Just when I thought I was out they pull me back in.
Up until about six months ago I was an avid World of Warcraft player. I didn’t play everyday, and certainly not every hour of my free time like some people do, but I played enough and was good enough that I saw much of the end game raiding content that only the most serious players see.
Then I got burnt out and decided to quit.
I sold my level 70 Paladin character, Zeusjones, for $325. Officially, selling a Warcraft character is against game policy. So what you technically sell are the hours you’ve invested to level a character. Selling him was my first big step towards quitting. A few months after I sold him, I cancelled my account.
Recently, the Wrath of the Lich King expansion pack came out. Among Warcraft players, this was a highly anticipated event. I didn’t pre-order it. I didn’t have the date marked on my calendar, or like others I used to play with, schedule time off work so I could level my character(s) to the new level cap of 80 as quickly as possible. The launch date for the expansion passed uneventfully for me.
Then the IMs and phone calls started.
Everyone I used to play with in the game wanted to let me know how great the expansion content was. They regaled me with detailed descriptions of how cool it would be to ride together on mechanized mounts and battle with siege engines. One of the people I played the most often with put it simply: “All I’m gonna say is, remember how much fun we used to have?”
So I caved in and bought the expansion. And I discovered a few interesting things.
First, there is a new “organization” in game called D.E.H.T.A., which stands for “Druids for the Ethical and Humane Treatment of Animals.” An obvious P.E.T.A. spoof, D.E.H.T.A. is a group that penalizes you in a certain area of the game if you kill the innocent creatures that are running around.
Many of you will recall that a year and a half or so ago we here at Zeus Jones released a viral Warcraft video in which an imaginary group called T.E.T.A.A., or Toons for the Ethical Treatment of Ambient Animals, lobbies World of Warcraft players to stop the slaughter of the innocent creatures running around in the game. I can’t say if Blizzard, the creators of Warcraft, were influenced by the video, it could just be coincidence. If they were inspired by our video, I think that is awesome.
One of our goals at the beginning of Zeus Jones was to influence pop culture, and even though Warcraft is far from pop culture, its been around for about five years and is around 10 million players strong. If someone from Blizzard reads this and can comment on the origin and inspiration for D.E.H.T.A., I would appreciate it.
The next thing I discovered was related to online identity. After installing the expansion, I quickly proceeded to the new area of the game with my level 70 Hunter. Until I sold Zeusjones, my hunter was what was referred to in the game as an “alt.” An alt is an alternate character who you spend less time playing. Many people play alts when they are bored with their main character or just want to try out some of the other character classes in the game.
However, my alt had become my main, and he wasn’t named Zeusjones, which I found out messed with all my friends heads. It turns out that for many of the people I’d become friends with in the game, I was Zeusjones. A few of them told me, “I don’t care I’m still going to call you Zeus.” One of them started calling me by my real name instead of my new character’s name, which no one every does in the game. That even weirded me out.
So after discovering my Warcraft identity was firmly entrenched as “Zeusjones”, I did the only thing that I could. I got a new main.
I paid to transfer a character that I had left discarded on a sever I no longer played on. Then I paid to rename him Zeusjones.
I felt a collective sigh of relief from my Warcraft social network. I was greeted with lots of “He’s back!” Strangely the reception I thought I would get when I renewed my account didn’t actually come until I’d taken the extra step of renewing my old identity as well.
We see more and more in the news these days about the seriousness of people’s online identities. People are charged in Scandinavia for theft from and harassment of people’s online personalities. A couple in the U.K. who met and got married in Second Life are now getting divorced because she caught him having sex in the game with another person. Who better to understand that virtual cheating is really cheating than someone who forged their relationship in that same virtual world in the first place?
So am I glad Zeusjones is back? You bet. It is fun. It is like it used to be. At least for now. Who knows what type of character Zeusjones will be in his next incarnation? Maybe even an Alliance character.
Nah, I’d rather fight than switch.
