In the Shade of Deathwing - about those things we normally try not to think about

We’ve reached the end of this post-Blizzcon week and I’ve noticed a couple of pieces of news that I could have reflected over together with our Friday night pint here at the inn.

The announced arrival of Deathwing, for instance. Lucky those who will get fried in his fire! One commenter at MMO-Champion figured out that the chances to be on the right spot in the right time could be as low as 2 percent. I hope he didn’t have a clue about what he was talking about.

But I’ll leave this and the other potential topics for now, because something else came up, namely a blog post by Aurdon. It brought tears into my eyes when I read it and I couldn't get it out of my head ever since. So I'll deal with it the way that bloggers do it: I write. It usually helps.

I'll tell you right from the start that this post will on the serious side, so if you have a problem with this kind of discussions and prefer your WoW blog experience to be lighthearted and merry, since you're here to escape the crap in your RL rather than talk about it, I suggest that you take your pint and move over to the other corner of the inn. Why don't you read an old post or visit my neighbour blogs? I can hear the happy banter and there's laughter and silliness in the air. It's totally OK to leave and I don't blame you if you don't want to go serious tonight.

For you who choose to stay though, I'm going to talk a bit about Aurdon's post even if it might bring up some sad or even painful emotions, thoughts and memories. Be warned. This will be a post about things that we normally try not to think about, and if we do it, we keep it to ourselves.

The death of a guild member
Aurdon tells the story about what recently happened to his guild, as they lost one of their long time guild members. When they logged on after the weekend, it turned out that he had died, all of a sudden.

It's quite rare that you hear about players dying, but it happens. Of course it does; with 12 million players over the world, it's to be expected, even if I suppose that the community is fairly young compared to the entire population. Sometimes the dead players get honoured with memorial posts in the official forums, or there will even be special arrangements on their home servers, like this memorial walk that Pike wrote about a couple of years ago.

Occasionally as I see those stories, a thought flies through my head: what if it was me that died? Or as I put the question in a blog post from 2008: If I die for real, will anyone notice?, where I wrote about the rift that goes between my life in Azeroth and my real life. No one but me knows my password to WoW, no one in my family knows how to get in touch with my guild, and if they did I doubt they'd care about it anyway, since "it's just a game". No one outside of the WoW/MMO community knows about this blog. Some game and blogger friends know my real name, but unless I died in such a very spectacular way that it would become news, I can't see how the people I see in WoW ever would learn about that I've died.

They would notice that I suddenly was gone, without giving any notice, and a few might be a bit concerned, knowing that it's very much unlike me. But would they be worried enough to actually take action and try to contact my family? Or would they be reluctant to break into my private sphere?

From a logical point of view I suppose it wouldn't matter to me either way, after all I'd be dead and wouldn't know. Still: somehow it bothers me a little to leave people hanging; it's as if someone had tore away the final pages of a novel. We want to know how it ended.

Not thinking about death
Aurdon's guild learned about what had happened, but I wonder if that is the normal case. Probably I'm not the only one to keep my lives apart. Could it be that players and bloggers who have vanished from my horizon without any apparent reason, actually have died?

We prefer to find up other explanations. We assume they've just quit playing WoW, maybe they've uninstalled the game and quit cold turkey style since that was the only way they could do it? Maybe they just wanted a fresh start, so the named changed and moved to another server? That's what we tell ourselves, since we don't like the idea that something bad could have happened. Because if our fellow players turn out to be mortal, it implies the same about us and that's something we'd rather not think about.

But in the end I think that avoidance and refusal to acknowledge the existence of death is a bad strategy. I come to think of a story about the Swedish author Astrid Lindgren. As she grew old, it's been told that she used to begin her telephone calls to her sister with the words: "The Death, The Death, The Death". And with that topic out of the way they were ready to talk about other things.

Call the ghosts by their names, look them right into their eyes, and they'll be less scary.

And that's why I find myself talking about death on a Friday night rather than about raids instances and class nerfs, and you'll have to excuse me if I'm rambling a bit. It's not an easy topic to write about and now comes the part when it gets even more difficult.

A guild in shock
I'll go back to where I started, with Aurdon. His guild member didn't die from an accident. He committed suicide, and in his post Aurdon describes how deeply this has affected him as well as the guild. None of them had seen it coming.

"He was just as active in the guild as I and he participated in our voice chat like anyone else. In fact he was on the day before with no signs that would suggest anything was wrong. It’s an odd feeling knowing that he’ll never log in again. None of us knew he was feeling this way."

I can imagine the shock, the loss, the disorientation, the confusion you can feel in such a situation. And maybe some guilt too, even if it's not justified at all. In this way it's probably not much different to lose a guild member this way than it is to lose a real life friend or colleague. All those questions, hanging in the air. Why didn't we see this coming? Why didn't he talk to us, confide himself? We would have been there for him. Could we have done something to prevent this?

What makes it a bit different to a guild than to a circle of real life friends is the distance barrier, the fact that most of us never meet in real life. When you need to hug someone, you'll will have to settle with an emote. And even if a virtual emote can carry a lot of meaning, it doesn't bring you the physical feeling of another warm body and you can't help someone else wipe their tears. At the most you'll hear them over vent. It's not an easy situation to deal with.

How to handle it
Sometimes Azeroth becomes a shelter or a bubble, a place where we can relax and regenerate or simply kill our pain for a while; it can help us to cope better with issues we have in real life. But when the bubble bursts and the pain is right where you are, in the middle of the game, where else can you go?

There are ever so many brilliant guides out there, covering almost any aspect of WoW you could think of. But I've never heard of any guide to what a guildmaster should do in this situation. I suppose there just isn't any "correct" way of doing this. It's one of those things you have to improvise, letting your gut feeling take the lead.

Aurdon's guild decided to honor his memory by restructuring the ranks. The player and his alt were set to the highest awarded rank of "Rest in peace".

Another thing they did was to not shy away from talking about what had happened. Aurdon was informed immediatley about it by his guild master, as soon as he logged on. And then he blogged about it, and even if it mostly was for his own sake, I'm sure it helps the entire guild in this situation. Not everyone is capable of putting their feelings into words. It can be a relief when someone else does it so you can recognize yourself and maybe get a release for your own tears.

Aurdon ends his post turning directly to his guildie:

“I don’t know if you felt you would be missed or not but you are. I didn’t know you as well as I could have and I’m sure you could say the same about me. I can’t help but imagine that you might have felt your action would not have impacted those that didn’t know you so well. If so you were wrong. I am saddened by your choice and wish I had the chance to know you better. My thoughts and prayers go out to all those you left behind. You are missed.”

Aurdon decided to disable comments on his post, since he felt that all had been said. So before I wrote this post, I contacted him and told him about my plans.

He wrote back to me:

"You have my full permission to send anyone who might benefit from my post on over. Part of the post was simply for me to get it off my chest what I would have said to him and the other part was to reach out to others who might be struggling with the same issues. I barely knew the guy beyond his avatar and voice on voice chat but his decision impacted me quite deeply. That's the message I want people to know. You may feel small, unloved, insignificant, etc but there is always people who care about you."

Not scared of the abyss
People decide to end their lives for various reasons. Sometimes they know very well that there are other people around who care about them deeply, people who would do anything in their power to help if they could, but they go through with their decision anyway. "All you need is love" is a wonderful line, but unfortunately it's not entirely true, not for everyone.

Knowing all this, I will still second Aurdon. If someone around me, in the game and the blogosphere, carries this kind of thoughts and feelings and wants to share it, this pink pigtailed gnome is old and strong enough to listen. I can't guarantee that I'll say something incredibly wise that will make you change your mind - probably I won't. I'm as lost at the question of life and universe and everything as everyone else. But at least, know this: I don't shy away from darkness. The abyss doesn't scare me. And that's why I'm writing this post in the first place.

It's close to midnight and it's been raining for so long that I've forgotten when it started. Was it today or the day before? And where did this post begin? Oh yes, Deathwing. I made a silly remark and thought I wouldn't talk about him, but thinking closer about it, haven't I been doing that all night, talking about Deathwing?

He's coming for us, sweeping in over our lands the minute we last expect it. We can live many years, never seeing him closer than as a shadow in the distance, and we tell ourselves it was just a bird, or he's in the next village, and who cares about those people? Not our problem. If we even mention him, we laugh him away. But he's lurking in the shadows and he won't disappear no matter how much we pretend and when he grabs our friends, our families, our guildies, they won't come running back from the graveyard like they do in the game, as if nothing had happened. Death is death is death.

Candles

I'm running out of words, at last. So I'll just move a bit closer to the fire and sit here for a while in the silence, alone and yet in company.

This is for all of you who have lost someone you cared about as he or she decided to put an end to life. For all the thoughts and words in this post, for all my effort, I don't think I ever fully can understand what you've gone through. But I'm trying to. I'm not afraid of the darkness. Not a bit.

I've got candles.

Why they won’t announce the new MMO at Blizzcon – and a flashback to 2001

Wolfshead wrote a pretty convincing post about why we should expect an announcement about Blizzard’s new MMO at Blizzcon. But just as he pushed the “publish” button, Blizzard’s chief operating officer Paul Sam spoke up in an article in Forbes, where he denied that there will be such an announcement.

