Colbertfilter: Stephen waxes nostalgic with the release of Stormreach: DnD Online. Need a glossary? Len Lakofka. Lawful Good. Displacer Beasts. Beholders. GenCon. Mindflayer. Need some new dice? What DnD character are you? Grognards rejoice! You are not alone!
posted by bardic on Mar 5, 2006 - 165 comments

"Virtual Virus Sheds Light on Real-Life Behavior." A researcher at Tufts University's Center for the Modelling of Infectious Diseases, Dr. Nina Fefferman, is studying the behavior of World Of Warcraft players during the recent plague that broke out in Ironforge (discussed on Metafilter here.) But Dr. Fefferman is not the first academic to study MMORPGs seriously. Edward Castronova, an economist, arguably pioneered the field with his 2001 paper Virtual Worlds, in which he argues that the economy in Everquest produced a GNP per capita somewhere between that of Russia and Bulgaria. (He has followed up that paper with many more on similar subjects.)
posted by dersins on Oct 5, 2005 - 9 comments

The Protagonist : Virtual Entrepreneur is a 5 minute excerpt of the crossover machinima/meatworld documentary project Ideal World, and is about one user's "real life" in the MMORPG Second Life. The finished documentary seeks to examine the growth, impact and society of this amazing digital reality over the last 2 years.
[ via New World Notes ] Disclaimer: I am not a Second Life player- as much as I would like to be, I'm too scared it's too much fun.
posted by elphTeq on Aug 9, 2005 - 7 comments