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These 'cathartic' stress robots can take a beating
Whether it's a meditation app or looking at puppy videos, much of today's technology focuses on replacing your negative feelings with positive ones. But what if you want to act on all your feelings of anger, sadness and anxiety -- in a healthy way? Going off the idea that facing negative emotions head-on can be good for a person's well-being, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University created "cathartic objects" that are designed to be hit, stabbed and even sworn at. Lead by researcher Michael Luria and co-authors Amit Zoran and Jodi Forlizzi, the team presented their paper on the cathartic objects at the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems held this month in Glasgow.
Angry Twitter is bad for your health
You've got to tell them. They're so wrong. What an idiot. Unbelievable. This will show them. Getting angry on Twitter may feel great (correction: amazing) at times, but that doesn't mean it's good for you. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have found a strong correlation between use of negative language on Twitter and heart disease mortality. From public tweets made during 2009 and 2010, the research found that communities where expletives and hate words were tweeted often also had higher rates of heart disease deaths. Positive tweets, however, showed the opposite effect.
PBS Game/Show asks 'Are Angry Fanboys Bad for Games?'
PBS' Game/Show is back again, and this time we're going to sit and talk about our feelings, m'kay? Specifically, host Jamin Warren wonders if our feelings of anger and disapproval toward games we don't like are harming the industry. Warren points out how negative attitudes toward creators have propagated thanks to the internet, and cites the departure of several high-level industry personnel as evidence that something in our lines of communication is broken. We all get angry, frustrated or disappointed with our games every now and again, but are we expressing that properly? "We should support our favorite creators for how they create, not always for what they create," Warren argues in the video. "In film, you might be a fan of Kathryn Bigelow or Quentin Tarantino, but that doesn't mean that you expect them to make 10 sequels to Point Break or Pulp Fiction. ... It's important that we give game designers the exact same latitude." Check out the episode, consider the behavior being talked about, and tell us what you think in the comments. [Image: PBS]
The Mog Log Extra: Final Fantasy XIV's great housing fiasco
This past Saturday morning, Final Fantasy XIV announced free company housing prices in its patch notes for 2.1. These prices did not explicitly include an upturned middle finger and looping sounds of laughter, but they may as well have. This was not a positive move by Square-Enix. With the patch scheduled for release on Tuesday, players had an enormous part of their enjoyment kneecapped immediately and almost arbitrarily. One of the major features of this patch that has been announced and discussed repeatedly is housing, and nearly every free company I spoke with said that this announcement more or less killed any dream of having housing accessible to the players on my server. And they're not the only ones. To say that this has been disheartening is an understatement. Final Fantasy XIV has had an immensely strong relaunch, and this debacle -- and the complete lack of communication from the community team on the issue -- is absolutely astounding. These are not launch woes that almost every game suffers from; this is a result of failing to consider so many basic elements of playstyles and the playerbase.
Valve responds to fan outrage at Dota 2's missing Diretide
Halloween events might just seem like a trivial little thing to you, but they are serious business in Dota 2. Valve didn't turn on the game's Diretide event this year, and the resulting fan outrage could probably be bottled up and used to start fires. So what in the world happened? A week or so out from Halloween proper, the company has finally addressed the controversy in a new blog post explaining why the event failed to materialize. In short: The team was working on a major update that was meant to be ready around Halloween, so the assumption was that it would be easier just to launch that. Then it got delayed, and there was no time to stop working on that and start working on Diretide. Once the time came and the event was still missing, what happened was more or less a matter of figuring out how to fix it rather than simply stating that the company was aware. It looks as if the game's next update will contain a somewhat belated Diretide, which may not fix the problem but will at least help ameliorate lingering hurt feelings.
Study finds that anger spreads further than joy on social networks
Want to get your message heard on a social network? Try raging about it. China's Beihang University has published a study of Sina Weibo users which suggests that anger-fueled online posts have more of an influence than those reflecting other emotions. During the research period, a typical bitter comment would affect posts three degrees removed from the original; joy had a muted impact, while disgust and sadness hardly got any traction. Don't be too quick to lament the human condition, though. As researchers note, many of the angry posts were triggered by politics in Weibo's native China. There's a chance that internet denizens on other social networks have a rosier outlook on life. [Image credit: Wayne Marshall, Flickr]
The Daily Grind: Do you take part in forum rage?
