My MMO experience

Having devoted a decent years worth of game play in 2004/2005 to the MMO game World of Warcraft (WoW), a lot of today's ideas and discussions are reminding me of the experience's I had.

During the time that I played, servers specifically for Oceania players did not exist yet, therefore I ended up playing with a guild of Americans. This meant that I became quite nocturnal, as I was regularly raiding during the very early hours of the real day, which was the afternoon/evening in America. I was 16/17 at the time and had a deep conscious invested in the world, which my parents found very strange and probably feared for my social future in the real world. These last two lectures have reminded my strongly of the social aspect I was engaging in from playing the game to keep up with my friends who also played online, but also participating in guild activities. During a raid we would all communicate over a Ventrilo, a real-time voice chat program, and I was always timidly fascinated by the discussions and cultural interactions I was experiencing. Americans discussing American culture, politics, their daily lives, twinkies etc - I was part of a foreign community and it gave me a total buzz.

Another point today that I have experienced over and over is the temporal nature of MMOs. The world in WoW is constantly evolving, with patches and expansion packs, new areas and races being added etc which is always interesting and fun to keep up with. With willingness to immerse yourself, the world is diverse and evolving all around you, manifesting interesting several in-game phenomenon, lingo, jokes etc. A good example of the temporal nature of the world is the Feast of Winter Veil that occurs in-game at the end of the real year in conjunction with Christmas. At this time the world (mostly the main cities) are decorated with Christmas trees, decorations, presents, snow men, NPCs wearing Santa hats, and all sorts of special pets, items and quests are temporarily available. I found it most interesting when I spent a week in San Fransisco last Christmas, and the city had a very similar feel and appearance to the Feast of Winter Veil, oozing with festive spirit and merriment.

Having stopped playing for years now, I am still reminded of the temporal reality of WoW. Talking to a friend with whom I used to play WoW, he is always telling me how much the world has changed and developed. I recently discovered that another friend of mine now plays WoW, and he seemed impressed that I played "pre BC" (Burning Crusade - the first expansion pack), as if it had some subcultural capital value of authenticity and originality. This is exactly the 'back in the day' nostalgia that Kevin was referring to, "normal people call it pre-BC", my friend told me, "idiots call it vanilla."