Even if it wasn’t for that quote, I must say that I doubt that Blizzard would pick Blizzcon as their arena for such an announcement.

I can totally understand the speculation from a fan point of view. You wish they would do this, that they would put such a huge value into their fan community that they would give them first hand VIP access, telling their friends before tehy told anyone else.

Imagine yourself being in the audience at the opening cerimony. Imagine how they turn down the lights and BAM the screen lits up and you’re thrown into a cinematic that blows you away, and you are the first one to experience it and people will stand up and gasp and applause and…..

OK, stop. That’s enough. Realize: it’s just the wet dream of a fan boy. It's not the way those things normally work.

I know I’m sticking out my neck, and that I might be proven wrong in just a few days, and if I am, please, please go ahead and mock me as much as I deserve.

But, if you ask me, Blizzard will rather make there announcement in a different setting, probably at some important international game expo/convention, which will attract a wide range of media coverage from all over the world – not only the gaming press, but also investors. Just because fans like put a huge importance to Blizzcon, it doesn’t mean that the entire gaming industry is circling around it.

Wolfshead’s article made me curious about what it looked like the last time Blizzard made an announcement like this, more precisely on September 2, 2001, as they first revealed their plans for World of Warcraft. Apparently they did it at a press conference at the European Computer Trade Show, taking place in London, which is something different from a convention directed at Blizzard fans.

Development in full swing
But let’s leave the place for announcement for a moment and ponder a little bit more about what their next MMO could be like. There are a couple of tickling lines in the Forbes interview. According to Sam, the size of the team working on the game is close to the size of the team working on WoW, more than 140 employees, and the project development is in “full swing”:

“The product is something we think is going to redesign the way these type of games are looked at”.

Is this just a cliché that game producers say about just any crap they’re about to launch just because it’s expected from them? Is this a hype, some empty promises, nothing we should pay attention to? The answer would probably be “yes” if it wasn’t for the fact that WoW is what it is. For all the bashing Blizzard gets for dumbing down, for selling out the potential of the MMO genre and whatnot, I still think they have a reputation that is solid enough to create huge expecations.

I’m trying hard to imagine what new aspect they’re going to bring to the table, but I must admit that I fail badly, probably due to lack of overall gaming knowledge.

I reckon we’re still talking about something you’re playing with a computer, in front of a screen, using a mouse and a keyboard, being connected to other players by some world wide servers? Sure, I dream about playing the holo deck for real one day, but we aren’t quite there yet, are we?

A look at the announcement 2001
In my search for the circumstances around the first announcement I stumbled upon an article, written in September 2001 by the signature “Rushter”, published at the website Incgamers, which gives a perspective on what kind of "revolution" we possibly could expect.

It contains an in-depth coverage from the crowded press conference, which was given for specially invited reporters. Rushter gives a detailed eyewitness report, including details like the “poor sods had to be content with pressing their faces against the windows to catch a glimpse” The quotes by the Blizzard manager, Bill Roper is an interesting read, as a documentation of what was on their mind at that time.

What I find most fascinating though, is to see how the author enthusiastically highlights certain features of WoW, which were great improvements at that time, but we take for granted now. Reading this, I ask myself: will the new secret MMO do the same thing again, but at a higher level? In what way? Is there something in the current game that I hate, possibly without even knowing it, that the new game will “fix?

And: will I be as pumped up about the secret MMO as it’s announced as Rushter was when he got his first glimpse of WoW?

Below, I’ll give you a bunch of samples from the article from 2001 just to give you an idea, but if you’re as intrigued by it as I am, I suggest you read it in its full length.

About the environment

“Our characters started in an area called Westfall, a devastated farmland that was once part of the Human Kingdom and has become run-down and over-run by thieves. We stood in the middle of a wheat field looking out onto an absolutely stunning ocean. (You may have seen the impressive lighthouse in the gameplay video that was released). We noticed the sun was rising and were pointed to the little clock in top right of the interface that shows the current time in the world. You could see the movement on the water with the waves as the sun beams streamed across it. The sky looked stunning.

As we stood in the World of Warcraft for a few moments and soaked up the breathtaking scenery, it was evident that Blizzard wants gamers to feel they have been transported to a completely new fantasy world. A place that is full of rich vibrant colours where buildings and trees are exaggerated and not photo-realistic.”

About combat

"We marched through the field until we came across our first enemy in the world, a Harvest Golum which was patrolling the field. These burly mechanical creatures plod round the farmlands, guarding the crop. When we held the mouse over the Golum our cursor icon changed red which meant our option was to attack. The Golum approached and we engaged in combat. The status of combat is all shown on screen so if you hit a small tag will rise indicating how much damage you have inflicted or indeed if you missed. What this means is that combat status won’t be spamming the chat window and the actual combat is easier to follow.

When you attack you click once and your character will continue attacking until the target is dead, or your character of course. This allows you time to cast spells and even change equipment. "

About travelling

"It was time to move on to a new area with the use of teleport scrolls from our inventory where each one would take you to a different location. Teleport scrolls were created for the purpose of the demo and may not appear in the final game. We asked if there would be other modes of transport other than foot. At the start of the game when the character is low level, on foot will be the main way of getting around. Bill Roper then said that there will be other ways to get around the game world but these have yet to be decided. Now wouldn’t a horse be cool we suggested?:) "

About zone transitions

"We approached a trader who issued a quest to find the Treebeast and assemble a weapon called the Firestar, a mythical sword. You can then accept the quest and begin your journey. We were close to a new area called Darkshire and it was here we saw the transition between two very different areas of the game. As we moved towards and over a bridge Darkshire loomed ahead. Our hero crossed the threshold into Darkshire and our world changed dynamically. The trees became thicker and the sky ominous and overcast. This was one of the most impressive moments in the game. The transition was seamless, as were the environmental changes, the light, textures and clouds. All this changed with the help of Blizzard’s procedural skies and procedural lighting to great effect. We stopped just inside the Darkshire boundary and looked back. Beyond the edge of the murky forest we looked back from where we came and could see the sun hitting the ground, it was like looking into another world."

About item management

"A feature that we really liked was the ability to move an item, whether it be armour or a weapon, into your inventory and the game will automatically move it onto the correct spot on the body as long as it’s not already occupied. In other words you don’t have to place armour directly on the body, the game is intelligent enough to know that it’s armour so it will place it directly in the correct body slot, so it’s easy to ‘throw’ items on, making it quicker to change on the fly to suit your situation.

The backpack inventory can also be accessed without blocking the gaming environment which allows you the freedom to utilise items in your backpack without having to stop playing. "

About weapons

"We talked to one the NPC character who had issued us the quest to find the Firestar Sword. To complete the sword quest we handed over the pieces to have it assembled. Duly assembled, we took the sword and replaced the standard one we had been using. As the name suggests, subtle flames licked the edges of this gigantic blade as we stood defiant with our new toy. It was about 3 times the size of our previous sword, positively massive Blizzard is promising something rather special as far as weapon effects go. They want players to feel they have really achieved something when they complete a quest by having impressive looking items that will allow you to show off to other players in the game. "

A new standard
The author’s demo session ends in a place called “Stranglethon Jungle”:

“Again this area was very different to previous. More of a jungle with murky swamps and giant trees with overgrown foliage. We were placed new a small lake with a waterfall to the rear and paused for a moment to marvel at the realistic cascading waters. We stepped closer to the lake to watch the wee fish dart about just below the surface. There is a possibility that the final game will see characters with a swim ability, walking through shallow waters is also a possibility.”

And he concludes:

“As short as it felt, we saw three very different areas, all rich and packed with incredible detail. It is a world you will have no problem losing yourself in. It’s fantastical and exactly where Warcraft should be heading. If the character development, quest content, guild support, PvP aspect are nailed down then this will be the new standard for MMORPGs.”

It certainly did become a new standard. The question is: can Blizzard do the trick again, and if so, what will the new standard look like?

Hopefully we’ll get some answers in a not too far distant future. But probably not at Blizzcon, if you ask me.

What can Blizzard do to fight the phobia of inefficiency?

Have you noticed that Blizzard’s lead systems designer Ghostcrawler has gone into a frenzy mode on the forums recently?

Day and night he seems to be browsing them, looking for good discussion threads to participate in. Normal working hours won’t apply to him. He’s especially active during the weekends, when other people tend to try to spend some time with their family and friends or diving into their hobbies. If legendary yacht even exists, Ghostcrawler can’t see much of the sea, being too busy discussing with the players.

Did I ever say he is awesome? He really is.

The over-obsession
Anyway: in the stream of blue posts signed GC, a recent thread caught my attention. This discussion is about the new talent trees, about cookie-cutter specs and whether you really have any freedom to put your points wherever you like to, or if this freedom is imaginary, since so much ends up being mandatory.

Ghostcrawler talks about this at length and with a passion that gives me the impression that this isn’t just some ordinary mumbo-jumbo corporate speak, but that the guy actually is worried about certain parts of the game and that he’s tearing his hair because he doesn’t know what to do about it.

He is genuinely concerned about what he calls an over-obsession that the community has for cookie cutter specs.

