't easy, and games like Aarinfel, Dragon Realms, World's End and The Infinite Point are run not by a professional and well-paid staff, but by normal people with a hobby, dealing with the hordes of eager creative players who all have their idea of what a great MUD would be.
I will wander on, I guess, to look for new games... I don't feel as homeless this time as when Dragon Realms closed and my female elf assassin fled the Realms with her human husband, priest of the Lord of Illusion and Delusion. Once the dissertation is done, I will try to look into games like Anarchy online or join Mark and Rob from Lu'Tamohr on Everquest, where Mark is supposed to be leading a clan.
Being Mark's clanmate would be fun, I played opposed to him on Dragon Realms... impersonated the character of one of his allies once and almost managed to get his clan (or hers, he was playing Tyrin, the Dreadmistress!) to go to war against their strongest allies. Sadly, real life interfered and they didn't have time for a war in the middle of exams.
Thursday, May 31, 2001
Time to start a new chapter. In between the end of the last chapter (Friday) and the beginning of the new, I have written an article in Norwegian for the online magazine Localmotives. I don't know if that will be accepted yet, but I sent it off to the editor, and all I can do is start a new chapter and then see what happens. I might actually get paid for this: it's been years since I got paid for something which got published. I can't claim I am not getting paid for writing, after all, that's what I do. I get paid for each day, and what I am supposed to do is gather information, analyze it and write about the conclusions I come to. I hope that's what I am doing, as well...
Wednesday, May 30, 2001
HOMO LUDENS
a norwegian article about the playing human, and how play is absolutely necessary for achievement.
a norwegian article about the playing human, and how play is absolutely necessary for achievement.
The Life of Games
interesting journal - they cover games in general, not just the limited area of computer games.
interesting journal - they cover games in general, not just the limited area of computer games.
What's in your Name? - Demonstration Analysis
and while I am playing with the internett - this is what this site said about my first name:
Torill
The name of Torill creates a restless, creative nature that takes you into many ventures, but does not allow you to see things through to a satisfactory completion. Yours is a versatile, musical, artistic, but independent nature and you must have the freedom to express your creative ideas and abilities to be happy. An urge for independence causes dissatisfaction and frustration in close relationships and you find the "ties that bind" restricting. The qualities of this name would find a more constructive outlet in work that involves high-pressure selling or promotional activities, possibly in community affairs, for it contains a positive, driving power. It is difficult for you to merge with others; although you have quickness of mind, you lack tolerance and can give way to impatience at another's slowness or shortcomings. If you cannot complete your plans when you wish to do so, you could suffer intense moods of depression and extreme sensitivity in the region of the solar plexus, resulting possibly in ulcers or nervous disorders. This name could take you into bitter experiences through impulsive action. You need more stability to find peace of mind, relaxation and happiness in life.
and while I am playing with the internett - this is what this site said about my first name:
Torill
The name of Torill creates a restless, creative nature that takes you into many ventures, but does not allow you to see things through to a satisfactory completion. Yours is a versatile, musical, artistic, but independent nature and you must have the freedom to express your creative ideas and abilities to be happy. An urge for independence causes dissatisfaction and frustration in close relationships and you find the "ties that bind" restricting. The qualities of this name would find a more constructive outlet in work that involves high-pressure selling or promotional activities, possibly in community affairs, for it contains a positive, driving power. It is difficult for you to merge with others; although you have quickness of mind, you lack tolerance and can give way to impatience at another's slowness or shortcomings. If you cannot complete your plans when you wish to do so, you could suffer intense moods of depression and extreme sensitivity in the region of the solar plexus, resulting possibly in ulcers or nervous disorders. This name could take you into bitter experiences through impulsive action. You need more stability to find peace of mind, relaxation and happiness in life.
Jeg fikk en sammenhengende rekke av ulike tips og hint på veien ut til Sotra og tilbake igjen, og all den edder og galde han klarte å spy ut om alt og alle gjorde at jeg til slutt ikke klarte å si et ord. Han klarte å lamme meg med snakket sitt, og det eneste jeg klarte å gjøre, var å sette opp en sur mine og la være å svare. Det igjen førte til at han, da jeg hadde parkert, ga meg kraftig kjeft for å være overlegen og bedre enn alle andre før han smelte igjen døren og gikk hjem. Her hadde han altså brukt to timer på å servere flere negative tanker enn jeg har tenkt i løpet av det siste året, brukt opp to timer av mitt liv til noe som kun opptok ham, og så blir jeg sittende igjen som idioten? Det ER en urettferdig verden.