It's a generally accepted fact that the official forums for any given game are a cesspool of invective, animosity, and rage. Whatever recent changes have been made to a game, you can be sure that there will be an outpouring of rage that detail how the changes were too big, not big enough, or didn't affect real issues. If World of Warcraft is unexpectedly down, there will be plenty of people ready to explain how this is the downfall of a hugely successful game that makes millions of dollars. The flip side to this is that it can be cathartic to just open up and complain on the forums. Even if you know full well that launch week results in server issues for every game, it helps let out frustrations to just explode about those server issues on the forums. The other side would be that this sort of behavior contributes to an atmosphere of negativity rather than discussion. So do you take part in forum rage? Does it depend on the conditions or the problem? Or do you just stay out altogether? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Researchers create video game that monitors heart rate to keep children's anger in check
Nintendo may have left its Vitality Sensor by the wayside, but researchers at Boston Children's Hospital are using heart rate monitoring in a video game to teach children with anger issues how to temper their emotions. Dubbed RAGE (Regulate and Gain Emotional) Control, the game tasks players with blasting hostile spaceships while keeping their heart rate from exceeding a predefined limit. If a gamer's pulse rises above the ceiling, they'll lose the ability to shoot until they can ease their pulse back down. A group of 18 kids who received standard treatments and played the game for five, 15-minute-long sessions had better control of their heart rate and lower anger levels than a group that only used traditional treatments. Currently, a controlled clinical trial of RAGE Control is underway and there are plans to take the concept a step further with toys and games suited for younger children. Look out below for the full press release or tap the second source link for the team's paper in the Journal of Adolescent Psychiatry. [Image credit: Thirteen of Clubs, Flickr]
iBooks Author gets new EULA, aims to clear writer's block
We've waxed lyrical about iBooks Author at the technological level, but a good self-publishing platform counts for nothing if authors are put off by its terms and conditions. A particular source of antagonism so far has been the notion that, if an author decides to charge a fee for their iBook, then Apple will claim exclusive distribution rights and prevent them from publishing their work anywhere else. Check out the More Coverage links below and you'll see that a number of writers tore up Apple's licensing agreement and flung it into the proverbial overflowing trash can. Now though, Cupertino has done some re-writing of its own and come up with a new EULA. It clarifies that Apple will only demand exclusive distribution rights over .ibooks files that are created with iBooks Author, rather than the book's content itself. It states that "this restriction will not apply to the content of the work when distributed in [another] form." So, there it is -- writers everywhere can happily go back to tearing up their own work again.
Breakfast Topic: Share your ragequit moments
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Online gaming allows people the anonymity to be jerks if they want to and not face many actual consequences, whether it is trolling, ninjaing a piece of loot, rage-quitting a group because of a single wipe, or getting into a shouting match over Vent. Sometimes we carry real-life events in game with us. We have a bad day at work or break up with a girlfriend or worse, and we are unable to suffer noobs lightly. Sometimes we're rude, telling the guy doing terrible DPS he is bad and removing him from the group, as opposed to trying to help him; sometimes it is far worse. Back in The Burning Crusade, I was in a raiding guild I particularly liked. Good progression, mostly decent people, raid times that fit my schedule well at the time -- I thought all was good. However, there was on officer who I just did not get along with. So one Saturday, she was forming a ZG raid and asked me if I wanted to go. I said no, I was dealing with something in real life and was about to log. I didn't go into details, but we had a death in the family, and I just wasn't able to really concentrate on tanking at the time. I logged off. So a couple of hours later, I logged back on an alt and noticed they were still in ZG, so I asked what's up and how many chests they got. The officer went on a rant, just berating me endlessly, taking out their bad raid on me. I gquit on the spot -- all of my characters. Other officers talked to me later and asked me what happened, and I told them ... but I just could not go back after that. While I am currently in a guild that suits me better, I still wish I had left the previous guild on better terms. So have you done anything in a fit of rage you truly regret, something you actually felt guilty about afterwards?
