...Should you choose to accept it: Bring back the tough meat of 8 wolves. At least that's what my avatar's, Sanginka, very first mission was. Which then meant I had to first find the wolves then figure out how to even fight them then figure out how to kill them then figure out how to get their tough meat…What?? Then Sanginka had to decode a manual for Odin and kill 8 boars for their tough meat. For those of you who are lost, I was too…until my roommate and I spent about an hour playing World of Warcraft, and became near addicts. Fear not, we have weaned ourselves off of it…But yes, Nick—there is a whole World of Warcraft out there.
With more than 12 million subscribers, World of Warcraft is the most popular Massive Multi-player Online Role-Playing Game. Upon logging in to WoW, players select a realm to play in. Within these realms, players choose to engage in player versus player, player versus environment, role-play and role-play versus players battles. Once selected, the players enter their selected realm and create their avatar with some ridiculous sounding name e.g. Odin and Sanginka and intense fighting apparel. The avatars wander into the realm, which often appear to look like sparse areas with occasional nomads and tenting areas set up, looking for new and trying to complete existing quests.
These realms are filled with hundreds of other players at any given time. Upon signing in, the player can see how many people are in which realm and what languages they speak. However, in my experience, these other people were not really existent. While each realm does have certain languages attached to it, I found the things the avatars in my realm said virtually in a different language, even though they were in English. This lingo, I unfortunately was unable to pick up in my short few days playing Wow.
Overall, I enjoyed playing WoW. While I may have been subject to ridicule from my friends, I think they also secretly wondered, “What it was that draws people towards WoW.” After my 10 days of playing, I’m still not sure what differentiates this MMORPG from the others. However, I thought it was fun. Unlike other video games, it was pretty user friendly for me to figure out how to play and actually be decent at it. Overall, I enjoyed my experience with MMORPGs. I think these are gaining popularity even more so with new technology. They are just another way for people to connect with each other in an even more interactive format. Plus it also ties in special interests such as gaming. While gaming may not be a special interest of mine, I know in researching different MMORPGs, there are so many MMORPGS that there has to be one for everyone. These ranged from Wow to Karaoke and more. While I may not rush back to WoW, maybe some day I’ll try another!
Quest Completed.
A lot of social media is evaluated upon its ability to provoke real-life actions. For example, Facebook and Twitter are judged upon their ability to inform, organize and mobilize people. It would be interesting to see if World of Warcraft, with its 12 million users, has the same effect.
ReplyDeleteAs you said, different realms in WOW have different languages. It would be interesting to know how the language was invented, if it actually functions, and if people, in reality, can converse with others in it. That way, we would be able to determine if WOW has any influence upon the real world, and if it truly occupies significant space in our nation's social consciousness, as Facebook and Twitter do.
I haven't done the research to answer these questions, but believe that any game with 12 million avid fans has to have some sort of affect upon the non-digital world.
I agree with your claim that MMORPGs are merely another way for people to interact. One of the readings for this week quoted players of WoW who explained that getting together to play with others online for them is no different than going bowling with a group of friends. While time spent bowling hardly compares to the hours/days/years people put into playing WoW, I think the comparison is valid.
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