Adam Ronich Says:
November 26th, 2008 at 11:55 amWith 11MM gamers online WOW is doing something right, especially when most of us talk about the game like it’s an addiction. As a planner it’s fascinating to think about game theory and it’s potential to motivate and change behavior.
Playing WOW has also reinforced some of my branding beliefs as well. Like the power of momentum (Gerzema is calling it Energized Differentiation these days), which is constantly innovating and moving forward. WOW frequently releases patches that add new content to the game, as well as changing the abilities of it’s characters, keeping things new and fresh. I believe that people don’t want static brands or experiences these days.
WOW is very transparent. You can go to the forums on the website and comment on how the game should be better. On these forums “blues” (game designers) will actually comment and engage in the debate, often acting when enough users are demanding change.
You can personalize the gaming experience. There is a community of programmers that make addons to the game that players download to customize their UI, so the game looks and plays like you want. WOW encourages this and supports it.
They have scale. I believe the strength of MMORPGs, and social networking sites for that matter, lie in the number of subscribers. The utility of this is if you don’t have enough players the gaming experience suffers greately, the ecosystem never really takes over and you can’t experience all the content. Bigger picture as human beings we want to be part of something bigger. We want to belong. 11MM people is now motivation enough.
Lastly, and we were just talking about this online yesterday, online connections are real connections. I’ve been reading a bit about object-centered sociality lately. The game is just the shared interest here. Typically in WOW you buy the game. Do your own thing for a while. Achieve some success. Then you join a guild to experience the end game content. You start making friends, because you have this shared interest. Your guild has a website where you share stories and lolcats and whatever else. You start talking to each other in game with things like Ventrilo. Slowly relationships build, and these are real relationships. In fact, this is what keeps the majority of people playing the game as long as they do. Giving up the game is easy. Walking away from friends isn’t. It’s a symbiotic relationship of the game supporting these communities, and the communities supporting the game.
Holy cow, this was a big block of text. In short, WOWs success is a result of an awesome game and the fact that they act like a truly modern brand.
Adam – Brand Planner
Brotherman lvl 80 Shadow Priest – Dethecus
Eric Says:
November 26th, 2008 at 12:10 pmAdam- Very well said. I couldn’t agree more.
I think of everything you’ve said here anytime a new MMORPG is touted as a “WoW-Killer.” It takes a long time for a game like WoW to mature, and no title that is newly released will be able to compete with it out of the gate.
Blizzard has done a great job of listening to the community, and responding with both new content and small tweaks that make the experience that much better.
I agree that the investment on the part of player/developers to create mods is something that is unique and of huge value to the game. I know it makes my experience a lot better.
Thanks for your response. Hopefully we’ll cross paths in Azeroth one day.
-Eric
Andy LeMay Says:
December 1st, 2008 at 12:40 pmNice post. Thought of you guys when I first hit the DEHTA stuff in Borean, but when you mentioned grabbing the xpac, I figured I’d let you find it yourself because that’s more fun
In the rush to 80, we have a lot of people who are taking the opportunity to change their main characters, level up new characters, etc. Everyone is still being referred to by their pre-xpac raiding character’s name, and some of our people will forever be known by their original vanilla WoW character’s name, which is interesting. Most of the player comments in the guild tab are there to identify someone’s current character with their original character’s name. I guess 4 years of calling someone something on Ventrillo makes a bit of an impact.
Sadly, I’ve recently realized that 7/8 Tier 6 and what was previously best in slot Sunwell gear isn’t even good enough to heal level 80 heroics, so it’s back to farming level 80 blues and starting the whole process again.
Regarding the link between virtual and real worlds, I have a real-life rendering of my character in T6 glory coming my way via figureprints.com – no surprise that they have to lottery the opportunity to have a character rendered, because the demand for tangible representation of something you’ve put so much time into is outpacing their ability to create characters. The quality isn’t even that good, but sometimes it’s nice to be able to TOUCH something.
Eric Says:
December 1st, 2008 at 3:35 pmWow, that is awesome. When I get Zeusjones leveled up to 80 and in decent gear I’ll have to try to get a figure of him made for the office!