The Week in Review

The ClubHouse: The Game - Discussion Room: Daily Updates: The Week in Review

Ocean_Islands

Saturday, October 14, 2000 - 05:54 pm Click here to edit this post
. . . . . The Week In Review . . . . .

The players:

ArReal. Female, likes emotional issues.
HiMay. Female. complex.
Luke: Male. gay. Level-headed.
Mantastic: Male. Likes to write.
Moondance: Female. Californian angel.
Roger Ramjet: Male. Leads by consensus.
Talisker: Female. Likes to be involved.
Vykin: Male. Multilayered poster.
Xenia: Female. Likes sex and writing porno.
Zebulon: Male. Likes arguments, insight.

The Virtual House.

The game began with much excitement for spectators, who were extremely impatient for something to begin, and the players, who were arriving in the Game Board gradually without knowing much what to do with themselves.

They began by creating a nest of virtual rooms modeled on the Big Brother House. This inspired them into a full-blown play-acting of living in the house, complete with activities centered on the kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms and so forth. They seemed lost in a house that wasn't there.

This began to get old rather quickly, especially for the spectators. During Monday's chat spectators indicated that they should do less play-acting. The players agreed and the virtual house was consolidated into four main areas: living room, hot tub, internet camera, and church, which seemed to be included more for the principle than anything else, since nobody went there.

Challenges.

Four challenges took place this week.
Challenge 1 was a token challenge of self presentation.
Challenge 2 was a brain teaser about why a pilot chose to land in a field filled with extremely intelligent cows and rocks instead of a cleared field. (Because the cleared field had mines on it, that's why the cows weren't there). They won access to a fan's website.
Challenge 3 was a Big Brother trivia challenge, which Xenia won. Her prize was the freedom to redo her presentation biography. She chose to add a second photo.
Challenge 4 was another brain teaser asking how a woman going to a foreign country could find her way through an office building without speaking the language or asking for directions. She was the 'architect'. The group won and was rewarded with the copy of an 'article' someone had posted on the site about the role of websites in the development of interactive television.
Challenge 5 began on Friday; a brain teaser about why a man would be happy with the purchase of a book that was boring and he didn't like.

The Red Room.

The redroom was made out of messages emailed from players to the Host. The area generated discussion over the narrative comments included in the messages, a part of the 'virtual house' play-acting that the players were involved in. Some of the narration seemed interpretive of emotions, and might be designed to influence perceptions. No great place for revelations beyond Xenia's admission that she hated hugs, the redroom was a necessary if pedestrian aspect to the site which seemed more geared to manipulation than information or self-revelation.

Nominations.

Nominations took place on Wednesday and in a bizarre, if not outlandish twist, all the nominations and their reasons were revealed to the players. It was not clear that this was intentional. Thus, the Red Room seemed to have little purpose being set apart as an off-limits to players area. The players took the revelations in stride and appeared to have no hard feelings. There was some confusion on the part of both players and spectators, however, about the point of nominating in private if the words were simply going to be revealed to everyone. Nominated for banishment: Xenia, Talisker, Zebulon, ArReal, and HiMay10ns.

Discussions:

Discussion 1: Why were they chosen? An introductory topic. No one really seemed to know why they were picked, but some mentioned honesty. Talisker stated it was because she was 'special'.

Discussion 2: Age of consent and losing virginity. This prompted lots of discussion as everyone told about their 'first time'. Average age was 18-19 years old. Mantastic told a fantasy about sex with his English teacher.

Discussion 3: Group sex. No one was into group sex except Xenia, Luke, and Zebulon, with a big 'maybe' for each. The fantasy of it appeared more attractive than the reality.

Discussion 4: Continuing with the sexual theme, sexual advantages women have over men was the topic. Pretty much cliched discussion. Highpoints: Talisker mentioned that a limp dick ends the party, without acknowledging that a tongue never goes limp.

Discussion 5: Talisker. The game players discuss Talisker while she is conspicuously absent. They were split on whether or not they wanted her out of the game.

Unofficial Discussions (major ones only):

Unofficial #1: Death penalty. Generated by Moon and ArR. Game players were split even pro and con.

Unofficial #2: Homosexuality. Generated by Vyk. ArR spoke about her ex-husband, a gay. HiMay caused controversy by quoting bible verses and was backed up by ArReal. Xenia took violent offense at this. Luke played moderator.

Unofficial #3: The elderly. Generated by ArR. Talks about issues on the elderly centering on ArReal's working in a retirement/nursing home and issues surrounding her mental illness. Many spectators feel the Game is getting a bit heavy.

Unofficial #4: Most embarrassing moments, by ArReal. Many memorable moments. HiMay's experience with a one-night stand that she left hanging because she plugged up his toilet.

Unofficial #5: Tell good jokes in "The Improv", by HiMay, got waylaid by Zebulon who cut off HiMay by a joking reference to her embarrassing moment. Zebulon then set off Xenia. Much rancor and violence in postings followed in "Hot Tub" and "Living Room" HiMays feelings were hurt. The thread was saved by some good jokes
following. . . . still continuing.

