Apologies for the long-winded title; it’s actually quite hard to find a subject that gets right to the point. This isn’t about triggering a particular emotion in gamers — not directly, at least. It’s also not about how ‘emotional’ gaming can be — we already know that playing games can be an intense experience that can warrant a massive gamut of emotions.

This entry’s about your avatar — your character, the model that represents you — and the emotions that it can, or as the case may be, cannot display.

Emotions have long played a vital role in communication and human interaction. We smile and raise our shoulders a little when we’re happy; we frown and slump when we’re sad — these emotional keys are a form of communication in their own right: body language!

Beyond subtle muscle shifts we also have emotive reactions that we’re less aware of: we blush when we’re embarrassed or caught lying; we raise our voice in anger or petulance. Most importantly though are the muscles groups on our face: the flaring or contraction of our lips and eyes, the furrowing or raising of the brow — each of these actions, or reactions, are ‘programmed in’ genetically and almost impossible to alter. It’s these same minute movements that we’re (often unconsciously) reading in the face of whoever we’re talking to. It’s these tiny twitches in someone else’s face or body language that can trigger our own involuntary responses: that momentary curl of the lip might be all the indication you need to run away quickly.

This ‘hunt for emotion’ as we communicate with other people is so ingrained that online communication has always felt a little… distant. Internet veterans are cautious, aware that without body language their words can easily be misconstrued. Newbies often blunder, forgetting that no one can see the ironic smile on their face. There’s a reason emoticons , *asterisks*, CAPSLOCK and _underscores_ exist: to convey emotion! It’s clunky and slow compared to body language or facial expressions but it’s the best that we have.

Why, twenty years after the first text-based world, are we still communicating with such basic tools? Some early games like LegendMUD had ways to inflect mood into your conversation through expansion of the verb sets (’say alts’) but since then… nothing. In graphical virtual worlds a couple of games have tried to incorporate moods (notably Star Wars: Galaxies and EverQuest2) but still they were still primarily low-tech text-only executions, toggles: /angry, /sad, /afraid, or parsing exclamations and queries.

Why are we still running around in virtual worlds with emotionless, gormless avatars? In single-player games it’s almost the state of the art, the bleeding edge! ‘More realistic than ever before!’ the developers cry. What makes the games more realistic? Interaction with the game world: physics and realistic NPCs, or in the case of virtual worlds, other player avatars. You only need to look at the success of LittleBigPlanet — a very simple platformer with oodles of delicious detail and bucket loads of charm and a very diverse emotion system.

For a market segment that generates almost all of its appeal (and revenue) from the immersive quality of virtual worlds it’s amazing that there isn’t yet a virtual world that has the power to model emotions through various facial expressions and body poses. You could even go one step further from the toggle system and parse complex emotions like sadness, apprehension and lust out of chat. Then there’s the character state itself: in battle your avatar would grimace upon being hit; a healer would smile upon saving a party member.

Are we simply being held back by World of Warcraft’s ancient graphics engine? Surely it’s time for realistic, immersive emotions in virtual worlds.

Further Reading

• Some work into avatar puppeteering in Second Life which, unlike WoW, actually has some built-in facial expressions
• Bob Moore’s presentation from the Austin GDC 2008 has a more-scientific, sociological look at it under the header ‘Challenges in Avatar-Mediated Interaction’

I don’t intend to make a habit of commenting on current affairs but it just so happens that the current government election fracas in Iran fits into my train of thought on ignorance and irrationality.

The complete lack of human rights in Iran is not a new thing. People, usually those from the fortunate West, forget that the fabled Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a treaty; it’s not something that countries sign at a summit and abide by. It’s a declaration, like the USA’s declaration of independence. It is a statement of the rights that should be granted to every human on this planet. These rights are not privileges to be earnt or bartered from an oppressive institution, league or government; they are to be given unconditionally upon birth.

And for many Westerners, like you and I, they are. In Iran, as with most of the developing world, these rights are merely a mythical concept afforded to only a handful of lucky, aristocratic or autocratic individuals. We don’t know how lucky we are, nor do we appreciate just how recent the concept of human rights actually are. Speaking out of turn 100 years ago would result in being caned as a child, or beaten into a bloody pulp as an adult. Falling pregnant out of wedlock would throw you into social exile. Believing or acting upon religious beliefs outside the norm would get you stoned, drowned or burnt to death.

