Week 3: September 21, 2008
I got online today to play a little more WoW and understand some interactions between members and social playing skills. Last week I had set up the voice software (Ventrilo) so I could now chat with other players online. I had gone to Fry’s to purchase the headset with a microphone and ended up buying the gamer’s version - Creative Labs, sound blaster Fatality headphones. As I was using those headsets, I was introduced to the Guild members who were online. They asked me about what kind of character I was playing (a Priest) and asked if I wanted to play a Rogue, since they needed some more of them, and if I really liked my Priest character that I should learn the damage spells instead of healing spells, since everyone gets a Priest that can heal. I kind of chuckled since I don’t think I would be much use to them, even if I managed to play long enough to get a high level character- I will never be the player who dedicates a certain number of hours a week (or day) to helping on raids or being a :leader: in the guild. I actually have some friends, the ones who gave me access to their account, who actually left a social party to run home in time to participate in a raid.
This particular evening added some interesting turns to my observation. As soon as I logged on as my character, my level 70 friend was online chatting in the guild and said that he hated all the people in the guild. And promptly after that statement, he quit the guild. Well, wow. Not only was he my “guide” to this surreal socialization game, but the guild was a group of people he had close contact with and socialized with often, at least in the context of the game. I was thinking that the guild would be a support tool, a support group of people I could ask questions to and who rendered help when I was unable to easily do things myself (like made me a few backpacks). Now I am unsure of what to do, since I am a real life friend of Scott’s and I do not know any of the guild members. How will they see me or treat me if they are not getting along with Scott? Can I still ask them questions? Should I also quit the guild?
Scott got back online at my request as his lower lever character so he could play online with me. He also introduced me to a friend of his, Stone, who is a 15 year old kid in the middle of rural Arkansas. It was then that it struck me at how the game forces us all to be social with people we might and probably would not ever seek out attention or time with in real life. We know so little about each other, we know little about our social and cultural expectations, the depth of life experiences, the interests or personalities and yet we willingly depend on each other for support on the game and work together as a team to defeat players or complete quests.
The game relies on socialization for a number of reasons. One, it is riskier to attack a creature if they agro (one gets attacked and all the others in the vicinity run over to help) if you are alone. As a non-risk taker (someone who doesn’t like to lose), attacking agro creatures doesn’t make me feel easy. I like the idea of attacking in a group, even if it means playing longer to get to the next level. Other quests and missions require group work, and many attacks are just managed better by using a puller (someone who can target a creature from far away and “pull” that one closer without pulling the whole herd of creatures, then using a good tank, a person who can take a lot of damage and inflict damage, along with a healer or spell caster of damage- this last person helps heal the group and can usually do a little negative damage to the creature. This teamwork ensures that all skills needed for an attack are well represented.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
The learning curve of WoW
World of Warcraft
First Week of school
September 2, 2008
I was originally considering doing an independent research project on social technologies. Social Technologies is a broad category and we use them in many ways, daily; we use Instant Messenger, text messages on our phones, Twitter, Blogging, etc. And how many of us use many of these technologies both in our social life and for business? I am even using a blog and response forum to communicate with my professor regarding this project.
The first idea tossed around of looking into a social technology was to study Second Life, an online community where each customer logs on and creates their own avatar to interact in a virtual world that the customers create.
http://secondlife.com/whatis/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life
While researching SL as a topic, I discovered that there were less than 500,000 people worldwide that logged on to spend an hour a month.
Second Life population
In comparison to other online communities, such as popular Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs), this is not many people. The press likes SL because of its direct tie to real world economy, but MMORPGs are not without shadow economies and with a larger, more active, more dedicated, growing community, maybe this is were young entrepreneurs should be looking at “selling”.
One example of a highly populated MMORPG is World of Warcraft (WoW). As of July 2007, they had 8.5 million players (Snow, 2007). Once I decided on studying this game as a social technology, I had to go out and purchase it. I walked into the local Best Buy during the first week of school to quickly “pick up” my software. There was an isle dedicated to computer games, and half of them were probably MMORPGs. Despite researching the popular MMOs, I did not recognize all the games and could only assume they were also competing for the same audience as WoW.
Popular MMOs
MMORPG games available
There are many choices out there, some of which I have played before – EverQuest (EQ), City of Heroes, and many more I have not played - Diablo, Lord of the Rings, Warhammer, City of Villans, etc. WoW, however, had the largest number of active users, and therefore the largest online community to study.
Focusing on my choices of software in the store, I discovered there were about four different boxes of WoW. I wanted the one with the most updates and expansions, so I selected a double box containing what appeared to be the original WoW and an expansion called “Burning Crusade”. I went over to the lady at the cash register and asked if this was the latest version and did it include all the updates. She thought it did, but as we were talking a male colleague of hers approached and he said that there were additional pieces, one of which they did not have in stock. I decided I needed to review the choices myself and I left without making a purchase. This is obviously not a spontaneous “buy” nor a community you join on a whim.
After reviewing all the choices, there were only two releases (expansions) and I ended up picking up the same software later. There is a third release, Wrath of the Lich King, that is coming out on November 13th of this year. This was just a little taste of all the setup I was about to do just to start playing a video game.
One of the first things to consider was if I could play WoW reasonably on my computer; I do not have a gamer’s computer. In the end it took 4 hours to set up since I had some conflicting software, but I was able to get online reasonably well if I keep all the graphics turned down. I was still hours away from playing however, since I still had to choose a server and create a character: what race (there are eight playable races), faction (two factions, Alliance and Horde, which are similar to the idea of good and evil), and what class (there are 9 classes, but each is specific to certain races). A character’s race determines what starting city you begin in.
