Thing 15 - Online Games and Libraries

I'm a really big nerd. Thought I should lead with that. I love MMORPGs. I've played Everquest and EVE and I'm completely addicted to World of Warcraft. I'd never played Puzzle Pirates or SecondLife before, but I'd heard a lot about SecondLife. I signed up, created my avatar, wandered around a bit, visited Info Island and got really bored. Really fast. The reason that I play online games is to beat levels, or go on missions. SecondLife was too much like the Sims for my liking. It also seemed a bit creepy. People are living more on SecondLife than they are in Real Life. They end up spending all their time and money on this fake world that they've created for themselves. It just seems wrong. Maybe I would have liked Puzzle Pirates better.

My favorite part of these games is creating the characters. My character on WoW is awesome. He's this big viking-looking guy with tons of cool weapons. Total BAMF. On EVE, it is a completely different story. No matter what I do, or try to change she always just seems to turn out looking like a Transvestite Hooker. Can't change it. Don't know why.

Games are fine in libraries. I know that there are a lot of people who get mad at the people playing these games when there's a shortage of computers, but that's an equipment problem rather than a content problem. We can't judge people based on what they're using the computers for. Even though I didn't like SecondLife, I think it's cool that libraries do have a presence there.