Continuing from last time, I picked the Night Elf character then I travel to the city called “The Exodar”. I have never been inside any major city on Alliance side, so this is kind of new place for me to explore inside World of Warcraft beside Horde territories because I always play Horde side. I used my Night Elf travel to “The Exodar”, the major city of Draenai. I had to ride the ship from Darnassus which is the major city for Night Elf and I popped up on another island, apart from the big land. The first impression when I saw the city, is that it made me think of the movie “Superman”. The Exodar looks like the place from another planet. It has many huge crystals surrounding the area and many on the building. It looks like Alien planet for me. The city has only one building and it has very tall look. When I got inside the city, I didn’t really have to walk up the stair, but instead, I have to walk down below the ground. It’s like everything is underneath the land surface. Even though this city is not located in the Outland, I still feel like it’s not a part of the world. Maybe because of the purple fog around the area, it made me feel like which place on earth has the purple fog, but it might be the reflection coming out of crystals around the area.
The Exodar is full of some details on their building. The floor has symbols on it. The material that is used for the building looks like concrete but it might be some special material from out of space. As I walk inside the building, there are probably some pink or purple electric or some kind of effect coming out from the crystals. The building itself looks like being destroyed a bit because there’re some ruin and broken part of the building, but not too many spots. The color inside he building are purple, blue, and pink. The color of the city is matched the skin Draenai race. Again, inside the building, there’re full of decorative symbols pattern on the floor, on the wall and on the roof. I went into the inn and the room looks like you are inside of the spaceship. I didn’t see the bed or place from sleep like I saw in Horde inn, but I saw something looking like a big capsule and it can be open. I assumed that when a Draenai sleeps, he would have to get in there and close the shell. The capsule shape looks like an egg. There’re also a few beds at the front of the front desk. It has some strange symbol on it.
There’re not many things to interacting with around the area other than NPC character and some of the object for professional skill. I went to the room called The Vault of Lights and I saw something that looks like the time machine or teleport machine that we normally see in the movie such as Star Trek. I didn’t know what that is and I couldn’t rollover to see the name of it. The Draenai NPC is pretty interesting. Normally, when you keep clicking on the character too many times, it will start to say to you like “going away”. “I don’t have time for this” or “move along”. The Horde NPC character is pretty rude, but Draenai’s response from clicking their characters too many time, it will reply for your action politely. The Dranei accent is like good polite people with English accent and high class manner. It’s like I am living in London or some European country with some polite people.
I don’t know if I can compare this with any real city. The Exodar is pretty quiet. I don’t see many players running around, unlike Orgrimmar or Under City. I can’t compare The Exodar with some big City like New York City or San Francisco. If we let the density of population of Orgrimmar equal to NYC, I think the density of population in The Exodar is still pretty low. I don’t know because I played this at night. Maybe more people would show up on the weekend. This is kind of interesting that more people will gather around the weekend or in evening time. It’s like real like where you go shopping Mall on the weekend and you tend to see more people on some special occasion like Halloween or Christmas day in online virtual world. For example, in the world like World of Wacraft, they have quests to get special items to celebrate in real life holiday in virtual world such as the items like fire works, snowball, trick or treat for extra XP, candy or pumpkin head.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Diamond Age
There are so many interesting about the story and so many confusing how the story progress. There are also many interesting advance technologies that is presented in the story such as different mites that there are. Mites are microscopic artificial organisms and programmed by humans to do special tasks. At one time in the story, they mentions that mites are used as security where flow in the air and scan for invaders to protect the city. Some mites look like charcoal or black powder-like substance that are used in laser printers and photcopies.
The story also mentions about real clothes are wore by the noble, but poor people can only wear clothes that made out of plastic. The world seems to divide into high class people and low class people.
I was a bit confusing toward the end of the story. As I progress through the reading, the story somehow jumps from real life to virtual world where Carl meet with Princess Nell. Also princess Nell meet with her mother Miranda and saves her at the end. I kind of speculated that they probably meet each other in the theater or brothel, but they ends up meeting in the virtual world.
They also included sexual content into the story which I think it's way too explicit because it involves a huge orgy group of men and one woman. A group of guys having sex with one woman and burn her into ashes is pretty awful when I am trying to visualizing in my head. It's interesting, but it's too hardcore in my opinion.
The story also mentions about real clothes are wore by the noble, but poor people can only wear clothes that made out of plastic. The world seems to divide into high class people and low class people.