Reading SvenHope.com is the closest I get to following a soap opera. Yesterday's diary contained this little piece of wisdom. For the non-norwegian speakers, it describes how a person with a negative attitude can spew out more nastiness and generally negative opinions in two hours than even the pretty imaginative Sven Hope could think in a year, and still leaving Sven as the idiot and offender in the conversation. The last line says: "It's an unfair world." I know how he feels.
Reading SvenHope.com is the closest I get to following a soap opera. Yesterday's diary contained this little piece of wisdom. For the non-norwegian speakers, it describes how a person with a negative attitude can spew out more nastiness and generally negative opinions in two hours than even the pretty imaginative Sven Hope could think in a year, and still leaving Sven as the idiot and offender in the conversation. The last line says: "It's an unfair world." I know how he feels.
Tuesday, May 29, 2001
brittle-bones by Mark Strickling is being renewed and redone. I loved his site before, and I am really looking forwards to see what he's up to now!
Monday, May 28, 2001
me myself and i
this is sakura's blogspot, a young lady corrupted and seduced by me into the land of blogging. Now how to make certain she stays hooked...
this is sakura's blogspot, a young lady corrupted and seduced by me into the land of blogging. Now how to make certain she stays hooked...
Friday, May 25, 2001
DancingPaul.com: I can dance if I want to!
Laughing, laughing really hard and while playing around with the figure
Much as I adore Blogger and think it deserves the webby-award, Paul here, the sharpest competitor, really knows how to make a woman laugh!
Laughing, laughing really hard and while playing around with the figure
Much as I adore Blogger and think it deserves the webby-award, Paul here, the sharpest competitor, really knows how to make a woman laugh!
I think I only need to write three more chapters. But I keep coming up with titles for new ones, like: "The serial quality of computer games: the do-it-yourself-soap-opera" or "painful endings: how never-ending stories end". I guess I should hang on to those, and plan papers from them - after all, I should be able to profit from my expertize and degree for quite a while afterwards!
Thursday, May 24, 2001
Some quotes which have to do with online interaction and role-play... somehow... but which I didn't put to use in the chapter I just finished... (yes, you read finished!)
Dramatic realisation; "For if the individual's activity is to become significant to others, he must mobilize his activity so that it will express during the interaction what he wishes to convey." (Goffman 1959:30)
Thus, when the individual presents himself before others, his performance will tend to incorporate and exemplify the officially accredited values of the society, more so, in fact, than does his behaviour as a whole. (Goffman 1959:35)
Such considerations about power, discourse, and domination have been the province of social theorists. The experience of the internet, that most ephemeral of objects, has made these considerations more concrete. Of course, people have known for decades that each time they place an order from a mail-order catalogue or contribute to a political cause, they are adding information to a database. ... But people are isolated in their reflections about their electronic personae. On the Internet, such matters are more likely to find a collective voice. (Turkle 1995:249)
Dramatic realisation; "For if the individual's activity is to become significant to others, he must mobilize his activity so that it will express during the interaction what he wishes to convey." (Goffman 1959:30)
Thus, when the individual presents himself before others, his performance will tend to incorporate and exemplify the officially accredited values of the society, more so, in fact, than does his behaviour as a whole. (Goffman 1959:35)
Such considerations about power, discourse, and domination have been the province of social theorists. The experience of the internet, that most ephemeral of objects, has made these considerations more concrete. Of course, people have known for decades that each time they place an order from a mail-order catalogue or contribute to a political cause, they are adding information to a database. ... But people are isolated in their reflections about their electronic personae. On the Internet, such matters are more likely to find a collective voice. (Turkle 1995:249)
Wednesday, May 23, 2001
MUD-Dev-L (949 of 971): [MUD-Dev] New Yorker Article
A really good article about Ultima Online for those who know how important games are!
A really good article about Ultima Online for those who know how important games are!
