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Is World of Warcraft More Than Just A Game?
walnutmon writes "Newsweek has published a three page article asking whether World of Warcraft is more than just a game. Though some spend their time in WoW grinding, others take a break from the monotony of gaming to interact with others from the community in a meaningful way. From the article: 'Generally, though, players of the game enjoy a form of community rarely seen in the real world; higher-level players go out of their way to tutor newbies and accompany them on quests. Deep friendships are forged. Relationships begin that flower into marriage, with Tauren brides and Undead grooms tying the knot in some virtual tavern in Thunder Bluff.' I guess the question is, does a game become more when people do more than play to win, or is this just an added feature?" Raph Koster has been of the opinion, for quite some time now, that all MMOGs are virtual worlds; it just so happens you can play a game inside many of them. What's your view on this? Are Massive games just another kind of game title, or are they something special?
MUDs (precursors to mmorpgs) have noticed this for a long time. The game is cool, and it is what draws people, but the relationships and community is what causes people to stay. This logically leads to stuff like MUD meets (players going to somewhere and hanging out for a few days) and even an occasionally marriage. I'm serious; I know no less than two couples who met in a MUD and ended up getting married.
DYWYPI?
gee sounds like Star Trek conventions, weekend D&D games, long time IRC channels, Scout Troops, etc. Second life has been doing the same thing without the pesky gaming elements. Nothing special to see here folks...and yes in the end its just a game.
Go into any MMORPG that is developed enough to have a Guild system and you will see a full on society.
There's politics, currency, responsibilities, governments, charters, social contracts, friends going on outings, etc. IThey're nothing short of microcosms of societies that bring out different characters or enhance the characters of real life people.
An example: I'm an EQ addict. I belong to a "family guild" (a guild who doesn't want the focus of their organization to be raid "work" on a nightly basis) who is party of an alliance of "family guilds" whose joint efforts are to do "raiding guild" things. Consider it neighborhoods banding together for a common goal.
Recently, scandal arose when a full-on raiding guild engaged a target that belonged to the alliance. One of our alliance members, very angered, ensured that the target would be unkillable by the raiding guild force and thus brought severe shame on the alliance. Our member, after a "town hall meeting" in the forums, has chosen to disband from his guild and thus the alliance, while his guild decides what's to be done.
Furthermore, some are questioning the value of our raid leader and there is mumbling about asking him to step down.
Friends leave guilds. Guildies left behind are saddened. When a guild who enjoys its members witty banter and opinions disbands, people are actually sad.
People are social animals -- social meaning they require communication. These MMORPGS are 10% game, 90% communication. That's what sucks people in and that's why MMOs are closer to virtual political bodies than checkers and tic-tac-toe.
I learned that the only thing you can "learn" in virtual world which can be applicable to real world is hacking skills. - e.g. when you write aimbot for CS and dll injection -that some system programming skills . Reverse engineering for MMORPG protocols and writing radar programs are pretty good skills too ( you learn a lot about networking and reverse engineering). As well as advanced botting (writing AI for bots to perform action in the game). Getting my hands on CS aimbot and making my own was pretty much biggest gain from 4 years of playing CS ever (and as a good consequence I completely lost interest to FPS for 2 years- when 300 lines of code completely "pwn" any human player you cant help but think of pointlessness of a game)
,especially in competitive PVP, but really you cant apply to RL world directly. - anything from RL world is more valuable in this aspect .
But IMHO very few things in games themselves are actually valuable skills - some basic psychology
In 2005 he published Synthetic Worlds. He is/was a mainstream economist who got hooked on Everquest but then used his professional skills to analyze what was going on. He quite strongly feels these MMOGs are more than just games, and in a certain sense are very very real. The book is a good read and Section 3 gives his possible scenarios for the future including potential "mass emigration" to cyberspace and possible governmental reaction.