“It's somewhat understandable because the WoW community has evolved in a direction where being badly informed is worse than being a bad player. We're all very quick to judge each other based on litmus tests, such as gear scores, achievements, or proper talent builds, that likely don't measure performance half as well as we want them to.”

One of the posters in this thread takes up a situation that I think many of us can recognize:

“The Devs may be correct, in theory, that we don't need to squeeze every last drop of DPS out of our talent trees to down bosses. But in practice, you try to get in a raid with a tree that sacrificed 1% DPS for some fun utility, and you don't get an invite. Why would the raid leader take someone that didn't even spec the "right way"? “

Exactly. If you’re just following the EJ recommendation to 99 percent and not to 100 percent you’re per definition perceived as a moron and a slacker, if not by everyone, at least by most other players.

And here’s Ghostcrawler’s reply:

"Posts like this make me very sad. You're portraying yourself to be at the mercy of uninformed yet tyrannical raid leaders who are quick to judge your performance based on perceived "tells." I know you need some basis to evaluate potential recruits or even pug members. But I do wish there was some way to turn around this virtual phobia of inefficiency -- this terror of being WRONG -- that we have managed to instill in our player base. I honestly think it's one of the greatest challenges facing the game."

Blizzard’s fault?
Did you see that? Ghostcrawler is taking the responsibility for the sad state of the player base. My spontaneous reaction is to say: “no, no, no!” Don’t blame yourself! You’re delivering a great game, if players are dumb jerks it’s not your fault!

But at a second thought I can see that he has a point. Blizzard has a reason to ask themselves why it turned out this way and what they could do about it.

The culture in the community, the atmosphere in the game, the ideals, the ethics, the core values, the attitudes in the player base won’t come out of nothing. It’s the result of a number of combined factors and in the end, gaming companies probably get the audience they deserve. Some of it comes from game design decisions, such as the introduction of the LFD feature, which changed the social structure completely. But it’s also related to out-of-game decisions. What information sources do you provide? How do you interact with the players and the community resources? Which market section is your main audience and how do you present your game to them?

The extreme min-maxing philosophy used to be something that just a tiny part of the playerbase cared a lot about, but nowadays it has spread much more widely, in a twisted form that doesn’t make sense, where players refuse to play with anyone who isn’t completely overgeared for an encounter.

This has nothing to do with understanding the basics of the game, which is a good thing. I’m not talking about concepts such as Gevlon’s recent guide for fresh level 80s. This is something else: it’s pure, uninformed, destructive and ridiculous snobbery that won’t create any better or happier players, only make the game less fun for everyone.

I’ll give the word to Ghostcrawler again, because he says it best:

“How many attempts can you name in your lifetime as a WoW player where your doing 1% more dps would have made the difference between success and failure? And how many of those attempts could you have gotten 10% more dps if you had just totally nailed your rotations etc. on those fights instead of worrying about a theoretical 1% dps gain from a different talent?

Every bit helps, totally. I'm not saying throw a dart board at talent trees and expect to be competitive. But at times it's a bit like stooping down to pick up pennies in the gutter because you're about to plunk down six figures on a house. Hey, that's one-one hundredth less dollar I have to pay. :)

Min-maxxing is fun. It's part of the game. Sometimes (more rarely than is claimed) it's even necessary for progression. Just keep it in perspective. It's probably not going to doom your attempt if you pick up a fun talent instead of a 1% dps increase. If the Saturday pug won't take you because you lack the anointed talent, you're probably better off not running with them.”

Turning around the phobia
Ghostcrawler says that turning around the phobia of efficiency is one of the greatest challenges they have and I believe him. It will be hard, not the least due to the fact that WoW is a fairly old and mature game. It’s easier to maintain an attitude of openness and innocent experimenting in a game that is new and not already analyzed down to the last percent. The information is already there. And the idea that you HAVE to take part of it and use every inch of it to be even a half-decent player is spread all over the place.

Is there really anything Blizzard can do about this? I can’t think of anything. But if you know the answer, please give Ghostcrawler a helping hand. He needs it. The game needs it.

The Generation Gap keeps us apart

There’s a generation gap in the blogosphere. It’s got nothing to do with physical age. You’ll find 40-year-olds as well as people in their late teens on each side of the gap.

No, this gap is about how long you’ve been around as an MMO player. Did you play in vanilla or did you join the party in Wrath? Or maybe you remember how things were back in the old days of EQ? This will settle on what side of the rift you’re standing.

It appears to me as if a majority of the bloggers – at least the ones that I read – belong to the veterans. And that explains why you see so many rants about how good things were back in the days and what a disappointing direction the development of the genre has taken.

I’ve read so many of those over the years. I could mention Wolfshead as one example, who recently brought up the topic again, eloquently pointing out in what ways EQ was way better than WoW. But he’s just one of many. We keep seeing it over and over again, the celebrations – or in some cases even worshipping - of the past and the complaints about how easy, shallow and dumb the games have become in order to cater to a wider audience.

Why it’s depressing
As someone who came comparatively late to the party, starting to play in TBC, I must admit that I often find those reads rather depressing, if ever so thoughtful and well put. Sometimes I wonder why I even read it. What good does it make me, a fairly new player, to hear that the game I love is complete rubbish and that it was much better a few years ago?

Maybe there should be a warning sign on them: “Do not read this post unless you played EQ or WoW vanilla”.

With the risk of sounding like a whiner, I’ll try to explain the feeling I get from those reads. It reminds me of when you’re seeing a bunch “friends”, who all have attended a party back in time that you weren’t invited to, and they just can’t stop talking about how good that party was and how the parties that are arranged nowadays never come near that in awesomeness. You try to listen politely, nodding here and there, but finally you’ve heard enough and would rather just not listen to their conversation anymore. You can’t relate to it, you have nothing to add, apart from that it sucks that you weren’t there. You’re an outsider and there really isn’t much point in hanging around. It’s probably a better idea to look up some other people who also missed the party, but who are looking forward to the next upcoming event and are happy to talk about this, with enthusiasm rather than contempt.

What adds to the pain of reading about everything was better back in time, is that the blame always is put on the fact that the MMO companies are aiming for a bigger market. It’s because they wanted to reach out to new players, find new audiences and turning non-gamers into gamers, that they have made the games “too mainstream and easy.”

As Syl wrote recently at the new blog Raging Monkeys:

Blizzard's increased endeavor to make the game more and more accessible and easy to play for a mass market audience, ever since halfway through TBC, has killed a lot of what I consider the 'soul' of the true MMORPG experience.

And from this it’s not a far step – at least if you’re Larísa and always looking out for a good reason to bash yourself – to conclude that it’s partly my fault that those veteran players are suffering so badly now. I’m a part of that mass market. I doubt that I would had found the way to an MMO, completely unexpectedly turning into a gamer at the age of 39, if it wasn’t for the fact that WoW in TBC was far more accessible than those old games ever were. Thanks to this new approach, Blizzard lured in my sister to it, who in her turn got me hooked.

But I can’t but assume that the veterans would have preferred to have their world and community the way it was: way smaller, way more streamlined, catering to a playerbase that wasn’t as diverse as it is today. No Larísas around would grant them a better game experience. This would also mean that they'd miss out the subscription fees from the mass market, which could mean less resources available for development and maintenance of a server structur. But I suppose it doesn't matter?

Fitting in?
I wrote a comment to the post along those lines (a tad whiny, I admit) and today I got a concerned letter from Klepsacovic, who tried to comfort me, asking me not to take it personal:

”No sane player is unhappy to have you in Azeroth. All our vanilla nostalgia is for a different world, and yes, different players, but I think you' d have fit in just fine. We weren't all farming 20 hours a day and buying gold to raid Naxx.

Sometimes you seem insecure about your rank in Azeroth. I can't quite see why. Your achievements speak for themselves. Look at the bloggers around you. How many are stuck somewhere on normal? How many have to buy their way into raids and abuse those around them just to stay afloat? You're elite! Just not arrogant.”

However kind and comforting this is, it doesn’t take away the feeling of being an outsider who doesn’t quite belong among the cool guys, the ones who were around as early as in EQ.

I replied to Klepsacovic:

"From the perspective of someone who wasn't there they're very excluding, aimed at a private club "we who played WoW when it was GOOD". It gives me a bitter taste in the mouth. No matter what efforts I make I will never ever qualify to become a member. [….]

The demographics of WoW has changed. They're aiming wider. And the result is that you get a bigger playerbase with more variety. There are way more players playing wow these days. Some of us are crap and noobs, yeah, maybe. But don't you see that we also can offer something? Would you rather have a very small hardcore game where everyone comes in the same shape, than the melting pot that the community is today?

I have yet to see a post that opens up its arms towards the players that have joined since TBC and forward, saying: "Hello there, we're glad you finally found us!"

I have yet to see a post that says that we enrich this world, bringing something into it that wasn't there before. That you're glad to have us here - even if it has meant that the game has changed, not requiring quite the same time commitment and previous gaming experience as it used to."

Building bridges?
I honestly don’t know if there is any way to build bridges over those gaps? I really can’t require bloggers to stop writing about their concerns and their longing back for a past time that can’t come back. Everyone is entitled to write whatever they want to.

