MSTU 5510.005

Week 5: Paying it Forward

One of the successes of WoW is the community.

A recent article that I read (http://www.innewsweekly.com/innews/?class_code=Ga&article_code=941) concerning WoW's mistake to ban a player who was recruiting for an openly gay guild. Once that individual and others complained, Blizzard wisely apologized and allowed the member to keep her character and continue recruiting. Thank god. I would be VERY disappointed if WoW didn't allow everyone to join in the fun, create their communities, and venture forward together on quests.

As I said before, one of the successes of WoW is the ability to create, be invited into, or witness community. So it wouldn't make sense to exclude ANY individual who was attempting to create a community. If the religious right doesn't want to acknowledge the existence of a homosexual community, fine, that's their right, so they can keep their kids off the damn servers. This member was trying to create a community, something that binds, and was not attempting to steal, lie, or disrupt the flow of things as an anarchist would see fit. (Maybe that last bit was off in left field - the point is that anyone trying to create a community should be allowed, whereas I could see Blizzard having a problem with anarchists, who try to destroy and scatter.)

Let me digress slightly. Paul and I were chilling on Darkshore, doing some quests, probably level, I don't know... 13 or so. We stumbled upon a quest that would require GREATLY more powerful characters. Luckily, we ran into some girl who was a level 20 mage, and she helped us out. We invited her into our group, she was down, and while we fought, she healed. Then she got to take some mushrooms from the cave we were in, as well as treasure and exp. We wouldn't have been able to do it without her; she was having a hard time going about it solo. So we combined and beat the quest. Before going on her merry way, she points out what other things we'll need to do shortly, taking us to the actual places, helping us out. We finished three quests because of her, one of which I would have had NO clue how to do.

Next snap-shot: We ran into this guy in the middle of the woods, we start chatting with him, he joins our group. He helps us go through two quests... none of which he has, nor can have. He's just there to help us out, chat about life in America (he was from Australia), and fight alongside us.

Next snap-shot: In one of the above quests with Dazlain (the chap), we stumbled across this Mother's Den quest, where we have to kill this mother bear. We get there, and there's a group in front of us. Now, instead of charging in and killing the bear, we wait in line until the group is done - because the Mother would respawn after they killed her. So they do, but the leader stops before going out and says, "Thanks a lot for waiting. It's more than what most others would do."

I will not explicate the above snapshots. These snapshots make the game worthwhile.

posted by Stager @ Saturday, February 18, 2006