I was a bit confusing toward the end of the story. As I progress through the reading, the story somehow jumps from real life to virtual world where Carl meet with Princess Nell. Also princess Nell meet with her mother Miranda and saves her at the end. I kind of speculated that they probably meet each other in the theater or brothel, but they ends up meeting in the virtual world.
They also included sexual content into the story which I think it's way too explicit because it involves a huge orgy group of men and one woman. A group of guys having sex with one woman and burn her into ashes is pretty awful when I am trying to visualizing in my head. It's interesting, but it's too hardcore in my opinion.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Timeline
My noticeable thing in the timeline was that 1995 are the year that have the most cyberpunk related movies in the 90s. I think I remembered that Summer 95 was full with cyberpunk movies coming out one after another. This is when the movies started using technology to create realistic special effects, so there were a lot of movies that related to the future era and new technologies coming out during this period of time.
Virtual World
I pick the game “World of Warcraft” because I am currently paying monthly subscription. I have been playing the Horde side all the time, so I make a character in the Alliance side. I decide to pick Night Elf. The reason is that out of the Alliance side, I think Night elf seems to have an intimidated look more than other races, and that seems important since the game is based on battling against the Horde side which they have huge appearances such as Tauren and Orc. Night elf is a tall guy which is closely assembles to my personality because I am tall, but not very tall. I create this character as a male because I am a man. I wouldn’t imagine myself playing female as my character in any game. It’s not like I don’t like a female character but it doesn’t represent me and it might seem strange for me because this game you have to interact with others and other players can perceive me as a girl. It’s just so confused thinking about it. Even though there are many people playing different gender than their own, but when I can choose to pick a gender, I would definitely pick a male character.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t play the characters like Gnome or Dwarf because they are small. Gnome looks a bit funny because their faces are smiling all the time. I don’t like their appearances, especially their height. They are so small like children. Somehow I don’t feel like Gnome can be an avatar that represents me. Dwarf looks better than Gnome in terms of looks and intimidation. Dwarf is slightly taller than Gnome, but I still consider a short-people race which I don’t like. I have nothing against short people, but when I play the game like fighting or role playing game, I want to be as much overpower than any other characters in the game. We all want to be the best in the game. Back to Dwarf, I think they have better facial expression than Gnome because they have a fierce face with long beard and mustache. Bad thing about them is also that they are fat. That’s another negative point for Dwarf. Dwarf has a big belly like a Santa Clause, so I feel like it’s another funny character in the game.
The impression of me picking this Night elf as my avatar is that this character must be strong due to his height. I create the name of this Night elf “Nakedsnake”. The name comes from my favorite game “Metal Gear Solid 4”. Naked indicates the level difficulty in the game MGS 4. Snake is the main character name of the game. I always want to create with the name from my favorite thing whether it’s from my favorite game characters, movie characters or anime characters. I like to put different name which indicates personality from other game into my character, so I would feel like I’m character from another game invading World of Warcraft.
For the skin color, I make sure that I don’t pick too funky color like bright blue or purple, but I always stick with darker skin. For the face, I always pick the clean face with no winkle because I am not that old. For the hair style, I always love to pick long hair rather than short hair. Even though my real life hair is short, but I would like to have a long hair also because it looks cool like an old school professional wrestlers. I pick hair color to be dark blue since it’s my favorite color.
The introductory sequence has shown the environment of the Night elf which all trees and building covering with pink, blue and purple color. At the starter of the level 1, there’re not many skills that I have. I have to gain experience point by killing about-the-same-level creature or complete the quest. The journal for my avatar can take can be any places in this virtual world(of Warcraft), but it’s limited that the place that I can go can only be the place with the enemies level of those location is not exceeding orange color at enemies’ thumbnail level indication because if you go there and find characters with orange, red or skull level, I could get killed. Other than that, my character can freely go anywhere in this virtual world. Each NPC will talk to you when you click on them. The more frequent you click on them, the more that NPC will get annoyed and ask you to go away. The interface that controls this avatar can control by mouse clicking on the small square icons that represents the skill of the character. I can control my character to walk by an arrow key. I do not have many abilities to do every motion of skills, but I will have more control of my skill as the game progress through levels and stages.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t play the characters like Gnome or Dwarf because they are small. Gnome looks a bit funny because their faces are smiling all the time. I don’t like their appearances, especially their height. They are so small like children. Somehow I don’t feel like Gnome can be an avatar that represents me. Dwarf looks better than Gnome in terms of looks and intimidation. Dwarf is slightly taller than Gnome, but I still consider a short-people race which I don’t like. I have nothing against short people, but when I play the game like fighting or role playing game, I want to be as much overpower than any other characters in the game. We all want to be the best in the game. Back to Dwarf, I think they have better facial expression than Gnome because they have a fierce face with long beard and mustache. Bad thing about them is also that they are fat. That’s another negative point for Dwarf. Dwarf has a big belly like a Santa Clause, so I feel like it’s another funny character in the game.
