University course (partly) on ATITD: opinions and advice?

[DeathInABottle]

I'm teaching a university course on new media and social practice next semester, and gaming is one of the course's areas of focus.  The most important thing about the class is that it's practice based, which means that we're trying to do things (e.g. playing a game) first and then talk about them and their theoretical implications (e.g. the way that gaming consciously and unconsciously leads to the creation of new "worlds") later.  This is obviously a reversal from most courses, where you would posit a theory about games first and then go looking for them in the world, and I'm hoping that it promotes more honest and interesting discussion.

Thinking through the games that I've played over the years, I decided that ATITD would be the perfect game for the students to play: I can split the 50 students into groups of 10 and get them to run through the first stages of the game, becoming citizens, beginning their own communities, and maybe trying a test or two.  They'll be split into communities, so they'll be competitive, but the degree to which they decide to focus on competition rather than helping will be up to them.  Because ATITD is so focused on crafting and community building, it should be much more thought provoking than something like WoW.  And it has mechanical advantages, too: most students should have access to a machine that can run ATITD, they can play for at least 24 hours without paying, they probably won't get addicted, and they don't have to worry about survival the way that they might in a game that involves combat.

All that said, I'm not entirely sure what I'd like the students to get out of this part of the course.  It seems to me that the most important parts of gaming in general are the unconscious behaviours that only kick in after years of play (everything from the skills you pick up while playing the game to the conversations that you have online about the game), and I can't hope to simulate that in a 24 hour trial of an older MMO.  I can maybe get at the world-construction stuff, but I'm not sure that playing the game will do that much more than me just telling them about it.

So: What do you think?  If you were taking a class on new media and social practice and it had a three week section that required you to play a game in order to develop some kind of critical thinking about games or gaming or the Internet or whatever, what would you want to do in it, and what would you want to get out of it?

[Goreschach]

You actually get paid for this shit?

[DeathInABottle]

You actually get paid for this shit?

Remarkably!

(FWIW, I teach Heidegger alongside.)

[Kail]

So: What do you think?  If you were taking a class on new media and social practice and it had a three week section that required you to play a game in order to develop some kind of critical thinking about games or gaming or the Internet or whatever... (snip) what would you want to get out of it?

An english course credit, maybe.

Seriously, though, I suppose it depends on who's taking the course.  What kind of course is this, philosophy or sociology or what?  Is it for video-game-authors-in-training (e.g. comp sci students) or business majors looking for information on how to run a video game business, or what?

[Slyfeind]

ATITD is definitely a better choice for that kinda thing than something like WoW. That said, I wonder if it might be a good idea just to let them get through it, and compare the results. Essay questions, "what did we all learn from this", etc.

Comparing and contrasting communities in other games might be much more interesting. Like have them play 10 levels in WoW, reach citizenry in ATITD, and compare the experiences. Their 5 guilds in ATITD could carry over to the same 5 guilds in WoW, or they could mix them up a bit.

[Nebu]

Why not let your students chose two games to play from a list of MMO's that have a free trial? Have them write or present a comparative essay on their experiences. 

Would be interesting to see how they correlate or contrast items of interest.  Hell, it would be interesting to see what points they feel are worth bringing up.

[palmer_eldritch]

(serious question) What is a course on new media and social practice supposed to teach in general terms?

[eldaec]

Problem you are going to have is that only 24 hours in, they aren't going to able to do very much.

You should contact Teppy though, he'll probably be happy to help you get what you need out of this.

[Trippy]

Puzzle Pirates?

[Chimpy]

A professor of education at Illinois State I met at a barbecue was talking about some class he was teaching that was in EQ2. Students were guild members, it was all about mentoring/group project dynamics and such. I think Hartsman might have been involved on some level because he said he had been talking to some producer at SoE and had gotten free copies/subs for the students of his class for the duration. This was like...5 years ago, not sure if he kept doing it or what the general outcome was. But he had a pretty much entire Masters program that was tied into the whole social gaming thing.

[Soln]

You actually get paid for this shit?

Remarkably!

(FWIW, I teach Heidegger alongside.)

that's interesting, can you elaborate?

