I'm a computer gamer from way back; a seventies-era Tolkien freak with a distinct appreciation for virtual worlds. I'm a programmer, and get a charge out of the whole idea from that angle as well. I played Everquest (had a guild of developers at a small company I started and we all played after hours), and a game called Dark Age of Camelot, and the behemoth World of Warcraft. I enjoyed them all in reasonable doses of a couple to several hours, with the occasional marathon Sat. night session after the kids went to bed. I eventually tired of each and quit it, but I still play games on my system at home.
Largo hit the nail on the head: for a lot of people virtual worlds are an irresistable alternative to the real one. When you log into a virtual world you always know what needs to be done; the problems are all simple, and the tools to solve them are readily available. "Progress" and "respect" can be had by people who feel they can never attain those things otherwise.
There's the potential for a real SF moment here over the next half-century or so. Kids today not only immerse themselves in virtual worlds, but they have taken the whole experience of relationships and offloaded it onto the network. They live on MySpace and FaceBook, and exploit the net in ways that go way beyond what those of us who were involved in systems development during its emergence ever imagined. My kids can almost text faster than I can type, and I am a very fast typist. Not to mention the oldest of them turns 15 tomorrow
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Things are going to be very different, and that's why I said above that I was probably wrong about the negative effects. It's just going to be different, and I'm resistant to it like all old guys, because there's nothing I can do about it.
Looks like I have now thoroughly hijacked my own thread.
Largo hit the nail on the head: for a lot of people virtual worlds are an irresistable alternative to the real one. When you log into a virtual world you always know what needs to be done; the problems are all simple, and the tools to solve them are readily available. "Progress" and "respect" can be had by people who feel they can never attain those things otherwise.
There's the potential for a real SF moment here over the next half-century or so. Kids today not only immerse themselves in virtual worlds, but they have taken the whole experience of relationships and offloaded it onto the network. They live on MySpace and FaceBook, and exploit the net in ways that go way beyond what those of us who were involved in systems development during its emergence ever imagined. My kids can almost text faster than I can type, and I am a very fast typist. Not to mention the oldest of them turns 15 tomorrow
. Things are going to be very different, and that's why I said above that I was probably wrong about the negative effects. It's just going to be different, and I'm resistant to it like all old guys, because there's nothing I can do about it.
Looks like I have now thoroughly hijacked my own thread.
