Gleaning real-life lessons from bad WoW experiences

I liked my guild. I liked the people in it. I was even doing school projects on my guild, creating advertisements for recruitment. And last night, I was kicked out. That's right, straight-up /gkick!!

I wish I could say that it wasn't my fault, or that the reasons weren't personal or anything... but I can't. I was kicked out of the guild for openly and extensively criticizing the raid leader (and GM), as well as other people in the raid who I believed weren't putting forth enough effort or focus. I had my reasons for being frustrated--- we were 7 hours into a 10 naxx run, and we had been wiping the entire time because ppl were goofing off (etc), even though the place was on farm and usually only took us ~4 hrs to complete. We got to the last boss, failed about 3 times, then the GM said he was frustrated and had to "quit." Again. He had to quit the night before too (Malygos run, also because he was frustrated).

Let's take a step back here. As I said, I had been doing school projects related to WoW and this guild. This blog is one of those projects. My final project, worth 40% of my grade in the class, was going to include screen shots and video of the guild downing various raid bosses. So as you can see, there's a pretty obvious disconnect here between myself and the rest of the raid--- this was actually somewhat serious business to me, whereas to them it really was just screw-around time. No wonder the following occurred.

The night before Naxx we were attempting Malygos (downed twice by the guild), and the Naxx night we were on Kel'Thuzad, the final boss of Naxx. When the GM said he was quitting, he said that we would resume the next night. This is where I really got annoyed....

I didn't think it was fair for the GM to just assume that everyone could make it the next night, and the way the system works, if they decided to kill KT the next night and I couldn't make it, that would mean that I had to wait another week before I could get even the raw materials for the project I was going to put together. I mean, why even bother making a schedule ahead of time if you are just going to deviate from it last minute, right? So I made a couple scathing remarks at the GM, and blasted him for quitting. I wish I could remember what I said. It wasn't completely terrible, but I was definitely trying to get under his skin. And I did. He went off on me, expressing his annoyance with me 10x's stronger than I had with him--- this created a very awkward and dramatic situation for the raid.

I don't think I've ever been fired from a job before, or asked to leave a team... or anything of that nature. If I have, I've blocked it out and since forgotten. But that is how I am thinking of this. Pretty much, I didn't agree with my boss and coworkers, and I lashed out at them, harshly stating how I expected more. If I had expressed my feelings in a more mature, calm, and collected manner, everything probably would have been fine. But openly lashing out wasn't the right choice to make. My only excuse would be that I have a lot of real-life stress going on right now, which is true--- but notice how it didn't matter to these people, even though I previously would have considered them similar to "friends." I am going to use this as a learning experience.

Even if my reasons for being frustrated are right, and even if I have solid excuses arising from extenuating circumstances unrelated to the game (job), I still can't 'act out.' Damn, I hate phrasing it like that, "acting out"..... It sounds so childish. But really, that's exactly what my behavior was, and that's why I am not in that guild anymore. I won't admit that I think the GM was being fair with me, because I think a lot of the reason he kicked me out was to save face (by removing the source of his own outburst, he could justify his ability to maintain strong leadership and authority in the guild--- I would no longer be there to point out flaws and undermine his authority in a very non-private forum). and because he didn't seem to care that I was being effected by those special circumstances (which I explained to him, btw). But what is amazing, is that it DOESN'T MATTER whether he made the right choice. Life is a game. One big game. For this bit of it, the GM got to call the shots-- he could have made the right choice or the wrong choice (both are possible and easily debatable).... but because I didn't make him happy, I'm out. End of story. I didn't play his game well, I had no more "extra lives" (gogo super mario green mushrooms!) left (not the first time I'd gotten frustrated in a raid-- though this was arguable worse), and I got a Game Over.

It has taken me 22 years to have this happen to me, which is impressive considering how impatient I can be, and how often I get frustrated. I knew that this could happen, it just never has. Now that I have this experience, I can no longer deny the real consequences of inappropriate behavior. There are a lot of reasons why my behavior should be excused (those personal extenuating circumstances), and even more reasons why this game isn't like real life. But nonetheless, if we make mistakes, why not learn from them, right? So now I am challenging myself to take the lesson I have learned here (as terribly embarrassing and pathetic as it may be) and actually apply it to my life 100% of the time. If am able to do this, and say someday it saves me from losing a job I really love, I think it would be safe to say that WoW has had some practical value to me. Gogo computer games. This one falls under the categories of intellect, social life, and jobs. Lesson learned, continue on....