They say that the first MMO you play will be your first love and that nothing ever will be the same like it. Well, we happen to have different objects for our affection. My first love wasn’t their first love and there’s nothing that can change this fact. It resembles a bit to filial imprinting.

Equally I understand that there are new player generations incoming. I can imagine that players who started out in Wrath can feel quite alienated when I keep going on and on about what a fantastic instance Karazhan was and that there has never been anything like it.

Maybe we’re doomed to stand on our little islands, preaching for ourselves and the other playes who belong to the same generation. Those who loved EQ and vanilla best will read each other blogs and lose themselves in nostalgia and feel awesome as they do this. The TBC babies should do the same. And next up are The Children of Wrath, who will assemble and talk about how good it was back in the days, when Cataclysm has come and “destroyed” their gameplay. Maybe we should just put a stamp on our blogs so it’s clear to everyone what to expect. EQ hugging, vanilla hugging or TBC hugging.

Still it appears a little sad to me. MMOs bring men and women together, old and young, rich and poor, people from very shifting backgrounds, disregarding of prejudices and forge friendships thanks to the game they have in common.

Shouldn’t we also be able to build over the generation gaps, embracing and honouring the origins as well as recognizing that every game will change and evolve over time?

I'll end this post with a comforting final remark that Klepsacovic sent me in antother letter:

"Everyone will find something that they were late for. I missed the first few months or so, so while I saw vanilla and the AQ gates and cool things like that, I never saw old old old AV. Yes, there was a version of AV even more hardcore than the one I played. Even if I'd been in WoW from day one, I missed the beta. And people in the beta missed EQ. And people in EQ weren't there for the old MUD days. And the MUD people missed the early table-top RPGs and playing chess by mail. And so on.

To find someone happy with their timing we'd have to go back to the guy who invented fun. I imagine he'd spend a lot of time complaining how casual fun is these days now that we don't live in caves and aren't regularly attacked by wolves.

I remember a friend telling me a story of WoW from like two months in where someone went a camped the newbie zones killing every quest givers, to get the noobs out of his game. What I'm trying to say is, don't worry when you joined. Everyone has missed something."

Food for thought as I’m calling for the Friday night toast. Veterans and newbies, you’re all welcome to join! At the inn we're one big happy family. At least that's what I'm aiming at.

Cheers!

(Psst all TBC babies out there! You have free drinks tonight, but don't tell those grumpy oldies, they'll just get whiny about it.)

PS After finishing this post I noted that Klepsacovic of course wrote a take of his own on our exchange of thoughts, answering some of the issues I bring up. Go ahead and read it in case you haven't.

Coming out as an older player in WoW

I’ve never ever lied about who I am in WoW.

I’ve never pretended to be younger than I am and I’ve never kept my gender a secret. Not that I walk around talking about it all the time uncalled for. There’s no reason to do it. But if someone puts the question I’ll answer truthfully.

You could wonder why. Why shouldn’t I enjoy the anonymity that WoW provides (to everyone who refuses Real ID)? It’s a role-playing game. I could take upon any role I wanted to and explore it to the fullest. I could pretend to be a 17 year old boy and see how far I could pull it before someone became suspicious. It would probably make it way easier to meld into parties, to become a worthy, accepted group member.

Now, don’t misunderstand me. I haven’t seen any examples of open age discrimination in WoW (apart from possibly guilds not letting in anyone younger than 18, but I don’t consider that discriminating in its true sense.) But being older than 40 certainly isn’t meriting. While I’ve often been accepted without anyone making a big issue out of it, I’ve got the feeling that there still are a few of the younger players who would get a bit suspicious or bothered at the thought of playing with folks who basically could be their parents or grandparents.

I can hear their thoughts: What are you really doing playing WoW at your age? Shouldn’t that lady rather play the real stock market than AH, knitting scarves rather than tailoring spellweave boots? Maybe you’re having a secret agenda. Maybe you’re some sort of spy or Peeping Tom? In any case you’re probably a terribad player, because we’ve all seen what happens when grown-ups are trying to pre-programme the video recorder. Better stay at a safe distance from the wicked granny.

Being that old lady
Let me tell you a story. This is something that happened to when I attended the Swedish Peace & Love rock festival a few days ago. I was there as one of some 40 000 visitors for two reasons: One was to keep an eye on my teenage girls and see that they had a good time and didn’t end up robbed, hurt, smashed drunk and even unconscious as some of their friends who were there on their own. A typical parent/grown-up reason. Yep. I’m that too!

The other reason was different though. I was there because I enjoy music and festivals and there were some pretty good bands playing there.

Most of the time I did like the rest of the older part of the audience: I watched it from the far back, away from the crowd, looking at the big screens that broadcasted it. But for one band I did an exception. I had seen them live before, I knew they were good and I wanted to do what I used to back in the days, joining the crazy frontlines. So while one of my daughters looked after my handbag, I squeezed myself into a spot if not in the first line, at least very close to the stage.

It was cramped, but for some reason my demands for a personal sphere fly out of the window at concerts. We were inhaling each others smell in the almost tropical heat, and if it wasn't for all the noise going on I could have heard the heartbeats from my neighbour. Just as it should be.

As we were waiting for the band to start, I heard a guy in the 20s calling on his gf:s attention.

“Pssst!” “Look over there!” Do you see that old lady”! “She’s standing right behind you. There, there! Do you see her?”

They were talking about me. I smiled at them and waved to acknowledge that I heard them perfectly well. They didn’t wave back though. Obviously they thought they were visiting a zoo and they had ruled out the possibility to communicate with someone as old as I was, long time ago.

A little bit later another guy standing next to me turned to me. But rather than just staring, he spoke up: “Excuse me ma’am, but may I ask you how old you are?”

He looked at me with curiosity, but his eyes showed either pity or contempt, so I answered him truthfully and we had a little conversation about what I was doing here. I told him that I just loved this band and gave me a little bit of information about my punkrocker background, sharing some concert memories from the past. He looked at me with appreciation and raised his hand to make a high five. And then we went back to where we were, trying to keep the masses pressing on from behind away from stealing our spots. A few minutes later the concert started and we lost ourselves in the music, singing, dancing, jumping, sweating – and we could have been 5 years old or 100 – it didn’t matter, because we were fans and that was all that mattered.

Messing up the generations
But afterwards I thought about it a little bit more. Something has happened with the generation gap. It isn’t what it used to be. Remember The Who’s “My Generation”? It was old was I grew up in the 80s, but it still felt relevant at that point and I loved it (I still do). But what about now? Are their still any generation barriers to talk about? We like the same rock bands. We dress alike. And we play the same computer games.

It’s almost as if I feel a bit sorry for the ones growing up today. Have they still got any secret hideout? A territory where they still can claim is their own, something that the older generations don’t access and don’t understand? I doubt it. And maybe they miss it. Don’t we all need to revolt a little in some phase of our lives? But how can you revolt if your mother’s friends enthusiastically are bouncing side by side with you in the audience or pugging the same raid boss with you? Are we in fact causing a them troubles, preventing the kids from a natural personal development?

Maybe that guy who just pointed at me like an animal was distressed at my presence, making his own concert experience less “cool”. You can’t love the same music as a grey haired old lady, can you? Perhaps I should leave those kids alone, staying in the background after all rather than bouncing with them? I don’t want to mess up their brains, do I?

My decision to come out
I was talking to myself back and forward. And then I recalled another performance I saw at the festival, the 63 year old Patti Smith, who managed to enchant everyone in the audience, regardless of age. She sang with authority and presence and as opposed to many other bands at the festival, her messages about peace, love and freedom were more than just a pose. She wasn’t 20 years old, face lifted, with big boobs, a short skirt and a mission to seduce. She was the woman she was, standing there on the stage – simple, strong, intelligent, successful and glowing. I was so glad that my daughters were there to see it, hopefully taking her performance to their hearts.

I thought to myself: this is what it’s about. Patti Smith doesn’t hide in the back. So why should I?

No matter how convenient it could be to pretend I’m a 17 year old boy in WoW, I refuse to.

My musical taste has developed a little further, I don’t bother to make my hair spiky anymore and I don't tear my clothes into pieces, but in my heart I’m probably still a little bit of a punkrocker. I don’t need anyone’s approval. Especially not from zoo visitors.

Life doesn’t automatically end at 30, 40, 50 or whatever. You don’t reach a magical zone where you suddenly ditch all your former passions to start to gather grown-up-points, doing adult things. Your physical body ages – yes. The pain in my Achilles tendon after the concert is a testimony of that. You get more money at your hands as well, so I spent the nights at the festival in a hotel bed, rather than enduring the hardships of the camping site. But in your mind and heart you can be just as old as you decide to be.

I hope that my presence in Azeroth – a 42 year old woman and mother of two – somehow can inspire others not to be so wary about their ageing.

It's easier to hide your age in WoW than standing in the audience at a rock concert. But regardless, I've chosen to come out.

Re: WoW is dying

Is there any existing game that has received as many death sentences as WoW? I doubt it. WoW has been "dying" almost since it was launched, if you would listen to the community.

