WoW the Next "Golf"?

TheGrapeApe writes "1up has an article about the possibility of World of Warcraft becoming the next "Golf": A place where friends, acquaintances, and perhaps even business partners will meet up to "talk shop" and swap stories. Personally, I can't wait until I have my next job interview in the Deadmines. " I demand extra healing and mana pots from all my employees.

Re:new tool for HR

[HTL2001]

I would love to see the day when game attitude etc would be considered for employment - I believe its a good indication of character. And it would also cut down on the lamers in games (hopefully)

No freaking way.

[JGBPhilly]

The movers and shakers in the real world with real money and power don't have hours of spare time to spend on MMORPG games. Maybe peon deals can be cut in such a format, but to compare this with the kind of money that revolves around golf is ridiculous.

Re:Boring

[dhakbar]

I've played MMORPGs since MUDs, worked on some of the bigger MMORPGs in the market today, and I think that WoW is far and away the best MMO released yet. It just has a higher level of polish than anything else in terms of stability and gameplay.

If you really think other games are better, which ones are you referring to? I've probably played them and I'm curious what you think is better about them.

Joi Ito is an exception, or the start of a trend?

[mcguyver]

Joi Ito is a rare breed of Warcraft player. He's a very successful entrepreneur and it's doubtful he has many peers online. Just because he plays Warcraft, does that necessarily mean Warcraft is accepted as a good place to talk shop? I would like to be in the presence of this guy and would play the game (again) for a chance to shoot ideas off him, but more likely than not any chatter on Warcraft is going to be about someone's day doing tech support.

won't replace golf

[MrJynxx]

Ok,

About 5million ppl worldwide play WoW. I'm sure many more people play golf. I suspect maybe MMORPG's can be used for team building, but not building new business contacts. How are you to know the guy on the other end isn't a 10 year old kid.

This posting did kinda make me laugh. I personally play WoW with a boss who is two levels above me, so it's definitley helped break the "oo your to high of a manager to talk to" gap. It also provides me with a way to discuss shop outside of the normal bounds, but that doesn't happen very often because we use WoW to escape the BS at work.. :)

MrJynxx

Re:RP and PvP Servers

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it so many people incorrectly equate RP with Shakespearian old English? What makes you think an orc, troll, minotaur, dwarf, gnome or elf would speak like that?

Re:RP and PvP Servers

[Anonymous Coward]

Well in this particular case, it's incorrect because the world you're role playing in already has a well established dialect, and it doesn't include any Middle or Old English whatsoever. It's a pretty safe bet that if you can see dialogue from NPC's, they have a good indication of the style of speech that you should be talking in.

I have yet to find an MMO where the NPC's commonly speak in Middle English (though to be fair, I've not played all of them).

To Respond and Extend:

[TheGrapeApe]

No: WoW (or any other MMOG) will not be replacing all other forms of socialization. I don't think anyone claimed that. And, realistically, it will not be "completely replacing" golf, which some 25 million people play in America alone (although, I wouldn't mind if it did; I hate golf with a burning passion). It does, however, offer an interesting place where people can have discussions and work together on solving what is, essentially, a dynamic "sliding-scale" puzzle. And look at the numbers: 5,000,000 people play WoW. Do you really think that the preconception of gamers as "social trolls" and "kiddi3s" really applies to _all_ 5 million of those people? ... Well after having the general chat channel turned on for five minutes, I can see how you might reasonably draw that conclusion... but still.

My reason for playing the game is not that I don't have anything else to do, or that I don't have any friends. In fact, my best friend _is_ the reason I play the game. He had to move overseas for a job. Neither of us are really "gamers" (or maybe we are now?...in any case, we won't be wearing "i roll 20s" tshirts any time soon) and we are contantly dismayed by the seemingly endless supply of douchebag "kidd13s" that seem to populate every guild we try to join, but it's been really cool to have this "puzzle" thing that we can do together, even though he's on another continent.

That's all I'm saying: I think MMOGs offer a unique new (at least new to me, anyway) forum for people- even if it's just to a subset of people that are predisposed to enjoying that sort of thing.