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Going To School In Azeroth
Via the Guardian Gamesblog, a link to an unusual ethnography class. From the post: "[The site is] a selection of weblogs and reports from students at Trinity University in the States who've been charged by their prof, Aaron Delwiche (a good friend to virtual worlds weblog Terra Nova), to conduct ethnographies of the hugely successful World of Warcraft as part of their credit requirements for their 'Games for the Web: Ethnography of Massively Multiplayer On-line Games' course. The 15 term papers and the associated documentation are great first steps for the students in examining the social character of online social spaces, and a very good insight for people who've never had the chance to dive into one of these virtual worlds."
I've heard that when a TV series or movie is being filmed that includes "alternate races", particularly ones which require prosthetic makeup (orcs, klingons, whatever), the various ethnicities of extras will tend to congregate with others of the same ethnicity in the studio cafeteria. But of course this is nowhere near the scale of MMOGs.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Figuring out new ways to make fun things suck.
that's a great opportunity to find enough time to play WorldOfWarcraft. ;)
I spent last spring writing a 14 page paper on the symbolism present in .hack//(just the games), and I thought that was awesome. But if I could have written about WoW, which I was playing heavily at the time, that would have been a whole lot better.
I'm obviously going to the wrong school though. I had to my "video game" paper as an independent study, they have a course on this?!?!
I wonder what this class counted for? Some kind of sociology or psychology? Or a comp sci elective? Anyway, they probably had to have an account, or promise to get access to one, when signing up for the class. I read the one on being in a guild and skimmed the paper on sexism. Is it just me, or are students really bad at writing papers anymore? Not that this was a graduate course, or anything, but the one on guilds was so full of fluff I thought I was reading a Mallowmar.
The truth is the more 'Hardcore' you are with one of these games the faster you burn out. When WoW launched I had tons of free time to waste on anything and most of it went to WoW; this meant that after just 4 weeks I was sitting at level 50 (not necessarily the fastest level in history, but pretty quick compared to the average). What this meant is that I had outleveled the majority of people on my server so finding groups and going to instances was just not an option. What I was left doing was what I had done for the majority of my leveling to that point and I grinded on outdoor mobs, I hit level 58 before I completely burnt out on that character and created an alt; which I got to level 25 before I quit.
After a while, and after Battlegrounds and new instances had been implemented, I decided to go back an play again; if I'm not enjoying leveling I play in the Battlegrounds or level a (well rested) alt. The game is far more fun when you only spend an hour or two a night and you're not constantly trying to be the #1 player on your server.
If the school offered to pay for the WoW subscription, I'm all in. But this is college, where everything required to use for a class you always have to pay for, so I'm guessing they won't do that.
... I can't remember the other 2 anymore. Not exactly playing an MMORPG though!
:) It's called "research."
What would the textbook be? The strategy guidebook?
The closest I ever came to a class like this was Literature of the Fantastic, where we were able to read books like War of the Worlds, Frankenstein, Witches Abroad, Starship Troopers, and
I don't think it's the students that want an extra excuse to play WoW, it's the professor that wants that excuse and get PAID to play the game
Someone finally thought of the children.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
Personally, I'd love to see studies like this done in Eve, where social interaction is much more pronounced. (and much more interesting)