For some reason players who leave WoW don't just silently cancel their subscriptions when they've decided to move on. Oh no. They feel compelled to make a Grand Exit, delivering the Breaking News that WoW, the most successful MMO ever released is on the verge of a Catastrophe and as a matter of fact is DYING. It is! It's just everyone else is blind to it. But now there will be a change to this, since finally someone dares to speak up, saying that the emperor that people are blind to it. Now there will be a change though, that someone FINALLY points out that the emperor isn't wearing anything at all.

If you look at the official forums there is always at least one of those "I'm leaving WoW so now it's dying" threads that is up for discussion. And the funny thing is that this has been the case for over three years now, if not more.

Dying back in 2007
Recently someone managed to dig up a post like this by bumping it in our realm forum. This thread dates back to April 2007 and is actually quite fun to read to a newbie like me. Some complaints about attunements are a bit outdated, while others, concerning lack of new content, easily could have been written 2010.

At the time this forum post was published, I had barely started to play WoW at all. I would believe I was somewhere around level 50, I had only seen a handful of five man instances and not even a fragment of what the game had to offer. It seemed like a magical, endless world to me, full of mysteries and unknown territories to explore. And I can assure you that the idea that this in fact was a dying game never crossed my mind.

But the poster apparently had thought a lot about it during the 280 played days he had at his main character. Which I must say was quite an achievement considering it's written back in April 2007. No wonder the poor guy got bored! I would like to see that game that wouldn't bore you with that excessive amount of playing over such a short time! He must have played almost every hour he was awake, apart from when he was sleeping and eating then. Was there even time to work?

So WoW has been dying since back in the beginning of 2007 and if you looked further I wouldn't be surprised if you could find even earlier rants like this. It honestly makes it a little bit difficult to take the similar labeled posts as by today with any huge amount of seriousness.

The sad thing is that some of those "WoW is dying" posts actually contain some pretty good and interesting analyses, which could provide food-for-thought in the future development. Therefore it's such a pity that those valid points disappears. If I was a Blizzard employee I'm pretty certain that a "WoW is dying" topic name would be enough for me to dismiss a post and put it in the trash bin.

Could it be true?
But let's change perspective for a second. Could there actually be something in this? After all, as I've mentioned before every brand, every product has a certain lifecycle and according to the theories they'll die eventually, unless you reinvest and revitalize them.

The world hasn't yet seen any computer game that could match Chess in longevity. WoW will have to die at some point, so why not now? And after all I've seen and mentioned the current lull in the game myself. It doesn't take a generous to see that many players are on a break now. How can you be so sure they'll come back for Cataclysm?

Well, the truth is of course a well kept secret at the Blizzard HQ. I don't know how much value you should put into what they told their shareholders at the meet-up they hold for the investors at E3 (which is available for anyone to listen to after registration). Of course they have every reason in the world to say that everything is just fine. If you go to the end of the recording, about 1.34, the Blizzard representative gets exactly this question. His answer is that they're optimistic since new content is coming this year and this is the biggest growth driver. He also talks at length about the China market, where they still haven't launched Wrath, but have good hopes to do so "soon".

It's possible - even likely that WoW is stagnating in Europe and North America. Probably even declining as we're waiting for Cataclysm. But this can hardly equal to that the game is dying, especially considering that it's still giving the company a revenue that seems to be decent to say the least.

If you're interested in the financial state of Blizzard-Activision, Gronthe at Deuwowlity did an in-depth analysis of this in a recent blogpost. Go read it unless you haven't already! What he describes is a company that certainly is in a risky business, but you can't really see that their flagship would be in the danger of an immediate death.

The reasons behind
So why do players insist on claiming that WoW is dying? I can't help thinking it's a case of magical thinking. They overrate their own importance and influence on the success of WoW.

Maybe it's also a step in their own process of detaching themselves from the game. Many players have witnessed about what a firm hold WoW can have on you. Even if you want to quit you might find it hard, due to habit or addiction, whatever you prefer to call it, and the social networks you've built through it.

If you call a death sentence over the game you're leaving, I can imagine it will become easier to stick to your decision. You can tell yourself that the game is dead anyway, so why bother to play it?

The truth is that the WoW as you got to know it when you started to play might die. The game might feel dead to you if you don't approve of the changes. But this doesn't mean that there aren't others who think the opposite. New generations of WoW players will come with their own expectations and wishes, which might look quite different to the ones of the players who have been around since beta.

The game changes. We may or may not like those changes. If you don't like them - feel free to criticise them! My favorite angry podcaster Totalbiscuit has recently excelled in colorful rip-into-pieces rants about the terrible state WoW is in and how disappointed he is about the way that Cataclysm is turning out. He has hence cancelled his preorder of it. But you don't hear him saying "WoW is dying". Bacause such claims are just stupid.

WoW still attracts huge amounts of paying customers. It sells very well, according to Dwism - even at this point with Cataclysm yet-to-be-launched. I'd be damned if it would die anytime soon.

My interest for the game might die. But in the end I'm just a very small, barely noticable fish in the pond.

Why the "Community" word doesn't make sense

The Community. Everyone seems to be talking about it these days.

We've seen a stream of well thought out posts discussing just how bad the WoW community is - verified by for instance dickish behavior in pugs, sewer level conversations in the public chat channels and the Gearscore mentality plague.

I'd especially like to point you to a recent post by Brian Psychochild Green, who talks about how ageing and growth has an impact on the game community, arguing that Blizzard might not be able to do that much about it. It's a very thoughtful post and I suggest you go ahead and read it if you haven't already!

Another post I liked particularly was Ixobelle's response to Wolfshead's anti-WoW post, where he reveals the nature of the oh-so-good community back in the days of EverQuest. The truth according to Ixo was that the game was full of design flaws and tedious endless periods where you did nothing but sit around and just wait and chat together. Sure, it created a great community - nothing can get you come together as well as a common experience of misery. But as it appears it was at the cost of what I would consider an enjoyable gameplay. Way to go?

One Community - really?
Nevertheless, there's something more I'd like to say about this community issue. You see, I've got second thoughts about the way we talk about The Community as one entity.

I'm the first one to admit that I'm doing it myself. I've probably written a good many posts where I've generalized wildly, putting everyone in the same box, mindlessly applying the C-word label on everyone, either they deserve it or not. And I'll probably do it again. But nevertheless I think it's about time that we stop up and think for a moment.

Wouldn't we come further in our discussions if we would acknowledge that with a game of the size of WoW, you can't really talk about The Community in singular anymore? There are dozens, of them, or I'd rather say hundreds, and they have so little in common that every attempt to pull out an average from it and expect it to represent every player, will be so false and misleading that it's pointless.

Shouldn't we rather address the issues and potential improvements we can see in the different respective subcategories? That would be more constructive and interesting than the current I-want-everyone-to-view-WoW-the-way-I-do attitude, which is a bit strange when you think about it.

As it is now, it seems as we've suddenly all been incorporated into one big mechanism, void of any aspirations on individualism and variety, making you think of The Borg of Star Trek.

I don't quite buy the concept. I never did.

One game - many communities
Actually I wrote about this in my very first blogpost back in February 2008. I was still something of a newbie at that time, and I had many things yet to learn about WoW and the people who are playing and talking about it. But in my ignorance I got that right from the beginning. I wrote:

"When you think about it it's not ONE game, but many, there are so many ways to see it and play it."

Yep. I still have this view. Lume reminded me about it the other day as he commented on my post about how famous players can get TCG cards named after them.

"Famous" WoW players really depend on what areas of the game you follow and what communities you're a part of. And there's a LOT of communities. Arena, raiding, machinima, humorous videos (that aren't really machinima), tanks, specific classes (and specs of classes), etc. And then you have to COMBINE some of these categories for even more niched communities."

You're spot on, Lume.

So why don't we start to try to map out, describe and und understand all those sub-communites? Once again I come to think of Tim Howgego's brilliant attempt to draw a map.

I would like to see an expansion of it. Make it more fragmentized, more detailed, add multiple dimensions, point out the connections. We need more work along those lines if we want to understand the complexity of the game and the varying expectations the developers have to consider.

What Community is to me
I dare say that the Borg image of the Community is a hoax. Forget about it for a moment and recall all the different kinds of players you've encountered over the years.

Stop listening to the "The community is horrid" talk! Refuse to judge every player alike! Wake up and look around you!

There are fantastic, lovable subcommunities everywhere, if you investigate it a bit further.

The Community isn't just some drunk idiot rambling in /trade (which you by the way can turn off at your own will any second - issue solved.)

The Community is also Big Bear Butt assembling the raid-for-the cure event to support a guildie suffering from breast cancer.

The Community is a bunch of silly gnomes enjoying their epic journey from the starter area to Ironforge, thanks to their own imagination (and a glorious general).

The Community is Tamarind having a serious talk with one of his guildies.

The Community is to ignore Gearscore nonsense and naysayers, take charge over your own game time and create the kind of game play you want to see, in cooperation with other players.

The Community is made up by all those wonderful bloggers and podcasters who keep entertaining us, informing us and making us think, laugh and cry day after day - all for free.

Room for all?
There's such a huge diversity among the millions of people who are playing World of Warcraft that it doesn't make sense any more to talk about The Community as a singularity. Stop doing that! Stop bashing the "WoW Community!" Start looking for solutions where you can let different kind of players co-exist peacefully, without breaking the game for each other!