Unofficial #6: Passions and creativity, by Moon. A thread that didn't degenerate proves to be interesting and inspiring.

Unofficial #7: Traveling and moving residences, by Vykin. Memorable posts by Talisker, Luke, Vykin, Zebulon, among others.

Unofficial #8: Multiple minds, by ArR. Provides a forum for questions regarding ArR's mental illness.

Unofficial #9: Optics Vykin speaks out. Provides a forum for Vyk to defend himself against double dealing. Convincing proof he is not. Questions about ArReal's reactiveness and trust issues.

Unofficial #10: Who do you want as a mate? Luke jumps to the challenge with an extended post about searching for a same-sex partner.

Unofficial #11: Online relationships. Major single postings by almost everyone.

Life Issues in the Virtual House.

Struggles:
Xenia is antagonistic towards Zebulon and Vykin, and they return the hostilities. Talisker confided a secret in ArReal and Vykin. ArReal had trust issues and refused to bear the burden of a secret. Zebulon struggled to stay on track with being more real, which was made more difficult by Xenia's attacks. Talisker was confronted with her actions and had to decide between having to admit wrongdoing, to withdraw, to deny fault, or to blame, among other things. ArReal considered quitting the game. Mantastic revealed personal feelings and history, albeit in an indirect way.

Revelations:
Xenia admitted to having hurt feelings and seemed to want to start again. ManTastic became violent and insulting. Talisker was revealed as being a moderator named Gail, put in the game by Host. ArReal, Vykin, and Talisker were revealed as having bent or broken Game rules.

Actions:
ManTastic quit the game when he apparently became lost in rancorous feelings and hurt, but only admitted this indirectly to spectators. ArReal emailed Host with a possible voluntary withdrawal. Host admitted to placing Talisker in the game. After disappearing for a day, Xenia returned and was openly emotional and honest, but she continued to be antagonistic towards certain game players. Moon, Luke, Roger all continued as basically level headed players. HiMay alternated between hurt, laughter, forgiveness and confusion.

Here are the evaluations of the player's game from this week:

ArReal: Stood her ground while being dissed by Talisker and Vykin and while being misled by Host. Continuing focus on serious issues may be dangerous.

HiMay: Willingness to forgive shines through, but complexity of personality threatens to derail.

Luke: Level headed insight may conceal an aloof approach to the game.

Mantastic: Excellent writing in interesting posts does not overcome an uninvolved, 'high road' attitude.

Moondance: Played a major role as behind the scenes 'glue' and support.

Roger Ramjet: Consistent presence and diplomatic approach signals a careful player.

Talisker: Declared wish to stay in game, does not answer calls for involvement and explanation on a live basis. Uninvolved spectator playing game player role.

Vykin: Inconsistency signals a problem area. Reactiveness versus personal emotional revelations confuse spectators.

Xenia: Courage in the face of major attacking insults, comes back stronger but not willing to let go of the 'witch role'.

Zebulon: Major effort to overcome reputation meets with partial success.

The Game Periphery.

The site appeared to take the stance that the game should spring fully formed from nothing, and to achieve these aims the website began posting self-generated banners and began creating fan websites.

Banners:
The players were treated to 11 banners which were posted in red in one area, approximately two per day. The majority of the banners were written in an attempt to stir up some action, but the banners seemed to have no effect except to stir a flurry of banner suggestions from fans who seemed still lost in the Big Brother world, trying to compare certain game players to houseguests, and so forth. Xenia was the favorite, getting three mentions of her name. There was no consistency of purpose as when George had to be gotten out of the house. There was also some conflict of interest, as the website chose the banners that were to fly. A bystander observed that a poll could be used to choose banners.

Websites:
Some websites appeared, either constructed by the fans or the site. Notable among them were those for Snave/Mantastic and Xenia/Wendy, a site emblazed with "Say no to hugs" and "Save our b!tch."

FanMail:
An area for fanmail was set up for the players, but it was not clear whether or not these messages were being delivered. Leading the fanletter count was Moondance with Roger following closely behind.

Live Feeds:
In keeping with the virtual "BB" idea, one member began posting 'live feeds' which were in fact an attempt to follow the action by conversation topic. Early live feeds were a bit screwed up by virtual house action.
It was a very difficult task but quite useful for spectators when properly done. Towards the end of the week there were two kinds of feeds, one which cut and pasted important 'dialog', and the other which was still an attempt to chronicle the action. It was difficult to reduce the information down to bite size chunks.

Discussion Board News:

The board reacted to nominations and began voting. Host and players informed spectators that Talisker was different from the players, which caused much discussion, pro and con. Host decided to reschedule voting for Monday. Host explained actions regarding Talisker.
Ongoing threads continue, and new threads are being generated. Bashers are beginning to appear as the game heats up.

See you next week!

Digilady

Sunday, October 15, 2000 - 09:53 am Click here to edit this post
Nicely done, as always, Oc!