One Shots: Accursed hellfire droid
While I've recently been enjoying my time in Star Wars Galaxies as part of our ongoing Choose My Adventure series, I'm not the only one who has been inexorably drawn further and further into the game -- and its factional warfare! Today we have this great shot from Anger, who managed to get himself in a bit of trouble while facing off against members of the Rebellion not too long ago. He writes in: "I just recently decided to re-sub to Star Wars Galaxies and this little moment is one I will never forget. I was checking out the new (to me) city battles in Dearic on Talus. While slashing my way though a few Rebel scumbags, I swung my camera around just in time to see a missile with my name on it. Needless to say, I wasn't able to force run faster than a missile." If you're playing an MMO, we want to see your screens! From big to small, all of them are welcome. Just drop them in an email to us here at oneshots@massively.com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick note explaining what's going on in the picture. We'll post the image out here on Massively and give you the credit! %Gallery-85937%
Breakfast Topic: When your gaming gets emotionally charged
This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. It was going to be a regular Tuesday night for me: Get home from work, have dinner, lounge around on the couch with my hubby before bed. I didn't even really want to log into WoW that night, but I logged in just out of habit. Once there I thought, "Ah, I'll just queue a random and get my two frosts; hopefully it's a quick run." And then, almost half-heartedly, just because I had to find something to do during the 20-minute DPS wait, I hopped on a flight path to my favorite fishing ground, the lake next to Camp Winterhoof. Exactly four casts later, I'm whooping at the top of my lungs like I had just won a million dollars. I hadn't just won a million dollars -- I just happened to fish up the Dark Herring, an achievement that had been evading me for the better part of a year. I look over at my spouse, eager to share the fantastic news. I can't blame him, the poor guy is looking at me like I just lost my mind. ... At which point I more or less simmered down, got a grip and proceeded to my dungeon. I was still ecstatic, mind you. Days later, I was still ecstatic. I would be sitting on the couch with my hubby, calmly watching TV, and all of a sudden I'd burst out giggling, "Can you believe I caught that fish? I can't believe I caught that fish! Heehee." If that's not having an emotional stake in this game, I don't know what is. Another example: I had only been playing WoW for a few weeks, after my spouse finally got me to try out the game. I was only level 20 or so, questing in Ashenvale, when I got a random group invite -- my first ever. I figure, "Why not? He wants help on the same quest I'm doing; it can only go faster." Being new to the game, I hadn't quite grasped the concept of rez sickness ... Two minutes and five mobs later, my new-found friend and I were both dead. Two seconds after that, my new-found friend dropped group without saying anything (probably for the best, given the choice words he could have had for me if he'd wanted). I was devastated. I felt like I had let this person down. I started bawling -- tears, sobs, the whole bit. I turned to my hubby for comfort and he immediately burst out laughing. (OK, right now I'm laughing, too, but at the time it was very distressing.) My point is, I often find myself emotionally invested in this game. And while my husband can laugh and raise eyebrows and roll his eyes, he's felt it too; he rerolled on a PvE server two weeks after Wrath of the Lich King came out because leveling in a PvP environment was stressing him out too much. How about it, fellow gamers? When has this game had you jumping for joy, crying in sadness, seething with anger or wringing your hands in desperation? Have you ever wanted to write for WoW.com? Your chance may be right around the corner. Watch for our next call for submissions for articles via Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. The next byline you see here may be yours!
Star Trek Online Advisory Council formed, wailing and gnashing of teeth ensues
Fan input can be a touchy thing. You get it whether you ask for it or not, especially if you have official forums, and it's usually fairly divided. The fanbase frequently can't agree on what they want as an aggregate, so it's understandable that companies might want to filter some of the input through other sources. It's understandable that Cryptic would want to create the Star Trek Online Advisory Council, consisting of vocal fans that they can use as a barometer of current opinion and compressing the most urgent issues. Especially given the philosophy of player-driven development, it all makes sense. The problems come when they announce this to other players. First response in the official thread is an incredulous statement that one group of fans is getting more input in the game's direction than anyone else for what they consider no logical reason. At 51 pages as of this writing and still going, the thread's response is overwhelmingly negative, ranging from anger to baffled confusion at the program. How Star Trek Online's producers will react is unsure, but it's certain that the announcement hasn't gone over well... a true shame after riding high from the first large content patch.
Players miffed over Champions Online's "kitchen sink patch" and Vibora Bay
It's an awkward time for Champions Online. After the last State of the Game post by Chronomancer, things were looking up. The latest patch was slated to fix Lemuria (colloquially known as Lagmuria, due to the extreme system hiccups), add more power to various power frameworks, nemesis changes, the addition of team looting, and changes to the crafting system. Furthermore, the same State of the Game post announced that Champions would be getting its first expansion -- Vibora Bay. However, with the deployment of the "kitchen sink" patch, most gamers have experienced more lag in all zones, some characters are locked in Lemuria, unable to log in, and there are issues with the crafting systems. If all of that wasn't bad enough, Cryptic Daeke has confirmed that Vibora Bay will be a "paid expansion" which will add more content for levels 37 to 40 -- a move which has sent many members of the community into what can only be described as "a frothing rage."
