The age of anxiety:

[davem]

Two things I've come across recently. One, an interview with Susan Greenfield about her new book:

Which means what? "All the things I said in the new book." Ah yes. ID: The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century says people who spend a lot of time interacting through the screen can become emotionally detached, seeing life as a series of logical tasks that demand immediate reaction. Language gets crunched, along with the ability to imagine or analyse. Attention spans shorten. "Human beings always listened to stories and had long working memories. Now it's action, reaction, action, reaction."

What worries her most is a shift of focus from content to process. Think of a book about a princess locked in a tower, she says. You go on reading because you care about what happens to the princess. You're lost in the content of the story. Now think of a computer game about the same thing. "You don't give a stuff about the princess, do you? She's there as a goal." It's not about her. It's about you completing a task. "You focus on the process. The experience offered by a computer is the excitement of an anticipated reward. And frustration if you don't get it. In neurochemical terms, it's very similar to when you take a drug."

This is her specialist area. Rescuing the princess produces a chemical in the brain called dopamine, she says, which makes you feel good. But too much of it may damage the prefrontal cortex, and that can limit your ability to understand anything much beyond the here and now. Other addictions have the same effect.

"Many people like downhill skiing, or dancing, or wine, or sex, or food," says Greenfield. "Up until now, [pleasure seeking] has always been part of our lives but a polar opposite to seeking meaning. I fear we are shifting too much in favour of the literal, the hedonistic, the here and now, and losing meaning, context and content in favour of process.".......

She also explains antisocial behaviour this way. "If you're trapped on a sink estate and you don't even know the capital of France because you've been excluded from school, you're stuck in a literal world where all your stimulation comes from your sensations," she says. "So is it surprising that you will eat strong, greasy, salty food to stimulate the tastebuds? Or kick down doors, or take drugs? The only way you can drive your brain is by grabbing strong sensations." http://www.independent.co.uk/news/sc...ns-825916.html

& a report on TORn about a new LotR based computer game:

For the evil campaign we have something interesting, in the books and the films they make reference to how horrible the world would be if Sauron were to acquire The One Ring, but there is not too much detail, we’ve taken that idea and run with it. For the evil campaign we’ve taken the end of the story and hit ‘rewind’ a little, and you get to play a Ringwraith who stops Frodo from destroying the Ring. You actually get to deliver the Ring to Sauron, this sets off a series of events where you get to play the side of evil with Sauron’s forces. Sauron resurrects his generals, The WitchKing, The Balrog, Saruman and more. You get to play on the evil side and ride oliphaunts, ride the wargs and basically get to play as your favorite evil villains. You get to go through all of Middle earth and sack The Shire, destroy Rivendell, confront Gandalf and Elrond, destroy Helms Deep, attack Minas Tirith and so on.

Xoanon: This is one of the first LOTR games where we get to play the bad guys and live out our darkest fantasies right?

Giz: Right, that’s the beauty of the game, because it’s very systematic, it’s not a very scripted game at all. http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2008...it/#more-28812

& I couldn't help feeling that that's exactly the kind of thing Greenfield is condemning - the guy behind the game states he is a 'fan' of the book. He clearly isn't. What he is is a fan of the 'stuff' Tolkien invented, not of the underlying philosophy/moral value system. You can be 'evil' as easily as you can be 'good' - because 'good' & 'evil' are simply 'sides' iin a game. The essential difference between Tolkien's work & this game 'based on' it is that this game has no 'characters' which suffer or grow, there's no-one to care about or get emotionally involved with - in Greenfield's words "You don't give a stuff about the princess, do you? She's there as a goal." It's not about her. It's about you completing a task. "You focus on the process. The experience offered by a computer is the excitement of an anticipated reward". This game is Tolkien's creation reduced to outlandish beings attempting to slaughter each other just to see who wins - & ultimately it doesn't actually matter who wins, because its only a 'game'. 'Action, re-action, action, re-action'.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by davem

I couldn't help feeling that that's exactly the kind of thing Greenfield is condemning - the guy behind the game states he is a 'fan' of the book. He clearly isn't. What he is is a fan of the 'stuff' Tolkien invented, not of the underlying philosophy/moral value system. You can be 'evil' as easily as you can be 'good' - because 'good' & 'evil' are simply 'sides' iin a game. The essential difference between Tolkien's work & this game 'based on' it is that this game has no 'characters' which suffer or grow, there's no-one to care about or get emotionally involved with - in Greenfield's words "You don't give a stuff about the princess, do you? She's there as a goal." It's not about her. It's about you completing a task. "You focus on the process. The experience offered by a computer is the excitement of an anticipated reward". This game is Tolkien's creation reduced to outlandish beings attempting to slaughter each other just to see who wins - & ultimately it doesn't actually matter who wins, because its only a 'game'. 'Action, re-action, action, re-action'.

