The serious gamer look: WoW add-ons

I had officially stopped playing WoW for research in mid October. It was time for me to start writing my paper, and as a level 12 or so, I wasn't high enough to have all the types of interaction and problems that I was trying to understand. I understood the most important one, though, which was the difficulty and time investment required to level up your character, get gold, and play the game. All the other experiences I needed, I would have to get through observation, research, and interviews.

Needless to say, I did not stop playing the game completely. My husband and I have found a game that I enjoy playing with him, so we continue to get online together on date nights or random moments. We have gotten online enough together that we are now level 31 characters. It may seem that we have leveled quickly and therefore have spent long days grinding away, but our high level is mainly due to the "refer a friend" program that WoW offers. I referred Paul to WoW and as a result, we are allowed to summon each other once an hour (this is handy so we don't have to waste so much time traveling to each other- especially if we have one character bound in one city, and the other character bound in another city. We can use our hearthstone to bring us to our bound city, then summon the other person. Poof! We saved an hour of travel time!), we get triple the experience points when we are grouped together (which allows us to get so much experience that we "outgrow" our quests, meaning they become too easy for us too quickly and we cannot finish all of them before we level), and it will give me a mount (an animal to ride, increasing my travel time by 60%) once he is online for 3 months. This has been a great incentive to refer a friend, and a great alternative to the frustrating grinding it takes to get anywhere in the game.

So, now that I have settled into a Sunday night game time pattern with my husband, it was about time to admit I needed to add some tools. Paul had been using Carbonite Quest for a while to help us locate quest locations, and I had been relying on him leading our little two person group. However, I get online occasionally by myself to do random little things, like work on professions. Since I had wanted to track where I found items I needed, I also added Gatherer, a program Paul found to track all the items you pick up. (I was thinking I was going to print out a map and draw color coded icons on it to denote where I found things, but what was I thinking in this techno age? Someone, of course, wrote a program to do just that!) So, I added Carbonite Quest and Download Gatherer as add-ons to WoW.

Here is what my new screen looks like:



You can see the Carbonite Quest on the right side of the screen listing out all the quests I have in my log. It shows me where to turn in the items, where to find items, and I can list people as “punks”! (I like the idea of being able to list people as “punks” when they kill my character for no good reason.)

Features (from the software website:)
Punks List - The Punks list is part of our enhanced Social window. It allows you to add enemy player names to the list and when detected near you or another Carbonite user in your guild or zone, it will alert you with a message, sound and draw a green circle on the map.
Map - The Carbonite map gives you all the information you need in one easy to use and flexible Google like map. Move, size or zoom it the way you like.
Favorites - Records map notes, targets and general comments.
Quest - Blaze through quests at lightning speed and level faster than you ever thought possible. Our extensive quest database lists the location of quest objectives and turn-ins. Simply click any objective from your quest watch list and Carbonite will show you where to go. No more wasted time bouncing back and forth between a web browser and the game.
Battlegrounds - Dominate your opponents with our enhanced battleground map. See the location and names of all your teammates. See objective timers right on the map and issue orders with a click of the mouse – call for reinforcements to attack a vulnerable enemy target or simply announce the status of an objective. “He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious.” - Sun Tzu
UI - Windows can be moved, sized, scaled and locked. Values are saved for each character. Coexists well with most UI addons.
Privacy - Not in a social mood? Just turn off communication with guild, friend or zone and other Cabonite users won't see you on the map.

WoW in every corner of the culture

My husband sent this to me, saying if only it said "almost to level 30", then it applied to me:



Find other great cat humor at icanhascheezburger.com

The era of the Lich King begins

Like many role playing games (RPGs), World of Warcraft (WoW) has a story line. Some people enjoy and play it for the story line, others play for other content (I fall into the later category). Part III of the saga, The Wrath of the Lich King came out last night. There was a 45 minute wait to access the servers right after work PST.

