the benefits of mmorpgs

[ozymand1as]

hey, check this out. this might be useful for convincing yourself and others to try out WoW or Guild Wars. (note how i put BOTH game names to prevent negativity)

http://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/Resource_library/handouts/06_4095H.pdf

[FdL]

The document speaks about the potential educative use of a MMORPG. It doesn't mean that just by playing it the usual way would be of any use other than entertainment.

[elliott20]

this article, while has an interesting idea, is not exactly winning me over. I'm very skeptical as to some of the claims that have been made about EQ2 and some of the aspects.

for example, the sociology and psychological aspects of EQ2 is hardly a true cross section of reality. And like a lot of fantasy out there, the anthropological aspects are often very poorly thought out.

However, it doesn't mean that it is a useless environment. But rather, the content delivery of such would have to be VERY carefully monitered else it would just be an excuse to let students play games.

[Sailacela]

Interesting, but I tend to agree with Elliot20. I play a couple MMORPGs and to be honest, it's more about questing and chatting with friends (for me) than education. Not that that's a bad thing.

[Wehrkind]

I think the author is really reaching here. Some of his points are so silly as to make me wonder if this was not presented as a joke, or a test to see if his instructors were actually reading his papers (I have done this.)

Firstly, his premise that instructor controlled classrooms are a by product of the industrial age is rather silly, considering that back to anchient Greece there were instructors being paid to teach groups. In general, that's the whole point of education, to have one person sharing knowledge with a group. That one person thus sets the pace, as they can only speak about one thing at one time. At any rate, his knowledge of the process of education isn't really the question here.

When it comes to his uses, he inadvertanty highlights the differences between MMO's economics and real world. His lessons, using his numbers, have the following problems:

1. The concept of a monopoly in a MMO is nearly impossible. While in the real world it is sometimes possible to control the source of a good or service, and thus keep other producers out of the market, it is nearly impossible to do in an MMO, where the only limits on scarcity are player time and spawn time. The only good way to control a market for a good is to buy up all of the good and resell it, which is not a monopoly per se.

2. This has the same faulty premise as 1, which is that MMO's have the same limits of scarcity that the real world does. Calculating production costs to determine proper pricing for a given profit might be a useful exercise, but what is "normal labor price" in reference to activities that take very little time and are pure profit (no need to pay for food and shelter etc., and thus no real need to make money.) Further, since (in WoW at least) being able to make a given item has relatively little real investment, everyone has trade skills and thus with the rare exception of a few exceedingly rare, drop only recipies, it is nearly impossible for a few to set up a oligarchy over the price. Essentially the barriers to entry into any given field are non-existant, limited mostly to opportunity cost.

3. This might be useful, and allow for actual functionality, but most of the knowledge needed is meta game. Still, tracking trends such as increasing value of Fire Resistance gear as Molten Core runs become more demanding, or the rise and fall of metal prices might be decent practice. There is little reason that one could not do this with real life commodities, however.

4. Other than controlling the price of goods by controlling the price by buying all offered below a certain level, scarcity again kills this as the answer is typically "farm more." A never ending supply of enemies to kill and loot, as well as resources to gather, tends to lend itself to ensuring 100% spawn/kill ratios, which can be set up, but otherwise are not too exciting or applicable to real life, except perhaps in non-competition agreements between Guilds.

The article really starts grasping at straws when it hits the list of other subjects. Economics is a slight possiblity, since much of the game revolves around making choices in how you spend your resources. The other aspects are tenuous at best.

Geography: What good is geography of a fictional place in the real world? While handy in game, it has no bearing on the real world knowledge of geography.
History: Again, knowing fictional events is fun and entertaining, but not useful in the learning of actual history.
Psychology: A decent argument could be made in examining player's psychology, and actions in contrast to their real life actions. People do things in game they would never consider doing in real life, as what happens in game in general has less far reaching consequences. The only point of interest is player interaction, and so the need for an MMO to look at anything other than the psychology of players is sort of extraneous.
Sociology: Same as psychology, only more limited to the structures of guilds and the like.
Anthropology: Who cares about fictional cultures other than as a window to how we view our own? Not to mention the fact that the culture and society of NPCs that do not eat, trade, govern, or really do anything unless the PCs see it is pretty void.
Language: "Concepts and words" ie. jargon, are not unique to MMO's, and the 'unique beings' are not unique, and do not have their own languages...
Physics: Simulations are useful for learning physics, but so much of videogames is altered for ease. See thread about physics and magic for plenty of points about that.
Philosophy: No better than anything else.

In general the problem is that most MMO worlds do not have any depth beyond what is needed for the players' stories. For instance, in WoW, what does anything eat? The barrens are filled with animals that could not possibly exist in a meaningful sense, as the ratio of predators to prey demands predators with very small appetites. And of course, it is impossible to wipe out a species even if you kill everyone in the zone, as they just appear instead of having to mate. Futher the existance of 'magic' in any world kills any scientific inquirey, since the two are pretty much impossible to combine.

Ironically, the best educational possibilities lie in creating a virtual world, essentially a giant simulation, though the authors dismiss it as prohibitively expensive. While it certainly would be expensive, it would be interesting to see. Think of Second Life, where many players turn to virtual prostitution and pornography to make money, while presumably not pursuing those occupations in real life. There's some interesting psychology there...

The only real use of this article is to warn one to stay the hell away from Illinois State University, as apparently they harbor professors who are out of their minds.