I’m not saying goodbye forever. I’m just really busy right now. I have other places to be, other work to do, other games to play. This World of Warcraft is too much of a separate world for me.
Edward Castronova refers to Norrath (EverQuest) as a meeting place, market place, and home in “Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier.” It’s interesting to see someone combine journal entries of playing EverQuest with such thorough statistical breakdowns of a game. I’m glad someone has done it, because it proves there is real world monetary value in games, and I don’t have to do the research. There has been later work in this area, and I know of a good friend, Darius Kazemi, who has made a career out of tracking player activities (gameplay metrics) for MMO companies.
The same EBaying trends of games like EverQuest and Ultima Online have followed through with WoW. I remember liquidating my UO account back at a time when I really figured the game was beaten to death for sure, and even then, I was able to sell off my houses, characters, and possessions for a good bit of real money (around $500). Minus the months of subscription fees.
Where MMOs really grab me is in the persistence. Accessible any time, excluding downtime for server work. A world where “… survival and success of an avatar depends on its ability to deal with merchants and defend itself from monsters” (819).
I really miss UO. Whenever I play WoW, I’m trying to get that feeling back. But I’ve hit level 70, and there’s not much else to do but obsess over getting better gear so I can… what? Survive in an instance of a dungeon to get more better gear? That I can’t even dye or change the look of in any kind of way?
I’d consider myself a mix of the “achiever” and “socializer” from Richard Bartle’s breakdown of player types in “Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players who Suit MUDs.” He identifies key play styles: achievement within the game context, exploration of the game, socializing with others, and imposition upon others. I believe his MUD player categories translate well to MMO players, but also that there are tendencies to cross over between different play styles.
I grind, grind, grind. Master the grinding, socialize in guild chat (WoW is just a visual chat box after all), and then wonder what I’ve wasted all of my time on. In UO, I got to make custom items, dye my clothes, and look unique. Not to mention decorate a house. In WoW, it’s about being identified as having the best equipment available at any given level for a certain class and spec of skills.
I’m not sure where my activities in UO would really fall. In UO, items could remain on the ground out of your inventory for a while before the server refreshed and deleted any unowned items. Players could put decorations of all sorts made out of all kinds of items on the ground at cities, popular banks, or just as part of role-playing around a small group of people. While the economy in WoW is rich and built around the auction house system, certain rules really prevent EBay trade, like items that bind with the character on pickup so they can’t give them to another character. UO, on the other hand, was much more freeform in trade. Since items would fall off of a character if they were overweight, those of us who were a bit more devious would hang out at banks waiting for some poor ignorant person to accidentally overload themselves and drop a pile of gold or bag of nice items that we could snatch up real fast. Okay, I guess sometimes I fit into the “Killer” MUD category that’d probably transfer over to a MMO scheme as “Griefer.”
But as far as where I lean most, and what keeps me in games, the socializer tag nails me. I have no doubt that I still have a WoW account because I can play with my husband and colleagues at SFU, and I’m in the TerrorNova guild. But I’m always hoping there will be a MMO with less grinding and more customizability out (and also available on Mac) some day soon. Although that would be bad, since my work would probably suffer.
