University of Stockholm to invest in Entropia

[GameEducation]

Hi all, I thought I'd share some more information about our project, and answer/comment a few of the things posted here earlier.

Yes, I have been playing EU for a little over two years. I wouldn't try to talk the faculty board into something like this if i didn't knew a fair bit about it.

And no, the students won't actually get to hold the deed, when doing things like changing hunting taxes or fiddling with DNA etc. they will act through me.

As someone else already pointed out (propably after reading a discussion in the newspapers forum), we havent applied for any extra funding for this. We basically did some budged magic to free the necessary sum from already existing funds. So no extra burden for the tax payers.

And yes, we do build our own 3D game environments during various courses in our game education program. But that's pure 3D technology and 3D design. This is something else, here we want the students to experience many things that has to do with a fully populated, commercial game world, full of players. The real thing. We also have course segments that deal explicitely with things that goes on i game worlds on a player-to-player interaction level, "the cocial stuff" if you will, as well as game world economics. I believe an assignment where students are required to arrange a hunting event, for example, will provide them with valuable insights.

Ok, thats why we do this. So, whats in it for everyone else?

If the students have legitimate, resonable requests for equipment or other resources, I will finance this using the project money. So, some injection of money into the game economy.

In some cases when the students arrange events (when balancing a budget is not part of their assignment) I will provide the prize money.

And yes, at all times when the students are not active (probably around 50% of the time seen on a yearly basis) I will use project money to keep up a fair population of something nice to hunt, with taxes set to zero. I will sponsor the land, to be able to brag a little about our game education in the pop-up message upon entering the land.

May I add that I'm looking very much formard to this? I do. At the moment I'm setting up the special new on-the-job avatar to use when acting on behalf of the project (with special permission from MA to officially have a second avatar, which is normally not allowed). Life is good. May you all HOF!

Yours

Mats Wiklund
Lecturer and PhD candidate
Computer and system sciences department (DSV)
Stockholm University

[Kitten]

WOW thats the most neato thing I heard for in entropia in a long time!

O.O

I wish very best luck in this I sure wish my finance class thought to do something like that because theres a lot to be learned in a system like ours ^.^

[Nitrosomonas]

sounds cool, i should go study a year there

much luck with the project ! hope your students learn much

[Nighthawk]

Originally Posted by Xen

On what LA are there Malcruentor? I've been on all those new LA's and never seen Malcruentor on one...

Also, there is no LA "near" New Switzerland. There is one a long run S-SE. Maybe he meant the one close to Oshiri.

dont think so cause he DID say that the LA he wanted wasnt for sale yet, so probably meant that he has talked to MA about making a LA close to NS?

[drifter]

Wow.. thats pretty darn cool

Best of luck to you on this Endeavor Mats.

Please keep EF in the loop of your research results. I am sure they will be eye-opening.

[Legion]

Originally Posted by alh

Heh... I would never, EVER hire a games programmer that don't play games...
Sure, you don't get the technical know-how, but playing lots of games is essential to become a good game dev...

Though, ofcourse, you dont learn how to make games by playing ONE game

Seems the economics department of the univ is interested in EU too, so a nice idea I think
Actually I think it should be more interesting to them, then to the software department, though definatly useful to them too.

One of my assignment to the students would be "Write a list of 10 obvious improvements to make, write a spec for one of them".

Then I'd send the best ones to MindArk

Well it depends sort of.. yes being a gamer is good but being a gamer does NOT make you a good game developer. And you dont become a good game developer by playing games, due to the simple facts that you dont get the skills needed to be a game designer from playing games. You need a bunch of other skills.. and i should know as i am studying to become one

[Zib Black Onyx]

cool idea - but I don't think it should be tax free - you should make it like 1-2% tax so that the LA generates some revenue to cover the fertilizer and DNA etc etc as well as have some capital for other experiments in EU.

[cevaliao]

Cool project, GL on it and it would be interesting instead of charging 0% taxes to try to profit ingame and see how long it took for you to make those peds back. I would like to see the results on a project like that.

Emery

[DeeDee]

Originally Posted by GameEducation

Hi all, I thought I'd share some more information about our project, and answer/comment a few of the things posted here earlier.

Great of you to post here and present the project! :-)

[Oleg]

Originally Posted by GameEducation

<all that stuff about the project>

Sounds interesting, I'm looking forward to finding out more about what you have in mind, and if you get some nice mobs I'm sure I'll come and hunt on your LA. Player-made events are a great part of EU so hopefully I'll participate in something too.

Are we allowed to know the name of your original avatar?

Good luck with it!