For the longest time we didn’t even own our bodies: nominally under our control, but only during peacetime, or when not under duress and whipped into chain gangs. Historically, we were under the singular jurisdiction of the local Lord, or owned by whoever employed us. This only changed with the form of trade unions and the downfall of antiquated European feudal systems, but for centuries this was sadly the case across what we now consider ‘the Western world’.

Just one thing has remained entirely ours: our mind and our thoughts. As long as we didn’t vocalise those thoughts, our minds have long been the last remaining stronghold of freedom. Of course, religious dogma and torture are usually employed to wean out any remaining free-thinkers — usually those that made the mistake of opening their mouths. But some people kept on dreaming, kept on fighting. Enough of us fought back against the Dark Age’s oppression so that we might one day experience our Renaissance and Enlightenment. Without either golden age we wouldn’t be living in this world today.  Those brave souls that kept thinking outside the box, even after being brutally tortured or their families were killed — when all seemed truly lost, they kept on sticking it to the man, hoping for change. To those men and women we have a debt of immeasurable gratitude.

I have a theory (and it deserves its own blog entry): the Middle East is simply behind the times — from a Western point of view. To us Europeans and Americans the atrocities and injustices occurring in Iran are backward. We decry and condemn the unfairness of it all. We break down in tears at the thought of free people being brutally beaten and unfairly subdued by an oppressive force. And to us, it is inhumane and immoral: to deny their rights of thought and expression, refusing  their right take part in the government and arbitrarily arresting those that try — these are breaches of important, fundamental human rights that we Westerners take for granted.

But to them it is the norm. This is the bit we don’t agree with, but we must get our heads around: the Middle East is, to us, akin to antiquity — that’s how we used to do things, centuries ago. We used to have slaves, and deny the vote to certain classes and castes. Not so long ago, making a public stand would get you shot. Once upon a time we had as few rights as our persecuted brothers and sisters in Iran. That’s why it hurts so much. That’s why it feels so incredibly unfair, so unjust. We turn on our TVs to see centuries of hard work spent on gaining our human rights pissed on by the government of Iran.

I hope those in the Middle East keep on fighting. Those that oppress you are afraid of losing control, and believe it or not, that’s progress. That’s the beginning of a revolution and history has shown that freedom will be yours. Eventually.

After yesterday’s deep-and-meaningful entry I feel it my duty, as your charismatic host, to break the pensive and thoughtful atmosphere. That’s another thing you might’ve noticed: I like to mix things up; I love keeping people on their toes. I revel in blowing the dust off and sparking far-flung reaches of your brain into frantic activity. It’s also about my own personal enjoyment though: variety is the spice of life, right?

And you have to admit, you have no idea what I might do next.

Without further ado, the results of a photo session from a sunny Spring (Summer?!) afternoon!

A pretty good start. Especially the slightly-quirked eyebrow and pursed lips.

I should explain the next strip of photos: I have a friend called Abi and she recently initiated me into the Way Of The X. Where you make an… X… with your fists/hands. It’s cooler than it sounds. Really, try it. Anyway, this is seven quick photos taken in succession, of me doing THE X. If you don’t get it, that’s fine — just marvel at the facial expressions.

That’s a little weird, I admit…

The thing is, I’d be lying if I said if that was my first attempt at capturing THE X. In fact, it took me about half an hour to ‘nail it’. That means there’s a lot of out-takes. Like… 200 of them. Here’s a small sample, just to prove that I am capable of some truly awesome facial expressions (and you ain’t seen nothing yet!)

Julia Roberts has got nothing on my mouth.

Constipation.

Channel the rage, Sebastian. CHANNEL IT.

… Um… some kind of… Jewish Shylock? Or… something? I don’t know.

A rare example of me actually smiling! Well, about to smile. I cracked up at my father, who insisted on crashing my little photo session…

That’s it for now. The next time you see my expressive face, I should be in a doctor’s jacket for Ask Me Anything on Friday — and if you have anything on your mind this week, ask me!