Unschooling and homeschooling using WoW to teach!

Here is yet another article referencing the educational benefits of WoW (as a game which is representative of MMORPG's). Click this link to read the article.

There is a lot of talk in this article about "unschooling"-- a school of thought that promotes a certain brand of homeschooling in which parents allow their children to pursue various (often recreational) interests, and the parents engage in these activities with them. For example, one child started playing WoW, and his mom got an account and started playing too. The parents say that they use the experiences in the game to explain real-life situations, or show how lessons learned in-game can be apply to other aspects of life as well.

Here is one example of such an interaction as described by the article,

She has watched Luke, 10, make his own learning connections between "WoW" and other areas in life.

One day he became interested in the mathematical concept of exponential increases after his "WoW" character encountered a disease cloud.

"Just in his ponderings, he asked 'Mom, what if someone got infected and he walks into a room with four people, and they leave and each walk into a room with four people?'" Parmer recalled.

She told him, yes, that could happen, and added another fact about not all people getting infected at the same rate in the real world.

What is interesting to note here is not necessarily that the child learned some new mathematical formula, but isntead that he was willingly thinking about it. Just by thinking about the information, people (in general) can learn effectively, especially when this thinking leads to curiosity which leads to some form of research. When you research a topic because you are dying to understand something, you are likely much more capable of efficient and effective learning than if a task to do the same research was thrust upon you. The child was curious about the possibility of spreading the disease and he wanted to understand it, and so he did research to find out if his suspicions were true. Granted his source for information was his mother, but nonetheless, he made an attempt to further his own knowledge.

Personally, when I read about this example, I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to write an equation which would allow you to "predict" the number of individuals infected (y) during a certain 'certain' generation of the disease (x). What I came up with was that the number of newly infected (and thus contagious) individuals during a given generation of the disease would be equal to 4^(g), where 'g'= the generation of the disease. Thus in generation=0 (when only the original individual was infected), there were 4^0=1 newly infected people. After that person walked into the room of four people (the 1st generation), there were 4^1=4 newly infected people. When those 4 newly infected people walked into a new room, thus each infecting 4 new people, the number of newly infected was 4^2=16. In order to predict the TOTAL number of infected people during a given generation of the disease (not just the number newly infected/'contagious' individuals), you need to do a summation of the number of newly infected people from each of the previous generations, such that that the # of people infected in the 3rd generation of the disease = (4^0)+(4^1)+(4^2)+(4^3)= 85 total infected individuals in the 3rd generation (and 4^3=64 newly infected/contagious individuals). I didn't represent the formula as a summation here because I dont know how to get that symbol in this text (:p). Furthermore, I didn't bother to integrate the summation in order to simplify it (I think that's what you do next...) because I haven't looked at calculus in 4 years, and had already been told I was taking this math too far (go figure). Either way, you can see how this statement about a disease spreading in WoW triggered my interest enough to get me to spend a considerable amount of time trying to figure out how to represent this occurence mathematically, thus causing me to use and re-learn (and a bit of new learning not mentioned here because this post is already too long ;) ) some math. Go WoW (and those who talk about it)!!!!

***TOO LONG DIDN'T READ VERSION (tldr)*** My curiosty caused me to do a bunch of work and learn some math. Why did I become this curious? Because of a question relating to WoW. This can happen to anyone, thus WoW can instigate learning for those who play the game.

WoW ==> No Social Life? Wrong.

I recently came across a blog post which mirrored views of WoW commonly found among both gamers and non. The post (read here) pretty much stated the usual, "WoW is addictive, if you start playing it you won't want to hang out with any of your friends and your social life will be in ruins..." Not a direct quote, but it goes something like that.

However, I notice a couple inconsistencies in the author's description of this process, as well as some flawed/incomplete logic. First, the author of that blog post mentions that one of the qualities that makes WoW so addicting is that you start playing it with other people (s/he actually uses the word 'friends'). Err, doesn't this make playing the game a social activity? I.e., in theory you could spend all your time in game, and still have a social life. Personally, I play WoW with several people who I know in real life, and with whom I engage in activities outside of WoW on a regular basis. Sure, there are people that I consider "friends" who I only know through WoW.... but I still consider these interactions as social.

