MSTU 5510.005

Week 4: Communication

Let me clarify for a couple of people who have e-mailed me about how I communicate with friends through WoW. Now, WoW should have known that people would want to talk with one-and-other, and built in a chat program (possibly even working with Skype for such a thing) so that people could talk to each other. However, this is not the case. So my friends and I set a certain time and date (all of us have crazy schedules, but Wednesday is a really good time), we get on Skype, chat for a second, and then try to get online. Luckily WoW doesn't use a heck of a lot of computing or graphic power, so you can do this easily. Then we chat about life while we wait in the queue.

It's a going joke that I have some sort of magical game power because I'm always the first to be able to get into the game. And not by seconds or even minutes - last night I got in forty-five minutes ahead of another friend. He finally gave up.

This brings me to a problem with WoW. If people have to wait too long to get onto a server, they'll get fed up, and leave. I don't know why it takes one of my friends so long to get on... perhaps it's that he has a trial version, so the game puts him on the backburner. One would think, though, if WoW really wanted more people to buy the game, they would give PREFERENCE to those on a trial basis.

Another thing that popped up was that my friend is using my discs to play the game on a trial basis. I thought that he could just load the discs, and then create a real account, without having to buy the game. Turns out this isn't the case, so he says, as the game told him that if he wanted a real account, he'd have to buy the game. Does this sound right to anyone?

Okay, back to the game for a second. I remember an e-mail asked if everyone in the game chatted through Skpe. No. That would be awesome, but there are several other ways to communicate.

Let me elucidate the matter:

1) You can type outloud so that anyone around you can see the text. A little bubble comes up. This is fine for when you're standing in front of someone, or you're a textfreak - someone who constantly reads what's going on in the left corner of your screen.

2) You can whisper to someone. This is great because then not everyone has to hear what you're saying - bad because not everyone glances at the bottom left of their screen. So imagine the screen as a HUD - there is a small box of text on the lower screen that explains action and speech. Since you're wandering around, doing your own thing, mindful of your character, the chances of you missing someone whispering to you are pretty high. What I do when I want to make sure someone is listening is I go in front of them and wave or something to get their attention, then whisper.

3) Speaking of waving - there are a lot of movements you can tell your character to do, like dance, wave, sit, sleep, giggle, cry, etc. I think you can use hotkeys for this, but another way is to /e (for emote) and then the command: /e giggle - your character laughs. This is great fun.

4) Another way of communicating is like /e except that your character doesn't actually do it. And now I've forgotten what key you have to press. Perhaps its still /e. So let's say that you want your character to do something that it's not programmed to do. You want him to pull his beard in frustration. Then you go and press /e pulls his beard in frustration. Then text will pop up in the lower left corner and says, "Character name" pulls his beard in frustration.

I prefer to Skype because, well, it's better communication.

My room mate came in the other day and said, "I love it when you guys are talking about the game. It cracks my sh-t up. You're always like, "OMG! I need help! There's this huge... oh sh-t, nevermind. I died. Give me a second," or, "Nick, goddamnit, get your ass over here and except this quest!", or, her favorite, "God, I really wish I could buy this enchanted leather belt, but I don't have enough silver." She loves to hear about guys virtually shopping.

And that's it for now.

posted by Stager @ Monday, February 13, 2006