Is WoW a Caillois-complete game?

If that name looks unfamiliar to you, don't worry; I didn't know who the man was myself until a week or two ago. Roger Caillois was a French philosopher who wrote a book called Les Jeux et Les Hommes, which traslates to English as Men, Play and Games. In this book, Caillois discussed games and what truly constitutes a game, and he came up with six points about what makes a game a game. For a game to be a "Caillois-complete" game, it must fit all six of these points, or else it is just not a game. It might be an interesting tool or an entertaining diversion, nonetheless, but it is not a game. For a game to be Caillois-complete, it must be:

-Free: “in which playing is not obligatory; if it were, it would at once lose its attractive and joyous quality as diversion.”
-Separate: “circumscribed within limits of space and time, defined and fixed in advance.”
-Uncertain: “the course of which cannot be determined, nor the result attained beforehand; and some latitude for innovations being left to the player’s initiative.”
-Unproductive: “creating neither goods, nor wealth, nor new elements of any kind; and, except for the exchange of property among the players, ending in a situation identical to that prevailing at the beginning of the game.”
-Governed by Rules: “under conventions that suspend ordinary laws and for the moment establish new legislation, which alone counts.”
-Make-Believe: “accompanied by a special awareness of a second reality, or of a free unreality, as against real life.”
(transcribed from a post on the blog "Cope")

What I would like to look at today is whether World of Warcraft is a Caillois-complete game, i.e. whether WoW counts as a game. Now, astute readers will remember my post, Is WoW "just a game"?, in which I concluded that, in some instances, WoW was more than a game. However, I did end the post by saying, "WoW is not just a game, but it is still a game," so I can still examine whether it is a Caillois-complete game. Besides, even if I had concluded that WoW was not "just a game", it would not prevent me from examining whether WoW is a Caillois-complete game, for one could not conclude that WoW not being a game means it isn't a Caillois-complete game. That would be a "converse error", a logical fallacy in which you assume that if one fact implies another, and that if the second fact is true, then the first one must also be true. In this case, the implication is that if WoW is not a Caillois-complete game, then it isn't a game. If I had concluded that WoW isn't a game, it would be a converse error to assume that that means it isn't a Caillois-complete game.

Right, so now that your lesson in logic is over, let's get to the examination.

Free: “in which playing is not obligatory; if it were, it would at once lose its attractive and joyous quality as diversion.”

Interestingly, WoW is one of the few games that actually has a mechanism in place to encourage players to play less and rewards players who do not play as if they are required to play; that mechanism is rested state, which you gain when you log out and which doubles the experience you gain from killing enemies. Of course, once you hit the level cap, rested state is no longer useful to you, so this point no longer necessarily applies. Thus we must ask; at level-cap content, it playing obligatory? Are players at a disadvantage if they take a break from playing?

I would say that in the days of Burning Crusade, that answer to this question was a definite "yes". I tried to get into raiding back then, but I was behind in gearing up, and the guild I was in didn't have the time to run me through older content to help me catch up. Now, granted, this lack of gear was a result of trying to start raiding too late, rather than a result of me taking a break, but the end product would have been the same either way. Fortunately, in today's WoW, we have the emblem system, which allows people to get gear in heroics that is good enough for them to go right into the current tier of raiding. Thus players are able to take a break from raiding, and if their gear falls behind, it's easier for them to catch up without their guild needing to drag them through old content. This was a big step for making WoW a more Caillois-complete game, in addition to a more casual-friendly game.

For progression guilds filled with hard-core players, however, the situation is likely not the same. After all, if you are doing cutting-edge content, you need to get as much gear as you can get your hands on so you can gain that much of an edge, and if you take a break and fall behind your guild, even if the difference is small, it could be enough of a disadvantage that your guild will leave you out in favor of someone who is more geared than you. And all that practice you missed? Not to mention needing to make it to raids on time or else being replaced and being less likely to be picked for a future raid. Of course, that content isn't going anywhere, so if you do take a break, you can always find a group of people who are at your current skill and gear level and run with them, instead. Suffice it to say that the design of WoW is Caillois-complete in the sense of being "free", but the social structures and obligations created by the players sometimes make it otherwise.

Separate: “circumscribed within limits of space and time, defined and fixed in advance.”

Well, it's certainly safe to say that WoW and the real world are separate entities... objectively, at least. But as I said above, when you look at the ways hard-core players approach WoW, the line between WoW and the real world gets blurry quite fast. When I was in a raiding guild, it wasn't uncommon for one guild member to call another guild member when we were trying to form a raid and were short one person. If that isn't WoW bleeding into the real world, I don't know what is. So, again, WoW is only as separate as its players want it to be.

Uncertain: “the course of which cannot be determined, nor the result attained beforehand; and some latitude for innovations being left to the player’s initiative.”

