As stated before, I've been playing a bit of WoW. With my new work schedule (still love the new job, btw) I don't have a lot of time for gaming and what little time I have has been mostly spent in WoW. Though there was a brief Xbox Live Arcade binge wherein I played a good amount of Root Beer Tapper.
WoW is addictive for many of the reason previously stated, but one really resonates with me. As elucidated by Tycho Brache (aka Jerry Holkins) in a news post the other day.
I knew it before, and then in some moment of weakness I let my cohort twist me into this thing. I don't know how much game is here. What I do know is that they have set up a system that allows me to rent my friends on a monthly bwhlasis.
One of the reasons why WoW is so addictive and so satisfying and so hard to choose something else over, for me, is the social aspect. My boyfriend plays it, so we sit together and go out and farm or quest or run a heroic with other friends. There were several of my friends from real life on the server we chose and we've made more friends with our guild. So even if my boyfriend isn't home or busy, there are usually at least 3 people on who I know and usually more like 12 - 20 who I can just talk to via our vent server while running a battleground or doing arena work or just flying circles around Shatt.
I'm now 70 (have been for a while, actually, before Xmas break) and I only have one character (Elemental Shaman makes things goes zot, as per William Shatner) because I suffer from the reverse of character ADD. I focus pretty solely on one character because I love raiding.
My weekends are currently spent for at least a good portion killing internet dragons with 9-24 other people. My guild is decently high end (currently ranked 15 overall for our Server). The core of the guild is completely done with Kara (translation for the non-WoW geeks: a several hour dungeon for 10 players with 11 bosses. It takes a lot of coordination and several passes to open it all, let alone complete it regularly). This means that new people, like me, can tag along with really good players to get new gear quickly. But still, I get to talk to 9 other people for several hours, crack jokes and feel like we've accomplished something together. And when we aren't at Kara on the weekend we are pushing on two of the high end 25 man instance. There is a really neat feeling of working together with 24 other people in concert to get something done. You are supporting each other, watching each others back and only when you all work together does something get accomplished.
The tower of Karazhan
However, group dynamics can quickly sour. My guild is focused around raiding, though we are a 'casual' guild about it. Meaning we aren't usually raiding every night, we don't force people to respec constantly for optimum play, we don't disallow certain c14asses just because they aren't the 'best' fit and we don't have an out of raid commitment toward material gathering. But there are those people who want to explore the PvP aspects of WoW and often the raiding gets in the way of that. This is a problem between expectation and reality. PvP is not the core view of our guild. Sure we like it, but it isn't our number one priority. But when it is one person's number one priority they can be disappointed when raiding takes precedence over PvP.
Other way group dynamics can get skewed is feeling left out. While we aren't going to say no to lesser options, we will leave out someone if they are clearly a make or break choice. Which is hard on the officers, because they have to make the call for the greater good of the guild over the personal enjoyment of one. And the one person can become a bother if they don't realize that they were left out for reasons of the greater good (i.e. they can't actually play very well or would in fact be deadweight due to not having the ability to survive fights) and instead attributes the drop to favoritism.
A guild is a very complex social animal. I enjoy participating in the social game as well as watching it from a far. What is highly interesting to me about WoW is how it brings so many different people together. Most of our guild is aged 25 and older. At least half are married. And yet, we have several members under the age of 18. We also have a good proportion of females to males. We have some members from Alaska, Florida, California, New York, Texas, Massachusetts and elsewhere. We have programmers, military men, stay at home moms, college students, security guards and video game industry workers. I learn a lot about life listening to people from various backgrounds talk. I like hearing the other side. While we usually avoid talking about politics or religion outright, some of those still creep in. And there is a lot of random nuggets of information.
I think the social is part of why games like Halo 3, Team Fortress 2, and Call of Duty 4 are so popular. There is a team multiplayer aspect. That working together for advance brings people to the game and keeps them coming back. If I miss a few nights due to working late or going out with friends, my guild in WoW notices. They ask after me and encourage me to come back, because they miss me. My real life friends miss me too and have noticed my WoW playtime and occasionally are like 'Why do you want to waste your time with imaginary monsters?'
I'm not. I'm playing with my friends. And some of my friends are in WoW. And some of them are in the 'real world.' But they are all my 'real' friends.
Comments
I suppose you have a point about it saving money, and I honestly do not mean to portray WoW as a bad thing, or those that play it as making a bad choice. What do you tutor if you don't mind me asking?
@Forte310 I'd been off for about 2 years.
To me something like WoW just won't work, because I'm that guy who is considered the "rebel" or the "artist." The reason other people think this is because I do all my own crap. I don't like the help of others, so personally speaking, these "social" games aren't my thing. I play for escapism and sometimes even inspiration for my own work. I listen, and a good game is one that's both fun and still holds meaning in its words. That's what I'm personally attracted to.
When I play socially, it's because I have others with me and so we choose to play socially. But when I'm alone, I'm not thinking, "boy, it sure would be great to play Halo 3 with the boys." And believe me, they call me and ask me. But I just don't have the time or if I do, I don't feel like playing. If I need someone's help it's because I've decided to learn and in that case I submit and listen to everything they say. School would be an instance of that, or even training at work.
However, that doesn't mean I don't enjoy sitting with my friends playing co-operatively. Working together, but not to better one another, but instead simply doing whatever we can to the best of our abilities.
For reasons like that, I prefer free-fall deathmatches over team-based gameplay. It's why the MMO isn't a genre for me. Not because I'm not willing to pay the price, but because I play to experience.
Like I said though, you're absolutely correct in saying that the reason why games like WoW, CoD4, Halo 3, TF2 and other team-based games and some MMO's are popular. It's because of that social aspect and feeling like you accomplished something. But that's not for me, personally.
Anyway, Dawn, instance and raid as much as you want and ,of course, enjoy it !!!
@GunnyHath Most of the jobs are in the pharmacuetical industry. So when I worked in the industry I worked for company looking at anti-cancer drugs (treatments) and for another doing interesting work in pain medication delivery systems via biodegradable polymers. I love the knowledge a lot.
But I call myself also a Horde die-hard because I spent almost 3 years levelling several Horde chars. The only thing that didn't change during those years, were my favourite c14asses : hunter, druid and warlock, with the hunter being my number One. As a matter of fact, when I play other RPG's now, I try to play as a hunter-like c14ass but I always end up missing my pet.
Who knows, maybe one day I'll go back to WoW, although I said to myself I'll never do that. But then again, you said the same thing and look which game you're playing again
GunnyHath