This might seem to be about World of Warcraft, but it's not, so bear with me. It's worth reading and thinking about the implications.

If you're not familiar with the game "World of Warcraft", it's a massive online world with over 6 million players, divided across many servers. The server I play on (rather sporadically, I might add), is named "Twisting Nether". I'm in a guild named "Disposable Hero" (if you know how much I like Michael Franti and you know his first group, I can assure you that the name is merely a pleasant coincidence).

The guild leader of Disposable Hero is named Kahierden. He's 17 years old, but there's only one other thing I really know about him. More on that in a moment.

Kahierden built Disposable Hero into a friendly, decent sized guild. He helps out other players who are less experienced, he helped us avoid a rather unpleasant guild takeover and is generally a nice guy. I chatted with him about politics, life, and other things and came away thinking "this is a nice guy". In fact, while I don't know him well, it's safe to say that, oddly enough, I think of him as a friend.

There's just one little problem. I really should have written about him in the past tense. Kahierden had a heart murmur and would often be gone in the hospital for days at a time. A few months ago, he went into the hospital and never came out. He knew he was dying and before he went, he gave his brother his username and password so that his brother could log on and transfer control over the guild to another player named Slyniti. He was dying but he wanted to make sure his online friends were taken care of.

After he died, we didn't know what to do. It's not as if we could attend his funeral. We considered him a friend and our guild leader, but we didn't know who he was. In game, we got together and had a moment of silence for him. This is probably one of the most unsettling things I've encountered, but how else do we honor his memory? One can say "it's only a game", but Kahierden was a real person.

This is going to be more and more common. As more people start transferring parts of their lives to online worlds, they're going to be making friends in a way that society isn't used to. Many of us today have real and virtual friends. What do we do when a virtual friend passes away, particularly one who so many people know and like? It would be unfair to say that I felt true grief over his passing, but I'm disturbed by this nonetheless.

I suppose some folks are going to think "get away from the damned computer", but that's like shoveling the ocean back with a fork. Even if I do it, millions of others are not and we'll see and hear more about this all the time. Our world is changing and the future of the Internet is going to continue to change things in ways we can't even imagine.

As some of you probably know, I have started playing World of Warcraft. This is a bit odd as I am not a gamer. Most games bore me pretty quickly but WoW has held my interest. Because I have some time off until my next job, I've realized that WoW is the cheapest form of entertainment I can enjoy. $15.00 per month is far cheaper than dining out, going to movies, etc. That's not to say I'm not doing those other things, but I'm doing them less often because I need to save my money.

I might blog about WoW at times because it's a fascinating social exercise, but since most folks won't have a clue what I'm talking about, I figure a special WoW filter is in order. Anyone want to be on it?

I am currently a 40 Night Elf Rogue on "Twisting Nether", a PvP (Player versus Player) server. The game has two groups, Alliance and Horde. Alliance is traditionally the "good" guys and the Horde is comprised of Orcs, Undead, and Tauren (sort of a bovine, human human mix, like the Minotaur). Aside from basic "emotes" (body language such as waving, blowing kisses, pointing, begging, etc.), it is not possible to communicate with the other side. Because on a player versus player server, each side is generally at liberty to kill the other, you must be highly vigilant if you encounter the other faction. Typically someone will wave, flirt, or do something similar towards an "enemy" to let them know they don't want to fight.

This can be frustrating because you can never really know what their intentions are. Maybe they want to kill you. Maybe they are busy and just want to be left alone. Sometimes you never know. Sometimes you find out when they stab you in the back. Sometimes you find out when they help you kill off a difficult creature that's trying to kill you.

As a rogue, I can travel in a "stealth" mode which makes me close to invisible. I have something called "improved sap" which allows me to sap and stun an opponent and usually stay in stealth mode. My new favorite hobby with this is not killing the other side, but finding them in pairs, waiting for one of them to "pull" a group of monsters and then I sap the other. That leaves one guy to fight alone but the one guy will usually find a way to survive (if only running). I sit back and watch. Sometimes I'll run by and just sap someone out in the middle of nowhere and run off. You can watch them panic as they spin around looking for me after the stun wears off, but I rarely kill them. I must confess that this appears to really tick them off, but while it's annoying, it's nicer than killing them.

Just as in real life, some people act like jerks and others are really nice. I tend towards the latter. I give money and goods to lower level people in my guild (Disposable Hero) and generally everyone helps me when I need it. Today I gave an expensive book to another 40 level rogue for him to sell to help get his mount (something you get at level 40 if you have enough cash). I guess just like in real life, I have socialistic tendencies, but I still manage to annoy the hell out of those opposed to me.

Blizzard has created a phenomenal game and watching the economics of the game (I get lots of money because I pay attention to the market) and the politics of the game are fascinating.