I‘ve spent an amazing amount of time immersed in World of Warcraft (WoW) in the last year. Countless, frightening numbers of hours in fact. Like many who fall under its wildly complex and fantastical spell, I’ve burned my way through entire weeks of my life logging into Azeroth.
On this journey I’ve been accompanied (and sometimes opposed) by a surreal collection of human-beings cunningly disguised as Dwarven Priest’s, Elven Warriors, Undead Mage’s, Tauren Shamen, Gnome Warlock’s, or any of the other racial and class specific combinations possible in the game.
On one hand its all been bizarrely trivial; a huge productivity black-hole eating away at the very fabric of my life. A few times its had some profoundly negative consequences. Mostly it’s been a blast!
I’ve met and become friends with many interesting people whilst traversing the three-dimensional contours of warcraft. A Serbian lawyer, who I spent eight straight hours talking war, Premiership football and Gnostic philosophy with! A Dutch designer who kindly taught me how to play, but also enlightened me on art, architecture and design. A Brighton bus driver with whom I shared long converstions about familial loss. A hyperactive ten-year old who nursed me through a couple of difficult dungeons and was one of the best players I’ve ever met and many many others.
I’ve been pestered relentlessly by instant-messages from Chinese gold farmers; witnessed impromptu parties that began with a handful of people and spread in minutes to include hundreds; witnessed plagues of zombified players laying waste to the capitol cities; run some great intances; LOL’d (laughed out loud) thousands of times with my guildmates at the silly asides, absurdist jokes, general quackery and plain silliness of daily life on the continents of Azeroth, Kalimdor, Outland and Northrend; celebrated in-game holidays by getting my character ‘drunk’ and Ram-Racing around Ironforge. I’ve text and voice chatted through the day, (sometimes even the night!) with an incredibly varied and gifted range of people and I’ve made some very good friends.
Even a few part-time enemies! 
The thing is, WoW isn’t really a game, it’s an alternate social reality; albeit one with some odd and unbelievable inconsistencies. It’s a world where you can engage in an incredibly flexible range of social-interactions and can express yourself in a voice that can be as quiet as a whisper, or as loud as a yell.
Each character has a built in set of emotes, dances and animations and these are surprisingly flexible and expressive. The capitol cities function as the social-hubs where players gather to trade, socialize and chill before setting out, (alone or in groups) on their next adventure.
The ‘world’ in ‘World of Warcraft’ is often complex, funny and exciting. It’s also occasionally frustrating and sometimes unfair. It’s as heartwarming, expansive and engaging as the many millions of people who log-in to play it each day.
In WoW almost anything is possible. Flying a dragon, fighting to the death against other players in Arena’s and Battlegrounds, resurrecting your fallen friends from death, wielding wild magic, transforming into an animal, celebrating holidays, earning a fortune etc. There is never ending list of things to do.
There are feats of strength and exploration, numerous professions to master, fish to catch, pets to tame, reputations to earn and world events to witness and to participate in.There are literally thousands of possibilities and challenges and millions of people logging-in to share them. WoW is a world full of people, from all age ranges, across all social and ethnic groups. This diversity is a huge part of its appeal and lends the time spent in-game a real sense of unpredictability and fluidity.
The level of knowledge and commitment required to reach the lofty peaks of LEET (elite) in the game are far beyond the reach of many normal players. Even after a year of playing I still have days (even weeks), when I feel like a complete noob! There is layer upon layer of difficulty and the web is full of discussion forums peopled with folk twisting their brains around complex math, talent-builds and spell-rotations in a ceaseless attempt to maximize their DPS (Damage per Second).
To reach the highest levels of play and difficulty, you have to live and breathe the game. Which means spending hours playing and joining an ‘Uber’ guild. Such guilds are difficult if not impossible for the average player to gain membership to. In some, you literally have to complete an application to get in. Membership is considered a serious undertaking. Having said that, guilds function at all levels and most are simply places to meet your friends, share the challenges, quest and have fun together. There’s a strong sense of loyalty and camaraderie forged in such places despite the occasional ‘guild drama!’ In many ways it’s amazing that these self-regulating communities function so effectively. There are many experiences I’ve had twith my guild that simply wouldn’t be possible or even accessible to a solo player – That’s why they call them Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG”S) I guess!
I’ve enjoyed my time in WoW enormously, but lately, I’ve begun scaling back the amount of time I give to it. I’ve come to realize that (for me) there are other things I need to do with that time. Challenges and interests that now take precedence and I’m no longer willing to give WoW so many of my precious hours. I still log-in and when I do, I enjoy the mails and greetings that await me from my guildmates.
In the end though, it IS only game. Even if it happens to be one of the very best ever devised and created. It’s many games in one, not any single game and in this dizzying age of uncertainty it offers a sense of togetherness and community based around nothing more than killing monsters, having fun and trying to improve your virtual self.
So whilst I’m not saying goodbye to WoW, or farewell to my Mage, my Priest, or my Death-Knight. I am going AFK (Away From Keyboard) for a while. In the process I’ll be saying hello to Azeroth a little less frequently and when I do I’ll be having a ton of fun!
