{"id":29,"date":"2005-08-24T16:17:53","date_gmt":"2005-08-24T20:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/driscolldev\/2005\/08\/24\/leeroywmv-a-glimpse-of-the-future"},"modified":"2005-08-24T16:17:53","modified_gmt":"2005-08-24T20:17:53","slug":"leeroywmv-a-glimpse-of-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/driscoll\/2005\/08\/24\/leeroywmv-a-glimpse-of-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Leeroy.wmv &#8211; a glimpse of the future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name='a33'><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/linnwood.org\/uploads\/leeroy.wmv\">Leeroy.wmv<\/a> is a digital video file encoded in Windows Media format.  It depicts a group of characters in the multi-player online fantasy game <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldofwarcraft.com\/\">World of Warcraft<\/a> planning an assault on a crypt full of monsters.  You can hear the players&#8217; actual voices discussing the strategy they will use to pilot their avatars in the coming battle.  The situation takes a humorous turn (surely the reason the file is being passed around the web) but I found it a profoundly candid glimpse into the world of online gaming.<\/p>\n<p>The communities developing around <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/MMORPG\">MMORPG \/ Virtual World<\/a> gaming are rapidly becoming as sophisticated as the &#8220;real world&#8221; communities in which humans traditionally participate.  Complete with friendship, commerce, art, and sport, these communities deliver much of what was promised by early text-mediated virtual worlds such as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.holomuck.org\/\">HoloMUCK<\/a> at the start of the 1990&#8217;s.  A decade of practice with metaphysical social interaction through email and IM has made today&#8217;s users much more comfortable traversing the boundaries to virtual worlds.<\/p>\n<p>The questions raised by this technology are fascinating and endless.  The most popular games are closed software owned by private companies.  To make an offline comparison: in the World of Warcraft, gravity is a trade secret.<\/p>\n<p>For a quick introduction, take a glimpse at the <a href=\"http:\/\/linnwood.org\/uploads\/leeroy.wmv\">plight of Leeroy and Co.<\/a>, skim the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/MMORPG\">Wikipedia MMORPG entry<\/a> and read the curious <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pointlesswasteoftime.com\/games\/wowworld.html\">10 Ways MMORPGs Will Change the Future<\/a>.  You may also try a game for free such as the Java-based <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/RuneScape\">RuneScape<\/a> or the open-source <a href=\"http:\/\/www.daimonin.net\/\">Daimonin<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Leeroy.wmv is a digital video file encoded in Windows Media format. It depicts a group of characters in the multi-player online fantasy game World of Warcraft planning an assault on a crypt full of monsters. You can hear the players&#8217; actual voices discussing the strategy they will use to pilot their avatars in the coming [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":198,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-innovation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/driscoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/driscoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/driscoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/driscoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/198"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/driscoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/driscoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/driscoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/driscoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/driscoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}