Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Fix: 9-10
In my experience with settlers it has been an interesting one. I have become friends with one player from my guild at which every time he and I are online together we start a conversation whether it is about the settlers experience or life in general. It has been interesting seeing someone who plays the game not because they have to but because of the fun challenge the game provides. My sense of community has come from not only this experience but as well as others in our guild we have teamed up so to speak to make sure we all successful and continue to progress. I think this connects perfectly with the reading from this week. "Fix #9: More Fun With Strangers, Compared with games, reality is and isolating. Games help us band together and create powerful communities from scratch." (McGonigal, pg. 172) This explains perfectly the commodore we have built in our guild. Since I am one of the last to join the guild it is interesting how quickly we have band together to make sure we are all progressing whether its giving goods to each other or buffing buildings constantly we are working and asking for help to continue to progress. In my experience with happiness hacks would be with those in my guild like I explained before where they just look at your settlement and see whether you need a building buff or if your running low on a good they will provide it for you if they have the means to do so. I as well return the favor because it is only right since the game is not a competition we look at as being neighbors and lending a hand so to speak. In McGonigal reading she states, "Researchers have shown that sharing the same space for even just a few minutes a day with kind and friendly strangers makes us more optimistic, improves our self-esteem, makes us feel safer and more connected to our environment, and generally helps us enjoy life more." (pg 190) From my experience so far these thoughts as described in the quote are what I feel as I continue to work with those in my guild as well as communicate with others through discussion on the live chat. It opens our eyes to see what interest others have as well as meeting people who are willing to just lend a helping hand.
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ReplyDeleteResponse to David’s blog:
ReplyDeleteDear David,
As I read through your blog, it was interesting to see the progress we made from the initial stages of Settlers to that of which we are currently on. As you mentioned about your learning experience in Fix 3-4, I agree that one of the primary reasons I started learning more about this game is the trading system. I was afraid to do trading since I was not sure about the market price and how we go about selling and buying stuff at first. One time I was asking about the trading in HELP chat room and I was referred from one of the players to take a look at this trade calculator website:
http://www.castleempiresim.com/trading.php#results
Although we now know that we can decide prices based on the current market shares by others, this was initially a really helpful tool for me to have a better scope of how much certain resources are worth in exchange to other products. If you are interested, please check it out!
Also, in your blog Fix 5-6 and 9-10, your reflections about your experience in the guild is quite interesting. I have heard and seen the guild [LOA] a lot from the help desk. Since I joined a different kind of guild, I am really curious to know what kind of activities you have as a guild, and what kind, if any, requirements you needed to join them. It is so nice that you have someone who is at level 42 helping you as a partner; I am also really interested to see his/her land because I have never seen anyone higher than level 40 yet.
I also can relate to your input in Fix 7-8 that the progress of the game at first was somewhat slower; compared to the current stage we are at. As you mentioned, I believe that joining the guild is one of the major factors that accelerated our progress by lettings us be more engaged and involved in the team-work process of learning. The guild system plays an important role in having “stronger social connectivity” (p. 82), “whole hearted participation” (p. 124), and what you also discussed: “more fun with strangers” (p. 172), since the members are always there to help each other for the collective good. Your quotes about positive-psychology research from McGonigal (2011) excerpt (p. 189-190) is really interesting, since it explains why the participation in guilds plays a significant role in why we continue to play Settlers today.
Your blog shares a lot of great points about your hand-on experiences related to the readings and the course materials, and it was also interesting to see that our experiences share a lot of similarities in many ways. Thank you for the great blog!
Kasumi Yamazaki
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