Variety

What I love best about World of Warcraft is its variety. In the game you can do a multitude of things. You can both go into a battleground and kill other players or you can go and do dungeons to get higher quality gear. You can also go and complete quests to gain money and/or experience or just go around killing mobs for rare items. But if you don't want to do any of those things you can simply talk to friends. I myself prefer to just go off and quest. I find the most enjoyment from them game just going and killing mobs or collecting materials to complete quest and gain money and/or experience depending on my characters level. I do get enjoyment from doing all of the other activities but I tend to get bored doing them. Now there are many other people that probably have the same opinion but then there are some people who greatly prefer to do just one aspect of the game and just that one. But think that people who just do one aspect of the game never truly know how great a game really is, that they are only getting a small part of a game that could be much bigger and much better. And then again there are people who like to do every aspect of the game that they can to be able to decide what they like best.

Halo 3....the final chapter in the gripping halo series

Halo. One word. Many different reactions to it. You may be reading this thinking "Halo is terrible, Call of Duty is so much better". You may also think that halo is the greatest game ever soncieved by man. That's what i think. It is epic. I was hardcore into halo before i started playing World of Warcraft. I bought the 160$ legendary edition. I have halo posters and paraphanalia scattered across my room. I've done two charcoal drawings that are straight up badass. Some pics are right up there ^^^^^^^^^^^^^Ive made a montage. I've spent so much time making maps and getting the perfect screenshot angle that my memory bank is full. People see the word "Halo" and think of mindless shooting, bashing and killing. It's so much more than that. Halo has one of the deepest storylines of any video game. The voice acting is brilliant, the soundtrack has blown away any other game soundtrack in sales. I myself own a copy of the two disc soundtrack. Even if you are playing multiplayer, if you go in blindly "shooting and bashing", you will get your face kicked. It requires strategy, skill, and teamwork. You must know the map. Where the weapons spawn, where the enemies spawn, and where the enemies will most likely go. If you play this game for fun, stay in the social playlists. If you play to test your skill, join me in the ranked playlists. Thats where is stay. Halo is awesome.

World of Addictcraft

So there's this game i play, you may have heard of it. World of Warcraft. I know many people who absolutely hate this game and would love to see it obliterated. I also know many more people who have become so addicted to this game that they blow off real life friends for a big raid. This is why the first type of people hate WoW. I hated WoW. I wanted it wiped from the face of the earth. One of my good friendswho plays it now still played it back then, back before i played. He's an addict. One time when he was raiding me and another friend went over to tear him away from his computer. We walked into his room and said hi. He acknowledged us and waved. We stood behind him, watching, for fifteen or twenty minutes, then left. To this day he does not remember that event. We asked him about it, told him that we were there. We told him that he waved at us. He laughed and said we were on crack, which, i assure you, we weren't.
A few weeks later, he convinced me to pick up a trial version of the game. I did. I told myself that I would only play it casually. I installed it, downloaded the patches, and started a new character(A gnome rogue by the name of Edgaralenpwn). Since that fateful day, i haven't gone more than a week without hopping on. I am an addict. Is it a bad addiction? I'm not harming anyone by doing it, I'm not harming myself by doing it. Sure, I've blown of friends and family for a raid, but they have other people to hang out with. If they really wanted to hang out, they would pick up a trial.
Edgaralenpwn is now top level, decked out in season 2 gear for pvp and tier 4 and some tier 5 for pve. My time played on him is over 25 days. That's over 600 hours put into that one character. If I would have been working at my 6.25 and hour job i would have made over 3500 dollars. What do i have to show for those many hours? 2000 gold? Brutal gloves? Nothing that is worth anything in the "real" world. Sure, i could sell my account for a hundred bucks. I would be out an account, and all those hours would seem wasted. For that reason i am going to keep playing WoW. It is addicting. I love it.

Usernames

Usernames allow us a myriad of things, from hiding our true identity to standing out, or both. All of this is great but sometimes usernames, to put bluntly are stupid. And you know we've all done it, created a username that we think is cool only to find out later that it really isn't. But that's okay because creating a good username takes expermentation. =)
I think a few things make a username good:
-Uniqueness: If your username is taken, it's taken, don't add numbers to it or underscores or the equivilent. Try a variation or choose something else.
-Showcases something about you: Don't choose a username just to choose one. Think of a random word or name that you think fits you well. (ex. Tangerine is my nickname and also has my alias for one of my gaia accounts hidden in it)
-It isn't too explict. This one should be self explaintory.
Once you find a username you can stick with it for all sites, or you can experiment a bit. xD For example my newly made SL name is Ophelia Cooperstone, while I have used the name Ophelia quite a bit I think adding the new lastname(chosen from a list might I add) makes it an entirely different username the previous ones and sounds a bit more realistic.

World of Warcraft

I play World of Warcraft like millions of other people. I have been playing the game for about two years. I am not one of the serious players who raid everyday or PvP ever day but more of a casual player. I do the raids when I have time which is usually once a week. I admit that I am addicted to the game and that I have put off school work so that I could play the game instead. I have lost a great amount of needed sleep and barely made it to school before the first class has started.
What I like most about WoW is that there is so much to do. You can go off and do quests and make money. Or you can join a group with friends and raid a town or do an instance. Or you can just go around and kill other players if you are on a PvP server. Or you can just simply go and help the lower level players with quests or instances.
There are many people that play the game just for the PvP aspect of it. I myself do enjoy it for short periods of time but usually cant stand playing against the players who have the Season Four Brutal Gladiator PvP gear which seems to happen every time. I also dont like to PvP as much because the usual total lack of team work. People always seem to be off trying to take the whole enemy team. But then again there are always the rare group of people who work together and help each other out which almost always get me to play another round.

Avatars...

Why exactly do we make and love our avatars so much? Why do I call myself Donut, a junk food, and like the name so much? I personally think it's because we love the fact that we can be whoever we want without a restriction like we do in the real world. I also think many love avatars because they want to escape themselves and experience being someone else.
My avatar name comes from the parody series, Red vs Blue, from the character of the same name. I chose him because he was seen as a goofball with outrageous comment and remarks but was still accepted by everyone. I loved his name was well as him so I chose that name. My avatar name comes from a fan standpoint, like most names, but I choose to have an odd one that no one else does because I hate having numbers in my name since I don't like to be thought of as a number. Others who choose their name based on a common loved thing like a popular anime/video game are bound to be taken and then must add numbers. No one wants to add numbers in their name, because by doing so, you've lost the purpose of being orignal by just becoming another number like the real world sees you as.
Some who have avatar names like the one above and have the same hate I do towards numbers have mutliple Avatar names and aliases. Since I'm in that group, whenever one of my personal avatar names is taken(very rare), I will go to one of four others I have been known as, not ones I thought up because they were cool, but because they are dear to me or explain my personally to me. Such as another name I go by is Thron, which you would think "that's not even a real word, what could it mean about you?" It was a name from my Warrior from World of Warcraft, Thronhorn wom I spelled his name wrong and didn't notice my mistake till 40-50's and by that time I grew to like the name, with friends even using it over my real name, because it had become a part of me and sentimental value grew on it.
But to some people, avatars are not just names of people they like or has meaning to them, but a curtain they hide behind for fear of people finding out who they are, as well as talk bad about someone who they don't want figuring them out. This is common on fourms and borads such as GameFaqs.

Have you ever wanted to be a gangster? or should i say E-Thug?

Themafianetwork is an online MMORPG where your goal is to become the most respected and fearful gangster to live. Once you become a member of this gangster world you are on your own.

To excel in this game you need to first spend a good month to allow yourself to rank-up through committing "crimes, drug-runs and organized-crime". As time is spent you make "friends" within the game. Through these friendships you can split costs to create crime rings which allow you to buy businesses and casino's . The objective of the game is to get to the highest rank and own businesses.

Virtual World- GaiaOnline =)

Alright, so this is the virtual world I've decided to write about. GaiaOnline, which started up in 2003 is one of the largest forum based communities out there and a new member can get eaisly overwhelmed. Ha ha. I myself joined in March of 2004 so as you can see I've been a member for awhile. The art of gaia is based on manga and anime but you don't need to be a fan to enjoy the site, in fact I've ran into a few people who don't even like anime.
When you first join Gaia you make an avatar with whatever items they have available for newbies, if you don't like your avatar you can pay gold to change it's hair, clothes, race, and now even it's skin color. I have to admit a lot of the newbie items do suck, but it's not that hard to earn gold.
Gold is earned by a number of activties: posting in the forums, voting on polls in the forms, visting the arenas, browsing, posting comments on peoples' profiles and games. You might be able to get donations but don't beg to people because it's highly frowned upon. If you're fairly active your gold will build as long as you don't blow it all quickly like I do. Do you have any skills? If you can draw, or use CSS code your at an advantadge when it comes to earing gold. Gaia members will pay a lot of gold for art and profiles if you're skilled enough. The market place, where you buy and sell different items also allows you to make gold.
As I mentioned previously having skills in CSS code can benifit you. Besides providing you a way to earn gold you can make a cool profile for yourself that stands out from the rest. Don't worry though if you don't know CSS, you can go to TekTek to get a nice profile for yourself, just don't be suprised if you see someone else with the same profile.
On Gaia you can also join guilds, which is basically a mini-forum that units those of a common interest. Most Guilds are free but some do you require a gold fee, this is up to the owner's disgression. If you want to you can even make your own guild, this costs 20,000 gold though. If you do join and are interested in art check out AIG(Art Institute of Gaia) , which I'm a member and Co-Captian of. That's about it. =)

