World of Warcraft Dissertation Research
23/02/09/ Avatar One: Lomadia (Night Elf, Druid)
I was always interested in gaming, especially games with imaginative and impressive graphics, and always wanted to experiment with them, though my busy routine doesn’t usually allow me the time to do so! When I started playing World of Warcraft. I began by choosing my realm and creating my first avatar. I found this really exciting and much preferable to the initial experiences of Second Life, which were slow in getting started and quite hard to get to grips with in comparison. World of Warcraft is exciting, providing you with options to choose your character, first horde or allience, then which race (for example night elf- dwarf, human, gnome, draenei, undead, orcs, tauren, trolls and blood elves).
For my avatar I chose a night elf, on the allience, with the class of a druid, because I have always loved the fantasy genre and in particularly elves. If I could be anything that wasn’t human, it would be an elf or an elven like being. I refined her appearance to look feminine yet strong, with bright hair, clothes and skin. I chose the druid class because I liked the idea of druids being healers and able to cure wounds and poisons! They are also masters of the wild, and have the ability to shape-shift into an animal (such as a great bear, cat or even sea lion) in a later stage of the game. I named my avatar Lomadia, which is my name translated into elvish. I used to use the name as my alias online and felt it was appropriate to bring it back as my elven character ☺
It took me a while to make my choices, but I thought I would have more fun as this character as she appealed to me the most and I like her characteristics, qualities and looks better than the other options. Even though there was less freedom than Second Life - I preferred it. The fantasy characters could more easily take you to a new place and be an entirely new being.
As I am not much of a gamer I was surprised how much I liked the game from the beginning. I loved the music and environment, and began in a place that reminded me of Lord of the Rings Rivendell, it felt like I was roaming around in the film!!
I discovered there much was freedom in WoW to explore and complete tasks as you please. I began by finding the quest givers and slowly explored and completed quests, delivering messages and fighting creatures to build up my defence and skills.
Every time a task was completed I received rewards such as armour or food. I always found the rewards came just the right time when I was starting to get bored or wanted to something to happen, and they would provided me with such a sense of achievement that I would keep playing, wanting to win more!
The improvement was quick and I increased in several levels. I even died a few times but was brought to life by another elf, and the other times I had to explore the dead world and find my corpse to bring myself alive.
I came back to World of Warcraft for a few more sessions over the next few days. The game didn’t stay in my head, but when I sat at the computer it was nice to take a break from my other work and play for an hour or two. I was surprised by how much I liked it and could see how quickly the game was to get involved with, especially with such quick progression.
The game did feel like it had much more purpose with the knowledge that all the other players around me were real people playing and training too, however I felt no need to talk to anyone. I think the communication will come later in the game when players fight together in teams.
14/03/09 Avatar Two: Zorgleaf (Undead, Mage)
Unfortunately my first free trial ran out before I could get much further, so I set up another account on a friend’s computer, to experiment with creating a new character. In order to see a new environment and test whether I could get on with playing as a new character, I chose to play as an Undead Mage, which I called Zorgleaf. I liked the zombie scary look to the undead and I liked the sound of the mage’s strong fighting skills - using the elements to neutralise their enemies.
I enjoyed my second round of WoW even more and found I had got to grips with a better technique of game play, and didn’t get killed as much. I had multiple tasks on the go at the same time, and was at level 4 in no time at all, collecting armour and building up my skills rapidly.
As I was better as my new character, I had more fun playing as her. Therefore, if I was to continue to play, I would probably try out new characters to see which one I had more fun with. - From my experiences there is more room for identity play here and it is much more common to play as multiple characters in WoW than Second Life. This is because the focus is more on the game play and the attributes of the characters that contribute to this, rather than creating your ideal body image or exploring your dreams and desires.
An example of one of the first tasks I received is as follows:
The mindless ones: We forsaken are at war with the lich kings army of the scourge:
necromantically raised armies of the undead, foul beasts of the north, and tormented spectres.The northern part of the village has become overrun with the Mindless Ones, and they must be destroyed. former brothers and sisters as they might be. The fallen are nothing but The Lich King's slaves.
Quest objectives: Shadow priest sarvis wants you to kill 8 Mindless Zombies and 8 Wretched Zombies.
Rewards: You will be able to choose one of these rewards - flax gloves, battered cloack n 17 coins.
Each task, character and everything about the game draws you into its interactive narrative, and the more you get involved in the narrative and understand the purpose of your game play objectives, the more you want to play.
I was also challenged to duels regularly by the players around me, which made me more aware of the people I was playing with and against. I noticed the competitive nature of the game much more the second time around, which is another reason why people are compelled to play so often. I wanted to take more screenshots of my batters and quests but unfortunately my friend’s computer was old and it wouldn’t work, so all I managed to get was the profile above.
I played several times until I found the game getting harder, and I came to an area where too many creatures and players were attacking me that I didn’t have the skills or level to compete with. After so long of not achieving a higher level I felt a bit bored and frustrated and had to stop.
However I would definitely keep playing if it wasn’t subscription based, but will still consider playing after I have finished my second free trial. After conversations with other players I was intrigued to build up my characters to see the rest of the world and the scale of the bigger battles, though I don’t think I would have the patience or the competitive drive to keep playing to keep up my skills and keep up with others around me.
