WoW!
Virtual reality was touted during the late 1980s and early '90s as the Next Big Thing in entertainment. After several abortive attempts involving bulky, lice-ridden helmets in cheap pizza parlors and giant boxes full of switches which posed as "cockpits," the real virtual reality is finally here. And, as with most new technologies, it sneaked in through the back door. In this instance, it takes the form of World of Warcraft.
And it's not just for geeks anymore:
Could it be that all those years I spent playing D&D have finally paid off? Nah. It's still a rat race; it's just a more enjoyable rat-race than the one I get paid to run in.
And it's not just for geeks anymore:
"Ninety percent of what I do is never finished—parenting, teaching, doing the laundry," says Elizabeth Lawley (Level 60, Troll Priest), a Rochester, N.Y., college professor. "In WOW, I can cross things off a list—I've finished a quest, I've reached a new level."
Like many WOW players, Lawley is active in a guild. Some of the high-ranking guilds, like the one formed by noted Japanese venture capitalist Joi Ito (Level 60, Gnome Mage), are mini-societies with their own Web sites, online forums and private lore. First Ito invited people he knew professionally, like Ross Mayfield (Level 60, Human Paladin), CEO of an Internet company on whose board Ito sits. "Warcraft is the new golf," says Mayfield. "I actually closed a deal with a company I met through WOW."
But as Ito met others in WOW, the roster diversified. There is a priest whose character is ... a priest. There are soldiers, bartenders, truckdrivers, lawyers and Google engineers. The guild's "raid leader"--who organizes the twice-weekly ventures into the feared Molten Core to slay the powerful "boss mob" monsters--is Jamie Ray (Level 60, Night Elf Druid), a night-shift nurse in Parkersburg, W.Va.
Could it be that all those years I spent playing D&D have finally paid off? Nah. It's still a rat race; it's just a more enjoyable rat-race than the one I get paid to run in.
posted by Jar(egg)head at 11:12
2 Comments:
Yup, its true. It may not be as fully emmersive as the cyberspace Gibson, Sterling and others wrote about yet but you can see the foundations taking shape all around. For my own example, Second Life. In the last year or so we've seen a working
virtual economy that is actually providing some people a second (or even primary) income. We've seen Real World companies develop a virtual presence in SL. We've even seen some Business-to-Business commerce. Beyond the economic we've seen virtual University classrooms populated by the avatars of students, professors and TAs. Just recently we had a virtual Townhall by Gov. Mark Warner of Virgina, and talk of a virtual Campaign office presence in SL as a component of his prospective national campaign in 2008. Regardless of his politics, I have to admit that such a move is a historic event worthy of a footnote.
There is a dark side, in old skool DND you had to hang out with friends and drink Jolt soda to play all night, which was great. These days it's smooth smokin' crack any time all the time. I woke up one day and relized I was a junkie on a MMORPG. Did a quick /played on my char and about had a heart attack. These days, I won't even plug my PS2 to the internet.
Post a Comment
<< Home