What happens when we have the behavior that comes with a body in traditional space, but we lose the body?

The PC, this “interface” you are reading these words through is a filter, it is an amplifier, it connects and disconnects, in ways we are only becoming aware of in increments.

You may have noticed the link to McLuhan on the right side of this page. Marshall McLuhan often is remembered for “The Medium is the message”. What does that mean?

Well, ask 10 people who “know” and you may get 15 answers.

In MMORPGs we have two mediums; we have the medium of the PC through which we experience content, entertainment, information. We connect with each other in different ways. We are shuffled and jumbled together and we settle in groups, in virtual worlds (I am using the term here in a broader sense than to describe game worlds. I use it to describe interest or affinity groups. And when I use those terms I also mean them broadly, not affinity and interest groups as defined by the name given to them by the producers, users, and identifiers of them, but affinity and interest as defined by looking at the people that participate in them). We also have the medium of the game world itself. Before there are players there, this world is static, it may have dynamic operations taking place, but, at least in the instance of WoW, I do not believe that the “game plays itself” in some unpredicted fashion, sort of a random experiment let loose. In WoW it is the players that end up defining it and it is the players and the “play” that they exhibit and experience that has interested me today.

Have any of you been part of a flame war? It is an interesting happenstance that people will often say things online, in email, in forums, that they would never say in person. This is also true in MMORPGs (I need a short form for that, anyone have any ideas?) and in these games, where we set up social networks that are engaged in goal oriented cooperative tasks (sounds like a job, eh? “OK, we need a good warrior to keep the dragon focused on him; while the healers can make sure he stays up and can control the dragon’s attention. While he is doing that, you, mages, make sure you are using cold based attacks only! Etc…” Everyone has their task) we begin to emulate or at least somehow manifest a “version” of our meatspace (I also would like a different term than that*winks*) behavior in this digital game world.

I want to go further into this, and I will. Before I do I need to do a little more homework.

More to come.

L