Play’s Republic

One of the “races” from which players may choose is the Tauren.  The Tauren are a minotaur-like species that are allied politically with the Horde (here is where the determinist poetics of the Alliance versus Horde construct seems woefully inappropriate).  The interesting thing about the Tauren is that they are essentially a distillation of centuries of superficial […]

[Read more →]

This afternoon, in Blizzard’s extensive notes about recent refinements to the game, I read the following sentence:
Tranquil Mechanical Yetis are no longer unique.
In spite of the fact that the meaning, at first, is unfathomable, the sentence is precise:  I take “unique” to denote a well-defined threshold of recurrence.  In this updated virtual world, the Tranquil Mechanical Yeti […]

[Read more →]

Two days ago, I had a brief and somewhat difficult to follow conversation with a pink-haired Gnome on the steps of the bank in Stormwind. The Gnome, a mage in his 20’s, was offering simple enchants for free: Bracers, cloaks, and the like, +5 health. In between his interaction with four different […]

[Read more →]

One of my ideas about MMORPG is that the MMO part is fine, but the RPG part is problematic. Specifically, the G. I think that to call these digital experiences “games” is to misunderstand them fundamentally. Games are fields with definite borders: One is either “in play” or “out of play.” […]

[Read more →]

This WSJ article trades on the novelty of establishing traditional relationships through non-traditional venues. Emphasis is on the incongruence of online existence and “real-world” existence:
The next time she logged on to play, Ms. Bard began having her character flirt with Mr. Zenonian’s. Though she had an actual boyfriend, she saw the in-game flirtation as […]

[Read more →]