Azeroth should be big enough to have room for us all.

Right?

No, the MMOs aren't really that bad!

I really should start listening to my own advice. I should know better than to devour rants from burned-out players who have seen the "truth" and want to share it with the world, possibly to get absolution for all the time they've spent on WoW or other MMOs up until now.

I should have known better than to read posts calling me an "glassy eyed, brain addled denizen of an opium house", "just too stoned to care".

And yet I read it. Because the writer in question is Wolfshead and he's an awesome blogger - even when he's in a depressive mood.

By the way, if you're reading this you should probably consider yourself included in the opium house analogy - Wolfhead puts this label on the entire MMO community, and calls it lethargic, since we haven't yet reached the insight that the MMOs of today are so void of innovation that they should be boycotted.

Wolfshead's rant
After an eleven year long, passionate relationship with the MMO genre, Wolfshead declares that he has has fallen out of love with it, and now he's apparently mad. He's breaking up with a bang, stating that the MMO industry needs a Real Cataclysm, something that turns the world upside down in a far more dramatic way than WoW's upcoming expansion.

Exactly what this Alternative Cataclysm would consist of is hard to tell from the post. Only that it would be better. Absolutely not more of the same. And nothing in the lines of the new features Blizzard has launched the last couple of years.

If it wasn't for the fact that I've read Wolfshead for a while and know that he's passionate about games and gaming - even working in the industry himself - I would have drawn the conclusion that he must have joined one of the more hardcore circles of the anti-WoW/MMO-movement.

Some of his statements could as well have come from one of those ex-players who have woken up from their addiction and now commit their lives to preach about how WoW is an lethal creation from Hell, ruining not only the lives of families but our entire society. I'll give you a few examples to give an idea about the post:

"We are watching this apocalypse unfold before our very eyes."

"[...] technicians who sold their souls at Blizzard Entertainment. For years they have been carefully and methodically concocting an addiction that is designed to keep you playing and paying long after there is any legitimate reason to do so.

"The WoW of 2010 is a MMO where community barely exists if at all. Players don’t even talk to each other anymore as they mindlessly farm so-called heroic dungeons. Players are happy to use each other like cheap whores in order to farm more emblems in order to get more shiny purple pixels."

"Blizzard has willfully programmed selfishness and avarice into the psyche of the modern MMO player via the mechanics of WoW. I’ve seen good people lose their souls and morph into ruthless Jason Bourne robots because of WoW."

"they are basically a numbers game heavily disguised by lots of polish and eye-candy. How many people do you know that played WoW 6 years ago are still playing? Most of them have figured out the equation and moved on."

"They’ve been serving us the same unimaginative crap for the last 11 years and putting a colorful bow on it. And you know what? We keep paying for it."

Some good points
I could go on like this forever. And I must admit that those sweeping statements put me off a bit.

There are several interesting points in the post though. His thoughts about the lack of independent and fearless gaming journalism that dares to take a critical position towards the industry would be well worth a discussion. He also brings up the risk that the design team might take bad decisions for the benefit of the players in the long run, just eager to get demographics that will please the stakeholders. This is underlined by a link to an excellent article by Richard Bartle from 2004, which was new to at least me.

However those golden grains somehow drown in the overwhelming flood of bitterness and criticism. It is a pity because as I said Wolfshead is a writer who has my admiration and respect. He's normally very intelligent, knowledgeable and well worth listening to.

He has been roaming around in the MMO field for a respectable eleven years, and maybe that explains this outburst. It's a long time, long enough for you to get tired with almost any other hobby. It happens all the time. You join a rock band, have fun a few years and then you move on. You take a course in sushi cooking and read up everything there is about that until you get blasé and something else catches your attention.

Is it really the MMO genre that has grown stagnant after eleven years? Or is the article more about his own, personal development, where the preferences will shift over a lifetime?

The lost paradise
I haven't been a part of the MMO phenomena for eleven years, only a little bit more than three. Eleven years ago, when Wolfshead started his exploration of the genre, I didn't have a clue about gaming and I couldn't imagine that there one day would be a game such as WoW. I remember how I for the first time heard about people who on an experimental basis arranged meetings in virtual rooms where they mastered avatars who represented themselves. I was told about it from a researcher at a university institution where I took a course in design of user interfaces, and I marveled at the idea. This was a glimpse of the future! Would I ever see such a thing myself?

I did eventually, in February 2007, when I took my first stumbling steps in Azeroth. A little more than three years later, my eyes are still wide open with amazement and enthusiasm, enchanted by this magical world.

I just don't recognize the description of the state of the game. Wolfshead talks about a lost paradise where he was a part of a virtual world, enjoying the "community, camaraderie, danger, player interdependence, role-playing and player freedom". This has now been opted for a "safe and scripted amusement park ride".

Is this really so? I don't deny that there is an amusement park open 24/7 in Azeroth with fantastic rides to enjoy. But surely that isn't all there is to do? As far as I can tell there's nothing that prevents you from creating your own game content, building your own world, using the world as a stage for whatever you want to. It still happens if you look around. RP:ers do it all the time.

"Too stoned to care?" Grumble, grumble. I beg to differ. Even if I've lost a bit of my newbie innocence, I'm not prepared to ditch the entire genre, preaching Doom and Gloom and "This is the End".

I'm want to believe that there's still a community worth the name. I want to believe that there's a lot of thinking and creativity going on behind the scenes and I have full confidence that we've only seen the beginning. Blizzard's secret MMO project might be the next step. And if not - there will be others. Who knows, maybe Wolfshead himself will be one of those who pushes the MMOs into the next phase?

He ends his article with a few words of wisdom:

"maybe I need to realize that there’s more to this life than looking at a computer screen and hoping for salvation from a virtual world."

Here's finally something we definitely can agree on. If you expect miracles and salvation from playing a computer game you're quite likely to get disappointed. It can't save our souls. But it can bubble us for a little while, distract us, entertain us and possibly give us a few friends.

And that's pretty well done if you ask me.

The Geek in a Suit or Will We Ever Accept That Blizzard is Business?

So they raised the fee for Blizzcon with a freaking 20 percent from 2009 to 2010. It has the same length – two days. It has the same sort of content as far as I can tell, although I suppose they’ll find a new artist to entertain. What about Mr T on stage? I also imagine the goodie bag will contain a shiny mount or cute pet, like it always does. But now the deal is suddenly 150 dollars instead of 125. And you can’t blame the general increasing costs for this. A percent or two, yeah, I guess so. Twenty? Never. It’s a simple matter of demand and supply. They’ll sell out on tickets anyway, so why not make sure you get a good profit from it?

I suppose this isn’t breaking news. Each month Blizzard presents us a new additional service – from cute (or annoying) pets, sparkling ponies and plush toys to Iphone apps and magazines. There’s something in store for everyone and they’re just doing their job, trying to make a living for themselves and their owners.

The question is: can they keep putting this much of effort into merchandising and monetizing without somehow staining their ethos and changing the story, the image about who they are? Will the fan base ever fully accept that they’re doing this for profit like any other business?

As one commenter wrote at WoW.com’s post about the AH app:

“Blizzard, be careful. You are pushing your players to rethink their commitment to you with each move farther down the nickel-and-dime path you take. We're going to start comparing you to an airline soon.”

Yeah… But aren’t they like an airline already, if you think about it rationally and not just emotionally?

Our relationship to the blues
Hands on heart: there’s something special about our relationship with the “blue guys”, as Tim Howgego pointed out in a recent post.

“A sense of relationship is possible because of the curiously personalised view most players have of Blizzard: People talk to “Blizz” or “Blue” (their corporate color) like they are talking to their dog, not a corporate monolith. Much like a pet dog, people feel able to hold personal conversations, without ever expecting a reply. Disturbing similar to the relationship some people have with gods.”

I’m actually not entirely sure of who’s who in this scenario. Are the fans the dog owner, fondly talking to someone who never talks back, projecting our wishes, imagining what’s up in their minds? Or are we in fact the dog, enthusiastically wagging our tail, giving our unconditional love, to the images we have of the blues?

We so want to believe that they are geeks, that they’re one of us, that they basically could play in our guild under cover.

I’ve been bashing on Blizzard quite a few times in the past, pointing fingers at their shortcomings in the PR area – particularly when it comes to making use of their own website and reaching out to the fan community.

But in this aspect I must say that they’ve succeeded. Even if we’re talking about a huge corporation with thousands and thousands of employees and branches all over the world, a company depending on the stock market and the quarterly reports, they still manage to distance themselves from the too polished surface thanks to an underlying strong corporate storytelling, where they’re gaining trust and sympathy thanks to their history.

They probably could do more out of it, sharing further behind-the-scene stories or making proper use of their named “stars” such as Ghostcrawler, giving him a blog of his own to run.

But even without it, they’re doing fine.

Picturing Blizzard
When I picture Blizzard, the first thing that comes to my mind isn’t a slick, business suit dressed guy pointing at the latest sales charts. I think about a slightly overweight Ghostcrawler in a silly, geeky t-shirt, throwing himself into an argument with a disgruntled warrior. I think about the ex-hardcore raiders from EverQuest who wanted to show that they could do something better. That’s quite some story! I know it’s probably a lie but I still can’t help seeing them as some crazy guys, working day and night, fuelled by energy drinks, not to get rich, but because they’re passionate.

