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Danish Psychiatrists To Use Counter-Strike
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Boomtown.net article discussing a Danish hospital's use of Counter-Strike in tests regarding long-term depression. According to the article, experts "..will develop a special version of Counter-Strike for the [Aarhus psychiatric] hospital, which is ripped of all violent content, but still retains its unique 3D design.. Senior doctor Poul Videbech wants to use the maps for testing the navigational skills of patients, who have suffered from severe depression over a long time." Fraggin' awesome.
whenever i play CS i get more depressed (i suck)
No, I'm not a pathetic web surfer pouring my heart out to slapdash :)
The interesting thing is, I have _extremely_ poor navigation skills, both IRL and in *FPSes.
BTW, happy, happily married, etc. these days.
posted as AC because I don't talk about my personal life on teh Interweb.
* it is my only weakness! Once I overcome it, I will 0wnX0r j00!
What about using Serious Sam on depressed people? The lame humor in those games should resonate on the depressed.
Is there anything to CS that DOESN'T involve violence? I guess the maps. Seems like they could just use any FPS then.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
CS gives a kind of virtual freedom that captivates the person and time passes by fast. The sames true with MMORPGs but in a different way. I could see CS kiosks in mental institutions with patients fragging the hell online players and being regular clanmembers. Much better than staring at the blank walls and flat nurses anyway.
CS also makes for an excellent relief of anger and control, and it takes mental energy to really own a good team. Such exercises, if not portrayed too violent, could improve the quality of life for the casterated ones among us.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
I'm just wondering why he's using Counter-Strike in particular. Why not just the plain vanilla Half-Life engine? Or even still, the Quake or Quake II engine, which are open-source and can be changed to meet one's needs.
Has Counter-Strike changed the Half-Life engine dramatically?
"Yeah, well, Dracula called and he's coming over tonight for you and I said okay."
The casterated ones? I wasn't aware that a prison term involved having your genitals removed.
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
...with psychological disorders. Virtual treatment for phobias has been shown to have a positive effect.
On the surface, this could be nothing more than an excuse to get some research grants through publicity.
Some Danish guy wants to use CS? Great. So do a half-million other people. Give us some meat to the story. I can't find any more information from a quick Google search.
It is the geeks amongst us that are primarily depressed. I would postulate that this is because we live in a society that caters to the extroverts. Geeks are ot extroverted, for the most part they are extremely introverted, and the thought of having to live life in a world where there kind is not seen favourably is depressing. Just as the introverted geek has trouble navigating the social causeways of every day life, they may also have trouble navigating in real and virtual spaces.
When I was in university, one of the things I worked on was the Psychology department's computer visualisation system. They had made a 3D map of the department and got people who lose spacial awareness and forget where they are to perform tasks like "fetch something from room 21B and return to the coffee area".
They used SGI's Inventor system on an Onyx machine at that time, not a PC game engine.
Does my bum look big in this?
I guess this guy is lazy. Rather than use ANY raycasting engine with ANY other game, he just took the source to CS, stripped out the guns, and wants to watch retards amble around De_dust and Cs_cock.
I think being constantly pwnage by l33t awpwhores using aimbots through walls would cause these mental patients to be even more depressed!
I try real hard to see value in any project, but wow...this is pretty nuts (no pun intended). Why not research how depressed people socially interact on the internet, or how they react in relationships? I am sure any of us could come up with a number of much more interesting and beneficial studies. Let's assume he finds people with depression have significantly worse navigational skills. Then what? You haven't improved their lives at all. What do you tell them? I am sorry you are depressed, but don't be surprised if you get lost often too. That will make them feel better. Also, why not just do this in a mall or other large building? Just because computers exist, doesn't mean they should be a replacement for real life. I am sure it is nice just to sit them down at a desk and run the test, but I don't think it would be too hard to do this without the computer. Plus you are adding an extra variable, how good is a person's hand eye coordination? I know lots of people who can navigate just fine, but can't play an fps to save their lives.
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Whenever I play Half Speed, Camperstrike, or is it Quiet Life? I get more depressed!! You spend 10 minutes hiding behind a box and then someone snipes the 1 pixel that's showing using 1 of the 10 types of er.. railgun that the game has (sure it has chainguns etc, but you ever see anyone frag anything with it? - It's an A team special chaingun - the bullets don't do any damage..) All the damn guns that work are sniper efforts - railguns. It's bloomin Half Speed Instagib I tell ya!
:-]]
All that creeping about and hiding - and when you do try and run, your man moves like his pants are round his ankles. CS is the only game I've found I can play whilst having a smoke, eating me dinner or reading a book - and it makes very little difference to the outcome.
If you take out the violence - how will you kill off those annoying hostage thingies that constantly get in your way?
That was the problem with Half a Life single player - I played it for 5 minutes: it involved endless scientists and they had neglected to issue me with a firearm! (some excuse about them being on my side or something).
Give them 3Wave Capturestrike - pure full on carnage with no tedious camping behind crates.
I must go now - I have a rocket launcher to strip down and clean
I've been depressed for several years yet have no problems with navigation IRL or in games. Actually I'm quite good at most FPS's. In fact, playing well makes me feel a little better about myself. Sad? Yes, but when you can barely drag yourself out of bed in the afternoon (yes afternoon, not morning) you've got to have something that makes you the least little bit happy.
Without weapons, it will still cause depression. These guys will get stuck in some level and unable to get out, will wrap the mouse cord around their neck.
If a patient discovers wall-hacking will they think he's The One?
a special version of Counter-Strike for the [Aarhus psychiatric] hospital, which is ripped of all violent content
So you're just gonna walk around de_dust all day?
Isn't the idea of a prison to restrict people's freedom? If being locked up in a prison would amount to getting fed at regular intervals an playing CounterStrike all day long, quite a lot of people would actually WANT to get imprisoned.
I'm thinking that if they used Postal 2 right out of the box then the depressed might feel better after playing. Give someone who's depressed a chance to walk freely around a virtual community, killing innocent civilians, causing mayhem within a parade, flame torching elephants, and pissing on all those previously mentioned could be the equivalent of virtual prozac. The obvious plus is lower health care costs as passed on to the consumer...you.
Maybe they should test this with US Postal employees first?
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
Yeah, just wait until one of the patients gets a hold of a wall-hack:
"Yes, we know that you killed 47 people on your axe-murdering rampage, but you are certifiably SANE. Your Counter-strike scores prove it. What's that you say? Redrum? Ahh, hmmm. Well, anyway, you're free to go."
It would also cut down on the requirements for conjugal visits!
Just watch, soon the government will be using this to secretly train people in mental institutes to go and kill terrorists. It will be our own kamakaze! Heheheh... It would be pretty funny though...
--Matt-- "Yay!! I'm home and I wasn't attacked by a squirrel!" -Squee
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"...will develop a special version of Counter-Strike [...] which is ripped of all violent content,...
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How do they expect to do that? The whole point of CS is to overcome violence with violence. Is this some new expression of quantum computing? "If we don't look at CS, it's not violent!"
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
The ceering up part comes from blowing stuff away!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
The idea as far as I understand it is to confine those people keeping the society safe, not to punish them for the principle of it. Of course it shouldnt be a walk in the park, but not having a girlfriend for the time should be sufficient as a punishment.
Just give them CS and twice as long sentences. The society will be safer.(unless the violent content breeds more crime when they get out).
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
In some countries it might :). Make sure you stop on all red lights.
But youre right. I stand corrected.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky