After 10 months of absence (and whilst I can’t log into LOTRO for the millionth time) I decided to reinstall WoW today and make use of Blizzard’s 10 day free trial for The Burning Crusade.
Of course, since I’m working on an entirely new system, that meant digging out the old CDs and reinstalling from scratch.
Sun Light, originally uploaded by Seb Potter.
I love old iron street lamps, and this one just happened to be at the right angle for this shot. Not brilliant, but I like it anyway.
Basic premise:
Players in a persistent virtual world inhabit two states — two parallel lives.
When not active in the world, players take on the role of NPCs, their bodies under the control of basic AI routines that go about daily life in any of the towns and villages that scatter the world. The fulfil the roles of members of a community — undertaking production, vending, civic duties that players would for the most part find unsatisfying.
When a player becomes active in the world their character undergoes a transformation from their mundane life into an agent for change in the world. It’s the player’s choice what form this agency takes — they could choose to fulfil their role in a society actively undertaking tasks that the game’s AI would otherwise perform — or they can act out an alternative role beyond the boundaries of normal life and follow the course of hero’s journey that the game allows for.
