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America's Army - FPS Psych Experiment
dory writes "Newsreview has up a story from October on America's Army and the way the military is using it. The piece discusses a clan, the Army's research mentality and implementations, as well as some MRI studies on gamers." From the article: "The Army has been collecting player information in a vast relational database system called "Andromeda," Wardynski said, which recruiters will be able to use to look up a player's statistics if one of them shows up in a recruiting office. A version of America's Army now in development will take that a step further, allowing players to create a "persistent" online alter-ego, one that steadily progresses through the virtual ranks by taking additional training or specialized missions, generating valuable data along the way."
Quick, go download this game, play with your real name, and get your ass fragged at least 20 times a day.
One more step to making all war completely virtual!
_______
2B1ASK1
From the article:
'In the wake of 9/11, the public and media reaction was, in the Army's words, "overwhelmingly positive." Salon's Wagner James Au, for example, gushed that the game would help "create the wartime culture that is so desperately needed now" and excitedly anticipated the day when youngsters raised on America's Army would pick up real weapons to cleanse the globe of real terrorists' (emphasis mine.)
I was just pondering the other day what it is our country needs. Education, I thought. Health care, I mused.
Man, was I off! Now I realize that the thing our country needs most is a wartime culture.
I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens. --Isaac Bashevis Singer
The Last Starfighter, right? Video games scattered across the nation as secret military training, and the high-scorers being recruited.
Does the DoD now get *all* of their ideas from Hollywood?
"5t0p 5n1p1ng j00 f4g T4lib4N c4mP3r 4nd f1ght l1k3 4 m4n!"
I know several people who worked on America's Army, and I found the article very thought-provoking. But when I see the overweight, Frito-eating guys at the local online-game center playing AA or HL2, I don't see how the Army is going to make these...men...into soldiers. There is a big difference between pressing a mouse button to kill a virtual terrorist and humping an 80-pound pack for two weeks only to get a fleeting shot at the enemy now and then. Let's be honest here, most of the soldiers of tomorrow are playing on the football fields when they are 14 and 15.
years (see : Somalia/Cuba/Central America/Africa)
decades (see : Russia/China/Korea/Vietnam/Middle East)
centuries (see : France/Germany/England/Europe)
millennium(s) (see : Crusades/Promised Land/Muslims/Hebrews/Christians)
unknown amounts of time (see : Native Americans/North America/South America).
Considering the U.S.'s past you'd think we would be a wee bit vigilant considering how many heads we've kicked since the 18th century. Yeah, I'd say we were pretty ignorant up until 9/11.
The soldiers of today may have been on a football field at 14 or 15, but that doesn't mean that's what the soldiers of tomorrow are doing. The Army would probably love to completely remove the physical aspect from war; it's easier to sell at home, and (in THEORY) it's easier to store and maintain equipment than it is to house and care for troops.
I'm going to log in tonight and shoot everything that moves (friendly soldiers, women, children). If they send me off to Iraq I'll be sure to have the database data at my court martial.
-Dipster
But when I see the overweight, Frito-eating guys at the local online-game center playing AA or HL2, I don't see how the Army is going to make these...men...into soldiers.
By the time honored method of military training: having a DI scream in their face.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
HARTMAN: Quickly! Get your fat ass over there, Private Pyle! Oh, that's right, Private Pyle ... don't make any fucking effort to get to the top of the fucking obstacle! If God wanted you up there He would have miracled your ass up there by now, wouldn't He?
PYLE: Sir, yes, sir!
HARTMAN: Get your fat ass up there, Pyle!
PYLE: Sir, yes, sir!
HARTMAN: What the hell is the matter with you anyway? I'll bet you if there was some pussy up there on top of that obstacle you could get up there! Couldn't you?!
PYLE: Sir, yes, sir!
[PYLE drops heavily to the ground.]
HARTMAN: Your ass looks like about a hundred and fifty pounds of chewed bubble gum, Pyle. Do you know that?
PYLE: Sir, yes, sir!
If you are a good shot, and are able to think clearly when bullets are flying, you are an excellent candidate. The military has physical training programs (coupled with a carefully controlled diet, and psychological/emotional framework built into the training regimen) that can turn a fat, out-of-shape twenty-something man into a perfect cannon-fodder/drone/soldier.
