title: Adaptive Interfaces for Massively Multiplayer Online Games

authors: Deaker, Chris

subjects: HCI

abstract: Massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs), such as World of Warcraft, have become very popular in recent years. These types of games typically feature rich and complex game environments, enabling more engaging game-play experiences. However, the complexity of the underlying game systems can also result in increased interface complexity, which may diminish player enjoyment - a major element of players' game experience. Players may customise their in-game interfaces to deal with this type of complexity and hence improve their performance, but the challenges associated with manual interface customisation may prevent some players from effectively personalising their own game interface. 

Players' behavioural models can be used to provide a means of determining potential player in-game behaviour, thus allowing for the automatic adaptation of game interfaces to better suit player needs. This thesis aims to determine whether player-modelled adaptive interfaces can improve players' game experience in MMORPGs.

A survey of MMORPG players was conducted to determine which aspects of player experience may be impacted by interface modification. The findings of this study informed the development of an adaptive interface feedback system which aimed to provide players with relevant information, in order to improve their game experience. This prototype system was then evaluated, in order to determine the impact of the developed system on players' game experience.

text: Adaptive Interfaces for Massively Multiplayer Online Games Massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs), such as World of Warcraft, have become very popular in recent years. These types of games typically feature rich and complex game environments, enabling more engaging game-play experiences. However, the complexity of the underlying game systems can also result in increased interface complexity, which may diminish player enjoyment - a major element of players' game experience. Players may customise their in-game interfaces to deal with this type of complexity and hence improve their performance, but the challenges associated with manual interface customisation may prevent some players from effectively personalising their own game interface. 

Players' behavioural models can be used to provide a means of determining potential player in-game behaviour, thus allowing for the automatic adaptation of game interfaces to better suit player needs. This thesis aims to determine whether player-modelled adaptive interfaces can improve players' game experience in MMORPGs.

A survey of MMORPG players was conducted to determine which aspects of player experience may be impacted by interface modification. The findings of this study informed the development of an adaptive interface feedback system which aimed to provide players with relevant information, in order to improve their game experience. This prototype system was then evaluated, in order to determine the impact of the developed system on players' game experience.

year: 2013

title: Biomechanical design principles underpinning anthropomorphic manipulators

authors: Owen, Mahonri W.

subjects: anthropomorphic

abstract: The biomechanical design of an artificial anthropomorphic manipulator is the focus of many researchers in diverse fields. Current electromechanical artificial hands are either in the research stage, expensive, have patents, lack severely in function, and/or are driven by robotic/mechanical principles, which tend to ignore the biological requirements of such designs. In response to the challenges addressed above this chapter discusses the potential of current technology and methods used in design to bridge the chasm that exists between robot manipulators and the human hand. This chapter elucidates artificial anthropomorphic manipulator design by outlining biomechanical concepts that contribute to the function, esthetics and performance of artificial manipulators. This chapter addresses joint stabilization, tendon structures and tendon excursion in artificial anthropomorphic manipulators.

text: Biomechanical design principles underpinning anthropomorphic manipulators The biomechanical design of an artificial anthropomorphic manipulator is the focus of many researchers in diverse fields. Current electromechanical artificial hands are either in the research stage, expensive, have patents, lack severely in function, and/or are driven by robotic/mechanical principles, which tend to ignore the biological requirements of such designs. In response to the challenges addressed above this chapter discusses the potential of current technology and methods used in design to bridge the chasm that exists between robot manipulators and the human hand. This chapter elucidates artificial anthropomorphic manipulator design by outlining biomechanical concepts that contribute to the function, esthetics and performance of artificial manipulators. This chapter addresses joint stabilization, tendon structures and tendon excursion in artificial anthropomorphic manipulators.

year: 2022-07-19

title: Alternative anthropologies: Kete aronui from the Waikato

authors: McCormack, Fiona

abstract: As three anthropologists working at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, Aotearoa (New Zealand), we experience anthropology in our daily work in the context of our local histories, communities and politics. While many anthropologists are familiar with the critiques of anthropology that play out in the USA or Europe, the narratives and practices of anthropology from places such as New Zealand are less well known. We argue that these local, diverse experiences of anthropology can enlarge our international understandings and imaginations of what anthropology can be, as well as the challenges it may face.

Anthropologists working in New Zealand today face the same plethora of academic pressures as those found in their counterparts in North America, Britain and Europe; pressures instigated by decades of neoliberal reform, managerialism, and the impact of new entrepreneurial and corporate models of universities that shape everyday identities and social relationships (Shore 2010). Similarly, the critique of anthropology as a discipline rooted in colonial imperatives and practices, resounds in a society whose imperial history and settler colonial present continues to imprint on educational institutions, pedagogy and research. In New Zealand, no neat historical trajectory marks a path from extractive research, wherein Indigenous knowledge and ways of life are pottled for export to the empire’s core, to one based on mutuality, co-creation and the indigenisation of anthropological knowledge.

text: Alternative anthropologies: Kete aronui from the Waikato As three anthropologists working at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, Aotearoa (New Zealand), we experience anthropology in our daily work in the context of our local histories, communities and politics. While many anthropologists are familiar with the critiques of anthropology that play out in the USA or Europe, the narratives and practices of anthropology from places such as New Zealand are less well known. We argue that these local, diverse experiences of anthropology can enlarge our international understandings and imaginations of what anthropology can be, as well as the challenges it may face.

Anthropologists working in New Zealand today face the same plethora of academic pressures as those found in their counterparts in North America, Britain and Europe; pressures instigated by decades of neoliberal reform, managerialism, and the impact of new entrepreneurial and corporate models of universities that shape everyday identities and social relationships (Shore 2010). Similarly, the critique of anthropology as a discipline rooted in colonial imperatives and practices, resounds in a society whose imperial history and settler colonial present continues to imprint on educational institutions, pedagogy and research. In New Zealand, no neat historical trajectory marks a path from extractive research, wherein Indigenous knowledge and ways of life are pottled for export to the empire’s core, to one based on mutuality, co-creation and the indigenisation of anthropological knowledge.

year: 2025