before I could level up. For those who don’t know, Duke Nukem is an outrageous game full of bombs, strippers and mutants… this was my childhood (I blame my brother). I stopped playing computer games before middle school for obvious social reasons. Good thing I did, I’m afraid I could have turned out like Cartman in South Park’s “Make Love, Not Warcraft” episode (see picture). Then, all of a sudden, hipsters made geeky trendy! Hooray! Or not…Tragically, now that I can finally practice my childhood love for ridiculous computer games without fear of judgment or ridicule… I totally suck at them.
It is a sad story, but don’t cry for me. I can always play FarmVille on facebook, which takes absolutely no skill whatsoever. Anyway, here is how I realized my un-nurtured talent escaped me.
I was so excited in class when I realized we could play a MMORPG for the blog entry because I have always wanted to try one out. I really wanted to play World of Warcraft because I have heard so much about it, but I wasn’t about to spend $30.00 (Yes, I looked into it…). After a fair amount of googling, I realized they offer a free 10-day trial of WoW for Mac operating systems. It was surprisingly easy to sign up, and off I went to the Misha Realm. Apparently there are tons and tons of “realms” or worlds where people go on quests with their avatar. I’m not a programmer, but I’m assuming it was easier to do this than make one massive, seamless virtual world. I don’t know the difference between the realms but I’m also assuming they are more or less based on experience of the player.
I then had to choose a character. This part was fun. You could be a one of 10 overarching character types. Of the Alliance (the good guys) you could be a Human, Dwarf, Night Elf, Gnome or Draenei (but that one requires the “burning crusade”). Of the Horde (the evil guys) you could be an Orc, Undead, Tauren, Troll or Blood Elf (which also requires the burning crusade). It goes with out saying that I had quite a decision before me. It was down to the Tauren and the Night Elf. I was lea
ning toward the Tauren because it’s this crazy bull/person that “strives to preserve the balance of nature and heed the will of their goddess, the Earth Mother.” Then I realized my avatar is going to be female. Meaning that if I chose the Tauren, I wouldn’t be a bull person, I would be a cow lady. I wasn’t about to gallivant around the Misha Realm as a cow lady… I had a virtual reputation to build! I chose a female Druid Night Elf with some awesome purple hair.I finished my character and named her Sarbaria. Why Sarbaria, you ask? My friend helped me give “Sar Bear” (the nickname that curses all Sarah’s) a more Conan the Barbarian meets Zelda type feel... so the other avatars wouldn’t make fun of me. This decision was justified when I saw a Dwarf named “Beyonce” running around and judged her. I thought, “What a lame-o, where is her WoW spirit?” Then, ironically, I saw a Hunter Night Elf named “Poop” and thought, “That’s hilarious.” Which led me to the insightful theory that people descend several levels of maturity when representing themselves in avatar form.
Upon first getting to the world, I was immediately embarrassed. I think I might have even blushed a little behind my laptop. While all the other avatars were running around chatting with one another and killing boars, mine stood there rocking back and forth in the default animation loop. I felt like all the “experienced” WoW people were looking at my avatar thinking, “Look! That Night Elf doesn’t know what she’s doing” I realized, however, that no one was really paying attention to me. While at first it felt like I just walked into a small room full of strangers, it turned out to be more like walking outside with a bunch of strangers minding their own business.
The pop-up tutorials literally saved Sarbaria’s (short-lived) avatar life. They explained to beginners, in plain language, how to begin your quests and maneuver your avatar. I got my first quest: to kill 4 boars and 4 nightsaber’s in order to restore the balance of nature to the land. It was obviously a beginner’s quest. I found it frustrating to only kill my boars/nightsabers with this wooden spear attached to my back. I would have appreciated a little weapon variety or a bow and arrow like the Hunters. I only chose to be a Druid instead of a Hunter because the description said Druids could shapeshift into animals, and I would take shapeshifting over a bow and arrow any day. Sadly, I never found out how to shapeshift.
My friend joined the 10-day trial along with me and we met in the Misha Realm, he was a fellow Night Elf. It was relatively easy to communicate because there is a chat bubble at the bottom of the screen. However, it was very difficult to find each other within the realm. We became “friends” but we couldn’t figure out how to show up on each other’s maps. We had to call each other on the phone and say, “Meet me by the guy with the thing.” In this sense, I could definitely see the benefits of talking to fellow players via headset.
After my first quest I realized that I genuinely lack the skill and patience it requires to get into such an extravagant game. I think it’s very fun, interesting and intricate, but I don’t see myself spending 4 hours on a quest (that should take 10 minutes) to get 40 experience points.
After all, in this fast-paced world of instant gratification, who has the patience to figure out how to get your Druid Night Elf to shapeshift?
I love how both Emma and Sarah have commented on their goals of keeping their WOW experiences secret. I think I find this most amusing because I work at Grainger Library, and let me tell you, we have some very avid players there. Yet these players have no interest in keeping their achievements secret.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite WOW player is red-jacket man. I call him red-jacket man because of course I have no idea what his name actually is. And quite frankly, I don't know that his real name matters - he is so engrossed with his WOW expeditions, I think he would refer to himself by his avatar's name if you asked him.