I logged onto a player versus player (PvP) server mainly because I know some people on that server. I am strictly speaking, more comfortable with a player versus non-player characters (PvNPC) server, but since I wanted to study a community and get involved quickly, I selected a server where I already knew someone in real life (RL). I created my first character, choosing a Night elf, and making her an Alliance Priest. The manual says you should create a character that you connect with, and give them talents you enjoy using. I picked clothes, hair, and styles for my character and once I was happy with that, I logged into the game.
As soon as I landed in the middle of the starting “city”, someone asked me to join their group. I wasn’t even sure how to type a response, so I had to hit decline without telling them anything. It took me a while, and a phone call to a friend, to easily access all my important information (hit/s to say something). As soon as I placed my spells into hot keys and understood how to move and talk, I started to run around and pick up quests. The quests in that area are organized to help people try to get used to the game. One quest is to go talk to a trainer, who gives you another spell, another quest is to hunt and kill certain types of non-agro (they don’t all attack if one is attacked) level 1 animals.
Quest 1: Kill 7 young nightsabers and kill 4 young thistle boars
Quest 3: Gather 8 fel mos and deliver to druid Athridas Bearmantle in Dolamaar
Quest 4: Kill 7 mangy nightsabers and kill 7 thistle boars
First Week of school
September 2, 2008
I was originally considering doing an independent research project on social technologies. Social Technologies is a broad category and we use them in many ways, daily; we use Instant Messenger, text messages on our phones, Twitter, Blogging, etc. And how many of us use many of these technologies both in our social life and for business? I am even using a blog and response forum to communicate with my professor regarding this project.
The first idea tossed around of looking into a social technology was to study Second Life, an online community where each customer logs on and creates their own avatar to interact in a virtual world that the customers create.
http://secondlife.com/whatis/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life
While researching SL as a topic, I discovered that there were less than 500,000 people worldwide that logged on to spend an hour a month.
Second Life population
In comparison to other online communities, such as popular Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs), this is not many people. The press likes SL because of its direct tie to real world economy, but MMORPGs are not without shadow economies and with a larger, more active, more dedicated, growing community, maybe this is were young entrepreneurs should be looking at “selling”.
One example of a highly populated MMORPG is World of Warcraft (WoW). As of July 2007, they had 8.5 million players (Snow, 2007). Once I decided on studying this game as a social technology, I had to go out and purchase it. I walked into the local Best Buy during the first week of school to quickly “pick up” my software. There was an isle dedicated to computer games, and half of them were probably MMORPGs. Despite researching the popular MMOs, I did not recognize all the games and could only assume they were also competing for the same audience as WoW.
Popular MMOs
MMORPG games available
There are many choices out there, some of which I have played before – EverQuest (EQ), City of Heroes, and many more I have not played - Diablo, Lord of the Rings, Warhammer, City of Villans, etc. WoW, however, had the largest number of active users, and therefore the largest online community to study.
Focusing on my choices of software in the store, I discovered there were about four different boxes of WoW. I wanted the one with the most updates and expansions, so I selected a double box containing what appeared to be the original WoW and an expansion called “Burning Crusade”. I went over to the lady at the cash register and asked if this was the latest version and did it include all the updates. She thought it did, but as we were talking a male colleague of hers approached and he said that there were additional pieces, one of which they did not have in stock. I decided I needed to review the choices myself and I left without making a purchase. This is obviously not a spontaneous “buy” nor a community you join on a whim.
After reviewing all the choices, there were only two releases (expansions) and I ended up picking up the same software later. There is a third release, Wrath of the Lich King, that is coming out on November 13th of this year. This was just a little taste of all the setup I was about to do just to start playing a video game.
One of the first things to consider was if I could play WoW reasonably on my computer; I do not have a gamer’s computer. In the end it took 4 hours to set up since I had some conflicting software, but I was able to get online reasonably well if I keep all the graphics turned down. I was still hours away from playing however, since I still had to choose a server and create a character: what race (there are eight playable races), faction (two factions, Alliance and Horde, which are similar to the idea of good and evil), and what class (there are 9 classes, but each is specific to certain races). A character’s race determines what starting city you begin in.
I logged onto a player versus player (PvP) server mainly because I know some people on that server. I am strictly speaking, more comfortable with a player versus non-player characters (PvNPC) server, but since I wanted to study a community and get involved quickly, I selected a server where I already knew someone in real life (RL). I created my first character, choosing a Night elf, and making her an Alliance Priest. The manual says you should create a character that you connect with, and give them talents you enjoy using. I picked clothes, hair, and styles for my character and once I was happy with that, I logged into the game.
As soon as I landed in the middle of the starting “city”, someone asked me to join their group. I wasn’t even sure how to type a response, so I had to hit decline without telling them anything. It took me a while, and a phone call to a friend, to easily access all my important information (hit/s to say something). As soon as I placed my spells into hot keys and understood how to move and talk, I started to run around and pick up quests. The quests in that area are organized to help people try to get used to the game. One quest is to go talk to a trainer, who gives you another spell, another quest is to hunt and kill certain types of non-agro (they don’t all attack if one is attacked) level 1 animals.
Quest 1: Kill 7 young nightsabers and kill 4 young thistle boars
Quest 3: Gather 8 fel mos and deliver to druid Athridas Bearmantle in Dolamaar
Quest 4: Kill 7 mangy nightsabers and kill 7 thistle boars
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