I play an online text based game called Utopia: World of Legends. The game site can be found at http://games.swirve.com/utopia. This game is a fantasy based game where you are given a new province. You can choose your race and personality of your province, and then you build it up within your kingdom. Each kingdom has 25 provinces that communicate together through a forum and your kingdom is given a number. For example, I am in kingdom 9, island 38, resulting in my kingdom being (9:38). My province is any name I want. We together as a team, go to war, give aid to each other and attack other kingdoms. As you play this game, you build a reputation through acres of land and networth. As you grow, the bigger your lands, the bigger your army, and the bigger your networth, leads to, the bigger your reputation. However, every 6 months the whole utopian society is reset, which means your province is started anew, but you still stay with the kingdom-mates. As every age turns, you stay with the same kingdom-mates until you delete your account or defect into another kingdom. I have never met my kingdom-mates in real-life however; I have developed a good reputation and an online identity. None of my kingdom-mates know my real name, and refer to me as Sir Porter (my province ruler’s name) or Silver Accord (my province name).
Our kingdom communicates through the personal kingdom forum that is built into the game site. Usually, that is the only means of communication. However, other kingdom’s who are intensely passionate about this game, chat usually through IRC or other chat programs with their kingdom-mates usually to be extra-organized during wartime. My true identity has no use in this game. My kingdom-mates are not interested in my real life; they are more interested in how well I do in growing in my utopian life. I believe that this game has become a daily part of my life. I usually check up on my utopian province 2-3 times a day. Usually, nobody is too interested in my true identity. I am pretty sure other kingdoms do not care about their kingdom-mates true identities either. I feel like I have a second-life through this utopia province.
My online identity may be stolen by someone knowing or stealing my username and password. I believe that is the only way my online identity can be stolen. If someone stole my password I would be extremely pissed, because not only have I developed a relationship with my kingdom-mates, it took me a long time to build up my province and create a good reputation. The ways kingdoms are assigned are purely random. However some cheaters want to be in the same kingdom as their real-life friends and use deception in order to make it work. First, the cheater would make two provinces. They will obviously be in two different kingdoms. Then the cheater would build up his province and develop a high networth in one of his kingdoms. The cheater’s other province would be in the kingdom he wants his friend to be in. After achieving a reputable networth in the first kingdom, they would message a noobie in his second kingdom and ask him to switch accounts with his first kingdom. They would show him the high networth province and lure the noobie into switching accounts. Then the cheater would give his friend the noobie’s username/password and be in the same kingdom. Trying to be in the same kingdom as a real-life friend is nearly impossible and resorting to this method is the only way.
If anyone is interested by my blog post and wish to join this online gaming community, sign up, and I will be more than happy to guide you through the game, and give u strategic advice.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Friday, August 3, 2007
COM125 Assignment: Second LIfe
The best way to learn is through experience. Second Life can be a virtual real-life experience where you can actually learn about real life. As I joined Second Life and created my own character with avatar, I am taken to an island to learn basic skills. In order to reach the mainland it took some exploring. I really like it after I reach the mainland. I can fly and even teleport. This simulation game is similar to “The Sims”. I used to play “The Sims” a lot for it was fun and also gave me a good experience on real hands-on experience on a real-life based simulation. Second Life is interesting because u can build your own buildings and even buy weapons to battle others. It has a wide array of options you can do with your character. You can also throw parties, become an empire or just be a bum. This new virtual reality world seems like a real world where u can experiment and experience new views on life.
Although some people believe this is not a game, to me it is. I find it an amusing way to learn about new experiences that I may never be able to do in real life. I believe the economy issues in Second Life are similar to real life economics. Although this is a short post, I believe I have covered my whole experience on Second Life here. So, as you can see, Second life is an experience where I can learn about life with a hands-on experience.
Although some people believe this is not a game, to me it is. I find it an amusing way to learn about new experiences that I may never be able to do in real life. I believe the economy issues in Second Life are similar to real life economics. Although this is a short post, I believe I have covered my whole experience on Second Life here. So, as you can see, Second life is an experience where I can learn about life with a hands-on experience.
