I’ve been leveling away on my Shadow Priest, making the push to 58 so I could hit the Outlands. I was just a bit into 57 last night, and spent the next 2 hours doing various quests in Winterspring. A large amount of dead Yetis later, I reached my goal and hit 58. I promptly turned in my remaining completed quests, dumped a bunch of stuff I’d never finish out of my log, and headed for Darkshire with the intention of hitting the Outlands the next time I logged on.
It got me to thinking. What exactly had I just accomplished?
I had set a goal for myself, and upon reaching that goal I was happy, and excited to push into the BC content, where I knew far better gear awaited me, along with much better zones to level through. But I had a bit of an empty feeling.
Had I really accomplished anything? I thought some more. Do we ever really accomplish anything in WoW? Let’s say I was in a guild and we just downed Illidan. Did I really accomplish anything even then?
Sadly, I kept arriving at the same conclusion. No. Even if I had just picked up the most uber of uber drops, I wouldn’t have accomplished anything. How is the staff or whatever that Illidan might drop any different from the staff I had at level 1? When you get down to it, aren’t they both just a collection of 1s and 0s, in developer parlance? The only thing that really differentiates them, in the real world, is some ID number on a server deep within the bowels of Blizzard.
Am I foolish to search for some kind of meaning in my enjoyment of WoW? I don’t think so. The time I spend playing WoW is significantly less than many people out there, but at the same time I spend a LOT of time in WoW. Why do I spend so much time in this game, doing the same things I’ve done hundreds of times before? I’m not sure.
Is it because I feel some lack in my real life, and I need to “achieve” in some way in a game? Thankfully, that’s a big no. I have a wonderful family that’s growing, and a solid career at a great company. Oh, and I like to think I write a pretty decent blog, too.
Is it because I’m highly competitive, and want to “do better” than other people in the game? Nope, that’s not it. If it is I’m failing miserably at this point. My biggest claim to fame is 5/6 in SSC. Not all that much in the grand WoW of things. I’m happy that I’ve at least seen some degree of “end game” raiding, but I’m well behind the curve. You know, “part time” and all.
Looking at all the classic categories of why we play these games, I only mildly think I like to achieve and socialize. I like getting new loot and better gear, I like hitting new levels, and I like progressing somewhat into new content, at least content that’s new to me. I like being in groups and taking down bosses. I do also like talking about WoW (as evidenced from this very blog) and I spend some time chatting in /g.
Honestly, though, everything I just detailed that I like about WoW is really nothing at all. Just more 1s and 0s, excepting possibly the social aspects. So why do I keep doing something that doesn’t give me any benefit in the real world?
Because I like it. I can’t detail exactly how or why, but I really like it.
Besides, get down to brass tacks. What other things do you like to do in your spare time? Watch movies? Aside from the occasional indie flick with philosophical undertones, that’s largely empty as well, right? Watch sports? Yeah, as a Cubs fan I can tell you that there’s not much there, either. Our uniforms don’t even change. I have yet to see the Cubs get any loot. Yet I still watch them, too.
In the end I guess I just have to see WoW just for what it is: entertainment. Gripping entertainment, that leaves most others in its wake. Maybe searching for deep meaning in something like this is folly. It’s just like a movie that doesn’t end, or a book that just keeps going and going. Maybe I just need to accept that as a good thing, and not try to find a true “benefit” I get from it in the real world. Though I can at least say that’s it’s a great way to get away.
Ok, pointless rambling off. If you’ve gotten this far, bravo! Maybe you can share with me why YOU WoW. Now excuse me, I have to go hit the Outlands.
If you liked this, you can read more of my thoughts here, where I get into WoW as entertainment vs. WoW as a hobby!
Tags: Meta WoW, Rant
Entries (RSS)
June 25th, 2008 at 9:50 am
[...] Part Time Druid posted an excellent post entitled “Why do We WoW?” over on his site. I’ve talked with my wife about this quite a bit, as when you think about it, it really is a [...]
