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More of Aldrich on RPGs and MMORPGs

Here is a paragraph I am adding to the section I posted yesterday.

Aldrich (2005) did acknowledge the value of role playing games as the “most life like, reflecting the long-term career and life decisions most of us make” (p. 142). He felt they could teach “the scarcity of development opportunities and the absolute need to align development with strategy” (p. 142). He also suggested that during the stage in which learners are fully engaged by a simulation, people are most successful when learning in groups (p. 244). However, he does not consider that MMORPGs might provide a framework for this. When he does discuss the potential of MMORPGs to “teach how to meet strangers and… form deep relationships with which to perform heroic quests carefully balancing each other’s strengths and weaknesses” (p. 142), he is also quick to point out that players can “alternatively cheat, rob, and kill” each other (p. 142).

There is more to come tonight, though work is intense right now... and though New Orleans certainly puts everything in perspective.

-Mark