The Design of Sustainable Development. in Theme Park Design Based on RPG Mode

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1 ID:289 Theme: Sustainable urban and/or rural planning and management Title: The Design of Sustainable Development in Theme Park Design Based on RPG Mode Jin Yong Martial Arts City in Haining as an Example Zhe Hu Kexin Chen Organization: The Sustainable Urban Design Institute of Huazhong University of Science and Technology(HUST) Address: LuoYu Road 1037,wuhan, hubei,china Abstract: According to statistics, there are 2500 theme parks in China, but 70% of them are in deficit, just 20% can get the break-even point and only the last 10% are making a profit. (1) Accordingly many land resources are not being used in a effective way, one important reason is the lack of innovative design. Such being in case, the present paper collects some key elements such as the randomicity, equilibrium, initiative, interaction and etc., which now are popular in RPG(Role-playing game), and optimizes previous design methods from the aspects of space platform software management technical support during the process of designing Jin Yong Martial Arts City in Haining city. What s more, the present paper puts forward the concept of integrating space resources with the virtual online games, which can promote the sustainable development of the domestic theme parks and upgrade them. Key words: RPG mode; theme park; virtual space; randomicity; interaction Compared with the discussion about virtual and reality lasting for thousands of years, the past 20 years is just an ephemeral instant. However, the development of the virtual network technology brings about revolutionary changes to the way of our existence. The theme song of the virtual film Avatar was written: I see you, walking through a dream. I see you, my light in darkness, breathing hope of new life. Now I live through you and you through me. Today, more and more people have settled in Second life virtual world, and enjoy a trip in the online world. We really get two worlds: the real world and the virtual one. The physical gap between the two worlds is narrowing down gradually :you can easily get into the real world from a virtual way

2 and you can also find that the virtual world is part of the real one. Just as what Edward Castronova, a virtual economist, once predicted, the virtual world and the real one will eventually become emerged. (2) 1 The development trends of theme park Theme park has set up a bridge between real and virtual world ever since its birth. It has become the shuttle vector for people to travel from this world to another. On the podium of Pritzker Architecture Prize Koolhass appealed that designers should find a way to free themselves from the fetter of the real world and search for a new freedom in the virtual one. (3) Walt Disney created the resplendence of Disneyland by moving cartoon into real life in traditional media age and Disney mode had become the classic mode in the development of theme park. The development of Internet and virtual network technology has opened a completely new media age. The virtual online game has become one of the fastest growing industries. According to the statistics from CNNIC, online-game players in China has reached 140 million by the end of 2009, of which the proportion of playing RPG games is 53% with the number of 140 million users. (4) The data shows that a new group has developed. The audience require for more opportunities for communication and expressing themselves and they also call for a audience-based status. The combination of theme park and RPG has become the main vane of theme park development in recent years. Online game operators are trying to move virtual games into real space. Theme park developers have come to realize that the subject of virtual online game will be an inexhaustible source of theme parks and those online-game players will become the prospective customers. 2 The Related Theory and Application of RPG Mode Role-playing game, RPG for short, has no explicit definition for the time being, and the research about it mainly exists in sociology, economics and pedagogics. In sociology, there are mainly two approaches concerning the research: Role Structure Theory of Iowa School and Role Process Theory of Chicago School. The former emphasizes that individual action is determined by one s social status and related expectation; the later stresses that roles are created by interaction. (5) Traditional role-playing theory is faced with great challenge as RPG develops in virtual network. From RPG we can see that this virtual world shares the characteristics of both the Role Structure Theory and Role Process Theory. The role in

3 RPG is specifically designed according to the need of the virtual social system. Therefore the players can choose the roles, whose basic functions have previously been set by game designers, different careers, for example, having different characters. Nevertheless, the late development and formation of the roles are realized by the various actions the player has undertaken in the game. Instead of being separated, roles in the games communicate and interact with each other as the players take different parts in the game and accordingly have their own will, imagination, and expectations, which make the players in the virtual network games feel that they are living in an authentic social life. Meanwhile, economists are starting to pay attention to RPG games. Edward Chamberlin, an economist, points out that economics has its limitation in that it cannot study the actions of people under controllable conditions as natural sciences do. The study and prediction of people s economic action in RPG games will become a ideal mode because everyone in the game is equal. In terms of application, Edward Castronova, another economist, study the necessity of equality stressed by liberalism in market by the experiment EverQuest in RPG games (6). In Pedagogics, RPG mode is applied into education by the analysis of the cause of why adolescents become addicted to RPG games. And consequently, a new field in interactive teaching starts. (7) The combination of RPG mode and the design of the theme park is the first try. The present paper tries to provide an operable mode to the combination of them by integrating the key elements in RPG mode with the design of the theme park together with the design of Jin Yong's martial arts city. To be concrete, on the macro-level, we should combine the space design in real world with the virtual one and find out the internal properties between them; on the middle-level, with the proposition of making a combination of the RPG with the theme park, we shall establish an online game platform, which can contact the theme parks all over the country, and achieve the sustainable development in theme parks; on the micro-level, we shall apply the key elements in RPG mode to the design of Jin Yong's martial arts city, and optimize traditional design in space platform, software management, and technical support. 3. Designing Jin Yong s Martial Arts City Based on the PRG Pattern Background of the Project: Haining in Zhejiang Province is located in the most developed Yangtze

