WoW, is what I have to say. But seriously, this book was a great insight for me into the world of online (?) gaming. It is crazy to see how involved some people get into the game play! I always thought of videogaming as more of a solo operation, where you could play with whoever was immediately surrounding you or maybe a few people online. It never occured to me that there were gaming platforms out there where you could literally be playing with one person from every country in the world and then some. It doesn’t seem like conversations between players surpass that of the world of the game, but I’m sure for some people they have been able to meet lasting friends and acquantinces from different countries through the experience. What other game (besides second life) offers this?

The visual aspects are also something that differ from other games, as I’ve read. People were drawn to the game and would spend time after events like raids to explore the ‘magic circle’ they were in. Your actions actually impact the environment around you, unlike other games. Nardi insists that game play in World of Warcraft is in fact performance and not just simulation. With new software to upgrade the game and add new challenges, some aspects of the game become obsolete, almost historical relics that can be explored.Is it necessary to keep these challenges and areas in the game, are they important for player development? It is especially interesting when Nardi talks about how the new update completely changed how the game was played. It created smaller guilds and even led to the dosolving of many.

Many people do get sucked into the game world, to the point it overtakes their real world. Are the two one in the same? If the game follows your thought into the real world are you truly leaving the magic circle when you log off, or is the circle extending. Especially when play is ‘worklike’ as Nardi notes, with events like raids everyone must prepare for them, they can be semi-stressful situations, and sometimes you fail numerous times and must retry. Play, as Huizinga implies, is not something we engange in due to physical necessity, whereas work is, so does this game fall under the sphere of work or play? It is also interesting that people understand that the game is something that can be played differently by everyone, at least the accounts that Nardi includes in her book. Instead of getting mad at people for haveing to leave to go to work etc.