They are our idols, our heroes and we want to keep them that way as long as possible. So when Blizzard makes decisions that seem to be based more on what revenue they can expect from it this quarter than on a vision of good game design, we don’t want to blame Ghostcrawler for this. We blame Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activision Blizzard.

Fair or not, Bobby is a good scapegoat. He can be that well dressed guy who raises the entrance fee to Blizzcon to 150 bucks. Ghostcrawler is still on our side and if he was in charge he would let everyone in for free or a smile. Right?

Blizzard is sitting on a huge capital of trust. Sometimes I wonder if those in charge really fully realize how valuable it is.

If one of the top guys in Activision Blizzard happens to read this, I would reccomend you to give your coroporate nerds some apprecation. And make sure that they keep their slightly geeky image when they appear in public. It you're lucky we may not even notice that in fact they're wearing a suit.

No, I Won't Write any Review on That Book

The average WoW blogger can't expect any substantial rewards for all the efforts we put into our hobby. Sure, if you're a Big Name Blogger you might monetize your work just a little, like Tobold does with his donation button. But it won't make anyone rich; at most you can cover your subscription fee. If you're lucky.

We're not spoiled with any other fringes either. I believe there are a handful of exceptions, but most of us won't receive an invitation to an exclusive Beta testing, or get a copy of an upcoming game in advance so we can write about it. I suppose the blogosphere isn't considered to have that much of impact , so we're not worth including in standard PR plans.

Until now I've only had an offer like that once, an offer I turned down, since I thought I couldn't make a serious job as a reviewer due to my lack of general gaming knowledge. And in the end it turned out that those who accepted the offer never got their copies in the end.

A recent book
The last couple of weeks we've seen an explosion on the blogs, where everybody and his uncle has been more or less openly marketing a recently published book on the topic of guild management. Those who came up with this promotion campaign can't be anything but pleased with the outcome. I think bloggers who are starved for attention and benefits and who might nourish "I want to make a living on my writing one day" dreams is the perfect target audience.

The author has a connection to the blogosphere, and I suppose that's how the idea came up for the publisher to send out letters to what must have been a huge amount of WoW and MMO bloggers, offering them free review copies, judging from the amount of posts about it.

I got one too. It was a very nice letter, which didn't just feel like spam, starting with a personal greeting: "Hi Larísa"... I must admit that I initially felt a little bit flattered. Wow, they want ME to write a review on this. Are they considering The Pink Pigtail Inn and my views that important? I almost did a /flex. Yeah, I know, they just used simple, human psychology, and I dare say it worked pretty well!

So I almost ordered a copy. As opposed to in the case of the free game review copy, I thought that I might be qualified enough to be able to make a good judgment. I've written tons of book reviews in the past, and even though I haven't lead a guild myself, I've got experience of leadership in real life and of being a member of a guild. I thought I could be able to say something about that book. And I like the topic, most definitely. The psychology of WoW, the challenges of team building and leadership, is one of the aspects of the game that interests me most.

Why I didn't order it
I never came around to accept the offer though. One reason was that it felt a bit weird to all of a sudden start to write book reviews at my blog. It's not something I regularly do, so why now, why highlight this book out of everything that is published?

I think it was the journalist in me who wanted to have a word in this. If I'm to write book reviews, I want to do it on a more regular basis, keeping up with and mirroring not just this one book, but everything that is connected to WoW or MMOs. And I want to pick the books I write about out of my own choice and will, monitoring the market and not just jumping at whatever book that randomly is sent to me.

And then there was this more pragmatic reason. I already spend quite a bit of time not only playing WoW, but thinking about it, writing about it, reading blogs and listening to podcasts. I could vividly picture the reactions from my family if they caught me reading WoW related books when I'm not playing the game. It would be the final nail in the coffin, proving once for all that I had lost it, and actually I would partly be ready to give them right.

A win-win situation
I might sound a little bit negative, but that's not my intention. I have no reason to believe it's a bad book; the writer seems qualified enough. And I don't think it's a bad idea to send it to the blogosphere, on the contrary.

It's a win-win situation. The bloggers get a free book copy, which is exciting and nice if you've never gotten anything like that before. The publisher gets tons of free marketing. (Grats on that!). And the blog readers... oh well I suppose they're happy too. With so many reviews to look at they certainly know what to expect if they decide to buy the book. I just hope they bear in mind that the blog writers might be a little bit biased since - as pointed out - they're not used to making reviews and might be under the influence of feeling flattered.

I admit though that it makes me a little bit giggly to see all those reviews promptly pop up so quickly and dutifully, as if it the bloggers were turning in their homework, with apologies if they're a little bit later to the party than the other reviewers.

As the veteran I am I want to send my fellow bloggers a piece of advice: just because you've got a free copy it doesn't mean that you're obliged to write a review. In the end you are the one in charge of your blog and if you don't think it deserves a post you can just put the book in a drawer and forget about it. They won't sue you.

Why People Leak and Other Musings Over the Alpha Mess-up

This post is inspired by Tim Howgego's post of yesterday about the Alpha leakage and how Blizzard has handled it.

If you haven't read it I suggest that you take your time and do it. It's really long, as all of his articles are, but it's worth it. This is an in-depth analysis with a lot of good points and interesting angles about Blizzard's relationship to the fansite, their acting in NDA matters and the consequences of it, and it's by tar the best I've seen on this topic in the blogosphere until now.

Adam Holisky at WoW.com did another effort a couple of days ago to make something on these lines, but for all the good intentions, he missed the point a bit, suggesting that concerned Blizzard staff leaked inaccurate information because they were misinformed. Sorry but you lost me there. (There is some good stuff in this post too though, so by all means, read it as a complement to Tim's post).

Tim on the other hand seems to be well informed and likely to have some good inside sources at Blizzard, or at least a solid knowledge about their way of thinking. He apparently is a bit concerned that he in writing this post is speaking too freely for his own wellbeing. With his position on "the edge", not being an official fansite, but at the same time with a lot of visitors and a great deal of respect within the community, Tim is "stupid enough" to write about how things are, as he puts it. I guess it might cost him the +1 font size link from WoW's official site to El's Extreme Anglin' at the worst, but I'm glad he's taking the risk.

Friend and family, heh?
So with this lengthy introduction I'm finally getting to my own thoughts. And they are currently mostly preoccupied with those so called friends and family. I keep asking myself: who are those people? How do the Blizzard staff know them? Are they spouses, brothers, neighbors or someone they met in a bar?

Because: what kind of friend are you if

1. someone puts their trust into you, sharing their innermost secrets,
2. you assure them that you won't tell a soul about it and
3. within a couple of hours you nevertheless share the secret with someone who shouldn't know it, well aware of that it immediately will spread all over the Internet?
   

I certainly wouldn't expect it from the persons I call friends and family. And yet it happened. Blizzard really need to be a bit pickier in their acquaintances.

I suspect that it's yet another evidence of my coming to age that I react against it. After all we're living in an era when nothing, absolutely nothing is too private to expose, either it's your sex life, your lack of appreciation for your boss or pictures from your latest booze party escapades. The boundaries were dissolved years ago ago, apart from in the minds of fossils like me, and a non-disclosure agreement is a futility that no one expects anyone to take seriously. Apparently.

Reasons for leaking
Yet it bugs me a bit. And you may wonder: what's in it for them? Why do people leak this information that they agreed not to leak in the first place?

There are two possible explanations. The nice one is that they're suffering from innocence or even stupidity.

In my job as a media manager I tell people over and over again that in reality there isn't such a thing as "off record" and that you can count on that anything you tell a media person can become official. Any interview starts at the first moment you talk to a journalist and doesn't end until you're saying goodbye. Don't get lured into believing anything else.

But can those friends and family be THAT stupid, that they accidently share something they shouldn't share in a moment of "oops!"? I don't think so. I think it's rather about persons who have very small egos and lead rotten, insignificant lives want to feel - or pretend - that they're somewhat important. They probably don't get any money from leaking. But they get a kick, and that can be just as good as an incentive.

I've seen a few commenters suggesting that Blizzard themselves are behind the massive leakage, as a part of their marketing plan. Sure, in some situations you might want to give out a piece of news exclusively to a selected media in order to get as much attention as possible, or even pretend that you have accidently leaked out a secret, when you in fact did it on purpose.

But to be honest, I doubt this is the case here. It doesn't seem well timed enough and even if there's a lot of buzz going on now, I think they could have gotten a better impact if they had been able to retain control over what and when to release, portioning it out bit by bit to get maximal exposure to it.

Blizzard's doubtful damage control
However, the damage is done and there really isn't much Blizzard could do to put back the rabbit into the hat. So now they're apparently in a phase of some sort of damage control. To be honest it looks a little bit silly and futile, or even harmful, as pointed out by Tim Howgego.

For some reason Blizzard hasn't yet taken action against MMO Champion, in spite of their official declaration that the NDA still is valid.