I was always interested in gaming, especially games with imaginative and impressive graphics, and always wanted to experiment with them, though my busy routine doesn’t usually allow me the time to do so! When I started playing World of Warcraft. I began by choosing my realm and creating my first avatar. I found this really exciting and much preferable to the initial experiences of Second Life, which were slow in getting started and quite hard to get to grips with in comparison. World of Warcraft is exciting, providing you with options to choose your character, first horde or allience, then which race (for example night elf- dwarf, human, gnome, draenei, undead, orcs, tauren, trolls and blood elves).
For my avatar I chose a night elf, on the allience, with the class of a druid, because I have always loved the fantasy genre and in particularly elves. If I could be anything that wasn’t human, it would be an elf or an elven like being. I refined her appearance to look feminine yet strong, with bright hair, clothes and skin. I chose the druid class because I liked the idea of druids being healers and able to cure wounds and poisons! They are also masters of the wild, and have the ability to shape-shift into an animal (such as a great bear, cat or even sea lion) in a later stage of the game. I named my avatar Lomadia, which is my name translated into elvish. I used to use the name as my alias online and felt it was appropriate to bring it back as my elven character ☺
It took me a while to make my choices, but I thought I would have more fun as this character as she appealed to me the most and I like her characteristics, qualities and looks better than the other options. Even though there was less freedom than Second Life - I preferred it. The fantasy characters could more easily take you to a new place and be an entirely new being.
As I am not much of a gamer I was surprised how much I liked the game from the beginning. I loved the music and environment, and began in a place that reminded me of Lord of the Rings Rivendell, it felt like I was roaming around in the film!!
I discovered there much was freedom in WoW to explore and complete tasks as you please. I began by finding the quest givers and slowly explored and completed quests, delivering messages and fighting creatures to build up my defence and skills.
Every time a task was completed I received rewards such as armour or food. I always found the rewards came just the right time when I was starting to get bored or wanted to something to happen, and they would provided me with such a sense of achievement that I would keep playing, wanting to win more!
The improvement was quick and I increased in several levels. I even died a few times but was brought to life by another elf, and the other times I had to explore the dead world and find my corpse to bring myself alive.
I came back to World of Warcraft for a few more sessions over the next few days. The game didn’t stay in my head, but when I sat at the computer it was nice to take a break from my other work and play for an hour or two. I was surprised by how much I liked it and could see how quickly the game was to get involved with, especially with such quick progression.
The game did feel like it had much more purpose with the knowledge that all the other players around me were real people playing and training too, however I felt no need to talk to anyone. I think the communication will come later in the game when players fight together in teams.
14/03/09 Avatar Two: Zorgleaf (Undead, Mage)
Unfortunately my first free trial ran out before I could get much further, so I set up another account on a friend’s computer, to experiment with creating a new character. In order to see a new environment and test whether I could get on with playing as a new character, I chose to play as an Undead Mage, which I called Zorgleaf. I liked the zombie scary look to the undead and I liked the sound of the mage’s strong fighting skills - using the elements to neutralise their enemies.
I enjoyed my second round of WoW even more and found I had got to grips with a better technique of game play, and didn’t get killed as much. I had multiple tasks on the go at the same time, and was at level 4 in no time at all, collecting armour and building up my skills rapidly.
As I was better as my new character, I had more fun playing as her. Therefore, if I was to continue to play, I would probably try out new characters to see which one I had more fun with. - From my experiences there is more room for identity play here and it is much more common to play as multiple characters in WoW than Second Life. This is because the focus is more on the game play and the attributes of the characters that contribute to this, rather than creating your ideal body image or exploring your dreams and desires.
An example of one of the first tasks I received is as follows:
The mindless ones: We forsaken are at war with the lich kings army of the scourge:
necromantically raised armies of the undead, foul beasts of the north, and tormented spectres.The northern part of the village has become overrun with the Mindless Ones, and they must be destroyed. former brothers and sisters as they might be. The fallen are nothing but The Lich King's slaves.
Quest objectives: Shadow priest sarvis wants you to kill 8 Mindless Zombies and 8 Wretched Zombies.
Rewards: You will be able to choose one of these rewards - flax gloves, battered cloack n 17 coins.
Each task, character and everything about the game draws you into its interactive narrative, and the more you get involved in the narrative and understand the purpose of your game play objectives, the more you want to play.
I was also challenged to duels regularly by the players around me, which made me more aware of the people I was playing with and against. I noticed the competitive nature of the game much more the second time around, which is another reason why people are compelled to play so often. I wanted to take more screenshots of my batters and quests but unfortunately my friend’s computer was old and it wouldn’t work, so all I managed to get was the profile above.
I played several times until I found the game getting harder, and I came to an area where too many creatures and players were attacking me that I didn’t have the skills or level to compete with. After so long of not achieving a higher level I felt a bit bored and frustrated and had to stop.
However I would definitely keep playing if it wasn’t subscription based, but will still consider playing after I have finished my second free trial. After conversations with other players I was intrigued to build up my characters to see the rest of the world and the scale of the bigger battles, though I don’t think I would have the patience or the competitive drive to keep playing to keep up my skills and keep up with others around me.