The Daily Grind: Do you mend fences or burn bridges?
It happens no matter what you do: you get into a bad group of players, or you and your guild leader (or shell leader, or supergroup leader, or whatever) have a falling-out, or you just tagged something that another person needs. Whatever the reasons, feelings can flare when playing an MMO, and we tend to invest a lot of ourselves in our virtual avatars. Some people, when confronted with rising tempers, try to get everyone to calm down and even things out. It's not that big of a deal, after all -- it's just a video game, and it's better to make friends than enemies. On the other hand, some people would rather take the chance to hold the moral high ground and lash out where it's appropriate. After all, if you don't tell people what they do wrong, they'll never learn -- and it's just a video game, how could they be so upset when you give them what they have coming? So which do you generally try to be? When everyone gets touchy, do you try and be the person calming people down, or the one stirring them up? Do you try to convince people to stick with a bad group, or do you let the dead weight know what they're doing wrong and then get the heck out of Dodge?
The Daily Grind: What little bug is a big problem?
You know the one. It's a tiny bug, a problem that only comes up once in a blue moon -- if it's even a problem and not just a slight problem like a model clipping issue. You really shouldn't care one way or the other, it's so irrelevant... but you care. You can't help but care. The very thought of it bothers you. And even though it's something so obscure that you're not sure if anyone has even bothered reporting it other than you, or so rare or so unnecessary, you still get angry when all sorts of other minor bugs get fixed and this one persists. We're not talking about bugs that people can legitimately point to as impacting quality of play today, like the infamous Vanish bug in World of Warcraft. We're talking about those minor issues that you can't let go of, sometimes even long after you've stopped playing the game. What small and ultimately irrelevant bug just can't help but get your goat every time it comes up? How do you try to work around it? Have you reported it once, multiple times, or not at all with the expectation that the developers must know about it already?
The Daily Grind: What game has generated the strongest feelings for you?
There are some games that you just sort of play. You pick them up, you enjoy them, and then you walk away without any real feelings about them one way or the other. And then there are the games that you launch into a screaming two-hour argument with one of your closest friends about on your birthday, because they happened to say that they didn't like it. Or maybe you finished an intense, epic play session on the game, working your way through an emotional questline and roleplaying all the way, and you find out afterwards that you need to lie down for a little while. Or maybe they're just the games that inspire you to post long forum diatribes wherever you can about why this is the greatest game in history. Whether it be in the game or out of it, what games have generated the strongest feelings in you? Whether it's an intense emotional reaction to a character's death that you would nominate as an exhibit in the ongoing "are games art" debate, or just some impassioned soapboxing off-the-cuff, we're sure you have some moments and games that just resonate with you. Tell us about them. We're all ears.
Anti-Aliased: A few reasons to cage the nerdrage
There's so much anger in the consumer market these days. It seems like when a new product comes up, there has to be this bandwagon of people who roll in and start nerdraging over the product. Oh, APB isn't up your alley? Better nerdrage about that! You don't like Warhammer Online? Rev that nerdrage engine nice and loud so your neighbors can hear it.Everyone's a critic and gaming consumers are far from an exception. Some of the comments around these parts are some of the most spiteful sentences that could be constructed. You have console hate, game hate, genre hate, even particular MMO genre hate. But, honestly, why? It obviously doesn't help anyone except maybe the person doing it. A catharsis, perhaps?So what's this Anti-Aliased about? Honestly, I need rant article that's all about ranting. A hate article on game hate. Do two hates make a happy? I dunno, but I'm interested enough to try it out. So here's a few reasons why you should cage the hate and think twice before you open your trap on the forums you love so much.