COM125 Assignment: Network Neutrality
Network Neutrality is basically a reactant to major companies wanting to monitor the usage of the Internet within all computers under their networks. It’s the principle where major companies, such as AT&T will takeover the Internet, and make it act like cable TV. That is just plain ridiculous. In my opinion, Companies trying to take over the internet will never occur and the efforts of the major companies will all go to waste. However, we can see what would happen if network neutrality did not exist. For example, the new iPhone can only be used under the AT&T network. So that would mean, in order to use this new gadget, you would have to be subscribed under AT&T. While you are under their network, they have the ability to monitor you at all times.
The current debate over network neutrality is, would it be beneficial or would it mean the end of the Internet? Due to the facts of Internet monitoring, if network neutrality didn’t exist, we would all be in trouble. All the internet users, especially online business owners would crash and be forced to go bankrupt. Network neutrality is essential to the Internet at the moment.
Through network neutrality, the major companies and the people who use the Internet are at stake. If the major companies go through with their plan (which will never succeed) they would practically be taking over the world. For many people, the Internet is the mainframe of their daily lives. If they take over, our rights would be infringed upon.
Trying to control Internet usage, and trying to limit what we can do and what we cannot, is violating to our own lives.
I support network neutrality. I use the Internet in public settings daily. If that were taken away from me, I would feel like I’ve been stripped and manipulated.
The current debate over network neutrality is, would it be beneficial or would it mean the end of the Internet? Due to the facts of Internet monitoring, if network neutrality didn’t exist, we would all be in trouble. All the internet users, especially online business owners would crash and be forced to go bankrupt. Network neutrality is essential to the Internet at the moment.
Through network neutrality, the major companies and the people who use the Internet are at stake. If the major companies go through with their plan (which will never succeed) they would practically be taking over the world. For many people, the Internet is the mainframe of their daily lives. If they take over, our rights would be infringed upon.
Trying to control Internet usage, and trying to limit what we can do and what we cannot, is violating to our own lives.
I support network neutrality. I use the Internet in public settings daily. If that were taken away from me, I would feel like I’ve been stripped and manipulated.
COM125 Assignment: Modern Journalism
New York Times
“Within Discredited Stem Cell Research, a True Scientific First”
By: Nicholas Wade
White Coat News – News from the Boston Area Medical Community
Korean cloning fraud covered an accidental stem cell first, Harvard paper says
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/blog/2007/08/korean_scientis.html
By: Elizabeth Cooney
There is one major difference between print news and online news. Usually print news will tell facts and much more factual information going very in-depth with factual information, while online news will share opinions and personal views of the writer with usually just a short summary, in order to just get a gist of the news story. Print news usually has direct quotes by important people who have contributed to the article. With the quote, the writer will work around that quote and write more in depth about the article.
I cannot say which is better. In my opinion they both have their advantages. While I was reading the newspaper, there were advertisements here and there, but not to the point of online news sources. There are way too many advertisements, however I believe that newspaper’s advertisements cost more for companies compared to online news source advertisements. At the same time, more and more people are learning to block out advertisements that are on print. For example, a turn of the page will block the advertisement out from your head, however, an online news source would have an advertisement that pops up as soon as you enter the site, making sure you saw the ad before they accessed the site. Most revenues for newspapers come from advertisements. If those ad’s move to the internet, the newspapers will be left with nothing and will eventually fall.
As technology advances everyday, I am starting to believe that online sources will take over print. With internet access becoming more and more regularly available to the public, most people who actually pay for internet service will want to take full advantage of it by going on free news sites and trying to get as much as a possible out of the internet. With readily available information over technological advancements, who would want to pick up a hard copy and read it.
A huge advantage I find in online news sources is the database. The data is archived and can be readily accessible through a search making it a huge resource. Also, another advantage is the real-time information update. So, as you can see, online news is emerging into the “new” news source.
http://www99.epinions.com/content_3321077892
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