Furthermore, I would caution this author against the use of words such as "always," "never," and "impossible." Such words almost never accurately describe reality (see the different the italicized qualifier makes in the accuracy of this sentence?). Looking beyond semantics, I would still argue that many of the descriptions the author makes are only true to the extent that any other generalization or stereotype may be true. Sure, some individuals fit this bill, but on the other hand, many don't. More importantly, there is no 'all or nothing' description of what happens to one's social life when they play this game. For example, one person might lose all their real life friends, another may lose none and even gain more real life friends, yet a third person might lose a couple real life friends (still retaining some), but make a couple in game friends. Anything can happen there-- you can't really say that WoW will make you lose your friends.

Lastly, I would just like to comment on the statement, "The only way to avoid the negative effects of this video game is to never start playing." So not true. I have played this game off and on for about 3.5 years now. Sometimes I played wayyy too much and it negatively affected my social life. Other times I was able to manage this recreational activity, and find a healthy balance between the gaming and having a 'real-life' social life. There are even times when I stop playing WoW for weeks at a time because of school, or just because I want to take a break. You CAN play this game and still avoid its 'negative' effects. It's called self-control and discipline.

But i g2g now b/c i need 2 farm gold before the dual spec comes out (patch tuesday?!)... cya! ---- jk ;)

Obvious? Maybe. Aware? Less likely.

So like most WoW players, I do report feelings of "addiction" to the game-- even when I have other things I know I should be doing, for some reason I just want to go play WoW instead. Some people have this problem with Facebook, online shopping, talking on the phone, or watching TV-- this isn't unique to WoW.

Whenever I try to resist this temptation to play WoW, I have often thought of trying to perceive the task which I "need" to complete as being fun or really interesting. I have learned in my undergraduate career that I often do much better at any type of task if I can convice myself to take a genuine interest in it, and try to enjoy it (with coursework, this often turns into a super nerdy type of fun :D ). So just now I was like, "Hey self, you know catching up in your blogging is probably more fun than playing WoW, right?!" And therein lies the "obvious" appeal of WoW as a tool for learning: it has a competitive advantage over other strategies for learning because it is inately perceived as being enjoyable, and typically requires little convincing for the gamer to accept this.

While it may be obvious that we are more likely to partake in enjoyable activities over unpleasant ones, how often do we realize that our frame of mind can control that which we find pleasant? Next time you have an assignment or task you want to do well, but is challenging and you find yourself procrastinating on, try spending a couples minutes convicning yourself that you don't simply want to complete the task. Instead, view it not as a task, but as an activity which can be enjoyed just like any other leisure activity, and which you can "take your time" doing-- try to view work as something enjoyable. Being aware of your frame of mind with regards to tasks your are trying to complete may allow you to be a happier and more productive person. That is the power of making the process or learning a new skill or concept enjoyable.

Reply to k's Comment

While games may lead to enhancement of intellectual capabilities, I am skeptical of developing them to be used as a method for teaching a concept. The first thing this article mentions about the alterations of the games isn't to make them for mentally engaging or challenging, but to make them less violent. Not that violence is necessary for fun to occur, but the game is already going to be shifted into something that is less "fun" and more "academic," thus reducing its ability to be separated from other forms of instruction. I am sure some games would lend themselves well to non-violent forms of instruction, but tell me, how can a game with the name "war" in it not be violent? All of a sudden, what was once a game just becomes a silly scheme by educators.

Not that the article necessarily suggested this, but it should be noted that using games to instruct should not replace traditional instruction, but should instead seek to subsidize it. Someone who commented on this article criticized the use of games to teach by saying, "I am pretty sure you can learn more in one week of a statistics or science class, then you ever will playing WOW. You cut out so much of your daily activities playing the game, that any benefit it has is countered by what you could have been doing." See comment on my first post. Just because WoW may not be seen as the "most" effecient use of one's time doesn't mean it's a bad thing. Sure, I could take a stats class and learn more math than I would playing WoW. But am I going to come home from class after having spent my entire day on campus working and studying, then decide that I want to go take a course and stats in the evening in order to rest? I think not. But guess what. I would play WoW. It is key to realize that even though learning through WoW might be relatively small, it is learning that is a gain over any number of mindless activities. Education through games shouldn't be competing with taking classes, it should be competing with things such as spending hours on end watching television or 'facebooking' (just my opinion). You have to consider the learning from the game as being somehtng which would otherwise be impossible, not something which should replace that which is already done. If 6 hours playing WoW is worth 30 minutes of Stats class, but if I spend 18 hours a week playing WoW (which has 'stats value') instead of doing some mindless activity, then that is 90 minutes a week of 'stats' that I didn't have before. I hope I have made this point clear, if I haven't please let me know ;)

I would also just like to note that there are some really nice comments to this article that reach beyond the intellectual relevance of WoW and mmorpgs. Expect to see some of these ideas addressed in this blog in the near future.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=14356

WoW and Science..... win?

