Back in the Saddle Again . . .
January 27th, 2007 by 
Caroline Spector
I fell off the wagon last weekend.
No, not like that. I started playing World of Warcraft again. Yes, I’m back on the WoW tit.
When I started working on a project last summer, I decided I couldn’t WoW and write. For the last six months I’ve been WoW free.
Then Burning Crusade came out.
Bud, that demon trickster and WoW-ing cohort, began saying things like how great the new expansion was and how cool it was that you didn’t have to do raids anymore and you could level again. (Okay, how many of you did I just lose?)
I broke down last Saturday and installed both WoW and Burning Crusade on my computer again. I got on to play about 11PM. It was a ridiculous amount of fun.
WoW has inspired some great parodies. South Park did a terrific spoof episode (Blizzard, the company that makes World of Warcraft, provided the animation for the game portions of the episode.) that skewered the WoW experience.
There’s also the great “Internet is for Porn” video using characters from the game.
I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve missed ganking, and pwning (not a typo), and the trash talk about noobs. Yes, I’ve missed the jargon.
What I’m about to say is heresy in the WoW world, but here it goes: WoW is not the greatest video game of all time, though it’s certainly the most successful MMORPG. (Massively Multi-player On-line Role-playing game.) Blizzard claims 8 million subscribers worldwide. Here in the US, we pay about $15 per month for unlimited access to the world servers. You do the math.
The thing that Blizzard does more brilliantly than just about any other game company is how they structure reward. They understand Pavlovian programming and exploit it masterfully. I admit that I am nothing more than a monkey at the keyboard.
Whackada, whackada, whackada . . . Oooooo, shiny bauble. Whackada, whackada . . . .
And there we are: 8 million other monkeys all typing away. We’re not going to write Hamlet (though, in all fairness, Hamlet is already written), but we have created a weird kind of community. I play with Bud who lives across town, as well as college students in California, stoners in Dallas, a music teacher from Pennsylvania, and the occasional Chinese farmer. (Sorry, WoW joke.)
I like my virtual world. I like that when I visit, I’m not a middle-aged broad with creaky joints. I’m a kick-ass warlock who controls demon “pets.” (And occasionally I play a priest, which, if you know me, is pretty amusing.)
And now I’m going to go play for a while. Have fun in your mundane pursuits – I’m going to stop a demon invasion . . .
Posted in Caroline, Daily Life, Fantasy, Pop. Culture, Technology, The Dude | 
12 Comments »
January 27th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
I’ve been curious about WoW. So, tell me more about what it’s like to play.
January 27th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Oh, so that is where pwned is from. I was afraid it was an Ashton Kutcher thing or something.
January 28th, 2007 at 5:55 am
For a wonderful take on MMORPG I like “Anda’s Game,” originally pubbed in Salon, but just re-released in Cory Doctorow’s collection Overclocked. Here’s a link to a free Creative Commons copy.
While driving back from Austin to Albuquerque (cities that run the gamut from A to…A) I listened to the wonderful spoken version of this read by Cory’s partner, Alice Taylor, who used to be a professional Quake player and is a Brit like Anda herself. That’s available here along with the entire Overclocked collection.
January 28th, 2007 at 9:51 am
Just out of curiosity, Caroline — are we talking an hour a day here? Two? Fifteen?….
January 28th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Morgan,
I’m not entirely sure how to describe playing WoW. For me, it’s highly immersive. I’m pretty OCD so the repetitive nature of some of the game play really plugs into that.
But in a nutshell . . . You start by creating a character. (If you ever played D&D, you have an idea of how this works.)
You chose the race, gender, and class of character. Do you want to do melee or distance damage? Do you want to be a support class or a healer?
There is limited paper-dolling, but you do get to customize your character some.
Then you’re plopped down in the world of Azeroth. You are given quests by various NPCs. When you fulfill these quests, you receive experience points and sometimes item rewards. (You also receive experience for defeating bad guys.)
As you level, you train and become more powerful.
There are two primary ways to play WoW. On a PvE server — i.e., the only enemies you meet are NPCs. Or you can play on a PvP server — which means you will also have to fight other player’s characters. (There are also role-playing servers, but ewwwww.)
Not only do you have a class of character (warlock, warrior, priest, druid, mage, shaman) but you also have professions you can learn. These allow you to make money in the game as well as making useful items for yourself and your friends.
The game has a stylized appearance that’s not quite comic bookie but not terribly realistic either. The world is contiguous and you spend time mapping and running through the world finding new places to quest. There are also “instances.” These are areas where characters go to perform certain tasks. They are technically not a part of the contiguous world. And there are parts of the world you can’t get to until you get to a certain level.
The other thing is that you have a lot of other people running around. Before I stopped playing a while back I think had about 20 people on my friends list and then I knew a lot of the people in my very large Guild. I do like these people, but my relationships with them are pretty much game specific. However, I do know of people who have met and married through the game. (And sometimes in the game, but ewwwwww.)
January 28th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Rory,
When I was at my peak WoWing, an embarrassment of hours. Now, I try and keep it at about 2 hours tops. It can be a major time suck. And it’s highly addictive, too.
Ken,
I’m pretty sure pwning comes from the guys exciting typing about how quickly they ganked another player. It’s easy to type, “I pwned them ” rather than “I owned them.”
January 28th, 2007 at 11:06 am
You gotta love teh WoW.
January 28th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Leet.
February 1st, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Actually, Steve, I think that should be “l33t.”
And, just to get myself in a (okay, ANOTHER) ton of trouble, I think Missy Caroline’s definition of “two” as in “two hours” may differ from those of us who live in the real world. (Except when we’re playing Zelda, at which time a WoW two hours exactly matches a Hyrule two hours…)
Oh, and just for clarification, what do you think IS the best videogame of all time, if not WoW? Actually, don’t answer that. I don’t think I want to know!
February 1st, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Why, Deus Ex, of course, Warren……
February 1st, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Or Bejeweled.
It’s a toss-up.
February 1st, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Zelda and Deus Ex. (And when side-scrollers were the bomb, Sonic.)
WoW plugs into my monkey brain. As I explained in my post . . . Mr. Smarty-Pants.