Jason Kempshall’s Weblog

At first the thought of the specialist project scared me somewhat, after

racking my brain for interesting technologies to use, i realized that this what

not the way to go about this. i then began to search for a problem as opposed 

to a solution to something that i did not know existed. i asked questions such as,

what does interactive mean? what do people as a whole gain from media? and

why is it that some media is more addictive and life consuming than others.

after much deliberation and a lot of Googling i came accross two wonderful quotes :-

“Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but

no power to escape the necessity of choice.” — Ayn Rand

“All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality, the story of escape. 

It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape”.

— Arthur Christopher Benson 

The keywords of which i found the most interesting of both these quotes, own image

and escape, interested me greatly and got me to think in a more literal sense. Also both

reminded me of the ever popular new fad of online gaming within the MMORPG or 

massively multiplayer online role-playing gaming community. 

Why are these games so popular and addictive? it is the simple reason of escape,

wether it be from an unhappy life, a moment of frustration from an argument with

a spouse or just to live out your wildest fantasies. Not only are these games a form

of escape but they also allow you to immerse yourself within the media even

further by allowing you to customize your characters appearance to emulate your own.

From this point on i came to the conclusion that this is what i would base my idea:-

immersion, escape and roleplay.