On Wednesday co-creator of MUD1 and the MMO genre in general, Richard Bartle, met my class in Second Life. We've been reading chapters from his textbook Designing Virtual Worlds, so this was an opportunity to meet a very important figure in online gaming "face to face" and pick his mind. He was very nice and was happy to address any questions we had.
However, I was a bit ashamed of how some of my classmates handled themselves in the presence of Mr. Bartle. Normally the class is rowdy and inattentive during lectures. That would have been fine during our virtual class in Second Life, since the noise and apathy would remain in the real world and not interfere with our guest lecture. The Internet's power of anonymity only fueled their disrespectful actions. Students ran around the lecture space with glow sticks, with their clothes off, and shooting toy guns at people. Even the Second Life aficionado of the class took the lecture as an opportunity to show off and "build" something in the middle of the room.
It's sad, really, the way the class threw away this special opportunity. I used to hate how straight-edged the true CSS courses are, but now I'd rather be surrounded by students who are there to learn. Mixed-discipline classes are a recipe for disaster.
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