The Virtual World

Hello all, Donut here and I've been anintense internet user for over eight years and tried many different things (IM, MMO, Etc.) and learned many are good escapes from reality or keep in touch (whatever the purpose of the device). I've played World of Warcraft for three years now as well a huge list of other MMO's including Guildwars,Maplestory, and even RuneScape. This is the way many people choose to spend their time and interact with friends people all around the world.
In World of Warcraft, ypu can quest with friends and enjoying vast landscapes while fighting against mystical creatures and beasts. Along with the adventuring world, there is an ingame auction house which allows players to interact in an econmic way, trading items of great value to useless trinkets and funny items. This can steal just as much time from people if they like the econmic value as much as adventuring. And in later levels, the options of everything opens up, you can join battlegrounds and arenas to fight other players and still have fun while interacting with other factions as well as your chosen faction. And if your not the PVP(player verus player) type, then you can join a guild in which many players join togethor to do things that one couldn't do alone. This helps promote interaction with other players to obtain goals that they share as well as make people take leadership/take orders and understand them.
Many MMO's are like World of Warcraft but not exactly like I shortly explained. Other online interaction decives like IM's(Instant Messagers) let you talk with someone who not present with you quickly and easily as if they were in the same room as you. It's perfect to keep in touch with friends, talk with family across the country, and sometimes talk when other interactive decives and programs are unavailable. I havn't used them too much over the years but I've recently been using an IM called Xfire, which is an average IM but can interact with a varily of games. I've used it for just keeping in touch with friends whom I left by moving away( which is a core reason for IMs).
With all the increasing tech and online interaction decive getting more and more powerful,interactive and better, we are subject to see the world become closer by online programs in the years such as these.

Virtual Worlds - Spore and the Spore Creature Creator

My friend Dewy told me about this game called Spore, where you could create your own creature any way you wanted and interact with other creatures in the different worlds.  I decided to try it and see what it was about.  Here is what I found out:

There is a free version of the creature creator but its only a trial version.  The full version of the creature creator has hundreds more ways to customize your creature, allowing for an almost infinite number of combinations.  Even though I only had the trial version, I found that I could keep myself entertained for hours making goofy creatures.  I decided to read more about the game.  I found out that in the game, although there are no "quests" or "missions" to do, but rather to interact with other elements in the game.  In spore, you start out on the cellular level, end evolve into more advanced and sophisticated beings by choosing appendages and additions onto your creature .  After you are fully satisfied with your creature, you can start to colonize the continent you're on, and eventually, the whole world.  After you have "taken over the world," you can start to venture out into your solar system, and even into other galaxies.  If you like the sound of this game, check out the video below, or go to this link to learn more.

virtual worlds.

Everybody its me Godzilla..Anyway I figured that I would would get this done now and not worry about it now. so a virtual world that I use regularly use is

Naruto-arena.com and it is pretty much a turn based game using Naruto characters taken from the popular television show. Naruto. Pretty much you are given a number of starter characters and from there you choose a team of three. they don't necessarily have to be in the same teams that their in on the t.v show. its really just about who you like to use and which ones are your favorite. of course their is a strategy portion to the game. Allow me to go into greater detail about that. See the way you perform any action in this game is by utilizing your teams chi. That is divided up into four sections. they are, 1. Physical 2. Bloodline. 3. techniques, and illusions. Now each of the characters are specialists in certain areas. but you can look that up your self. I wont bore u with the small stuff. Yeah its all there a ladder mode and a quick game version. I believe that, this has to be about 200 words if not I will add more.

Welcome!

Welcome to our humble corner of the web. Throughout the next few months this space will be used for public postings by students of MUSM 325: Virtual Worlds at St Cloud State University.

We will be posting on a variety of topics, all centered around "virtuality", particularly dealing with a critical examination of virtual representation. This can encompass anything from IM names to Second Life avatars and everything inbetween. We will also discuss virtual economies, communities, aesthetics, and education.

I hope that you come back often to meet and interact with the class members!