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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.
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.
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 agree - plus Geeks may have something else in common - the imagination to see beyond the thin veneer of modern life, and glimpse some of the horrors the human race perpetrates, or just recognise just how precarious our way of life may be (in terms of the resources it consumes, the injustices it inflicts etc etc).
I guess it's true - Ignorance may very well be bliss. The enlightened, are therefore probably subject to a certain amount of depression...
(But don't they all play CS already?!?)
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?
I consider myself to be a geek. I'm also quite sociable and very "extroverted." Most of my friends are the same way. We go to parties, we hang out, we like to be around people.
I've met a few introverted geeks, but I've met just as many introverted non-geeks. As for depression, I see sad geeks and non-geeks alike.
I've seen no real correlation between geekiness and introversion and/or depression. You say "geeks are not extroverted, for the most part they are extremely introverted", but I see no evidence of this. Geeks seem to be of all types, just like other people. To say that geeks are introverted is akin to saying "Jocks are dumb." It's just silly and unsubstantiated.
And whoever modded the parent down is an asshat. Off-topic my foot.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
Uh, how is that a TROLL? I think I made a good point. CS is about TERRORISTS and COUNTER TERRORISTS shooting each other! It's a violent game about violent situations! That's why we love it! Troll, feh. If you disagree then bring the debate, don't abuse the mod system.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
Come to think of it, my girlfriend also has had many setbacks IRL, making me think she is kind of depressed most of the time, but I'm not sure as I'm not a psychologist and depression is more than just "feeling down" I guess. And she has the worst navigational skills IRL I've ever seen. I've had to explain how to find my house a gazillion times when she wanted to come over to me by bike, even though she's done the route alot by bus.
In Q3A on the other hand, she's quite good even for a beginner, which she still is. Most of the time she's just running around shooting everything that moves, but every once in a while she's just brilliant.
My experience with CS is that playing good gives me a good feeling about myself, and yes that sounds sad but I think it has alot to do with adrenaline production.
I used to play it but stopped since I didn't have enough time to reach the standards that would make me play so well it gave me a happy feeling. Often I just felt very bad about my prestations in clanwars, though I tried to do my best. Had alot to do with sleep deprevation by the way. Somehow all these things influence eachother, so the only way to stop feeling bad was to stop playing and go do something productive.
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.
The type of depression that's really serious is the kind that doesn't go away. Normally you get depressed for a reason, and after a while you start to feel better. People who are depressed, as a medical condition, never feel better. They may have moments - hours or days - where they feel fine, but even the smallest thing can send them back into depression. These are the people who really need to be on Prozac or similar drugs to function, as opposed to the ones who use Prozac to get through difficult times.
I'm not making light of "transient" depression, by the way. It feels exactly the same as the other kind, which is pretty awful. But if you're depressed because your grandmother died and take a week off from work, you're not likely to end up in an asylum. Whereas if you've been depressed for the past 10 years and can't hold a job because of it, you are.
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!
Thanks for this insight into different kinds of depression.
:/
I must say my gf probably has long-term depression, but mainly because of the fact her life is full of that shit (family members die-ing (sp?), constant fights with her mother about stupid little things (and they aren't puberty fights, she's almost 20 and her mother starts most of the fights), her siblings being dicks, etc etc ad nauseam. So I don't think it's a medical condition, but a "transient" depression, but one that keeps getting prolonged and prolonged. I really try to help her but it's hard. I guess playing some more quake or CS with her could make her feel better
[quote]
"...will develop a special version of Counter-Strike [...] which is ripped of all violent content,...
[/quote]
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
I think playing computer games are only a temporary escape from the depression .. In fact i used to be depressed and playing computer games (UT, Quake) somewhat eased the "pain" (the adrenaline effect)..though after wasting lot's and lot's of time playing them i started to feel worst, being the reason the fact that i hadn't done anything usefull with that time. I think that having a moderate active life (not sitting in the computer all the time), practicing sports (martial arts is super) and always having small goals in your life (apart from being the best fragger in that game) will help you bipass the depression periods. And i forgot .. fighting your own laziness is also a key point against the depression.
I fuse with Mercer every single day...