As I stated in another thread, I was involved in testing and designing the original Middle-earth PC-based MMORPG (massively multi-player online roleplaying game) then called MEO (Middle-earth Online). It was to have a system of virtue and corruption, a sliding scale based on your actions that would lead you down either path (with consequences at either end, such as loss of faction, outlawry, exile, etc.), and close adherence to Tolkien's ethos: limited 'magic' (itemized such as the rings, or innate as in Elves -- no silly Hobbit mages), no inherently evil playable characters (one couldn't be an orc or troll, for instance), and neither could one be a Maiaric character (so no Gandalfs), or overpowered Noldo from Aman (if you wanted an Elven character, you had to be Silvan). It was looking to be an intriguing game, unlike so many 'swords and sorcery' online games (like World of Warcraft or Everquest) that emphasized looting, killing and grinding levels to accrue the best 'stuff'.

Unfortunately, Vivendi International withdrew from the project and its partner, Turbine, gained complete control. The original title Middle-earth Online was the first to go, and the game's dimensions (both in its geographical footprint and storyline) were shrunk to Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO), to take advantage of the massive popularity of the movies (even though the game itself is licensed for the books). The virtue/corruption system was abandoned, and even the motto 'Come live in Middle-earth' was co-opted for the crass 'Prove to everyone that you are a great hero and deserve great riches' (a decidely un-Tolkienesque view of Middle-earth). The new management team announced that its primary focus was to gain marketshare from WoW (World of Warcraft), the market leader in gaming, and the emphasis of the game swerved towards more generic gaming fare in an unbridled attempt to lure the WoW subscriber base with a reasonable facsimile of WoW's controls, systems and gameplay. I gave up in disgust over a year ago before LotRo went live, as the game in no way engenders a true feeling of Middle-earth (although you do get to meet Gandalf, Tom Bombadil and Elrond...WOOT!)

Needless to say, the game is all about the accrual of 'stuff', getting the best 'stuff' and wearing the best 'stuff'; evil characters are allowed to be played in what LotRo calls 'Monsterplay' (basically, battlegrounds where good and bad characters continually hack each other to bits); and, most recently, Turbine has announced their 'high level goal is to introduce magic into Tolken fiction' (they have at most 400k subscribers, whereas WoW has close to 10 million -- so they failed to attract their target market relying merely on established lore). Turbine supposedly has three 'Tolkien scholars' on staff (obviously, Larry, Moe and Curly, Associate Janitors and Ebonic Philologists at Alfred E. Neuman College of Online Cosmetology) so that they will manage a 'tasteful and intelligent way to introduce magic into Tolkien fiction.' What this means is that there will indeed be Hobbit mages in outlandish Gandalf gear flinging about colorful thunderbolts, and Dwarves invoking the power of runes to heighten their lazerbeam vision.

Davem --This is all a round about way to say that I have seen firsthand the corruptive power of greed and disingenuosness in the stripping of the essential Tolkien mythos to attract attention-deficited juveniles (and more so adults, as it caters to the teen and over category) with a dumbed-down and ludicrously inappropriate version of Middle-earth that makes Peter Jackson's fallacies and lore-bending seem downright upright and conservative. In the game one indeed eventually becomes disconnected with any plot points and becomes a drudge to hunting and gathering pretty bobbles and weapons of destruction (or else you can't get to the next level quest and grind ad nauseum to reach that point of perfection where you've literally done everything and have played yourself right out of the game). There is literally a bigger light show between a low level group of hobbits, dwarves and elves vs. a pack of orcs than there was when Gandalf faced the Nazgul on Weathertop.

It is rather disquieting to consider that a classic such as LotR, with a readership of millions, requires such incessant meddling to make it palatable for the general public (who obviously require flashing lights and rapid, jerky movements to maintain their interest, much like my cat). This is not only true in gaming, but in the making of the films as well. James O'Barr (creator of The Crow) once said of the Hollywood process and how they try to change the original plot of stories, "You have this beautiful tree and everyone wants to p*** on it".

P.S. By the way, excellent find on the Susan Greenfield article.

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

It is rather disquieting to consider that a classic such as LotR, with a readership of millions, requires such incessant meddling to make it palatable for the general public (who obviously require flashing lights and rapid, jerky movements to maintain their interest, much like my cat). This is not only true in gaming, but in the making of the films as well. James O'Barr (creator of The Crow) once said of the Hollywood process and how they try to change the original plot of stories, "You have this beautiful tree and everyone wants to p*** on it".

Only too true, I'm afraid -- although I would venture to say that often, the meddling is required to make the material palatable to the number crunchers whose bottom line is profit, and thus who keep lowering the bar on the lowest common denominator of what they think will make a thing appeal to the largest possible number of people (everyone, if they could manage it). And, I think, there are people who make film and television adaptations who cannot do so without "leaving their mark" on their source material, too often inappropriately. As you have seen this in the gaming community, I have seen it in the literary field. One of my fiction writing mentors was an enormously popular SF author, and has been approached again and again by people wanting to turn her works into movies or TV shows. (I think there have been at least as many attempts to adapt her books as there have been attempts at adapting LotR, possibly more.) To date all of them have failed, either because of financial issues or "creative differences." I'm sure there are a few people in the movie industry grumbling about the impossibility of trying to make a movie based a book when the author is still alive and insists on exerting creative control.