Faculty of Arts
Interaction with other players
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- Anonymity in on-line games
- Conclusion
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Interaction with other playersInteraction with other players, as was already mentioned above, concerns mainly online games or MMOGs4. In these games, players usually cooperate to achieve difficult tasks and are organized into factions, clans, guilds and other similar social groups. Bonding with people via virtual world can strengthen their friendships or form romances, even in the real world. Each player creates an avatar, which is a physical manifestation in-game. The appearance, however may differ from reality. Nick Yee, a scholar oriented on games classifies the avatars into two categories: a projection or idealization of one’s identity or a whole new identity to experiment with. (Yee, 2006, p.13) Communication itself is not that much different from the one introduced while interacting with NPCs. This includes gestures and animations. On-line games feature a chat window, where text typed by the players appears. Cooperation is crucial: “…as they tackle more and more difficult creatures or enemies that in turn hold larger rewards. But ultimately, each user decides which form of advancement they will pursue, and the richness and complexity of the environment eliminates the need for super-ordinate goals or storylines. Every user is motivated by a different combination of the possible rewards. The result is that adventures, stories, and most importantly for the purpose of the current work, meaningful relationships between users emerge during interaction” (Yee, 2006, p. 6-7). Relations formed in video games may even be stronger than the ones in the physical world. However, while they provide valuable lessons, these games can also cause addiction and eventually lead to isolation from the outside world. Anonymity in on-line gamesAs mentioned earlier, every player has to create a character, design its appearance and choose a class, which can be defined as a way of play. Each and every person has the same options to choose from, making the creation process equal for everyone. Great freedom and variability allows players to create characters that are more likely to be accepted by the in-game community. Gender switching is also a common phenomenon encountered in on-line games; say that a male player creates a pale-skinned undead female warrior, which allows him to role-play his character without being rejected by others. Anonymity provides a safe haven from the problems of the modern world. However, it may also lend an opportunity to deviate from the game’s main goal or to deliberately harm other players and ruin their experience of the game. It allows more freedom of expression in many ways that cannot be executed in real life. Some may experiment with looks and situations that cannot be normally recreated. Others change the gender on purpose because it provides benefits in terms how other players treat the avatar (Martey, 2014, p. 286–300). For some players, gender-switching has even changed the overall gaming experience (Yee, 2004, p. 1) Other dangers, common to the on-line social interactions while shrouded in anonymity, including virtual bullying, may also occur. It is not common to be harassed while playing on-line games, however. What is, o the other hand, are micro-transactions (purchase of in-game items with real money), numerous advertisements for deals, purchases of rare items etc., presented by newly created characters, who spam the communication channels.
ConclusionNarratives have a major function in telling stories and there are many ways of providing an intriguing narrative for players in video games today. Developers tend to use various ways to reach out to the player, allowing them to actively shape a given story and to make difficult choices, which further affect gameplay. Video games lately are not just a tool for mindless entertainment; they provide experiences far beyond anything humans could achieve in real life. They give the opportunity to be someone else, to travel to distant, magical lands, even planets, to fight seemingly unbeatable enemies and more. They introduce unique situations, different points of view and original characters, which are experiences that make games worth trying. Non-branching narratives offer linear story with immersive storylines. Though straight forward, they give the player a unique scripted experiences similar to Hollywood movies. Branching dialogues, on the other hand, present an opportunity to choose more freely, while deciding the course of the whole story, introducing multiple dialogue choices, different ways of reaching desired goals and actions that influence gameplay in its entirety, leading to different endings. Be it branching or non-branching, narrative is a major and powerful part of nearly every game presented to the public. Dialogical interaction has been defined in several ways, making the definition