WoW: the new golf ... or the new politics?
Joi Ito is famous for many things, but one of them is coining the phrase, "World of Warcraft is the new golf" (he in turn gives the nod to Cory O, but anyway..). I'm in agreement, if you're talking about playing with people on the same side as yourself.
So, if you've been living on the moon recently, WoW has two sides: Horde and Alliance. Neither is explicitly good nor bad, but certainly Horde are uglier and Alliance are prettier (some would say. For the Horde!).
This means that Alliance outnumber Horde by almost 2 to 1. Most folk want to be pretty, it seems, and this has game implications but that's a post for another day. The two sides are at war, of course: on a daily basis, we're out to get each other.
Yesterday I went to see a buddy down at a certain large satellite-TV company. He brought some game dude friends, and perhaps inevitably, the talk turned to World of Warcraft.
"Alice plays..", said my friend.
"Oh cool," said one of the chaps, "what level?"
"A 60 lock on the UK servers and a 57 mage on the US servers," I said. "Do you play?"
"Yep. Are you Horde?"
"Yes! You?"
"...Alliance."
"Oh."
There was a beat as we assessed this new data. I looked at him, he looked at me.
I grinned:
"/Spit", I said.
He laughed.
Whew.
I think perhaps WoW needs to be added to the trio of things you don't talk about at the business or dinner table: politics, religion, income... and Warcraft.
Funny that he asked, "Are you Horde?" when he was Alliance!
Posted by: Justin Hall | October 10, 2006 at 17:11
I'm staying well away from the WoW timesink thankyouverymuch but I found a paragraph in your link interesting:
"From the survey data, the average age of the WoW player is 28.3 (SD = 8.4). 84% of players are male. 16% are female. Female players are significantly older (M = 32.5, SD = 10.0) than male players (M = 28.0, SD = 8.4). On average, they spend 22.7 (SD = 14.1) hours per week playing WoW. There are no gender differences in hours played per week."
timesink indeed. I wonder how many female characters are actice, especially since only 16% of the players are female.
OK that took like 2 minutes to find out.
http://blogs.parc.com/playon/archives/data/wow_data/gender/index.html
I lurv the internets.
That PlayOn blog has a lot of interesting stats btw: http://blogs.parc.com/playon/
Posted by: Michiel | October 10, 2006 at 18:03
Yeah, I could do without the excessive WOW stat-nerding when the WOW players get together.
Posted by: Brinstar | October 10, 2006 at 19:13
Nod. The end-game particularly is tailored to the more trainspottery amongst us; there is far less emphasis on sociable play and far more on gear acquisition. The number of times I've been in a pick-up group only to have someone drop out just because he wasn't likely to get the *specific* item of gear he wanted...
It's rude, is what it is!
Posted by: Alice | October 10, 2006 at 20:11
This happened to me a few times at AGC, and they were *always* Alliance - although one guy admitted that he actually has more fun playing his Tauren alt (he was drunk at the time).
p.s. I aten't dead
Posted by: Jen | October 10, 2006 at 20:28
I've seen the studies that found people prefer "attractive" avatars. I'm not sure that fully explains why so many more players are Alliance, though. Having played both sides, it's clear that the Horde side was less developed in many ways.
Since WoW is a social game with segregated factions, *everyone* in a group of friends ends up on the side that is most appealing to the *majority*. Winner takes all, so to speak.
People do seem to get irrationally worked up about their arbitrary allegiance to one side. I, however, have a dream of Horde and Alliance guilds, working together, united... by Ventrilo.
Posted by: bob | October 10, 2006 at 21:23
I was at a mother and toddler coffee morning the other day when I noticed on the bookshelf a rather dog eared, WoW box. I know that the hostess's eldest child is only just 9 years old, so it could be his. But I also know that the hostess's husband used to work in the video games department of a large and well known film production company. So it could be his.
Or it could have been the hostess's own copy.
But for the life of me, I couldn't think of a way I could interrupt the latest bit of village gossip to bring up the topic.
Posted by: Dragon | October 10, 2006 at 21:38
Bob - night elves and humans, in a nutshell. Buff.
What do you think is unfinished about the Horde that Alliance have? I'm curious, never having played Alliance...
Posted by: Alice | October 10, 2006 at 22:54
Horde questing and zones seem pretty limited after playing Alliance.
I started Alliance because some friends had, and I wanted to try out a Paladin - a class I'd never bothered with in a short stint in Everquest. I ended up abandoning the Paladin at 60, the endgame was just too boring as a cleansebot.
Hunter was next, but he hit the shelf so I could try taking my mage to GM rank. That stopped when I decided to try leveling the Warrior through PVP.
Posted by: Rod Oracheski | October 10, 2006 at 23:04
One other place not to talk about WoW. WORK! All the WoW jabber at work makes me puke.
Posted by: | October 11, 2006 at 04:48
WoW divides families, pits brother against brother... my friend against my roommate.
Posted by: Cheryl | October 11, 2006 at 08:46
I've levelled both Horde and Alliance characters far enough to see enormous differences in the quest lines. Alliance quests tend to be well realised, with excellent writing, characterisation, depth and continuity. Horde quests tend to have a rough, unfinished quality to them with far less variety and depth.
Of course, I play a lot more EQ2 than I do WoW, so both Horde and Alliance seem underdeveloped by comparison. ;)
Posted by: Seb Potter | October 11, 2006 at 14:02
I wonder what it would be like to play a game that taught you politeness, collaboration, etc?
I've noticed WoW's start-up tips have become very finger-wagging, recently, saying things like, "asking before you invite someone to a party is considered polite!" etc.
Posted by: Alice | October 11, 2006 at 17:02
I'm told that the Horde quests, in general, are of lesser quality (and that there is less Horde content) than the Alliance quests as well.
Posted by: Brinstar | October 11, 2006 at 17:51
Yeah, as others have stated, the Horde quests definitely suffer in comparison to the Alliance quests (in both quality and quantity). The Horde cities aren't as well developed for the most part, either. Even basic things, the cooking skill being a perfect example, have obvious differences between the two sides. The Horde have far fewer recipes, and a couple of the recipes they do have are useless. My Horde characters are constantly getting cooking ingredient drops that they can't use, as the recipe is Alliance only. My Alliance characters never have that problem. That becomes pretty obvious when fighting spiders in Stonetalon, for instance. They drop four different types of cooking mats, none of which the Horde can use, and all of which the Alliance can.
As for which side is prettier, may I say: gnomes and dwarves, in the buff. Some of those (female) orc and troll models are much sexier than they have any right to be (given what the males look like), and some of the Forsaken skins look so much like Audrey Tautou that I had to fight the impulse to name my 'lock "Amelie."
Posted by: bob | October 11, 2006 at 20:56
Ever run into this kind of thing when you're playing?
http://gaming-edge.blogspot.com/2006/10/world-of-warcraft-attention-priests.html
Just happened...drives me nuts. It's funny, I can lose all day long (playing Alliance you get used to it), but it's the games where I get the mouthbreathers that tick me off.
Posted by: Rod Oracheski | October 13, 2006 at 05:51
Oops - This is the link.
Posted by: Rod Oracheski | October 13, 2006 at 05:54