Not my "final" experience

In the final week of the class,  Games and Simulations, I returned to the Minecraft world and decided to see if I could put some “homier” touches on my house.  I first wanted to build a bed (a piece of furniture that my daughter deems “essential”, if I don’t want to be killed by zombies. Or maybe the house is to protect me from zombies, and the bed to keep me rested and alert?  I tried, in vain to convince her that there were no zombies in my version of Minecraft, but she remained adamant.

Unfortunately, there was no wool to be had anywhere (an essential ingredient, along with wooden planks).  I did my research and found that if I had a pair of shears (which I did), I could shear a sheep without killing it (hooray!).  I wandered around in the wilds away from the settled area without success.  I decided to try walking the other way, and lo and behold, discovered that Pansy had a corral with several animals. The animals shied away from me, but after going through my inventory, I found that I could wave around a piece of sugarcane, which aroused their interest.  I also fed a carrot to a pig, which apparently garnered it’s love and devotion.

Once I built their trust, I did something that I would never have done IRL.  I stole a sheep fleece.  Luckily, the sheep recovered a new coat quickly, but Pansy, if you are reading this, please forgive me.

Back to the house to build the bed, and after a few missteps, my bed stood in the middle of the room, ready for me to rest my weary head.  A few paintings on the wall, and two torches on the walls, and I now have a cozy nest.  I look forward to the chance to go back  to my home and continue to practice my Minecraft skills.  

"Mining" Online Worlds

My latest online adventure has been in the world of Minecraft.  To me, the world is a cross between Lego and Settlers of Cataan.  The block construction and focus on building in the world brings me back to the many hours I spent playing with Legos as a child (and, to be honest, as a young adult).  Anyone who has played a world-building board game like Settlers of Cataan would recognize the crafting of world elements from raw materials. 

During a disastrous first attempt in world,  I dug myself into a hole so deep I couldn’t get out.  I logged out of the game and didn’t go back until I had reinforcements in the form of My 10-year old daughter.  She has played Minecraft with a friend on Xbox, so I enlisted her help.  In another stroke of luck, our course instructor was in world at the same time, so I was able to explore with expert guides.

In the short time we had, I was able to begin building my house, including the glass windows.  I had gathered up sufficient supplies to build the house.  One of my next steps is to find some “recipes” online, to see what I would be able to make from the supplies available.  My daughter insists that I have to make a bed.  In the game version, you have to concentrate on basics for survival – food to eat, a bed to sleep in and a house to protect you from zombies and other “things that go bump in the night”.  Thankfully, so far, I haven’t seen any zombies.

When I was able to go back into Minecraft a few days later, I was able to finish building my house and plant some of the seeds I had in my inventory.    (Photo to come!)

I look forward to continuing to explore the educational possibilities presented by this world!

                                                                                                                              

"Real Life" vs. Second Life?

Wow! I was finally able to get started in Second Life (after some issues with needing to update my graphics driver). I'm glad we were able to get started in Joykadia first - I felt in some ways like I already spoke some of the language ("teleport", "landmarks", and particularly knowing how to get my avatar to do things (like sit). The graphics are much different - not sure if I prefer one over the other yet. I guess I will see how things go as I do more things in Second Life. I finally had a moment in Joykadia when things seemed to "click" - I look forward to having that same moment in Second Life.

I wanted to include a snapshot of my avatar in Second Life, but I am still figuring out how to do that. I am really enjoying this course, but am having a bit of trouble balancing the amount of time I have to dedicate to the course (based on my busy life and the single-credit expectations) with my desire to sit down for hours and really figure all these systems out.

I am a fan of the show The Guild. One of the characters, Clara, is a mom with three young children, whom she neglects terribly because of her addiction to online gaming (in a WOW-like system). Obviously, Clara is a caricature, but I also think of her as a character in a morality play, highlighting the dangers of becoming too involved in a virtual world.

How do you balance your online world and your "real" world?

Just Another Brick in the Wall

I had my first group meeting in Jokaydia yesterday and it was another brick in the wall of my understanding of the environment. I've been in Jokaydia three times in this course so far:

Alone - lots of wandering around. I accidentally flew and wasn't sure how I did it. A couple of other avatars showed up with what looked like similar names. At first I was completely freaked out. After checking in with our mission leader about the experience, we came up with a pretty good guess that it was students from another island in the world, and was less freaky than it seemed at first. I also realized that my inexperience with the tools in this world meant that I didn't figure out how to access my communication tools. As it was happening, I was really intimidated and thought about how I would feel if I was in another country (alone) and had people walk up to me trying to talk with me in a language I didn't understand.

A Guided Tour - I met with our course leader in world, and I was able to become more familiar with the tools. It was very helpful to have someone who could provide some background on how the world actually worked, which made me feel a lot more comfortable.

In a Group - I seemed to forget many of the things I had learned in my two earlier visits, which was a bit frustrating. But being in a group made dealing with it easier and a lot funnier. As I walked around with one arm in the air, I felt like an overeager student who constantly things she has the right answer (think Hermione Granger in Harry Potter).

 All in all, I am enjoying the experience (as you can see from my relaxed posed below). If I can make the time to visit every couple of days, I think that will help cement my understanding (please note the repeat of the brick/wall metaphor).