Practicum Project__Halo 3__

Description of Halo 3
- In the beginning I created an account by purchasing it with the actual Halo 3 game. While making the account you must create a gamer tag, which is what you go by for the rest of your x-box live career no matter what game you play.
- My gamer tag is Frank Wizzle aka Frank Wizzah aka Frank White aka King of NY aka Notorious BIG—this has been my “Halo” name since I played Halo in high school with my friends.
- The object of the multiplayer game is to get to the highest rank possible, which is 50. It is extremely difficult to get to this level, and a small percentage of halo players do.
- The way the game is played is your teamed up with a group of 3 or 4 players, depending on whether you play ranked or social matches, and then you play against another team with the same amount of players, and with similar rank. If you win the game you go up in rank, and if you lose the game you go down in rank. Most games are up to 50. You get a point for killing someone on the other team. Whichever teams gets to 50 first wins.



To look at the current population of people on Halo 3, or view my stats click on this link: My Halo 3 Profile 

Cultural Studies Approach
- How did identity figure in your game?

There is no way to tell what race or sex a person is. Therefore a player is judged purely on their experience and rank.

- What were some of the dominant discourses, assumptions, values or representations that you noticed?

Discourse in Halo 3 takes place before and after the game is played. Before the game people usually try to convince other people on their team to veto the map that was assigned to that specific game. In social matches (non-ranked games) the players have the opportunity to talk to the players on the opposing team. A lot of times in this situation one player will start to talk smack to the other team, and a feud will erupt, usually involving racial and hateful slurs against blacks, homosexuals, or rednecks, even if none of the above are playing in the game.

- Does the game have a large fan community, and if so how do they impact the game?

The game has a very large fan community and have numerous ways in which they impact the game...
- They can make original videos of Halo 3 highlights
- They can post their own highlights on file sharing websites such as youtube
- In the Halo 3 forum they can start various groups and threads to answer questions they have about the game, and start movement within the game. For example, one thread had the purpose of changing the weapons on a certain map. Since the creators of Halo 3 read these posts, the thread was listened to, and now the weapons are changed. The creators are able to change aspects of the game all the time because the game is now on a network.
Here is the link to one of the groups I joined in the Halo 3 community: Get a Headshot tourney

halo 3 music video

halo 3 edited video

Castronova approaches the game from an economists' perspective. Thinking about how he discussed value systems in Everquest (in the excerpt from Synthetic Worlds), describe any economic systems that you noticed in your game. What was valued, traded, or exchanged? How could you tell?

The most valued aspect of the game is what level your player is. The higher the level, the more respected you are in the game, and the better you are assumed to be. Often before the game a player will call out that he wants a certain weapon, however usually these wishes are not respected. Since the player's are able to talk to their team at any point of the game they can ask you to drop a weapon so they could pick it up. Since different weapons vary in power, this can be seen as sort of an economic system of power within the game. The player with the better weapon usually has more influence in the game. This influence is usually short lived though, because players are constantly being killed and respawned.

How do you think that the networked aspect of these games affected gameplay and distinguished the experience from a stand-alone or non-networked game? How did your interactions with other players impact the way you played? Do you think the networked aspect impacted the game's diegesis in any way?

- The transfer from Halo being a stand-alone game to a networked game has definitely increased its addictiveness. The ability to play with multiple people of varying skill levels from around the world makes the game way more intense than it used to.
- Also the ability to verbally communicate has also changed the game drastically. A lot of the time the interactions with your team can decide how well you do in the game. If one of the players on your team has a negative attitude it could bring down your ability and vice versa. In addition, the ability to communicate has given me the opportunity to stay in contact with friends at other universities. For example, I find myself talking to one of my friends that has the game way more often than other friends that don't.

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