Posts with tag VirtualWorlds

Those of you who are regular readers might have figured out by now that I'm very interested in the relationship between the real and the virtual world, but the latest post at Terra Nova goes far beyond any simple reasoning I've ever done. Basically, they sum up some speculation being performed by academics that says that just like we Earthlings have created our own virtual worlds (in Azeroth and elsewhere), it's somewhat, maybe possible that we ourselves actually live in someone else's virtual world.

Wow. To me, that's so far off the beaten path that who knows where to begin with it-- you've got religion in there somewhere, as well as the old question of our existence itself. But supposing that were true (and it's almost too big a jump for even me to make, except for the fact that even if it is true, we'll likely never know it), what would you do if you were living in a virtual world? Would you act differently? Would you be a griefer? Or would you play the game, play by the rules, and help yourself and others not only "win," but have fun too? It seems a little loony (because who wants to admit that their world is someone else's toy?), but it's a fascinating thought experiment that should help you examine both how you're living your life and how you want to live it-- what would you do if you were an NPC in a virtual world?

Of course, things get even stranger, because we don't just create virtual worlds-- we play in them. Azeroth isn't just full of NPCs-- it's full of us, walking around, killing things, and generally taking (and taking over) whatever we want. If our world really is someone else's, does that mean they're here too?

(There are no spoilers in this post-- see note below.)

We've been trying to stay away from covering the specifics of this, but I'm pretty sure that by now, everyone who wanted to read Harry Potter's last book spoiler-free has done so (I finished it last Saturday night after a marathon reading session, and really enjoyed it). So perhaps now's the time to, as Terra Nova does, examine these strange relationships between virtual worlds.

Why would the WoW forums (or any MMORPG forums, as TN mentions FFXI) be a hotbed of spoiler posting, and not, say, a note posted on the door of a bookstore (or any other place that is likely to hit more Harry Potter fans than the forums)? What is it that attracts the WoW playership to be both inclined to post spoilers, and inclined to be bothered by them?

The answer, I think, lies in the fact that WoW really has two audiences-- there are gamers, like myself, who also play Halo and Counterstrike. They play games to get the highest level and the best gear and most Arena points, and they think the Harry Potter books are nothing more than kids' books about a stupid wizard school. These are the people who think it's funny to post spoilers on a forum, and who take pleasure in ruining someone else's appreciation of something they have no appreciation for. But there's a second group that also plays WoW, and they are very different.

*Note: Before you go any further, I should mention that if you haven't read the Harry Potter books yet, you may want to stay away from the comments on this post. Spoilers will be deleted from our comments, but we can only act so fast, and any post about spoilers is bound to attract some itself.

A while ago, we told you about Socialtext's plans to run a real-life press conference inside the virtual world of Azeroth (Goldshire, to be specific). The conference went down two Fridays ago on December 1st in Eitrigg (a lot of Socialtext's employees are members of Joi ito's We Know, the guild famous for bringing corporate networking into WoW), and now here's a story resulting from the conference. Unfortunately, the story reads pretty dry (and mentions Second Life more than WoW-- apparently they're the leader for corporate schmoozing and marketing inside virtual worlds), but fortunately, writer David Ho included a much less formal (and more interesting) writeup of what it was like to talk to a corporate rep playing a Pally wielding an Obsidian Edged Blade (does the CEO of Socialtext play a DPS-adin??).

We have to give Ho credit-- he didn't just show up for the press conference as a level 1 gnome (that's what we would have done), he did his homework. He got a Night Elf to level 9 before being escorted to Stormwind and then the Twilight Grove in Duskwood. And we have to give it to CEO Ross Mayfield, too-- he held to his word of forcing those with questions to duel him before they were answered. What other press contact would be willing to fight the press to the death? Wait, scratch that-- probably all of them.

The press conference itself sounds more gimmicky than anything. If Socialtext was trying to actually announce something (besides the fact that they were having a press conference in WoW), they weren't able to get their message across, so it's not too likely that more high profile companies will start using WoW as a marketing outlet. But someone's got to lead the way, and even though they're Alliance (they do have a Horde guild called We No, but no word if Mayfield also has a Shammy), kudos to them for bringing an old idea to a relatively new world.

This Newsweek article -- yet another mainstream look at this strange concept called World of Warcraft -- unexpectedly asks a very interesting question. Is WoW a game? Sadly, the article devotes most of its time to explaining the concept of WoW to an outside audience, rather than getting stuck into a discussion of virtual worlds, their categorisation, and their future.

It's often been said that WoW can be more like a job than a hobby; the regular hours, the repetitive tasks, the camaraderie, the rewards. The question asked by the Newsweek piece, however, has a different angle from the old "work vs play" debate. Instead, it asks -- is this the future? Are WoW's immersiveness, its ability to sneak into lives, its vast popularity all indicators of what virtual worlds in the future will hold? I think so.

'Serious' virtual worlds could easily take lessons from WoW on how to be fun, but while WoW may be exemplary with regards to current MMO design, it's still very much rooted in the 'entertainment' sphere -- future developments away from gaming and towards everyday pervasive virtual worlds have to cater for the seven million WoW-heads, and will be more easily received as a result.

The most important question of all, though, is: when we live and work in the Matrix, will there still be night elves called Légolass?

[Thanks, Dave]

Metroblogging Azeroth put up a link to this very strange site called the "Synthetic World Initiative" out of Indiana University. I have to say, it looks pretty academic and obscure, but the base idea here is that they're organizing "expeditions" into uncharted territory of the modern world-- namely, virtual, online worlds just like the one we spend most of our time in, Azeroth.

The reason why they're doing this, however, isn't really clear. Their about page quotes Shakespeare a lot-- the end result is that they seem to be attempting to quantify these new online, virtual worlds in the same way unknown worlds were quantified back in the Age of Exploration. But here's the really interesting part: it seems like they're going to discover these online game worlds by playing a game of their own. They're going to research virtual worlds by creating and interacting in their own virtual world. They say they're "test[ing] the possibility that professionals engaged in a properly designed game would generate both entertainment and productivity at the same time."

Which is a fancy way of saying, I guess, that they're going to play their own roleplaying game, while playing online games and studying them (sweet gig if you're a social sciences college student). For their first "Kuriaan Expedition" (named after, I gather, something from their created game), they're meeting in World of Warcraft, over on the Alliance side of the Silver Hand server (on Sunday, they're leading an expedition into the Deadmines). At any rate, it should be interesting to see what analysis comes out of it-- odds are they won't find much we don't know about, but maybe their work will help to correct public perception of online gaming. And hey, if you're over on Silver Hand, go give 'em a /wave for us.

Terra Nova has an opinion piece up on democracy in virtual worlds.   While we organize ourselves into self-governed guilds, where does it go from there?  From my own experience as a guild member and a guild leader, the governance involved in even small organizations can be a headache, and I can only imagine it getting worse with increased size and complexity.  Anyone have any opinions on democracy, from a World of Warcraft perspective?

While I try to stick with one MMORPG at a time, I know a few people who play several.  (Where do they find the time?  I'll never know!)  However, I imagine I'll eventually leave my Warcraft avatar behind and move on to other games - where I'll start from scratch.  However, this article on Wired suggests that the future may see the boarder between our virtual realities blurring.  Are we going to be able to bring our Sims to Azeroth?  Doomguards to Animal Crossing?  Perhaps not specifically, but as more and more people flood into virtual worlds, it will be interesting to see whether the boundaries between them change.