June 25th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Because by playing WoW, I know I’m spending my money on something less dangerous and more enjoyable as opposed to other activities college students my age would engage in =).
June 25th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
I WoW because I feel that it combines two loves of mine: video games and reading. I love exploring the back story behind the quests, likening it to a book, but gives me the means to interact with it like a video game. I enjoy learning about what I can and can’t accomplish (easy to pick out when you’re tanking… rawr) and learning from those experiences and trying to improve. Most importantly, it’s interactive and makes me think, which elevates it above TV and movies, as far as entertainment goes.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Because $15 a month is cheap entertainment. I don’t think something has to have “meaning: to be enjoyable, although I do think playing a game has meaning. If you accomplish your goals you’ve done just that- set out to do something and did it. And that can be applied to real life as well. But for me it’s just simple fun and socialization.
June 25th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
For me it is a hobby or a form of entertainment. It is just something I enjoy. Others would rather play golf. Fine by me. An explanation is not really needed as long as you’re having fun.
In guild chat last night one of the guildies was lamenting that reality TV is just the worst. My response was that TV was bad in general and that was one of the reasons I play WoW. As far as entertainment goes, WoW beats the crap out of 99% of what is on TV.
As Awlbiste points out, it is cheap fun too. For $15 I can get one pizza delivered. Or I can get about three beers at the local bar. Or I can rent 3 movies. I play WoW about 15 hours a week. That comes to 60 hours a month which comes to about 25 cents an hour. That is cheap fun.
June 26th, 2008 at 5:46 am
Like others have already said, $15 a month is cheap entertainment. I have family that plays that llives all over as well. We can get together and have a virtual reunion every day if we wanted to. Mostly for me its the social aspect that I enjoy. Meeting people and chatting about the game. At any rate I play because its fun, even if the whole thing is nothing but smoke and mirriors I will take memories of it with me when I am gone.
And by the way, the Cubbies will get thier epic rings this year =)
June 26th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Watching the Cubbies beat up on people is more fun than the vast majority of anything I’ve done in WoW, I must say. But alas, they aren’t available to watch 24/7, like WoW is…
July 4th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Mostly, the ‘reward’ for these activities is not the end outcome itself. It’s the actual act/duration of doing it, that is the goal. It’s fun being challenged.
Of course Blizz has heaped a combination of effects on the pile; they trigger our ‘addiction’ buttons with similar mechanisms that apply to slot-machine addicts, and to ‘hoarders & nest builders’ (the ‘uh, I got to collect them _all_! uh! more leather/ore!’ ‘I need that rare recipee!’).
I see other adults using their time+resources to fill their house with expensive designer furniture; I can’t see that being a more real accomplishment than collecting epics in wow…
Also, I might as well play as watch TV - the main issue is that wow is more addictive than TV ever was, and thus in the end less healthy…
With all that said, the ‘empty accomplishment’ still apply in lots of cases:
E.g., I don’t feel like working hard for ‘epic loot’ at lower level,
becase of the awareness of it quickly becoming obsolete.
But when you reach 70 / end level, and achievements become harder / “final”, they feel rewarding.
It happens again when you’ve collected ‘most’ of them: When you have “almost” all the good loot that applies to your class, the same ‘emptiness’ sets in: If you already have +1700 spell dmg (or whatever),
and you know your hard efforts can only bring you maybe +50 more… That sense of emptiness is quite sensible: You “have it all”, and keeping up a huge effort for “almost no” improvements, is MEANT to make you feel empty
- ‘nature’ never intended you to keep fighting for more, when more has little use.
For our innate ‘want more’ instinct, it’s natural to feel a bit empty in that situation…
If you want a more rewarding passtime, you must dedicate yourself to some humane real-life issue (that probably never ceases). Personally, that would turn me off too, if it is something that cannot be ‘ever solved’.
For wow, I suggest leveling a different class + different faction.
And if that doesn’t work for you, then try real life, as a last resort. (there might still be something there. Long time since I looked).
August 10th, 2008 at 4:38 am
This is the dumbest question ever……. I play WOW because its fun…… and
thats why everyone else play too