Anti-Aliased: A few reasons to cage the nerdrage pt. 2
3. Because almost every game has a silver lining This is a sentence that I abide by in almost everything I do. Even in games I don't like, I can usually find something that really wows me and makes me appreciate the developer's work. I know Darkfall is one of those games that many people just really don't like. I'm the same way -- I don't care for the way the game handles itself. But where it failed in game design, it didn't fail on unique vistas and sharp combat. Sure, the graphics aren't top notch, but there are still areas in the game where you just have to go, "Wow, that's an incredible sight." Plus, it's real time combat in a MMO. That's really, really hard to do and kudos to an independent developer for pulling it off. "You've heard that everyone's a critic, yes? Well everyone's also apparently a game designer." Even when you completely hate a game, I urge you to look back at it and consider your experiences. You wouldn't have played it for a while unless there was something that made you enjoy the experience even a little bit. Then again, maybe you hate it all. But if you do, see the piece of advice above before you begin nerd vomiting all over forum threads.Although... there certainly are gaming exceptions to this rule...2. Because it doesn't help anybodyThis is the part where people seem to totally and completely miss the boat. And when I say miss the boat I mean that the boat as totally pulled away from the dock, is 500 feet away, and people still run off the dock and jump into the sea holding their suitcases.Nobody benefits from aimless criticism that amounts of nothing more than the screaming of biased opinions. You get to look like an inconsiderate idiot, the community gets irritated at your groundless claims, and the developers learn nothing about how to improve their game. Bad criticism isn't bad as long as it's appropriately constructive. It's actually some of the best stuff you can possibly get in regards to your product. Positive feedback means you're going the right way, but constructive feedback shows exactly what's going wrong with your current design and where you can improve. "If you think making any game is easy, then I challenge you to sit down and start making your own pen and paper roleplaying game, or a board game, or a card game." My favorite comment in this regard was made by a Bungie developer during the Halo 3 multiplayer beta. A journalist asked him, "What did you learn from this beta test?" and I recall the developer responding that all he got from the bug reports was that the level sucked. He didn't know why the levels sucked because everyone just wrote that they sucked.1. Because you may not know what it's like to make a gameYou've heard that everyone's a critic, yes? Well everyone's also apparently a game designer. Everyone knows what's best for a game, how to balance the design, and how to make it so "X class doesn't suck."I think that many people think it's super easy to make a game. Slap some abilities in, render a few areas, get a server, and you have an MMO, right? Heck no! You have programming bugs, design bugs, art asset bugs, pathing to worry about, scripts to run, a whole set of connections between servers to worry about, and much, much more. So here's my challenge. If you think making any game is easy, then I challenge you to sit down and start making your own pen and paper roleplaying game, or a board game, or a card game. Share it with your friends and see what they say. But, above all, see how long it takes you to make a "simple" game. Include with that the testing you do with your friends, the fine tuning you may make to the rules. You'll find it's more work than you probably through it was. Believe me, I know, I'm doing it. So next time before you rocket fire your hate mail out onto the intarwebz, think about a couple of these things before you trash someone's game. You might just find yourself holding back, just because you understand a little bit more about gaming and a little bit more about how frivolous it is to hold such pointless grudges. Colin Brennan is the weekly writer of Anti-Aliased who hates aimless hate. When he's not writing here for Massively, he's rambling on his personal blog, The Experience Curve. If you want to message him, send him an e-mail at colin.brennan AT weblogsinc DOT com. You can also follow him on Twitter through Massively, or through his personal feed.
It's-a Mario World: Infuriating Items
Let's make one point very clear from the onset: The Mario Kart series has thoroughly rocked our boxers since 1992. Despite some shortcomings we still have pretty high praise for Wii's latest iteration, and most fanboys agree that there currently exists no better Nintendo Wi-Fi experience. For everything Mario Kart does right, though, there always seems to be a cheaply overpowered item that renders even the most skilled racer indefensible.So this is us venting. We have seen too many races (and online VR points) slip away on account of nasty item distribution. The series' long-standing method of reserving the best (or at least most destructive) pickups for trailing racers can be especially frustrating to those who would have otherwise earned a legitimate first place rank. Competition, in effect, is deadened by a deliberately equalized playing field. Mario Kart's algorithm for item probability is more at fault than the items themselves, but you know you've cussed out a spiny blue shell before. Now get angry with us in our new rant gallery. It's-a Mario World is a weekly feature in which the ubiquity of Nintendo's flagship character is celebrated. Check back every Friday to find out what strange and wonderful thing has got us tipping our caps. * * * Links of the week: SMB clone revived! | Mario Tennis comes out swingin'! | Delgrego disses the Party! Get him! | New Mario and Luigi 3 screens!