itself not very clear, yet adapting to specific situations and applicable on certain aspects. In video games, dialogic interaction is common and interacting with the characters, either non-playable or other players, in the same virtual world, happens on a regular basis. While talking about NPCs, the interaction is often used as a tool for advancing in the story and it also serves to create backstories for individual characters, sharing with players important circumstances which precede the story at hand. Interaction also is the decisive factor for building relationships with one’s companions and other characters or players. There are several methods of using the dialogical interaction in games. From complex dialogues to computer created responses and simplified answers; all these variations provide an important aspect of the gameplay. Without in-game dialogues, the gameplay would be shallow and indistinctive. Certainly, games which have unique and specific gameplay elements exist, but even these games have some kind of textual monologues to walk players through. Dialogical interaction helps the player to understand the game and to be emotionally attached to its world, with everything that belongs into it. It is very important to realize that with the continuous rise of narrative importance in games, people tend to seek complex plots, which provide exhilarating experiences and stimulate emotional feedback. The rich variety of genres, which provide new ways of narrative, and with modern technology, such as virtual reality, it is possible that narrative games allowing for complete immersion will soon developed. In terms of on-line gaming, forms of communication, such as dialogical interaction, prove crucial for players to plan community-shared activities and events. It helps develop relationships, which might start in the virtual world but carry on into the real one. Experiences only games make possible. Works CitedAbbott, H. Porter (2009). The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Baxtin, Mixail (Bakhtin, Mikhail) (1981). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Ed. by M. Holquist. Austin: U of Texas P. (PDF File). Retrieved from http://www.public.iastate.edu/~carlos/607/readings/bakhtin.pdf Caillois, R. (1998). Man, play and games. University of Illinois Press, 1961 Cassell, J., Jenkins, H. (1998). From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and computer games. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Chrz, V. (2007). Možnosti narativního přístupu v psychologickém výzkumu. Praha: Psychologický ústav AV ČR Costikyan, Greg (2007). Games, Storytelling, and Breaking the String. Electronic Book Review. Retrieved from http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/firstperson/storyish Ellison, Brent (2008). Defining Dialogue Systems. Gamasutra. Retrieved from http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132116/defining_dialogue_systems.php Freire, P. (1997). Pedagogy of the Heart. New York: Continuum. Genette, Gérard. (1980 [1972]). Narrative Discourse. An Essay in Method. (Translated by Jane E. Lewin). Oxford: Blackwell. Habermas, J. (1984). The theory of communicative action. Volume I: Reason and the rationalization of society and Volume II: Lifeworld and system: A critique of functionalist reason. Boston: Beacon Press. Hartner, Marcus (2012). "Multiperspectivity". The Living Handbook of Narratology. University of Hamburg. Retrieved from http://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/article/multiperspectivity Hrabec, O. (2012). Prožitek flow ve videoherních žánrech. Praha: PedF UK. Retrieved from http://www.psychologieher.cz/?page_id=31 Interaction. (n.d.). In Merriam-Webster online. Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/interaction Juul, Jesper (2001). Games Telling Stories – A brief note on games and narratives. The international journal of computer game research. 1(1). Retrieved from http://www.gamestudies.org/0101/juul-gts/ Kincheloe, Joe L., & Horn, Raymond A., eds. (2007). The Praeger Handbook of Education and Psychology. Greenwood Press. Kushner, David (2004). Masters of Doom: How two guys created an empire and transformed pop culture chapter. Random House Trade Paperbacks. Manninen, Tony (2003). Interaction Forms and Communicative Actions in Multiplayer Games. The International Journal of Computer Game Research. 3(1). Retrieved from http://www.gamestudies.org/0301/manninen/ Martey; et al. (2014). The Strategic Female: Gender-Switching and Player Behavior in Online Games. Information, Communication & Society. 17(3) Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369118X.2013.874493 Narrative. (n.d.). In Oxford English Dictionary online. Retrieved from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/narrative O’Connor, Catherine, & Michaels, Sarah (2007). When is Dialogue ‘Dialogic’?. Human Development. 50. Retrieved from http://www.bu.edu/sed/files/2010/11/HD.OConnor.pdf Simons, Jan (2007). Narrative, Games, and Theory. The International Journal of Computer Game Research. 