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Working As Intended: There's nothing wrong with soloing in MMORPGs
A Massively community member recently wrote into the podcast to tell us that he prefers to solo, to craft for himself, to avoid group quests, and to skip guilds. Still, he told us, he loves MMOs and doesn't want to leave them to play single-player RPGs. "What the hell is wrong with me?" he asked. Nothing. Nothing at all. There's nothing wrong with soloing in MMORPGs.
15 Minutes of Fame: McGonigal on why you're as awesome in real life as in WoW
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame. Last week, we gave you the lengthy part 1 of our interview with game designer and fellow WoW player Jane McGonigal. This week, by way of a re-introduction, we give you her most recent biographical note: Jane McGonigal is the director of game research and development at the Institute for the Future. Her work has been featured in The Economist, Wired, and The New York Times, and on MTV, CNN, and NPR. In 2009, BusinessWeek called her one of the 10 most important innovators to watch, and Fast Company named her one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business. In 2010, Oprah Magazine chose her as one of the 20 most inspiring women in the world. She has given keynote addresses at TED, South by Southwest Interactive, and the Game Developers Conference and was a featured speaker at The New Yorker Conference. She has a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in performance studies and games research. Okay, then – the lady knows her stuff. Pull up a chair and let's wrap up a visit with McGonigal by talking more about her own WoW experience and her take on how other WoW players should view their gaming hobby.
Drama Mamas: The case of the friendly hermit
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. WoW may be both massive and multiplayer, but many of us play it like a single-player game with chat channels. In fact, there are quite a few people who use guild chat and whispers as chat rooms, getting very little playing done during some sessions. And some of us like to either play or chat, but not both. Playing without an invisibility option can be troublesome for those who tend toward hermitism. Hermitness? Hermitacity! Oh, let's just get to the letter. Dear Drama Mamas, As a RL introvert, I find it very hard to make friends and feel happiest when I'm on my own. (I went through several years of high school without so much as a single friend and was very happy that way!) But online is very, very different. I find it easy to be myself in guild and general chat and so on, and as a result I attract a lot of friends. Because of this, often when I login, three to five people will whisper me at once, each expecting to carry a full-on conversation with me.
Gadgets blamed for making the world a shier place
Though we certainly feel as if we've had this discussion before, gadgets are yet again being blamed for an increase in shyness around the world. 'Course, we doubt you'd need any fancy degree to understand the cause, but a Harvard Business School researcher and psychologist has insinuated that the ease of communicating in roundabout ways (read: not face-to-face) has caused an increase in the amount of people that feel shy in public. Essentially, it was suggested that "technology is enabling us to opt out of difficult situations and causing people to become more insular," but hey, it's hard to argue how much easier life is with a little texting mixed in, no?[Via The Raw Feed, image courtesy of ABC]
