WoW Confessions

It started out innocently enough. I was having lunch with Ryan, the editor of the podcast, and he was giving me a bad time about my lack of game time recently.

"There's all this Game on Girl talking and yet you're rarely on Steam."

I confessed that my professional and personal life has gotten in the way of "serious" gaming but that I still game socially everyday. I then sent him an invite to Bookworm Heroes, my new social gaming addiction. A little role play, a little word building. Pretty much perfect for the amount of time I have to game right now.

From there we started discussing other games we played together.

"What was that one game we started that we didn't really get back to?" asked Ryan.

"Which one? That's most of the games we've all played recently."

"The MMO?"

"Oh Guild Wars 2."

"Right. That one. That was the last big one we all got together and didn't play."

So I asked because the answer had been bugging me for awhile: "Why didn't you like it, Ryan?"

"It wasn't WoW."

He said it. What I had been thinking for ages but had never said. As much as I loved the streamlined questing, the story elements, and the artwork of Guild Wars 2, I couldn't engage with the game the way I normally would with an MMO. I couldn't figure out why... I think in part it was timing and the other part was the lack of commitment from my fellow gamers. We just didn't "click" with Guild Wars 2 as a group.

So then I said it.

"I miss WoW. I miss playing Sunnybee (my main avatar - a human warlock)."

Ryan said, "Yeah me too. You were just getting good with Sunny when we quit."

It was true. I wrote about the first time we all raided together and the satisfaction I felt from that experience. We had managed to get decent gear and I was finally understanding spell durations and not to "clip" my duration spells. It was also one of the first times we had all worked together as a group.

We started talking about going back to WoW, resurrecting our accounts and old friends (avatars) and how it might actually be fun to <gasp> play a panda. A hush fell over the table and Ryan said, "After all the grief you've given WoW, after all the stuff you've said about Blizzard on the show, how can you go back?"

I thought for a moment about going back in secret... starting a new account and not telling anyone, perhaps most importantly one of my closest gaming friends, Mark, who was furious with Blizzard after D3 and pandas and pokemon pets. But I knew that would be beyond disingenuous. Game on Girl was created based on my gaming experience and has grown into something amazing and dynamic and awesome and I couldn't start lying about that.

It's been a couple of weeks since this conversation and Ryan started a new trial account to test the waters. I've been tempted but I still haven't committed myself to going back into the WoW fray. I can't quite bring myself to do it even though the thought of playing again is compelling. The time commitment keeps me from opening a browser and reinstalling the game.

So, dear readers, I ask you: what is a gamer to do? To WoW or Not to WoW? Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

To Guild or Not to Guild

Now, that is the question – for MMO players, at least!

Well, for some of us.  For many MMO players (and I would hazard to say, for most), a guild is pretty darned important - for raiding, fighting bosses, clearing high level instances…  Sure, there are PUGs (Pick Up Groups:  random players, often from a queue, who form a group solely because they are in the same place at the same time), but those often are uneven and unreliable.  At lower levels, guilds help a player level up their character, and assist with resources and knowledge.  At higher levels, guilds are invaluable in end game achievements, often working as a group on behalf of a member (or few) at a time, in order to eventually benefit the entire guild.

Then there’s the social aspect of guilds.  For most of us, the hours spent on the near side of our avatars are much more fun if shared with others that we know, and there’s something to be said of having a safe haven from the morass of interaction that is General Chat.  Add to that the social resources of guilds (dedicated chat, banks, guild halls, tabards, etc.), even using Ventrillo or other group voice programs, and it’s no wonder that strong guilds often cross over from solely ingame presences to fostering a full spectrum of “real world” friendships.

So why is it, that in all my years of gaming, I can count the number of guilds I have belonged to on one hand?  One in WoW, one in the pre-release days of Lord of the Rings Online (I’m not even sure of that one counts!), one in Dark Age of Camelot, one in NeoCron.  Oh, I’ve “belonged” to other guilds, but mainly as a placeholder, or only as a signature on a charter, or with the best of intentions but absolutely no follow through. 

I’ve spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out why I’m so shy of guilds, and I’ve boiled it down to two basic reasons.  The first is that I am NOT a multi-tasker; I have a hard time concentrating on even a few things at once.  So if I’m fighting in a game (or questing or farming, or pretty much anything), I really can’t follow guild chat; it’s either my avatar or the chat.   If the chat reflects something I’m doing, like going through a dungeon, then it’s no problem.  But otherwise, my gaming time feels hijacked by having to be socially polite and follow along with conversations that, while perhaps entertaining or informative, still pull me away from my avatar experience.  That was fine when I had hours upon hours to be online, but not with the limited time that I have now.

The second reason is due to my play style.  It’s hard to find a good guild when you’re not really into mastery concerns like the best gear or obtaining the most prestigious items and achievements.  When your main focus is experiencing the world and the lore by sliding into a role when you load your avatar, then it’s hard to be a participating (re: valuable) member in a guild where hours are spent organizing and executing a raid or a boss fight, or where members love to argue the merits of different builds or different skill trees ad infinitum, or operate as a cheering section for sharing loot gains or DPS levels or achievements.  All of those are very valid and valuable aspects of a good guild to many... just not for me.

