World of Warcraft: A Gamer’s Dirty Secret

We’ve all been there; you or somebody you know has been called a nerd because they play World of Warcraft. You see people being accused of being addicted to the forbidden game and the negative connotations circle around it like an asteroid belt. It’s annoying when you get put in that pigeon hole of being a social outcast because you enjoy raiding with your guild. It makes you wonder why people have these judgements and how ironic it actually is when you think about it.

Well I have been wondering and have composed three factors of why people play, and sometimes get addicted to, World of Warcraft.

Factor 1: Boredom:

Sometimes you just have absolutely nothing going on in your life.

You have been having a slow month, or found you have a lot of free time on your hands recently and need something to fill that void in your life. You decide to buy World of Warcraft. So you go off in search for a Gamestation or Gamespot to pick up a copy of World of Warcraft and then travel home to start installing it. You quickly realise that the patch downloads take a long time so you leave the computer on for a while and you start to do other things around the house. The patch finishes about an hour before you need to go to bed so you play for an hour and then leave it for tomorrow.

The next day you come back from work and realise you have about three hours of free time before you need to go out again, great! You put some time into questing and levelling your character and you find that the time has flown by and its now time to go out to see your friends. This routine continues daily as you find it’s a great way to unwind.

Although not a very common factor, it is one just the same as people do just use World of Warcraft as a way of killing time.

Factor 2: The Love of Warcraft Lore

So you played all the Warcraft Realm Time Strategy games and loved them all including the story line and you hear World of Warcraft continues it. Great! You get to the Character Selection screen and you can continue the story with one of 10 races; you are spoiled for choice but end up picking the Human race. Fresh out of Northshire Abbey you stroll into Goldshire and love the quests because of the amazing back-story and atmosphere and every level the story ramps up. Getting to level 80 is a breeze because of how interesting the story is and you don’t even notice that you did it in a month.

Yeah okay this isn’t a very common factor either but it happens.

Factor 3: The Social Factor

It sounds obvious as the whole game is centred on being a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG but it’s surprising how many people over look the social side when judging the game.

It is unlikely you will find somebody who plays World of Warcraft regularly because of just the two previous factors. This is because under all the layers, World of Warcraft is a pretty boring game while you are levelling up. Quests usually involve going to a certain area and killing a set number of enemies or killing to find a specific item. once done you return to the quest giver to gain EXP. Questing is almost like a grinding bonus until you reach the Lich King content where some quests can be actually rather fun. Unless small things amuse you, such as seeing a sword swing animation 5 times, you are likely to get bored of World of Warcraft fast.

This is unless you have a group of friends or a guild to chat with at which point the game opens up. Having somebody around who you can have an enjoyable chat with while you quest increases the games playability ten fold. You can take the edge off the boredom at which point the combat becomes much more fun and interesting.

You can attempt to take on a dungeon to get some better items or EXP if you have a group of friends around your level. Dungeons are not an easy task as they involve a lot of coordination and concentration along with a mutual respect for the people in your group. A group that is unfamiliar with each other is more often going to fail or decrease in efficiency; an example of this would be the notorious Pick Up Groups.

Pick up groups are for people that need to go to a dungeon but have nobody they know to go with. Essentially you look for people that want to do the same dungeon as you and then you party up and go together. Pick up groups are with random people you are unlikely to have played with before and thus the effectiveness of them is just awful. Arguments and in game deaths are a frequent occurrence and the likelihood of completing a Dungeon is extremely slim when in a Pick Up Group.

However while Pick Up Groups can sometimes work in dungeons, it is nearly impossible to get them to work in raids. As a raid is made up of 10+ people, every member of that group needs to be in synch and able to cooperate with each other or else the group will crumble and fail.

This further supports the theory of the Social Factor in World of Warcraft. You need to have good social skills to be able to enjoy the game fully and really get into it. Raiding is fairly tough experience but it is also an extremely enjoyable one when it is done correctly with friends or guild members. Working together as a team and a unit to overcome tough enemies is a challenge and the rewards are great. This is why people get addicted to World of Warcraft and this is why so many people play it, the Social aspect is just so enjoyable.

Okay raiding and questing with friends is hardly on the same level as going out into the real world and socialising but you cannot also deny that World of Warcraft is a very sociable game and demands such for an incredible gaming experience.

In the perfect world you wouldn’t be called a dirty nerd for playing World of Warcraft. However the negative connotations surrounding this game from the media and the general public allow people to judge the game without playing it. this is the main reason that World of Warcraft is a secret to a lot of people that play it.
Ironically the people accused of having poor social skills because they play World of Warcraft clearly do have some form of good social skills or else they wouldn’t be playing World of Warcraft unless they adored the lore.

Of course this is all depending on whether I just live in an area that condemns World of Warcraft and if other areas, such as America, see World of Warcraft as a positive thing. Sadly I doubt that it is seen as a positive thing in most places however, mainly because of the negative media coverage.

With all that said, World of Warcraft is an incredibly social game. It wouldn’t be as popular as it is without these social elements. Hell, as a single player game I doubt most reviewers would give it more than a 5 out of 10 (or a ‘“5 out of 0) because of its boring quests. Obviously WoW heads are still going to be criticised for playing this game but at least we can take solace in the fact that World of Warcraft is not a game for the social outcasts; but for the ones willing to team up and have some fun. With the release of Lich King the race for the completion of end game content is now on again and only a skilled group of friends will be able to achieve it.