Art of Diplomacy V
So where am i going with this. For the past two weeks I’ve been yammering away about my many lives in World of Warcraft, so you are probably bored to tears and want the pay off. Well, here it is:
I consider myself a very logical person when it comes to video games. I play what I think is cool and what gets a good response from others. MMOs were the first kind of game that honestly, I had a lot od difficulty understanding. For one, is the fact that not only do you have to pay for software, you also have to pay to continue playing. In my mind, this is an awful business model. Worse still, the game didn’t have any big payoff in the end. Once you reach the maximum power level, what do you do? After you plumb the depths of every dungeon and you and your guild have all the loot you’d ever want, what do you do? After you have dominated in player vs. player and now sit atop a mountain of skulls, what do you do? The model suggests that once you complete these three things, new content will have arrives so that you will DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN! Don’t worry, that bad taste in your mouth is natural.
But the strange thing is, despite all that, I chose to play. Why? Because I was interested in the people. Now, I don’t *think* this automatically makes me a socializer, but let me explain how I came to this conclusion. I like to talk, therefore I babble a lot, but when it comes to written word I often come out very succinct and very noble. Which just isn’t want I sound like in real life. I am pessimistic and extremely abrasive. Online however, these sorts of qualities have difficulty transferring over through text. Often then, some shreds of wisdom and charisma come through and often I am quick to make friends. In fact, it really hit me when I gave my goodbyes to Anathema and I realized how much these people liked me. Despite the fact that I wasn’t playing with them anymore (Due to power level differences), I was still well liked.
Often in my life I have just assumed that the only reason I have friends is because of the sharing of resources. I have found little emotional support from my friends and I never gave any back. Perhaps it was the fact that the majority of my friends were male, but it could also be because we inherently knew that our friendship was only material. (Is that normal?)
But the friendships online didn’t feel that way. They felt much more genuine. Perhaps I am just blind to the fact that I was in a guild intending to acquire more loot, but I often felt that things were more meaningful in World of Warcraft than they were online. For one, was the fact that I was a likeable fellow online, but in reality I am a miserable little cuss. It felt empowering to know that I had the ability to lead others and that others recognized that ability, even though I had neither the experience necessary to lead. World of Warcraft provided me a brief taste of what it was like to be the alpha in the pack, and to do so through merit and worth rather than through empty promises and bribes.
Raiding dungeons themselves was only a means to an end. In order to continue being the hero and the leader, I had to continue to be on top of my game. I had always dreamed about becoming the leader of a raid dungeon party, simply because that meant that I was the one with my head on straight, who called the strategies and ultimately became the one that could decide if we won or lost. That was an incredibly powerful thing to feel, when in my cases I often feel like my destiny is completely out of my hands. And so my dream would always be trying to attain that level of power. Raiding for me was never for the loot, it was for the prestige, and that is why I continued playing.
That and the purest relationships I think I could ever have with a bunch of pixels depicting effeminate elves, midgets, minotaurs, and walking cadavers. I will miss World of Warcraft, but I highly doubt I will return to it. Perhaps, when my college days are over and I have a more steady occupation, I will return to MMOs and play them again. Maybe I will someday reach my goal to lead an army of other players, to be the real hero, but until then, I will settle for being the hero of my own worlds.