The new material opened new lands, quests, and higher levels (now the max level of a character was 80; it used to be 70). It also included new classes. Here are a list of the features from WoW's website:

Hero Class: Death Knight New
Continent: Northrend
Massive World PvP Brand-New Dungeons and Raids Engaging,
Epic Storyline
Graphics Improvements
Expanded Bestiary
New Profession: Inscription

I logged on to say hi to my friend, whom I knew would be playing the new material (he waited in line to buy the software at midnight on Wednesday.) In my eyes, he is a dedicated and addicted player (I might be getting addicted as well, but nonetheless), but to give you an idea of the fan base- when I logged on last night there were already level 70 Death Knights online. My guild members, who are more dedicated than me, were congratulating fellow members when they hit level 71. The 70 Death Knights must have been playing all night long for the prestige of being some of the first members to play the new material.

The Economies of MMOs

In World of Warcraft, there is a primary economy- the harvesting and exchange of goods and money with in game world itself. This economy is first introduced to the lower level players by having them “loot” creatures they have killed or sell items they have picked up. They are also able to obtain money from quests they complete. This new wealth (albeit small) can now be used to purchase goods from the game (via vendors in each city) or through other players (via an auction house). Other ways to make money are to create professions with your character collect, hunt, and gather materials to create equipment, potions, foods, enchantments, etc. Some of these skills can be very lucrative, at least in the game economy.

The gold and silver made in the game, however, is not just “Monopoly” money. It can have real world value. This is the secondary economy that has become familiar to most online games, despite some developer’s attempts to stop it. For World of Warcraft, (this is similar to other MMOs), the End User License Agreement (EULA) states that the end-user “shall not, under any circumstances - …exploit the game… for gathering in-game currency, items or resources.” The acts that are prohibited are restated in the Terms of Use (worldofwarcraft.com).




Other creators, like Sony (Everquest series), have decided that supporting customer’s demand for real-money and virtual goods exchange, have created a Station Exchange (Siegel 2008).

Despite the EULA and Terms of Uses, and the threat of recourse (Siegel 2008), players and companies willful play a part in the money making venture of “farming” gold or items in the game. Here are some examples of websites selling gold:

http://www.mygamesale.com/
http://www.wowmine.com/
http://www.thsale.com/
www.SusanExpress.com
http://www.ige.com/

In games such as Everquest, players were averaging making $3.42 for every hour they played, with the nation having a gross per-capita of $2,266 (Knight, 2002).

WoW Gold exchange rates: right now you can buy 500 gold for $11.01 USD, which turns out to be roughly 45 gold for a dollar. (According to Thsale). The conversion rate is roughly 2 cents for a WoW gold (Goldsoon).

Works Cited:
Knight, W. (2002). “Virtual World grows real economy.” Retrieved from
http://www.newscientist.com on October 25th, 2008.
(2008). “World of Warcraft – US Buy Gold.” Retrieved from http://www.thsale.com
on November 13, 2008.
Siegel, R. (2008) “Paying Real Money to Win Online Games.” Retrieved from
http://www.npr.org on November 13, 2008.

The questions to ask

November 8, 2008

I choose to be priest, but in a previous game, EverQuest, I chose to be a Paladin. The WoW guide book had suggested becoming a character that you can relate to or you might have a poor experience with the game. I think many people do actually pick characters that they are attracted to in some way- they can relate to the role they play in groups, they enjoy the tasks they choose to do as professions.

I am interested in asking my fellow WoW players some of these questions.

Are you male or female?

Is your character male or female?

What class is your character?

Are you Horde or Alliance?

What primary professions did you choose?

What secondary professions did you choose?

Do you work at increasing skill on the primary professions? Secondary?

Do you feel you relate to your character?

What do you get online to do?

Have you ever twinked or buffed another player? Did you know them? If not, why did you help them out? Was there any game advantage? Do you do charity work in real life and if so, what do you get out of that?

Do you feel that leveling a low level character is tedious and time consuming?

Do you belong to a guild and if so, how does that social interaction play a part of your game play?

Do you think the game should be an even playing field for all involved?

Do you think others should be allowed to purchase items, levels, and characters if they want?

Have you ever purchased items outside of the game’s economy? (With real money?) If not, would you consider it?

Have you ran into people camping areas in order to “farm” objects or gold while in the game? Could you tell if they were just professional gamers or really farmers? Did they interfere with your enjoyment of the game?

Have you ever had someone help you move forward in the game? If so, did you know them in real life or through social networking in the game?

Which of the following have you used: guide books, websites, buffing or twinking from another player, purchased goods, donated items, etc.?

What is the purpose of the game? Is there an end game?

What do you feel you want out of the game?

When does the game end?