What are looking to learn, explore or discuss?
I was interested in seeing how educators use the Massive(ly) Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games.
I am not looking to see how to use in a class I am teaching but I was hoping to get to see a truly “educational” MMORPG.
What do I mean with “truly educational”? Just brainstorming here, but I had imagined games based on roleplay on true historical facts, or geographical explorations, or archeological expeditions… based on facts and people that really existed. An example: The battle of Zama…
Are you looking at this as exploration to get a feel for the WoW or MMORPGs in general?
I’d like to share some thoughts here: I played for a couple of years in a MMORPG, and had the chance to see how an alliance works, how attacks are planned, how hierarchically organised the gamers can be and how players can use up all their intelligence to be multitasking most of the day, logging in at all times of the day and night.
In my experience the strongest players were adults, often self-employed and therefore with the accountancy of their use of time well tight within their hands. Astute, intelligent, strong and not worried about the money they needed to spend to quickly recreate the troops they lost during months and months of battles before the server ended.
I loved being part of an alliance and a proud participant when our confederates – 10 to 15 alliances - and the alliance I was in – every ally had around 50 players - won the final battle: winners of the server! The feelings of belonging to the community can build strong bonds between players, and I made friends in RL with some of them. I believe the easiness with which I went about my entering and staying in SL derived from the social "know-how" that I was able to build up as a game player.
Are you looking at WoW as past time/networking kind of opportunity?
I can’t emotionally afford participating in the WoW right now: the time zone makes it impossible for me to log in during the times when the MOOC participants are in and – after making the machinima on my own – I do not wish to repeat the same "solo" experience. Although it feels as if I was missing a great opportunity, I also believe a week would not be enough to savour it as it deserves and I wouldn’t like the idea of having an avatar just for a few days. DO let me know if anyone on this side of the ocean is interested in joining the WOW!
Feel free to discuss here or just ponder.
Let me spend a few words about avatars’ identities. I like taking care of my avatar’s name, as it conveys the idea of just who you want to be seen as on first impression. Building on to take care of clothes, hair and even how you talk to other players influences the contacts. Never forgetting that there is a person behind every other avatar should be regarded as a main point, if there’s a person, there can be a dialogue. If there’s dialogue, there might not be a war as “not fought, every battle is won in mid.”
Just one last highlight of how the negative aspects such as betrayals, spying, sudden changes of alliances, are balanced by other positive aspects that players often talk about and on which they build their in-game reputation: honour, loyalty, courage, honesty, respect and, last but not least, shared enjoyment.
I hope I have been able to convey the great feelings of social participation I felt during my MMORPG experience in this brief outline. If you want to take a look at newbies training, click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSS5dEeMX64 , don’t you think this is highly educational?
As a conclusion here should come a battle cry…racing horses heads down, wind blown flags and the dust of the charge like a big menacing cloud rising from the ground if seen from the distance…but this is another story and perhaps the opening of a MMORPG machinima adventure…
Best regards,
Angela:-:Rosavioletta :-)
