VIDEO GAMES: MORE THAN A GAME

                 MMORPGs have become very big in the past decade or so. They allow for a huge amount of people to play video games with each other. The first article I read discusses how and why MMORPGs came into existence and why they continue to thrive. Firstly people are able to recreate themselves. It’s kind of like being in Second Life but being able to have more customizability in your avatar.

                I am not a big fan of MMORPG games. I never really got into the whole playing with a whole mass of people because when I play video games I like to play alone. I did, however, play Skyrim online for a little while. I did this because I loved the game so much that I didn’t want to stop playing. I had more or less finished all the quests in the campaign mode so I ventured online. It was an enjoyable experience but I felt like it took a lot of time to get quests done because although we were a team people still ran around with their own agendas

                I do agree with the articles detailing of leadership in MMORPG games. A lot of the time it is either an experienced gamer who steps up or an overly ambitious amateur who thinks he knows what he is doing. The quests in Skyrim were really good because they were immersive. But we did sometimes fail the mission because of an error by someone who were convinced they knew what they were doing.

                In the second article it states the benefit of MMORPGs because they abilities of each player is openly known. I have never played games like Minecraft or World of Warcraft but my brother does. I have watched him play and I have heard of several occasions of him either making fun of a player because of their minimal skills or of someone who has superb skills.

                When I watch him play Minecraft I can see the values that are listed on page 5 on the second article. A lot of building is done in Minecraft. A lot of times I overhear my brother planning what should be done in Minecraft. It was quite interesting to read this stated qualities then think back to the actual Minecraft gameplay. They really do go hand in hand.

This is an assignment from the Immersive Education course that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Collaborative Computing. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc

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