7(1) Retrieved from http://gamestudies.org/0701/articles/simons Soler, M. (2004). Reading to share: Accounting for others in dialogic literary gatherings. Aspects of the Dialogic Self. Berlin: Lehmans. Statista. (2016). Activision Blizzard: number of MMORPG subscribers 2014. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/329026/activision-blizzard-number-of-mmorpg-subscribers/ Thornham, Helen (2011). Ethnographies of the Videogame : Gender, Narrative and Praxis. (PDF File). Farnham, Surrey, England: Routledge. Retrieved from EBSCO host MUNI Top 10 Most Disturbing Video Game Moments. (Video File). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsiy0ivJO6k&t=11s Wells, Gordon (1999). Dialogic Inquiry: Towards a Socio-cultural Practice and Theory of Education. Cambridge University Press. Yee, Nick (2004). Gender Bending. The Daedalus Gateway: The Psychology of MMORPGs. Retrieved from http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/gateway_genderbend.html Yee, N. (2006). The Demographics, Motivations and Derived Experiences of Users of Massively-Multiuser Online Graphical Environments. PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, (PDF File). 15, Retrieved from http://www.nickyee.com/pubs/Yee%20-%20MMORPG%20Demographics%202006.pdf Yee, N. (2006). The Psychology of Massively Multi-User Online Role-Playing Games: Motivations, Emotional Investment, Relationships and Problematic Usage. Avatars at Work and Play: Collaboration and Interaction in Shared Virtual Environment. Schroder, R. & Axelsson, A. (Eds.). London: Springer-Verlag. References – Games 2015 (2002). Medal of Honor. Electronic Arts. Bethesda Game Studios (2011). The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. BioWare (2007). Mass Effect. BioWare (2009). Dragon Age. Electronic Arts. Bioware (2011). Dragon Age II. Electronic Arts. Blizzard Entertainment (1994). WarCraft. Blizzard Entertainment (2004). World of WarCraft. Bullfrog (1997). Dungeon Keeper. Electronic Arts. Campo Santo (2016). Firewatch. CD Projekt RED (2012). The Witcher 3. CD Projekt. Electronic Arts (2002). Battlefield. Electronic Arts (2002). Need for Speed. Epic Games (2006). Gears of War. From Software (2001). Dark Souls. Bandai Namco Games. Infinity Ward (2003). Call of Duty. Activision. Interplay (1997). Fallout. IO Interactive (2000). Hitman. Eidos Interactive. Maxis (1997). SimCity. Electronic Arts. Maxis (2000). The Sims. Microprose Software (1991). Civilization. Midway Games (1992). Mortal Kombat. Naughty Dog (2007). Uncharted. Sony Interactive Entertainment. Nintendo (2002). The Legend of Zelda. Piranha Bytes (2001). Gothic. CD Projekt. Playdead (2016). Inside. Quantic Dream (2005). Fahrenheit. Quantic Dream (2010). Heavy Rain. Quantic Dream (2013). Beyond: Two Souls. Respawn Entertainment (2014). Titanfall. Electronic Arts. Riot Games (2009). League of Legends. Rocksteady Studios (2011). Batman: Arkham City. Warner Bros. Interactive. Square Enix (2006). Final Fantasy. Sports Interactive (2004). 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Furthermore, the thesis explores a structure of video game genres and their subgenres, including examples, while briefly describing their organization and role for narrative and dialogical immersions. Finally, dialogic interaction is characterized and sorted into basic categories, while utilizing all facts from previous findings. The thesis then analyses the types of utterances in video games, comparing dialogues of non-playable characters with other players. The entire work is focused on the importance of player interactions with other characters in video games in terms of providing guidance and teaching the player how to ‘play’ the game and the ways they can react to them. Resumé Práce se zaměřuje na dialogickou interakcí a její funkce ve videoherním prostředí. Snaží se definovat pojem ‚narativ‘ ve smyslu komunikace a vyprávění, představuje typy těchto vyprávění, a vysvětluje, jaký vliv mají na samotný průběh této činnosti. Dále se zabývá hratelnostními prvky, a jejich vlivem na prezentování příběhu. Práce dále definuje videoherní žánry, jejich podžánry, a krátce rozebírá strukturu a vliv těchto žánrů na dialogy samotné. U každého žánru je pro lepší ilustraci uveden příklad. Nakonec práce představuje pojem dialogické interakce, a definuje a kategorizuje jej do základních skupin. Poté společně s ostatními poznatky charakterizuje výskyt interakce a její typy ve videoherních dialozích, a to jak dialogy s nehratelnými postavami, tak i s ostatními hráči. Celá práce je zaměřena na důležitost výskytu dialogické interakce ve videohrách ve smyslu její nezbytnosti, co se týče „hraní hry“, její navigace, i samotného pochopení. 2 A software company, which in 1993 developed one of the most famous game worldwide called Doom. 3 Terms used on Czech and English videogame sites and in gaming videos. 4 Massive Multiplayer Online Game Download 184.59 Kb. Share with your friends:
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