The impression of me picking this Night elf as my avatar is that this character must be strong due to his height. I create the name of this Night elf “Nakedsnake”. The name comes from my favorite game “Metal Gear Solid 4”. Naked indicates the level difficulty in the game MGS 4. Snake is the main character name of the game. I always want to create with the name from my favorite thing whether it’s from my favorite game characters, movie characters or anime characters. I like to put different name which indicates personality from other game into my character, so I would feel like I’m character from another game invading World of Warcraft.
For the skin color, I make sure that I don’t pick too funky color like bright blue or purple, but I always stick with darker skin. For the face, I always pick the clean face with no winkle because I am not that old. For the hair style, I always love to pick long hair rather than short hair. Even though my real life hair is short, but I would like to have a long hair also because it looks cool like an old school professional wrestlers. I pick hair color to be dark blue since it’s my favorite color.
The introductory sequence has shown the environment of the Night elf which all trees and building covering with pink, blue and purple color. At the starter of the level 1, there’re not many skills that I have. I have to gain experience point by killing about-the-same-level creature or complete the quest. The journal for my avatar can take can be any places in this virtual world(of Warcraft), but it’s limited that the place that I can go can only be the place with the enemies level of those location is not exceeding orange color at enemies’ thumbnail level indication because if you go there and find characters with orange, red or skull level, I could get killed. Other than that, my character can freely go anywhere in this virtual world. Each NPC will talk to you when you click on them. The more frequent you click on them, the more that NPC will get annoyed and ask you to go away. The interface that controls this avatar can control by mouse clicking on the small square icons that represents the skill of the character. I can control my character to walk by an arrow key. I do not have many abilities to do every motion of skills, but I will have more control of my skill as the game progress through levels and stages.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Cyberpunk timeline
1995 – Movies – The Net, Hackers, Strange Days, Johnny Mnemonic, Tank Girl, The Fifth Element, 12 Monkeys, Ghost in the Shell, Toy Story (first computer animated movie), Judge Dredd
Book – Diamond Age published, Cyberpunk handbook published
Technology – MP3 files began to spread on internet, Napster created, Viaweb(first online store)
Games – Sega Saturn
1996 – Movie - Escape from LA, Eraser
Books –
Technology – Dolly the sheep cloned, Tamagachi, Fossil bacteria found in meteorite on mars,
Games – Nintendo 64, new controller style
Other – Netrunner collectable card game
1997 – Movies – Fifth Element, Gattaca
Books –
Technology – dvd became the standard format for media, Path Finder lands on Mars
Games – Blade Runner CG, Final Fantasy VII, Fallout
1998 – Movies – Dark City
Books – Julian Dibbell writes “A Rape in Cyberspace”
Technology – US department creates vaccination, Identity theft became federal offense,
Other – Firby created
Game – Fallout 2, Metal Gear Solid
1999- Movies – The Matrix,
Books – Cryptonomicon published by Neal Sphenson, Ender’s Shadow CSI by Orson Scott Card
Technology – Millenium Bug, MIR space station abandoned, Mellisa worm attacks internet, MAC OS 9
Games – Dreamcast, DDR
Book – Diamond Age published, Cyberpunk handbook published
Technology – MP3 files began to spread on internet, Napster created, Viaweb(first online store)
Games – Sega Saturn
1996 – Movie - Escape from LA, Eraser
Books –
Technology – Dolly the sheep cloned, Tamagachi, Fossil bacteria found in meteorite on mars,
Games – Nintendo 64, new controller style
Other – Netrunner collectable card game
1997 – Movies – Fifth Element, Gattaca
Books –
Technology – dvd became the standard format for media, Path Finder lands on Mars
Games – Blade Runner CG, Final Fantasy VII, Fallout
1998 – Movies – Dark City
Books – Julian Dibbell writes “A Rape in Cyberspace”
Technology – US department creates vaccination, Identity theft became federal offense,
Other – Firby created
Game – Fallout 2, Metal Gear Solid
1999- Movies – The Matrix,
Books – Cryptonomicon published by Neal Sphenson, Ender’s Shadow CSI by Orson Scott Card
Technology – Millenium Bug, MIR space station abandoned, Mellisa worm attacks internet, MAC OS 9
Games – Dreamcast, DDR
Blade Runner differences between text & film
There are so many differences between the novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and the film version in Blade Runner. The text include the topics from humanity, relationships, technology and religion to environment, and animal extinction, but the film version focuses primarily on artificiality, romance, relationships and mortality.