I would get the students to forms guilds and then give them weekly tasks/goals: build something in the world, sponsor some kind of RP event, then propose they create something which documents their play (the old days we called these spoilers/walkthroughs).  I might use SWG because of the guild tools and availability of a sandbox.  Point is to give them community achievements ideas with documentation as an output.  Also, start a media wiki for them and a SMF forum so they can discuss.  Might simulate the out of game community play you're looking to capture.

[Bzalthek]

That's a good point.  Can't forget the role metagaming plays.  If you wanted to be evil, you could get them to play EVE.  Heh.

[DeathInABottle]

I suppose it depends on who's taking the course.  What kind of course is this, philosophy or sociology or what?  Is it for video-game-authors-in-training (e.g. comp sci students) or business majors looking for information on how to run a video game business, or what?

It's a third year course in a new interdisciplinary minor program called Technology and Society.  There are 50 students from a diverse set of disciplines (everything from comp sci to philosophy), all of whom will have different things that they want to get out of it.  The program as a whole unifies students around critical approaches to technology, and I'm focusing the course on something that I figure every university student has in common - i.e. social media. And again, the course is practice based rather than theory based, so we're going to be doing things with social media (creating profiles and performing identities, reading and constructing memes, playing games...) in order to consciously engage with something that (mostly) unconsciously affects us all the time.  So in that sense the course is targeted at anyone who wants to actively think about tech.

ATITD is definitely a better choice for that kinda thing than something like WoW. That said, I wonder if it might be a good idea just to let them get through it, and compare the results. Essay questions, "what did we all learn from this", etc.

I like that.  I'm going to keep away from essay questions - there's one major paper, but the rest of the assignments are principally practical - but that doesn't mean that I have to carefully sculpt the practical assignments.  I could leave the gaming one open-ended, and ask them to reflect on it in a presentation, maybe, at the end of the semester.

Comparing and contrasting communities in other games might be much more interesting. Like have them play 10 levels in WoW, reach citizenry in ATITD, and compare the experiences. Their 5 guilds in ATITD could carry over to the same 5 guilds in WoW, or they could mix them up a bit.

I'll force them all into Dwarf Fortress.  ...Actually, if I did the comparison thing, WoW would probably be the best option, since it's so completely different from ATITD, and so mainstream.  Two problems, though: I don't want gaming to be the sole focus of the course - it's three of twelve weeks only - and I probably can't swing the logistics with WoW.

Why not let your students chose two games to play from a list of MMO's that have a free trial? Have them write or present a comparative essay on their experiences.

Totally possible if they do the gaming on their own at home, but that does mean that they'll lose the communal aspect of ATITD (where I'd be forcing them into 10 person groups).  Still, maybe worthwhile.  I'll think about it.

(serious question) What is a course on new media and social practice supposed to teach in general terms?

I'm assuming that you can't just think about tech because you're already using it, and you can't just use it without thinking because its effects (economic, social, existential...) are fantastically complicated.  The course is supposed to explain, through practice and theory, what those complicated effects are.  For instance, it's supposed to make you think about the reasons for your simultaneous love of and hatred for Facebook, and about the general unintended consequences of its use, and about why you already think about it (because people already spend a lot of time on this sort of reflection; witness the obsession with Assange rather than the cables) - but to bring you to those thoughts through active interventions.  Ideally, the course should found a continuous critical reflection/practice on media.

You should contact Teppy though, he'll probably be happy to help you get what you need out of this.

Yeah, I've done that already.  He's completely accommodating.

that's interesting, can you elaborate?

Sure.  My reading is a little bit different than some.  Basically, I think that he views ontology historically rather than "ontologically": the foundation of the world only seems to be a foundation.  This is different from social constructivism because of the severity of the claim: we create a world that seems like it could not possibly be any other way, or a world the foundations of which cannot be examined because they were constructed so thoroughly so long ago.  These worlds take different shapes at different times, depending on the material conditions that create them.

My point here has to do with these material conditions.  I'm arguing, in the course and in my dissertation, that things like the Internet that almost totally take over our collective consciousness are so effective at creating a particular kind of world because of the intensity and frequency with which we use them.  The Internet creates a particular kind of world, whether we pay it direct attention or not.  All technologies do that.  Reflecting on the way that we're creating that world while we create it seems pretty important to me.