Constance Steinkuehler (2006) examines how MMORPG's, specifically World of Warcraft, can help to foster scientific habits of mind.

She points out that many of the discussions held in the WoW forums are often technical and analytical, making use of mathematical models (theorycrafting), debate, and correlating theory with evidence, and doing all this while building on the information others have provided. The articles notes that certain 'scientific habits of mind' were rare in the forum investigated. Here is an adaptation of a graph from the article, which I am having trouble pasting into this post:

Social knowledge construction = 89%
build on others' ideas = 67%
use of counterarguments = 48%
mathematical models as insight = 35%
understanding technology as socially situated = 28%
systems analysis = 28%
understanding feedback = 28%
read reports = 21%
heuristic reasoning = 16%
questioning results = 15%
appropriate use of mathematics = 12%
multiple forms of arguments = 8%
transformation of data = 7%
use data representations = 3%
generalization of results = 3%
pragmatic understanding of theory = 0%
not equating model with truth = 0%
theory-data coordination = 0%
coordination of multiple results = 0%
expect noise = 0%
reasoning through uncertainty = 0%

Granted, having a 0% next to 6 of the criteria may not be glorious, but remember, this is a GAME which many people think does nothing but assist in the degradation of young minds. Furthermore, the article only investigated the posts on a forum about Improved Mark of the Wild.... this is very small sample size, and also is about a topic which is only mildly challenging for players. If the topic were broader... say about an entire 'spec' (allotment of a limited number of 'talent points' designed to achieve the most efficient gameplay), then perhaps the discussion would have been more technical and the posts would have exhibited a more frequent representation of the investigated criteria. I really like this table though, because it gets me to start thinking about all the things WoWers do in order to play the game well... it really isn't simple and mindless, there is a lot of technical thought and strategy involved. I hope this helps to explain a little bit more about my last pots, even though these are not the same article (authored by the same individual, though). I will probably attempt to more specifically and prolifically address the use of such criteria in WoW in the future, but for now this should suffice to lay some solid ground work for WoW's intellectual benefits.

Steinkuehler, C. & Chmiel, M. (2006). Fostering scientific habits of mind in the context of online play.

On Education and Intellect: Does WoW foster scientific minds?

So the search for legitimate studies on WvL has begun. I have come across a couple promising articles so far, but I haven't been able to access more than an abstract for any of them (yet). Either way, I saw this abstract and I just couldn't pass it by:

In today’s increasingly “flat” world of globalization (Friedman ), the need for a scientifically literate citizenry has grown more urgent. Yet, by some measures, we have done a poor job at fostering scientific habits of mind in schools. Recent research on informal games-based learning indicates that such technologies and the communities they evoke may be one viable alternative—not as a substitute for teachers and classrooms, but as an alternative to textbooks and science labs. This paper presents empirical evidence about the potential of games for fostering scientific habits of mind. In particular, we examine the scientific habits of mind and dispositions that characterize online discussion forums of the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft. Eighty-six percent of the forum discussions were posts engaged in “social knowledge construction” rather than social banter. Over half of the posts evidenced systems based reasoning, one in ten evidenced model-based reasoning, and 65% displayed an evaluative epistemology in which knowledge is treated as an open-ended process of evaluation and argument (Steinkuehler & Duncan, 2008).

Wow. As in the exclamation, not the game. Who would have thought the WoW forums would be cited as support for the idea that the game is intellectual/educational...? I thought trolls (for non-WoWers, trolls are people who post on forums just to make other people angry-- more or less) would have dropped percentages like those considerably; but considering this, those stats are just all the more impressive! If you look at more technical and more heavily moderated forums, such as ElitistJerks (in my opinion), I bet those stats would be even more convincing. This shows that the time people invest in WoW isn't passive or thoughtless, in fact, one needs to be creative and actively problem solving in order to be the best player s/he can be. And if you don't do all the mathematical modeling yourself, you at least need to do some "research" on the forums to acquire this kind of information. I will be looking to both further develop the points made by these authors (the full text of their article should be available to me soon), as well as searching for a legitimate conflicting argument.

As always, comments on this are encouraged, just don't be a troll ;)

Official WoW Forums
Elitist Jerk Forums

Steinkuehler, Constance; Duncan, Sean. “Scientific Habits of Mind in Virtual Worlds.” Journal of Science Education & Technology, v. 17 issue 6, 2008, p. 530-543.