And if someone is over the threshold (100 pounds overweight? 200 pound overweight? who knows?) maybe they can use gastric-bypass surgery and make it cost-effective. Actually, what if the military could offer to turn a fat gamer into a lean, mean, chick-getting machine? The game is only the first part of a screening & marketing procedure.
You made it to level 50 in the game? Guess what? You qualify for a $5,000 signing bonus *and* gastric bypass surgery. You may also qualify for cosmetic surgery by skilled military technicians!
Battle School made use of a "mind game", an adventure game designed to analyze the mind of its players. You remember it for the "Giant's Drink", which put the player in an unresolvable situation to force adoption of unconventional strategies. It is a much more appropriate analogy in this case, which uses a an FPS game for a similar purpose, except that the skills developed are pertinent to the front-line grunts rather than their commanders. "Less brains, more action" is the future slogan of the American Army.
Let's say I was playing in another country? Will they send me citizenship papers along with my recruit forms. If not, I'm moving to canada before I download and play this game (or at least that's what I'll be putting as my address)
"Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
In the army of the future, Frito-eating guys from the local online-game center will be remotely controlling cyborgs made from football players.
How do I fake my IP address to say I'm in Canada
(They'll never figure out my master plan, and coupled with my tin foil hat, I'll be completely uncatchable. Plus, they can't see my true thoughts, cause I'm typing in these magic 'make my thoughts invisible' parentheses. I'm so damn smart and discrete. Stupid Army Recruiters. Mwahahahahahahahahahah.....hahahah..Ha..hahah!)
PS: Hahhahahahahahahahahahah...I mean (HAHAHAHAHAHHAH.....HAHA...............heh heh heheheheh...Heh ha)
"Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
"The wars of tomorrow will be fought by tiny robots on the tops of very high mountains.
Your job will be to build and maintain these robots."
You thought you were kidding about the plastic surgerysd.
Cheap storage VM.
Agreed. Well said. However, the body can be conditioned much easier than the mind. It's the attitude that usually accompanies the Frito eating that worries me. Does Joe Carbo-cruncher care enough about anything besides his personal gratification to be a good soldier?
Being successful in the U.S. military requires a commitment to a set of values, among them selfless-service, honor, and personal courage. The Army is not a mercenary organization looking for cold-blooded privateers... at least, not yet.
It's called the Service for a reason. I doubt a game could ever capture what that really means.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
Now that would be a great game, and is the kind of thing that games should aim for. I think it would be a tremendous achievement if a game required a commitment to a set of values. Because computer games indicate what you "should" do by rewarding you though it's hard to get away from motivating people to gratify themselves. I think the form itself is at odds with selflessness. OTOH I've never designed a game so I'm not qualified to say what's impossible.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
will the "persistent" online alter-ego also be able to get sent home after going loco, suffer from post traumatic stress syndrome and become unable to function in a normal day to day life. Lose its wife and children and become a sad alcoholic.
"who hasn't seen one of these games--known as first-person shooters--here's the gist of them. You're placed in a combat zone, armed with a weapon of your choice, and sent out to find and kill other players. Knife them, club them, blow them apart with a shotgun, set them afire, vaporize them with a shoulder-launched missile, drill them through the head with a sniper rifle--the choice is yours. Depending on the game, blood will spray, mist or spout. Sometimes your kills collapse in crumpled heaps, clutching their throats and twitching convincingly. Sometimes they cry in pain with human voices. Their bodies lay there for a while so you can feed off them if necessary, restoring your own health. Then you can grab their weapons and set off to find another victim, assuming you don't get killed first."
Wheeee! Never mind that maybe its the SPORT of the GAME that keeps us playing rather than the screaming human voices, blood and ragdoll physics bah-blasting people to ba-bits.
But what I would really like to know is what soldiers in Iraq would think of this caption:
"Budda-budda-zing. The Army's combat game is so lifelike that the Defense Department is using it to test new weapons systems."
I don't think you can call it lifelike unless the person in the seat next to you has his head explode when he gets fragged.
Sometimes my arms bend back.