So Heidegger gives me a good line into this material.  I'm getting my students to read a few essays from The Question concerning Technology as the course goes on, and my lectures will tie Heidegger's arguments there into the practical work.

I would get the students to forms guilds and then give them weekly tasks/goals: build something in the world, sponsor some kind of RP event, then propose they create something which documents their play (the old days we called these spoilers/walkthroughs).  I might use SWG because of the guild tools and availability of a sandbox.  Point is to give them community achievements ideas with documentation as an output.  Also, start a media wiki for them and a SMF forum so they can discuss.  Might simulate the out of game community play you're looking to capture.

A wiki and a forum are a great idea, as are regular events/challenges.

[DeathInABottle]

That's a good point.  Can't forget the role metagaming plays.  If you wanted to be evil, you could get them to play EVE.  Heh.

Metagaming is incredibly important - maybe even more than gaming itself.  We spend a hell of a lot of time in second order reflection, and I think that it's due, in part, to stuff like online forums.  The fact that we spend so much time talking about games instead of (or as well as) playing them says something about who we are.

[Sheepherder]

The fact that we spend so much time talking about games instead of (or as well as) playing them says something about who we are.

We're broken people with broken toys?

[NiX]

We're broken people with broken toys?

The truth hurts

[palmer_eldritch]

ATITD is all about working together to create things, yes? I'd maybe have them play that for a bit and then play a game like Darkfall or Eve where the aim is to skullfuck other players and ask how the experiences differed.

Which game establishes stronger social links (Eve and Darkfall may be nastier places but I bet they also have stronger guilds). Do you feel different emotions playing ATITD to playing Darkfall? Does either game have anything you could really call a community? Are those communities different?

And then maybe you could ask ok, so what are the games doing to the players?

Obviously I don't pretend to know what you should teach anybody, those are ideas which may or may not be useful.

[Furiously]

I'd look at minecraft instead. Less likely to be disruptive to the established people.

I'd set different goals for each group and have them give a group presentation on their experiences. Could have one group with the task kill monsters, another with build a house, another with make a garden, one with make a functional cannon. Have them describe how they went about their goal and what they learned along the way. A tale is just going to give you forty mehs and ten people who keep playing.

I'd be interested in seeing what each group got out of their experience in that situation. I don't really care about harvesting flax, which is what your monster killing group is there to show.  You don't have enough time to get to the interesting dynamics of atitd.

[Trouble]

http://www.die2nite.com. It's just a browser game, but it's got a really interesting concept. You get put in a down with 40 people and your goal is to survive as long as possible in a post-zombie apocalypse world. You get a limited amount of action points per day based on food/water/drugs.You have to balance food/water usage, scavenging, and what buildings to build. Deciding what buildings to build is not a simple process, as you have to factor in rare resources, sub-buildings, competing needs, etc. Each day there is a zombie attack which tests your defenses.

The town's forum discussion and cooperation is highly important to your survival. Coming up with strategies to live as long as possible and getting the group to execute them is a very social task. Between deciding what buildings to build you also have to coordinate while scavenging because you need enough people to overcome the amount of zombies as you scavenge. I don't know if it speaks to what you're looking to do, but it might. It's amazed everyone I talked to how you only get roughly ~18 action points per day which could be used up in a few minutes, but they were spending hours just talking to the people in their town and discussing what to do.

Most towns survive 7-10 days, the best ones 2-3 weeks. Crap ones with bad organization or rebellions can be dead in under 5.


The reason I suggest it over ATITD is that it requires a lot of social cooperation and is complex enough to be interesting, while not being the ridiculous mount of complexity that ATITD is. It also has a finite timespan with a very definable goal. Also ATITD rewards any amount of time investment (as most MMOs do) while die2nite has a gameplay limit but still rewards you for extended social interaction.

http://die2nite.hoah.org/town is a live list of the current top towns still alive.

[DeathInABottle]

Those last two are strong alternative candidates, although for different reasons.  I'm starting to think that it'd be worth opening up choices beyond ATITD, though I'm not sure about the dynamics that it would create.

From what I recall, it is possible to achieve something other than citizenship within the first few hours of ATITD, right?  I seem to recall passing tests - at least principles - in the three tales that I played before my trial ran out.