Let me introduce you to the guy in this picture who has become a serious threat to my productivity lately. He is my alter ego a Mage in World of Warcraft. This is an example of a MMOG, that is a massively multiplayer online game. MMOG’s are computer games played by massive (surprise) numbers of players who collaborate in the playing of the game over the net.
Of course, I decide to try WoW for strictly professional reasons. I felt I needed to understand the MMOG phenomenon from the inside, as I think it’s an interesting indicator of what people want technology to do. Not, strangely to indulge in aimless geekdom, but to play together.
Anyway, that was the rationale. I have to say World of Warcraft is, so far, massively entertaining. I certainly have an addictive and compulsive personality and I have to admit several very profound posts are not being written here because of an urgent need to perform alchemy, learn about herbalism and slay numerous very colourful monsters.
If you fancy a somewhat more profound insight into the future of the Web, you could listen to this podcast in which Tom Coates narrates this presentation about Web 2.0. Fascinating. And I see Tom fits this stuff in around World of Warcraft too. I see he has two characters there. I’d quite like to run into one of them. Not sure about the Warlock though.