Red jacket man's day is pretty typical. I assume he works somewhere during the day (or he just doesn't want to deal with the hassles of students in the cubicle next to him) because he doesn't arrive at the Lib until later in the evening, say 5 or 6ish. He stays for several hours, usually until around midnight, but sometimes until we close at 1am. He is clearly not shy about playing, as his typical outbursts of anguish or satisfaction suggest. Red jacket man also shows up fairly regularly on Saturdays - brown bagged lunch and all. Sometimes he doesn't move for hours on end, with the day's snack wrappers creating a barricade surround his monitor.
I think it goes without saying, then, that Emma's embarrassment at the library and Sarah's fear of turning into Cartman from South Park are merited. Personally, I'm intrigued with what is so compelling about these virtual worlds, but not so curious that I would ever consider enlisting myself.
This was definitely a fun topic to read about, yet after reading both Sara hand Emma's post, its apparent that online gaming isn't all fun, it's serious business. And it can be pretty hard sometimes to make friends or to succeed in the game.
ReplyDeleteIt appears that social communication and networking does happen on WoW...but it isn't easy. For instance Sarah had a real life friend join and try to game together, yet had to get on the phone in order to find each other. Not very simple.
And Emma made desperate cries for attention, literally, and still couldn't engage anyone in conversation, much less make a friend, or for some I guess a date.
As far as social networking goes---it does bring gamers together in real life, it is possible to make online friends through the game, and several people do this, but personally I would prefer to do it the old fashioned way, in person, versus with avatars.
And finally, after reading Sarah & Emma's observations, I'm still somewhat unsure as to how an MMORPG games could be used for social media marketing. Were there advertisements on the Web site?
Last semester, I worked on Curb Magazine through J417 and one of the articles our lead writers worked on was on the culture behind World of Warcraft. It's abundantly clear from theses posted experiences how difficult WoW (I get a kick out of the fact that the acronym spells wow) is to navigate. Thus, our writer needed to find someone to to walk her through the intricate realms. The lucky guy navigate her through ended up being a friend of mine, a seemingly normal, preppy, law-school bound guy who spends his free time hanging out with friends, watching football and clocking in hours with his WoW avatar.
ReplyDeleteThis got my thinking about the stigma behind people who participate in MMORPGs. When most people think about your typical WoWer, you probably picture a geeky guy, probably not unlike red jacket guy or McLovin's character in Role Models, introducing themselves as Elequin or Kaliko. But in reality, how many players are just seeminly normal guys who enjoy using their R&R time in this fantasy world?
http://curbonline.com/world-of-warcraft-not-so-lonely-after-all
I had a really different experience when I played to SWG, maybe because it was not the same game. But reading ours is very interesting. To my mind the only interest of these games is the interaction otherwise it is very boring and not different at all from the other games.
ReplyDeleteIt was funny to read about how you felt before playing because it was the same for me: I had such a bad opinion about WOW/MMORPG players. After spending some times and chatting with some of them I realized that it’s maybe a cliché and a regular player is not like I thought. However, I’m sure that this type of game can be very addictive, maybe more than any other because it creates a real environment and a real world with “real” interactions. It is maybe the reason why there are many activities outside it. Some people try to link the virtual game to reality by organizing IRL (In Real Life) events to meet people they play with. It is a nice idea but it is maybe too much for a game!
I have a friend who reminds me of red jacket man. On perfect sunny days in the middle of July, we have to bribe him to leave the computer screen to come out on the lake with us for an hour. He would say, "I want to stay and play with my friends" which I take some offense to considering I've grown up with him and only occasionally see him due to college putting us in different places. At one point, I considered playing WoW just as a way to keep in touch with him, but never actually signed up.
ReplyDeleteThis summer, I overheard a phone conversation he was having with Kim, a girl he met while playing WoW. I began to reconsider the social aspect of MMORPGs. However, as my nosey-self listened to more of the conversation, all they were talking about was WoW: recent quests, other avatars the encountered, and planning out the next realm to explore. Because of this conversation, I agree with Emily that while MMORPGs give gamers a way to network with each other, they in some ways lack the ability to transfer relationships into "real life". Or maybe I simply don't understand the urge to discuss avatars and quests for any length of time, be it within the game or outside of it in a different social setting.
Sarah--your post was hilarious. It's funny that a game that many people choose to participate in in order to feel socially connected and part of a community also has the ability to make someone feel like an outcast. It seems that Sarah felt more uncomfortable in her life as a druid elf than she has probably felt in most real life social scenarios.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that you had to PAY to pay World of Warcraft until a co-worker (embarrassingly) ran into my office this past summer, freaking out that her account got hacked. Apparently she had paid quite a bit of money for some kinda of coins (weapons? I don't remember - I just recall laughing at how she spent MONEY to play this game!). Long story short, someone hacked into her account and sold away all her hard earned things. She was devastated.
ReplyDeleteInteresting note - she found out that her account got hacked when she received an e-mail from a WoW "friend" who asked why she sold away all her tokens/coins/weapons/whatever they were. WoW certainly created a community in her case!