4 River Delta Economic Circle, in which there is a strong demand for theme tourism because of the rapid development of tourism and culture industry in the area. As the hometown of Jin Yong, his martial stories is well-known to the Haining people, so the local government intends to build Jin Yong s martial arts city based on the legends in the martial arts novels by Jin Yong. 3.1 Key Elements of PRG Mode In reality, we can t realize some functions just like virtual games, such as no controlling by time, space and physical limits, virtual identity and freedom. However, through the study of PRG, the key elements of constructing PRG are randomness, balance and interactiveness Randomness By using random function with computer language, PRG make games more random. According to the plots set by the designer, the player makes judgments step by step, his choice will cause different events during this process. The plot triggered is an irreversible process, which may lead to the appearance of new elements in the game. After the trigger, there will be a trigger point, and different choices mean different trigger results. In the mesh mode, there are many possibilities for point A to Figure 1 Two space management mode reach any other point (for example, point H) Balance For example, the mouse defeats the cat and the dwarf beats the monster in the Disney land, which shows the principle of roles of balance. This is also same to PRG game, in which all the roles achieve a balance condition through a more accurate system, such as the balance of commodity, the time, the operation level, advantages, disadvantages and so on. There are various choices for the visitor who switches himself to a virtual social role with tasks. If one role has absolute advantage, other roles will lose their value in the game. Therefore, the result of the game not merely depends on the price of commodity, skills proficiency, the strength and the status.

5 3.1.3 Interactiveness Contrast with traditional media, the most prominent feature of PRG mode is the realization of two-way communication between the individual and the network. James H. Gilmore, an American scholar, holds that PRG makes the player unsatisfied with the products that have been well designed and they hope they participate in designing their own way initiatively. (8) To experience the role of martial arts, this process is not only the action of the visitor, but shared by the theme park. Meanwhile, visitors can interact with each other. They are likely to fall in love, form a family, challenge each other, fulfill a task through cooperation etc. It is possible for the visitor to choose the way of visiting, even design the map he likes and the theme park in his ideal. The theme park like this has no necessity to pay a lot for the frequent hardware update. Besides, it can adjust the new circumstance through updating the map by software upgrade. 4. Optimizing the design of the Martial Arts City We can optimize the design of the special model, which is based on the traditional design, the software management and the technical support of the Martial Arts City in these tree aspects: the network map, the virtual money system and the mobile sensor network. 4.1 The Network Random Map The Martial Arts Guiding Map is the Network Random Map, which is interweaved by various role routines, instead of the traditional map, such as the circle model the linear model the X model and the tree twig model. With the Martial Arts Guiding Map, the tourists in their own interests, can choose different roles to play in the City, such as Guojing Huangrong Xiaolongnu and Yangguo, all of whom are the famous Martial Arts Figure 2 reticular random map

6 in Jin novels and well known to Chinese people. The choices of different roles will result into the choices of different life experiences different missions and different routines accordingly, such as Tianlong Shediao Shendiao and Xiao ao. The nodes interweaved by different routines are the scenic spots. The same scenic spots may mean different to the virtual roles for the tourists different choices and the results triggered by events. 4.2 The Virtual Money to Replace the Commodity Money Such experiences may be familiar to us, that is, we can exchange the points earned through the participation in the some game in the game theme park for gifts, which is a simple model of the exchange process. Through this process, Walt Disney made its derivative products. Just like the exchange process, the tourists, after entering the Martial Arts City, will exchange the virtual money. Figure 3 Tour experience program They can earn or spend their own virtual money. While there is a difference, the Martial Arts City will employ the monetary system of the internet game to strike a balance between the producing and consuming of the virtual money, and even can provide a platform for the exchanging the RPG virtual money with the material things by joining with the virtual money exchange system. 4.3 The Mobile Sensor Network In RPG, the game players can interact with the game system by trigger, while how can it help the players make localization accurately in the complex 3-D space, how can it guide the players in the complex internet network and how can it help the tourists and theme park system interact with each other? The mobile sensor network is the key to these technical problems.

7 The Martial Arts City has a set of the mobile sensor network system, consisting of the tourist sensor node the sink node and the management node. A number of sensor nodes accompany with the tourists in the area of the City, building a network by self-institutional approach. The data monitored by the sensor nodes will be transmitted to the sink node through other sensor nodes and at last to the management node though internet and thus the data can join with the online game platform. Figure 4 Mobile sensor network topology 5 Conclusion With the development of virtual world and in the situation of amalgamation of the vitality and the reality, it s very urgent for us to settle the current problem and achieve a sustainable development of the theme park. At such cases, every designer of the theme park is in the teeth of the storm. The new design, a combination of the RPG model and the theme park model, will broaden the horizon of the designer and manager of the theme park. The new system can reduce the resource waste resulting from the replacing the hardware and achieve the sustainable development of the theme park by meeting the changing needs through optimizing the software.

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