Jason's Lifestream

Would you like to play a game?

July 25 2008, 12:48pm

As I mentioned in a post earlier this week, I’ve never really gotten into online virtual worlds like Second Life, and I’ve certainly never gotten into MPORGs (Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games). However posts this week from Libraryman, The Shifted Librarian, and Terri at Creative InfoPro have piqued my interest. Apparently there is now a Libraries and Librarians Guild in World of Warcraft (WoW). The problem is that I’m not completely sure what the significance of that is. Libraryman suggests that this guild may help newcomers to WoW overcome the steep learning curve, which has been a barrier to my participation in MPORGs. Terri at Creative InfoPro suggests another game called Entropia Universe which I’d never heard of but looks pretty interesting. I’ve also seen some chatter about PMOG which might be a little better suited for me. The real problem is value. These games seem like they can really suck out a lot of time, so what’s the value of them? And it doesn’t have to be an educational value, which I’m starting to see more of in Second Life. And while there may be professional value for public librarians who use gaming to expand library services and presences in virtual worlds, that’s not my current situation. It’s ok if they’re just fun, entertainment value is valuable. But I haven’t figured out which game might deliver that. The time investment is a big issue also. There may be weeks at a time when I may not touch my computer outside of work. I need a game that I can drop for a few weeks and pick up later. But again, maybe with the creation of a specific guild in WoW now’s the time to try it out, or at least start some research finding a game that’s right for me. If you’re reading this and have a plug for a game that should be on my shortlist please let me know. Or maybe I’ll just follow Joshua’s advice and settle for a nice game of chess.