Professor: WoW Could Be Used to Save the Environment
Professor: WoW Could Be Used to Save the Environment
Posted 02/19/2009 at 6:09pm
| by Nathan Grayson
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Stanford Professor Byron Reeves is a Planeteer, and you can be one too -- if you’re an MMORPG player. Reeves’ plan hedges its bets on the idea that you’re willing to install a Smart Meter, a device that monitors electricity usage in your house and sends a report of your wasteful excesses to power companies.
However, instead of giving power companies the skinny on your war against the Energizer Bunny, Reeves hopes to send pertinent information to games like World of Warcraft. He outlined his energy-saving plan during radio show Living on Earth’s Green Gaming segment:
"So imagine that you're in your home, you're signed into [the] game… and you make a decision in the game to turn off the lights in an unused bedroom [in real life]. As soon as you do that, the Smart Meter recognizes that, sends the information through the network to your computer and your house [in the game] turns a shade of green that it wasn't before,” he explained.
“And if I'm using less electricity, my team might do well. I get gold pieces and points… whatever the game designers think is fun. You get feedback in an entertainment game about what you're doing in the real world."
Sounds good to us, though implementing it – especially in a game as colossal as World of Warcraft – might be a bit rough. Then again, Blizzard did invent a race of hippie cow-people, so you never know.
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VoodooChicken
February 20, 2009 at 10:05am
We're the Planeteers!
You can be one, too!
'Cause saving our planet is the thing to do!
Looting and polluting is not the way,
Hear what Captain Planet has to say!!----------------------------------------------------------
Look behind you! A THREE-headed monkey!!!!!!!!
averageGrod
February 20, 2009 at 8:22am
This would probably have the opposite effect. You would need to appeal to peoples sense of altruism rather than reward them. I am sure that the designer would limit how often you would be rewarded with in game gold or items similar to the way WoW will limit certain holiday buffs or how often spells can be activated. If not you have people turning lights on and off just to get gold. So lets say you can only get gold once every hour for turning off the lights. /turnofflights /turnonlights wait 1 hour repeat. Bottom line is that WoW or anything else we can type into an mmo isn't going to save the planet. Incorporating the real world into the game would probably make the RP servers blow up lol. It would be nice to be able to /pee or /poo and know I am good for another couple hours of play time though.
JDorfler
February 20, 2009 at 8:01am
What ever happened to shutting off lights and devices not being used b/c it saved money? Am I the only one who's parents yelled at them to "Shut the door, I'm not air conditioning the neighborhood" or "Turn that light off, the dog doesn't need to read the paper"?
What a bunch of crap.
Sager NP5797 (Clevo)
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icebird
February 20, 2009 at 6:12am
Nice! Wait...he's serious, isn't he? The obvious implication here is that gamers use more than their (soon to be government-allotted) fair share of electricity and need to be made aware of it by invading their fantasy escapes. Just like P2P & torrent-ers use more than their ISP-allotted fair share of bandwith. Goodbye freedom, you were cool while you lasted.
I Jedi
February 19, 2009 at 9:40pm
I look forward to the day when WoW gets its ass knocked off of number 1 in XFire. Spade, the game, came close, but it was too bad it wasn't so.
FusilliJerry82
February 19, 2009 at 8:11pm
The hillarious thing about MMORPGs is that in 20 years everyone will have retrospectively wasted a shitload of time with absolutely nothing to show for it.
xs0u1x
February 19, 2009 at 7:06pm
captain planet pic has me rolling laughin....
or should i say captain mullet.
xs0u1x
February 19, 2009 at 7:09pm
anybody else waiting for the WoW killer? this is now getting rediculous.......wow helping everybody go green. i mean for eff's sakes....the sheer absurdness of this is astounding.
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