Creativity and New Media
There are countless different ways to convey how new media fosters creativity. From making a YouTube video, writing a blog, or article, to sharing pictures, talking about original ideas or changing something that is already existing. To show an example of creativity, I will be using a digital game as the category of new media, called "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim". It is an open-world, action role-playing digital game created by Bethesda studio in 2011. This game sold over 22.7 million copies worldwide.
That makes it quite available to a big number of people, but now, just in what ways can it foster or represent creativity? Well, in a sense, being an open world digital game already implies that the player has tons of choices and things he/she can do without being directed on what to do in a specific order. This means that the player can create his/her own avatar and embark on multiple adventures which will be executed in a way that the player desires. I will be posting below the screenshots of my newly constructed avatar, being ready to experience the world of Skyrim. This particular digital game, really shows just how much the makers put in it, being creative, they developed hundreds of hours of amazing content; which the player can kind of manipulate and him/herself be creative by the ways of executing it.
Furthermore, being released in 2011, this game is still quite alive, being in the top 100 most played games by daily basis; but what is more important is that not Bethesda, but the people, the players themselves created modding communities where players interact with each other and create more and more content to make the vanilla/base game better, more beautiful and way more fuller. The reason why Skyrim is still so active after so many years is really thanks to the players being creative by developing more and more content, sharing their mods and actively comment on others. To show an example I will be showing modding community on "Nexus.com/Skyrim". It is really an amazing website where people, content creators, players all come together and mod different games; a truly unique modding community. I often myself comment and downloading mods created by these people; note that the player cannot just download an unlimited number of mods and load them in any way they want, as the game might break and simply just not work. By downloading many different mods and content, I contributed to the way how to optimize just the right amount of mods/content and how to put it in the order list which the game reads, so it works the best that it can. Lots of people had problems with just loading some mods. Using my original favorite mods, creating something that works, I will be posting screenshots of the order list in which they load and how they affect the virtual world.
Here is my new avatar creation.
Embarking on an adventure.
Exploring a crypt.
Finished 1st dungeon.
Studying the school of magic.
This is the Nexus mod website. Page with most popular mods.
This is one way which mods/created content can be organized.
That makes it quite available to a big number of people, but now, just in what ways can it foster or represent creativity? Well, in a sense, being an open world digital game already implies that the player has tons of choices and things he/she can do without being directed on what to do in a specific order. This means that the player can create his/her own avatar and embark on multiple adventures which will be executed in a way that the player desires. I will be posting below the screenshots of my newly constructed avatar, being ready to experience the world of Skyrim. This particular digital game, really shows just how much the makers put in it, being creative, they developed hundreds of hours of amazing content; which the player can kind of manipulate and him/herself be creative by the ways of executing it.
Furthermore, being released in 2011, this game is still quite alive, being in the top 100 most played games by daily basis; but what is more important is that not Bethesda, but the people, the players themselves created modding communities where players interact with each other and create more and more content to make the vanilla/base game better, more beautiful and way more fuller. The reason why Skyrim is still so active after so many years is really thanks to the players being creative by developing more and more content, sharing their mods and actively comment on others. To show an example I will be showing modding community on "Nexus.com/Skyrim". It is really an amazing website where people, content creators, players all come together and mod different games; a truly unique modding community. I often myself comment and downloading mods created by these people; note that the player cannot just download an unlimited number of mods and load them in any way they want, as the game might break and simply just not work. By downloading many different mods and content, I contributed to the way how to optimize just the right amount of mods/content and how to put it in the order list which the game reads, so it works the best that it can. Lots of people had problems with just loading some mods. Using my original favorite mods, creating something that works, I will be posting screenshots of the order list in which they load and how they affect the virtual world.
Here is my new avatar creation.
Embarking on an adventure.
Exploring a crypt.
Finished 1st dungeon.
Studying the school of magic.
This is the Nexus mod website. Page with most popular mods.
This is one way which mods/created content can be organized.
Hi Karol,
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I would like to say that before this class, my knowledge of virtual worlds and what they allow people to accomplish was limited to The Sims, which I used to play as a 12 year old. So it is super interesting to read what you have to say about Skyrim, especially because you seem to be so passionate about it.
I have a few questions regarding this specific type of virtual world and I hope you will see this so you can answer my questions.
How much of the character development does each person actually contribute to? Because it seems like the characters and the people behind them truly make it what it is and foster creativity. What really inspired you to create this specific character (if you can even call it that), and do you think people like to create characters that resemble them in real life or does it not matter?
Thanks for an interesting read.
Nanar
Hi, I'm glad to find someone interested in this! Well, there are many virtual worlds out there; but in Skyrim you can definitely develop an unique character all the way throughout the game. There are various of paths and choices to be made which will impact the character development in different ways.
ReplyDeleteUsually I go with a male character, since I'm a male, but I wanted to try and see how will the game behave if I choose Female. There are many different aspects which go along with the race and gender you choose initially.
Overall, In virtual worlds, like MMORPG, I would say that yes, people often try to match their real looks, but I wouldn't say much more than creating someone totally different.