Heh.. WoW. >.>

In addition to my research and being married, I play WoW.

Yes, WoW.

I have a hard time explaining this to some of the people in my group. Some don't get it, some think they're "above it" (aka, academics do not stoop to that level), and others just see it as my pastime. Some people mountain bike, ski, spend their time with various NGO's. I play WoW.

I've played WoW for a long time because its fun, and its a reasonably decent investment vs time choice. Movies can cost you upwards of 15-20 bucks for two hours, WoW will cost you that for a month. Again, its one of those "If you use it, its worth the money ideas" (Not very dissimilar from the "Having alot of cheap shoes vs having a few pairs of expensive shoes" argument.. which I'll post another day.. lol)

Anyways, I enjoy the raiding portion of the game. The best analogy to raiding would be.. for example, playing a game of football (either or) against with 25 other real people versus a computer opponent. Somehow I always end up in a leadership role in these types of things. Perhaps that's the Engineer in me surfacing, I'm not sure. In all respects, a raid functions essentially like a football team. There are various different roles. Each role is required and important. Success is directly measured by personal ability/achievement and teamwork. Leadership is important as well. I am the raid leader for my group. Essentially consider me the coach/quarterback all rolled into one. I call the plays, assign roles, etc. Generally people cooperate. The only issue is, you're not dealing with these people face to face.

This is where the situation becomes a bit muddy. Instead of being able to communicate with these people face to face, in many cases, you're reduced to text. If you're lucky, you may have a VOIP system set up, where you can talk to the person. Either or, things like body language and tone are lost. This makes communication somewhat hard at times, since you're not able to infer people's attitudes easily. You have to pay close attention to what people say and do, that's more or less all you have to go on.

The second complication is the Internet. Yes. You're dealing with the commonly held belief that the Internet is better than Vegas - that there is no blame nor accountability for one's actions on the web. This is where the majority of the issues come from, and usually from the "I'm going to to whatever I want, because I'm invincible" group of 17-22 year old males.

The third complication is the simple fact that you're playing a game. I've learned some major life lessons on how to motivate people to perform a task well when there is no monetary or tangible reward. Not very easy, let me tell you. Unlike the real world, where managers and bosses can hold the possibility of losing your job for poor performance or lack of production over someone's head, in the game there are no consequences.

Let me tell you.. its not easy leading. Its even harder to be successful at it.

On occasion I'll get people in real life ask me: Why? Why do you put the time and effort into a game?

Well, here's why:

1. Its a release. Both myself and the wife enjoy games. We both find WoW to be fun. I enjoy the raiding, she enjoys the pets (yes. your characters can have pets, she enjoys collecting them). There, I don't have to worry about microfabrication, deadlines, publications, meetings, supervisors and their randomness.. none of it. Regardless the topic, I would probably spend equivalent time split between other hobbies. The only scary thing is that WoW catalogs the time you spend online. TV, websurfing, etc doesn't.. lol.

2. The more I thought about it, being an engineer and (hopefully.. I say hopefully today, because I'm proofing a 12000 word review paper, and its testing my sanity) a future PhD, I'm getting management experience. Sure, I may not be able to claim it on a CV (actually, it would be pretty funny if I could.. lol), but I'm being given a finite set of people and resources, and I'm being asked to manage both people and resources to meet a goal. Sounds like an exercise management to me.

3. I enjoy the sociology. Yeah, odd remark. I'm sure at this point with all the "learning" about the social dynamics of how people interact online, I may be able to even consider a publication.. ok.. maybe something in a non-refereed journal someplace. .. lol. In any case, it is interesting watching the dynamic that occurs when people believe that their actions won't come back to haunt them in any way, shape or form.

heh.. good times.