Wired.com says that maybe playing World of Warcraft is good for you.
Unlike education acquired through textbooks, lectures, and classroom instruction, what takes place in massively multiplayer online games is what we call accidental learning. It’s learning to be – a natural byproduct of adjusting to a new culture – as opposed to learning about.
I hope so, otherwise I’ve been wasting the last few months.
p.s. My new name is Jin’rul. Any players out there can send me in game mail on the Thorium Brotherhood server (RP).
p.p.s. It turns out all I have to do to get some conversation going in the comments is not post for a long long time. Sheesh.
p.p.p…. Just in case, World of Warcraft is an online roleplaying game (one you play with other people sharing an imaginary world over the internet) that is so good you probably shouldn’t start playing.
I can’t think of where and when I saw the references to this… but…. holy shit!! This really is the stuff of the future! Virtual communication; purely via avatars in an online setting. and it’s really happening now. like right now, and it’s only beginning. As the cost;energy;distance;travel thing gets outta whack, unalterable physical and geographic reality combined with (probable) near and mid-future technological advance will lead to this by necessity… also, in 10 or 15 years the youngerish people in the interesting positions in business, gov’t, military* etc. will be as (and likely more) comfortable with this stuff as with face to face contact. It’s the beginning of an entirely new commons, previously only found in dystopic science fiction. And it’s great!!!
Well, that’s as poorly thought out a paragraph as I’ve ever written.
*Probably already experimenting with some kind of VR controlled robot-soldiers.
i still don’t buy it. if you want do something real sometime, like a shisha, give me a ring.
I might have underestimated the time involved, but its definitely going to come at a point in the not too distant future. It’s already here for a lot of things… virtual worlds of this type are perfect for anyone who wants to discuss anything shady or clandestine [so are webmail accounts], and as usual with such things, the early adopters are organised crime (& terrorists) and military/intelligence types. I’m not at all familliar with WOW, I’m imagining the Snowcrash scenario, where a group of people stake out their own space miles away from where anyone they don’t want bothering them can look and just do their thing. When these things go open source & decentralise (again haven’t really kept up to speed on this and it could be here now), the real shit will start. Might meet with JP for drinks on Friday, you’d be welcome to come. Email me.
Jeremy, is Warcraft the game with Orcs? Because if it is I can make an embarassing confession that not only have I played that game but I once had a lazer-tag name that came from that game, thanks to my Dad.
Do I need to insert line breaks in this comments section, the box is showing up funny on my screen.
Yeah. The original Warcraft games (I-III) were strategy games where you controlled armies of either Humans or Orcs in a war between the two. WOW is a new game where you play as just one character though, and you don’t have to be just orc or human, you can be an elf/gnome/troll/zombie and stuff.
Laser Tag is fun. You should come to my birthday party.
Slghtly heaving slogging, but worth it – Warcraft & Utopia:
http://ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=507
thanks man. I’m writing a paper about the semiotics of avatars and this will totally be useful.
Oh if I had read this earlier and had known when and where it was I would have gone to your birthday. Happy Birthday though!
Luckily you HAVENT MISSED IT YET! (not positive we’re doing Laser Tag yet though. Probably will)
Was it Jaina?
Oh my god the name wasn’t Jaina it was something so embarassing I’ll never tell. But do have your birthday at Laser Tag and do let me know when it is, the last Laser Tag birthday I went to I neglected to mention that the fake birthday boy was 19 and the teenager who had to supervise our friends eating pizza was super uncomfortable. It was great!