It’s virtually impossible to find a good role-playing guild nowadays because today’s MMOs, even as RPGs, are not conducive to traditional role-playing:  an individual player cannot truly affect their environment (there’s a topic for another post or two!).  So any guild that claims to foster role-play tends to be either a vehicle for lots of personal drama, or tends to have a very well developed guild environment outside of the game, usually via a website with forums where members can interact with each other as characters and as players.  That takes a lot of focus, time and dedication (and a certain amount of financial input) outside of the game, so those guilds are few and far between.

I will say, though, that the few guilds I have been in have been exceptional experiences; many of the friends I met through those guilds have stayed in touch even years later, and some of the role-play that came out of those guilds and forums have been of the highest caliber.  What about you? What have your experiences with guilds been?  Do they mesh well with your play style?  Are they essential to your gaming experience, or just a fun sidebar?

~ Sharon

Episode 12 - Breaking Down Binaries: Casual vs Hardcore

This week, Rhonda and I take on two very common terms in game culture: casual and hardcore gamers. 

We talk with Toria and Mellisa about how they define a gamer, fandom, game culture, and game play. I must say this episode is full of excellent observations and more than a few fits of giggling. Truly an enjoyable episode to record and one I hope you'll enjoy. 

From our cyber-mailbox, we further discuss the complications from losing your identity in game as we touched on in GoG Short #7 - For All the Toons We've Loved Before - and your responses to this week's Twitter question: What most negatively impacts your game experience? 

As always, we'd love to hear your feedback on the episode. Leave a comment here or Drop us a Tweet @game_on_girl.

Game on Girl is on Stitcher so you can stream our show to your mobile device or subscribe via iTunes or the RSS Feed.

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Until next time, Game On!
Regina and Rhonda

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Standing in the Fire: On Becoming Leet

One of the most intriguing things I discovered through my dissertation research was the different ways the women I interviewed played MMORPGs.*  It wasn't a total surprise that not all of them were raiders, or engaged in end-game content or high-level dungeons.  I knew there were plenty of people that looked at MMOs as less solitary versions of "sandbox" games; those players who collect pets or level multiple alts, or who find role playing and creating back stories for their characters the most compelling reasons to enter the world.

This, of course, forced me to consider my own gaming approach.  My gaming history, which I discuss in the first chapter of my dissertation in greater length, started with a role playing game: Zork.  I spent hours exploring the underground empire, mapping and losing my way, and fighting Grues.  But I never felt compelled to "finish" the game.  I never had that drive to know the end of the story or finish the game content.

As I reflect on this now, I can see this idea through much of the gaming that I did later, although there were a few exceptions.  I vividly remember finishing Myst, feeling so powerful knowing I had completed even the most difficult puzzles, and then waiting with baited breath as Riven came out.  Even the later versions of Zork held the same appeal for me, and again I enjoyed getting to the end of the game.

When I started playing World of Warcraft, about six months before I started my Ph.D. program, I didn't really understand the basic ideas behind any kind of end goal.  It was quite by accident that I ran my first dungeon, having been asked by someone else playing in the same zone to join a group running the Deadmines.  I remember feeling nervous as we entered, worried that I would fail the group since I knew my tanking skills were less than stellar.

Somehow that nervous feeling about being in a group, being relied upon to play well, never left me and colored my experience of all MMOs.  Through the interviews, I listened to many tales of epic wins and great success.  A clear theme through the interviews was the power almost all the players felt within the game, regardless of what kind of play they engaged in.

But it left me wondering what it might be like to be in a group that completed an epic raid, 25 people working together to the same end goal.  What would that experience be like?  How would I feel?  Could I experience that same sense of power I had when I finished a game on my own? Would it be more or less intense because I had to play with other people?

After months of playing, of learning my class (warlock) more carefully, of reading and researching and watching videos of other people play, and running endless versions of the same dungeons trying to get that one, last piece of gear I needed to up my item level, I finally got the chance to run a 25 person raid and take down Deathwing, the epic bad guy in the latest expansion of the game (Cataclysm).  It wasn't pretty; many of the group, formed with the new raid finder within days of its release, were new to the raid and didn't know the mechanics.  It took several wipes (where all 25 of us died) to finally reach the end.

It was, however, an amazing rush.  To see the progress the group made as a whole, even as we were being resurrected back from our dead bodies, there was sense that we were learning how to work as a unit.  There were a few people easily frustrated at the failures but just as many making jokes about how at least many of us got a new achievement when we died, most importantly "Stood in the Fire."

I finished this raid with two guild mates, friends that I often game with, and it took a while for all three of us to come to this revelation.  Yes, it was madness, yes running a raid with the raid finder can be grueling, but look at what we just did.  We killed Deathwing.  We stood in the fire.  Did we get burned? Yes, but it was so worth it.

Lots of people these days talk about how gamers are great problem solvers and there is plenty of evidence to back that up.  Fewer people talk about the emotional aspects of gaming; perhaps, because they are less easy to quantify and measure.  Facing my fear in game, that sense of possibly letting the group down or being deemed "not good enough" changed how I see myself and reaffirmed that I am able, online and offline, to face my fears.

* I discuss the categories of gamers I discovered and some of my other findings in the second episode of my new podcast.