On May 4, Boubouille writes:

"The Alpha is protected by a Non-disclosure agreement, which basically means that anything I could post could get me sued. I'm not saying it will happen, Blizzard has been fairly forgiving with everything posted on the site in this past but I think you will understand that I cannot just post everything I find without checking a few things first."

He confirms that the picture of the dragon published elsewhere is real, but doesn't want to publish it himself. About 24 hours later the floodgates open and there are screens and leaked information all over the place. I don't know if we'll ever know exactly what happened there, but Tim Howgego suggests that Blizzard is letting it pass because the owner of MMO Champion can help to promote WoW as an e-sport. A conspiracy theory! Yummie! Actually it sounds quite credible to me.

Why it might be harmful
While letting MMO Champion get away with it, Blizzard has made sure to take action to prevent any premature publishing at the official fansites. They have received letters threatening them that they'll lose their status if they publish or even link to the leaked content.

So far they keep their mouths shut, but under protest, such as in this editorial from World of Raids. The editors also point out that the benefits of being an official fansite in reality are very small. You don't get any VIP pass, you don't get any alpha invites, in the past they've at the best had two or three beta keys. The perks are "minimal at best, if any". No wonder they're pissed!

And the effect of this might be quite harmful as Tim Howgego points out. While MMO Champion has an editor with a certain ethic standard and probably wouldn't promote gold selling, hacking, account trading and such, there are way more shady unofficial fansites who do those things and now get an opportunity to get more visitors, with leaked unofficial information as a lure.

If official fansites don't publish anything but the blue approved Cataclysm material, the audience will find their way to the sites that have that information, according to Tim Howgego, and he has a point. The mainstream players may end up as clueless tourists at darkside sites with low moral standards which they wouldn't have visited in the first place if it wasn't for the NDA politics of Blizzard. And that's bad.

Punish the good guys and let the bad guys get away with it. Does that really make sense?

And who's the bad guy in the first place? In my world the "friends and families" deserve some spanking. Not just the sites that might want to spread the news.

Not a spoiler free zone
Finally, maybe you'd like to know what you can expect from the Pink Pigtail Inn when it comes to Alpha information.

Well, I can't say that PPI is a declared Cataclysm spoiler free zone, such as Too Many Annas. I write about any stuff that is on my mind, and I might talk a little bit about suggested changes that are up for discussion, as when I rant about the changes to 10/25 man raiding or the perils of underwater zones. Mind you though - both of those topics were based on official information, not on leaks. But if you're very strict and don't want to hear a single word about Cataclysm before you have it installed on your computer, you'd better stay away from my inn to be safe.

On the other hand I too like the sense of discovery and mystery, unfolding a new expansion, and I don't want to destroy my own enjoyment of Cataclysm by looking into all details in advance. So I definitely won't opt in for a beta key. Apart from this I'm still preoccupied playing and writing about Wrath, and I basically don't write any informative posts on anything ever, so if you want solid spoilers and previews, this isn't the place for you.

Wrap-up
This was all I had to say for the time being, but I'm likely to come back to similar topics. Blizzard's way of dealing with PR challenges never ceases to catch my interest.

Why we're so upset about the changes

Yesterday I decided to write a post about ghouls, because I thought that I as well as the blogosphere needed a break from the debate about the Cataclysm changes to raiding. I imagined that if I looked somewhere else my bad stomach feeling about what will happen to my own raiding in Cataclysm would go away.

I was wrong, of course. Shying away from worries will only rarely make them dissolve into thin air. Talking about the ghosts normally works much better. So let's talk a little bit more about them. After this post I think I'll be done with this for a while and can focus on the sources of joy in the game. Yeah, I still have those - my resilience for close-to-the-end -an-expansion-blues is pretty solid.

Feeling uneasy
But first: one more therapeutic post for the road. Somehow I can't help feeling a little bit uneasy at the big rift that is running right through the community in this issue. And my own reaction surprises me. Can't I just enjoy it for what it is: a good discussion and a fun exchange of thoughts, aiming to broaden our views, bending the arguments around and giving us new perspectives?

Apparently not. I'm getting way more emotional about this than I want to. I tell myself in a rather severe voice that I should just get the hell out that emo crap.

"You are an adult, this is just a bunch of pixels, a freaking game for crying out loud, and those changes mean NOTHING and by the way are you really that kind of conservative nay-sayer, I'm disappointed with you. Everything - including WoW - changes and you just have to live with it. Grow up! And besides, what does it matter to you what anyone else thinks? Cut this bullshit!"

Do I listen to myself? For a while. But then I read yet another of those triumphant posts :

"Wohoo for those changes, now I can raid with my closest friends (/flex, I'm a member of a tightly knitted little imba group who have been together forever). You e-peen infested 25 manners should just stop whining - if you can't get a 25 man raid going in Cataclysm it's because 25 man raiding sucks in the first place, so go and die in a fire. QQ a bit more. And besides you're probably just horrible players who are carried by others and are just in it for the loot. "

Well it isn't exactly written like that. But it's the spirit. And then I feel a pain in my stomach because it comes from bloggers who I normally love and respect and regard as friends. They're happy for a change that I believe is a threat to the kind of game I love. It's totally childish and weak to thing this way, but nevertheless I feel a little miserable when I see stare into this fence that come between us.

The split within Blizzard
Actually this split seems not to only go through the blogosphere; it's also seems to be a topic for a lot of heated discussions within Blizzard, reading the replies from Zarhym in a forum thread if you read between the lines:

"we know very well that this change may impact some guilds, as did the removal of 40-player raids and addition of 10- and 25-player versions. Just as there isn't a lack of feedback on these forums about the proposed changes, there isn't a lack of internal discussion about how to make this system work so that it doesn't hurt the 25-player raid game."

"The internal discussions that take place on any given topic can get quite heated. We all push strongly for what we feel is best for the game, but ultimately try to listen to dissenting opinions. Eventually a decision is made, but that's not before a good number of people with very different play styles get together, fight, and then hug it out. ;p"

I guess that's what we're doing now. Regardless of if we're in Blizzard or just plain players, we're fighting. Some of those crying loudest believe that they're arguing out of unselfish reasons, "objectively" looking at what's best for the game. But unless you're a Blizzard employee, I would say most of us in fact are just trying to protect our own little worlds from falling apart.

So we're fighting. And eventually we'll hug it out and move forward into Cataclysm, except for those why will move somewhere else - to RL or another game, since WoW has lost its appeal.

Fear and hope
In the end, I think the fighting comes out of our own, personal, strictly selfish fears and hopes, even if we don't admit it to ourselves.

Every expansion is a huge challenge to any guild. Of course players re-evaluate their playing all the time, but around an expansion every single one has to do it at the same time and you don't know the outcome. Who will stay in the team, who will want to try out something else, who will quit gaming or going casual? How many will you have to recruit to keep the raid machinery going? And looking at it from a member-perspective - can you rely on your officer squad to stay around for yet another round? You never know - you just have to put your trust into them.

We all have those questions. Will my guild still be around on the other side of Cataclysm? Will it still be raiding 25 mans or will the "best" players rather move over to the 10 man format so they can compete better for first kills and achievements? Or if you're in a 10 man guild you might ask if some people will leave for 25 man raiding, although I personally doubt we'll see much of that. (I could be wrong though, you're welcome to tease me if it turns out the opposite.)

Anyway. It's a bit like playing Musical Chairs, before you know it you might end up without anywhere to sit.

The stir-up that comes with the changes will without any doubt lead to changes in the guild structures. Many have made comparisons to what happened when they removed 40 man raids, and so does Zarhym:

"we know very well that this change may impact some guilds, as did the removal of 40-player raids and addition of 10- and 25-player versions."

The thing is that if you've raided in a guild for years, spending hundreds and hundreds of hours learning, laughing, grumping, joking, yelling, pissing each other off, everything on the scale from love to hate, it isn't just something you walk away from easily. Separations hurt.

I believe that the many of the 2 000 comments at MMO champion on this topic are written out of this fear. "What will happen to me and my guild? Will we survive this?"

I'm lucky enough to be in a guild which I believe is quite stable. We're approaching our two year anniversary and we've seen loads of 25 man guilds on our server breaking down over the course of time. We're one of the very few who manage to stay around, still going strong. Because of this I have faith in that we'll be around for Cataclysm. But you can never be entirely certain about anything. There's always a little room for a gnawing doubt and we won't be absolutely sure until we've run our first 25 man raid in Cataclysm.

Chasing out the ghosts
So. Now I've definitely seen enough of those ghosts. Time to get rid of them. Shoo! Get out of my inn! And you over there, yes you, please open the door and let in some sunlight and fresh air!

There's still so much fun going on in WoW. Yes! There really is! TB might be bored out of his mind according to the last show, but I'm certainly not.

Right now I'm super-excited about our steady progress in the final fight in ICC, the defeat of the Lich King. Who said we couldn't manage those twitchy defiles? Last raid, after two more spent wipe nights, we had him to 17 percent in the typical last-for-the-night-so-make-it-count-try. This means in fact only 7 percent from a kill and I can't wait for our next raiding week. If nothing unexpected happens it sure won't be long before I can call myself Kingslayer!

And the split in the community and my silly worries suddenly seem very distant. Vanished even.