Sunday, November 12, 2006

Will's Visit

Will’s visit was great. I’m glad I had the opportunity to talk with him over lunch and dinner. Dave and I were lucky enough to listen to Will sing a little Supertramp during the drive back to his room. On Will’s suggestion, I checked out the open-source role-playing game Second Life. He described it as more of an experience than a game. Second Life is like The Sims, a reality simulator. Second Life even lets a player purchase property. Some people are able to make real money by selling virtual items (like hats) for use in the game! Sadly, my computer cannot run the program. So the character that I created, Matt Semyorka, is somewhere in Second Life standing idly.

Professor Reid also referred me to terranova , a scholarly blog about Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG). I read an article by Aaron Delwiche that discusses the unique social community that MMORPGs create and his reflections on having taught undergraduate classes; one using Everquest and another with Second Life. One of the requirements of Delwiche’s courses is to play the game for five hours a week. While students are in the game, they are to interview other players about their gaming experience and report on their findings. Interesting idea.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Will's visit was a good experience for you clearly Matt. I'm glad you're investigating more of the sties he and Alex recommend.

Interestingly, the local news channel did a spot on Second Life last week right after W's visit. You kwow it's mainstream when some of these smal market guys take it up.

What do you need on your computer to run it that you don't have? K

Oh STARS mag. yesterday did an issue on the new games--did you see it? And The TIMES magazine is looking at YouTube this week--

None of this is cutting edge or underground any more....K

Dave E. said...

Second Life crashed when I tried to run it on my computer. Something about an incompatible graphics card or something. It's probably for the best... it looks totally awesome.

James said...

Ok, Matt. I tried this game out and attempted to capture the experience for you as best I could.

Check it out:

http://classoftomorrow.blogspot.com/

-James

rayhedrick said...

I'm curious as to what Will Richardson said about this Second Life game? It really does seem to be more of an experience than a game.

Anonymous said...

Ray, he said he was afraid of it...addicting! K

Dave E. said...

By the way, Will singing Supertramp in the car is definitely, to date, a top-ten moment in my life.



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