Scientific conference held in World of Warcraft!

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 2 weeks (www.sciencemag.org)

What better place to discuss computer science, really? For practicality reasons, it was a Horde-only conference. Any newb or Alliance player was required to create a new character and level up ahead of time so that older players wouldn't have to spend the whole time fending off monsters with the munchies.

They managed to fend off the griefers, but a mathematician and a linguist started fighting and then the discussion of WoW as a venue for studying human behavior could begin!

There was an issue of whether or not the WoW participants would want to reveal their real names and credentials. In the end, only three people said, "I am Spartacus."

Still, the fatalaty level was high. One newb (actually a senior editor for Science magazine) was slain by monsters almost immediately. "Not altogether different than your average academic conference in Vegas," she said.

Keywords: computer games world of warcraft conferences science and culture sociology human behavior