From: Michael Wiik (mwiik@messagenet.com)
Date: Mon Jun 17 2002 - 09:10:06 MDT
Mike Lorrey <mlorrey@datamann.com> wrote:
> Furthermore, how do you KNOW that those entities *aren't*
> consenting? If they were programmed by us to engage in violent
> activities, then violence is certainly a part of their nature.
I find the subtexts of computer game quite interesting. In the universe
of Quake 3, death is reversible: entities are reborn within seconds of
death and have no to little existance outside of immediate violent
combat. Yet the backstory makes it clear that these entities aren't
there by choice.
A (somewhat) less violent game, Age of Empires II, has peasants (male
and female) who herd and slaughter sheep, hunt deer and wild boar, farm
and fish, mine gold and chop wood. But again, they have no existance
(with one exception, idleness) outside these activities, and peasants
who have completed their jobs can be located instantly via an 'idle
worker' button. I think it'd be more realistic if some percentage of
them just stopped working, perhaps picnicing or having sex, whenever
they were off the gameplayer's screen. I think it's interesting that
technical advances you can research in the game (better plows, for
example) offer no respite for peasants who continue their backbreaking
24/7/365 labor (except perhaps the release in sweet, sweet death as
their increased efficiency makes it possible to eliminate them to free
up population for more soldiers). Smacks of socialism to me.
It appears the Army is coming out with a free multiplayer team-based FPS
in which each opposing team will see itself as US Army soldiers and the
other team as terrorists. You can't play as a terrorist. Still, it
should make clear that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom
fighter.
-Mike
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