Zon is an online MMORPG designed by Dr. Yong Zhao from Michigan State University.  The site created quite a buzz when it first became open beta (still is at the time of this writing), so I took a look.

It’s certainly cute (and it’s nice to finally have a legal passport, even if it’s only for the game), and the presentation appeared at first to be top notch. That illusion soon failed…

I tried to hit on what I thought was an NPC (because, that’s all the experience I have with women), but it turned out to be another player.  Unfortunately, aside from chatting with a person, there’s little else you can do with them.  You cannot play games, answer or take tests, or work with them.  Sure, you can follow them around and copy them (and trade with them), but ultimately, this is a solo game with other people playing alone.

It didn’t take me long to realize how unpolished this game was.  The interface is clunky and frustrating:  you have to click everything and more to just get some type of learning in.  After answering some jerk’s questions about statistics that didn’t help me learn the language (or culture, I should add), I figured the games might offer a breath of air.  Oh yay!

Oh boo!  They were a better learning tool than most of Zon thus far, but the games feel a little sloppy and unpolished.  Some are interesting and have cultural significance, and they are as fun as these types of games go.  As a side note, I’m pretty sure I heard a song from the Naruto anime somewhere - not that I watch anime or anything (but Sakura is hot).

There are a few things Zon does great.  Every word has an audio file and pinyin pronunciation accompanying it (but you have to click it, which is more of a pain than you’d expect).  There’s also a couple of conversations with accompanying text you can enjoy.  These were a little hard to follow, though, really fast and natural.  It was like going from retarded newbie level to advanced language scholar in one fell swoop.

Basically, if you are not in a hurry to learn another language, Zon might do wonders for you.  It goes at an extremely slow pace, but you’ll eventually get there.  For most language learners, the learning is too sparse and spread out.  I can see kids enjoying this, but I don’t think anyone who is serious about learning is going to play with Zon.

So, as they say in Chinese, guten tag Zon!  Let’s hope when you’re out of beta, these bumps are ironed out.