I found this piece of advice to King Haakon the 7th of Norway in Goffman's The Presentation of self in Everyday Life, page 68:
Posonby, in giving advice to the King of Norway, gives voice to the same theory:
One night King Haakon told me of his difficulties in face of the republican leanings of the opposition and how careful in consequence he had to be in all he did and said. He intended, he said, to go as much as possible among the people, and thought it would be popular if, instead of going in a motot car, he and Queen Maud were to use the tramways.
I told him frankly that I thought this would be a great mistake as familiarity bred contempt. As a naval officer he would know that the captain of a ship never had his meals with the other officers, but remained quite aloof. This was, of course, to stop any familiarity with them. I told him he must get up on the pedestal and remain there. He could then step off occasionally and no harm would be done. The people didn't want a King with which they could hob-nob, but something like the Delphic oracle. The Monarchy was really the creation of every individual's brain. Every man liked to think what he would do, if he was King. People invested the Monarch with every conceivable virtue and talent. They were bound therefore to be disappointed if they saw him going about like an ordinary man in the street.
I look at this, and almost feel a little annoyed in behalf of Haakon. The way people remember him, he lived the role of king-on-a-pedestal to perfection. But his son, his grandson and most certainly the young crown Prince live the way Haakon wanted to. What Ponsonby probably never knew was that
1) Norwegian sailing traditions include a huge fleet of small fishing vessels. Aboard them there's no such thing as "distance". A norwegian sailor trusts the captain he knows, and if he knows his father, his uncles, his wife, his children and his brothers and sisters as well as cousins to the third degree, he trusts him even more. Familiarity in this country breeds tolerance and trust, rather than contempt.
2) Norwegians don't want to imagine themselves as different. They want to be safely similar, not because they are all feeling drab, but because this is a wide country where people lived isolated for long periods of time, and only the feeling that we are the same with the same needs and ambitions is what could counter this isolation.
In short, Norwegians need different types of performances. Haakon's son, Olav, knew how to do that, perfectly, firmly anchoring the King as a man of the people - just a special man of the people - which I think was the move of a genius actor.
Posonby, in giving advice to the King of Norway, gives voice to the same theory:
One night King Haakon told me of his difficulties in face of the republican leanings of the opposition and how careful in consequence he had to be in all he did and said. He intended, he said, to go as much as possible among the people, and thought it would be popular if, instead of going in a motot car, he and Queen Maud were to use the tramways.
I told him frankly that I thought this would be a great mistake as familiarity bred contempt. As a naval officer he would know that the captain of a ship never had his meals with the other officers, but remained quite aloof. This was, of course, to stop any familiarity with them. I told him he must get up on the pedestal and remain there. He could then step off occasionally and no harm would be done. The people didn't want a King with which they could hob-nob, but something like the Delphic oracle. The Monarchy was really the creation of every individual's brain. Every man liked to think what he would do, if he was King. People invested the Monarch with every conceivable virtue and talent. They were bound therefore to be disappointed if they saw him going about like an ordinary man in the street.
I look at this, and almost feel a little annoyed in behalf of Haakon. The way people remember him, he lived the role of king-on-a-pedestal to perfection. But his son, his grandson and most certainly the young crown Prince live the way Haakon wanted to. What Ponsonby probably never knew was that
1) Norwegian sailing traditions include a huge fleet of small fishing vessels. Aboard them there's no such thing as "distance". A norwegian sailor trusts the captain he knows, and if he knows his father, his uncles, his wife, his children and his brothers and sisters as well as cousins to the third degree, he trusts him even more. Familiarity in this country breeds tolerance and trust, rather than contempt.
2) Norwegians don't want to imagine themselves as different. They want to be safely similar, not because they are all feeling drab, but because this is a wide country where people lived isolated for long periods of time, and only the feeling that we are the same with the same needs and ambitions is what could counter this isolation.
In short, Norwegians need different types of performances. Haakon's son, Olav, knew how to do that, perfectly, firmly anchoring the King as a man of the people - just a special man of the people - which I think was the move of a genius actor.
Tuesday, May 22, 2001
It's artbaby! art! Art on the internet. One stop for the coolest online art. Art for the new generation.
And let's see if old ladies like me might be of the new generation.
And let's see if old ladies like me might be of the new generation.
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