It isn’t often that I first learn about events in Perth from our free community newspaper (I read it while waiting for fast food at our local fast food joint, too) but that’s what happened with the GO3 Electronic Entertainment Expo 2007. (I wish I could say that I first read about it on Simone’s blog, but I would be lying.) Maybe this means I should pay closer attention to this weekly paper, which I usually save, but only to line Baubles the Cat’s litter tray.
This three-day event at the end of March aims to “showcase the latest in games hobbies and electronic entertainment.” Apart from an expo and a conference, they will also be holding a lan party (Wikipedia definition).
Published on 18 January 2007
in WoW and games.
The first World of Warcraft expansion, The Burning Crusade, was released on Wednesday. For those who don’t know what an expansion is, in computer game terms, it refers to a release of new content or features that substantially adds to a game. (Wikipedia also has a definition.)
Even though neither of us has been playing much WoW lately (Morgan, if you’re looking at the screenshot, yes, Tatanka is still level 17), we couldn’t resist and had to get ourselves each a copy of the expansion. There has been so much talk and anticipation that I guess I had to take a look. So I now have a level 8 Blood Elf Paladin named Ingmar (not a very elfy name but I wasn’t feeling very inspired when I made him). A male character because I have discovered that this is the easiest way to avoid stupid comments about boobies from teenaged boys.
It’s quite challenging to play in the new areas at the moment, because there are so many other players all trying to do the same quests. No doubt there are far more new Blood Elves around than there are Draenai (the other new race) - why are elves always so popular? I did also make a Draenai - Drogheda - but I think I will reroll a male character even though I like her name.
Joi Ito in a Japan Times interview, on games, and specifically World of Warcraft:
Video games have always been kind of stigmatized, and they are kind of a working-class entertainment. When I go to my WoW guild, my raid leader is a night-shift nurse. We have bartenders. We have unemployed people, lots of military folks, policemen — there is a community made up of a very diverse set of people. And what’s interesting is that every single MBA who has tried to take the leadership role in the guild has failed. Leadership in these kinds of situations is much more about listening, and leadership is not exclusive to people in the leading class. It kind of translates into, say, understanding how open-source projects work, or how Firefox might be managed. This may all sound like a very long, elaborated excuse for playing lots of World of Warcraft. (Laugh) But I can learn a lot of things in places where typically people don’t think there is learning.
I wonder if anyone has done any studies on the social/economic backgrounds of the people who play WoW… (thinking about it, this could be difficult to do - you don’t provide such information when you create an account on WoW.)
I like what he has to say about financial success:
I’m financially successful enough so I’m able to give a reasonable amount of money to organizations I want to give to; I’m able to eat just about anything that I want to without worrying about how much it costs.
By this reckoning, I’m a financial success too! 
And Joi’s life focus:
The focus of my life is to try to make my environment better. “Better” to me means surrounding myself with stimulating people and ideas, continuing to learn. My company name — Neoteny — has negative connotations, too, but it means retention of childlike attributes in adulthood. Child-attributes include, but are not limited to, the feeling of wonder, curiosity, joy, funny things, growth — and those are all things that I want to always continue to have in life.
The negative side of that is I tend to lack persistence sometimes. I don’t want to be the CEO of a company where I do the same thing every day. As a personality type, I’m much more of a network person, where I’m part of connecting things together, and probably less about repeating production activities. But I think you need all types. If everybody in the world was like me, it wouldn’t work. (Laugh)
Boredom avoidance is not necessarily a bad thing, then!
(Via Lawrence Lessig’s blog)
Addendum: I should have added that I am fascinated by interviews and love reading them. I’d like to learn how to conduct them, as well - especially via email, for blogging purposes. This article on e-lis is interesting: E-Mail Interviewing in Qualitative Research: A Methodological Discussion.