The opening scene from the text starts with Rick Deckard and his relationship of having a real, living animal where in the film there is no mentioning about his electric sheep whatsoever. Even though they mention a little bit about the fake owl when Rick goes inside Tyrell Corporation, it doesn’t play the important theme later on in the film. In the novel, Deckard owns the fake sheep and he wants to own a real animal so bad. Later in the story, Rick purchases a goat and this goat represents an important status symbol of his elevation of electric animal owner. The goat also represents something for Rick to redeem himself for killing androids. Because Rick buys an expensive animal, he has to keep killing androids in order to pay for it.
Another difference between the film and text version is that the film relates to humanity and mortality. For example, we can see that the relationships between Deckard and Rachael in the novel are portrayed differently than in the film. In the Film, their relationship between Rick and Rachael has no ill intentions toward each other. Deckard is being rough at first when he tells Rachael that she is an android and her memories are implanted, so nothing that she thinks is real. When Rick sees her tears, he feels empathy toward Rachael and offers to bring her a drink. She leaves without accepting it, taking her grief with her. Deckard feels slightly depressed in her absence. On the other hand, in the novel, Rachael does not care about Rick. Instead, Rachael feels empathy toward the other androids. Rachael seems very upset about Rick’s plan to kill the other androids. She even tries to delay him by promising to kill other android for him. When Rick shows his humanity by sparing Rachael’s like, she turns back into an android. where in the film doesn’t mention that at all. For the film version, I think they are trying to add romance into the story which gives the audience to feel empathy toward this android, so there is a play of emotion part in the movie.
Finally, there is no religious theme in the film. The text mentions about empathy box which is an electrical energy device that uses to stimulate feelings in its user. We also learn about Mercerism. Mercer is a man named in the empathy box that allows user to feel every sensation that Mercer does. Mercerism also plays important part in making religious decision. Rick also uses the empathy box. Mercer’s word aids Rick to force him to kill the androids.
The opening scene from the text starts with Rick Deckard and his relationship of having a real, living animal where in the film there is no mentioning about his electric sheep whatsoever. Even though they mention a little bit about the fake owl when Rick goes inside Tyrell Corporation, it doesn’t play the important theme later on in the film. In the novel, Deckard owns the fake sheep and he wants to own a real animal so bad. Later in the story, Rick purchases a goat and this goat represents an important status symbol of his elevation of electric animal owner. The goat also represents something for Rick to redeem himself for killing androids. Because Rick buys an expensive animal, he has to keep killing androids in order to pay for it.
Another difference between the film and text version is that the film relates to humanity and mortality. For example, we can see that the relationships between Deckard and Rachael in the novel are portrayed differently than in the film. In the Film, their relationship between Rick and Rachael has no ill intentions toward each other. Deckard is being rough at first when he tells Rachael that she is an android and her memories are implanted, so nothing that she thinks is real. When Rick sees her tears, he feels empathy toward Rachael and offers to bring her a drink. She leaves without accepting it, taking her grief with her. Deckard feels slightly depressed in her absence. On the other hand, in the novel, Rachael does not care about Rick. Instead, Rachael feels empathy toward the other androids. Rachael seems very upset about Rick’s plan to kill the other androids. She even tries to delay him by promising to kill other android for him. When Rick shows his humanity by sparing Rachael’s like, she turns back into an android. where in the film doesn’t mention that at all. For the film version, I think they are trying to add romance into the story which gives the audience to feel empathy toward this android, so there is a play of emotion part in the movie.
Finally, there is no religious theme in the film. The text mentions about empathy box which is an electrical energy device that uses to stimulate feelings in its user. We also learn about Mercerism. Mercer is a man named in the empathy box that allows user to feel every sensation that Mercer does. Mercerism also plays important part in making religious decision. Rick also uses the empathy box. Mercer’s word aids Rick to force him to kill the androids.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
