It’s been quiet around here, and I only have World of Warcraft to blame. I still bathe on a regular basis and haven’t given up my day job (yet), but I forget to eat and am incredibly moody when the server is having problems (more often than not on Kaz’goroth).
To justify my need to spend countless hours immersed in the WoW landscape, I did a quick google search on “World of Warcraft ethnographic study” and came up with some interesting results. The first hit is a website for a college level course, Games for the Web, offered by Trinity University. This class requires you to spend a “significant amount of time” playing World of Warcraft. From the course description:
Throughout the semester, we will spend a significant amount of time in World of Warcraft. This virtual world is an ideal location for studying on-line gamers, cyberculture, and videogame aesthetics. A significant amount of class time will be spent in the game-world, but you are also expected to devote at least five hours a week to ethnographic research within World of Warcraft.
The Students section contains links to blogs students kept throughout the semester, in addition to their final papers. While perusing the blogs I saw several mentions of a gnome protest, so I did some further searching…
… and came across screenshots of the Gnome Tea Party, an in-game protest held a couple months after World of Warcraft went public. The protest, regarding changes to the Warrior class between the beta-version and final public release, crashed the server and resulted in a good number of banned accounts (I don’t think the ban was permanent).
EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies, and Ultima Online have also played host to virtual protests. TerraNova made a post about the nature of virtual protests and possible emergent politics and governance in online spaces. The post, Synthetic Statehood and the Right to Assemble and the ensuing comments bring up some interesting points from both sides of the fence.
And let me not forget the in-game 4th of July fireworks.
Enough with the justification, it’s time for me to go questing…
Comments and trackbacks
So I guess I am the only person left on the planet who never played an on-line game. I feel so deprived now! My other obsessions seem so pedestrian in comparison!
Montchan, you should *totally* play World of Warcraft. It will make those long winters pass by in the blink of an eye. Then again, I probably shouldn’t be pushing such an addiction on anyone…
I totally play Counter-Strike all the time. It accounts for a GREAT portion of my day. I guess being a Marine and the great online shooter go hand and hand. I love shooting stuff.
Hey it was good to see you are still alive and fully Japanofied! Here is the Warlock spec that I was telling you about.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-warlock&t=925521&p=1&tmp=1#post925521
It’s off the WoW site and very cookie cutter, but it works if you want to hit 60 asap.
Mods:
Titan Panel http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/addons-860-1-titan-panel.html
Necrosis
http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/addons-3089-1-necrosis-ldc.html
Tweaks
http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/addons-1841-1-tweaks.html
If you have other questions about gear or where to grind just msg me in game or email. Happy Hunting!
Luna > I love shooting stuff too, but man am I bad at it…
Rozz > Thanks for the mod info… you’ll have to tell me more about where to grind and get gear… my party members are leaving me in the dust…
It’s nice to see I’m not the only addict out there! If you ever tire of cursing Kaz’goroth, jump over to Uldum and give me a shout. My main is a cute little Gnome Mage named Weeble :)
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