On the surface, this one seems much harder to defend than the others. After all, think of all of the raiders who do dailies for the money to enchant and gem their new gear, as well as pay the repair bills that endless wipes will lead to. Why do they run these dailies? Because they know exactly how much money they will get from those dailies, and they know it's enough to pay the bills. Think, also, of the raiders who run a heroic each day for the extra Emblems of Frost to get their tier gear that much faster. They know exactly what is going to happens in those heroics, and because of their gear, they know that failure just isn't a possibility. In other words, the outcome of dailies and heroics is certain, and thus they are not a Caillois-complete part of the game.

Of course, players only do these chores (let's call them what they really are) because they feel they have to, but the game doesn't require them to enchant and gem all their gear, and the money from the raid enemies themselves is usually enough to pay the repair bills if you don't wipe. And there are even ways to earn the money for gems and enchantments that are uncertain, and thus are a Caillois-complete part of the game. After all, one of my favorite parts of the game is fishing, and fishing is a great way to make money. The out-come is still uncertain, though; you don't know how much of the profitable fish you are going to get, and you don't know whether people will actually buy your fish. Still, it is a great way to make money, and the same facts apply to all gathering professions (except perhaps skinning). Thus, once again, dailies and heroics are only a Caillois-incomplete part of the game because players chose to continue to do them when they become chores.

Unproductive: “creating neither goods, nor wealth, nor new elements of any kind; and, except for the exchange of property among the players, ending in a situation identical to that prevailing at the beginning of the game.”

Two words come to mind when I see this rule: gold sellers. Where it not for the trade of in-game currency for real-world currency and the hacking that takes place as a result, this point would apply to WoW without exception. But gold sellers exist, and their presence means that WoW can be a productive activity, and thus not a game. Of course, their presence is only made possible by players who buy the gold those gold sellers sell steal, so yet again, the only reason this point doesn't apply to WoW is because the players don't let it.

Governed by Rules: “under conventions that suspend ordinary laws and for the moment establish new legislation, which alone counts.”

WoW certainly suspends ordinary laws and establishes new legislation. The fact that a human being can drop down in Goldshire and throw fire at a wolf, or the fact that the Undead Forsaken exist is enough proof that the game makes its own rules of what is possible. The game also makes new rules that are less fantastic and are still feasible by real world sensibilities, like the fact that we are literally unable to directly kill anyone on our side. The key to this point, however, is that the game establishes new rules to replace the old rules, and only those new rules matter. This means that none of our real-world rules bleed into the game unless we want to them to. Well, as a social game, it's likely that the rules we have for social interactions in the real world are going to become a part of WoW, but its safe to say that we want that to happen. WoW is just more fun when people act civilly around one another.

But what about when a player doesn't want that to happen? I'm talking about trolls, griefers, and people who generally make other players' experiences miserable. Where do we get the idea that their activities are to be frowned upon? Why, from the real world of course. If WoW somehow punished griefing and trolling in some way other than players reporting trolls and griefers to GMs, this wouldn't be the case. However, there currently exist no in-game mechanics (and thus no "new legislation") to discourage this kind of behavior, so because the players bring with them their sensibilities of what is and isn't allowed in social interaction, WoW doesn't fit this point.

Make-Believe: “accompanied by a special awareness of a second reality, or of a free unreality, as against real life.”

I think you can see the pattern developing. While WoW certainly can invoke a second reality for us players, that reality is tainted by all of the exceptions brought up in the previous points. It's difficult to acknowledge WoW as a second reality when there are consequences for not entering that reality regularly, when players contact each other outside the game to ask each other to enter that new reality, when we know how exactly how some of our interactions with that reality will end, when financial transactions take place in which currency within that reality is exchanged for currency in real life, and when our rules for social interaction in our reality bleed into our second reality. Suffice it to say that because of the players themselves, WoW doesn't create a second reality, or an unreality against real life.

So it seems that the general trend is that WoW is an objectively Caillois-complete game, but not a subjectively complete one. In other words, once players actually start playing, the Caillois-completeness of the game breaks down. I wouldn't say that this is WoW's fault, though. Perhaps with a smaller, more intimate playerbase, these issues wouldn't arise the way they do now. Because there would be fewer raiders to pick from, the raiding guilds would be happy to help guildies who took a break gear up again. With fewer potential customers, the gold-selling business wouldn't be as lucrative. With a more intimate playerbase, it's less likely that trolls would necessitate the infusion of real-world social rules into the game. Maybe WoW isn't a Caillois-complete game because it's playerbase is just too big.

Or perhaps we don't want WoW to be just a game, so we try to make it more than just a game, subconsciously or otherwise, and thus is loses some of what makes it a game in the process. That's an issue too big for me to consider in this post, though. Maybe next time.

Alts for their own sake?

Full disclosure: I'm a recovering alt-oholic. For as long as I have been playing WoW, I have always felt the temptation to see how the other nine sides live. The sheer number of alts I rolled that never made it past level 20, or even level 15, astounds me sometimes. I used to go through a very predictable pattern with my alt-itis: I'd grow envious of one class, roll alt of that class, give it a profession I was envious of, play it, get board with it somewhere in the 10-15 range (or sometimes even before then), and repeat that process about six times, give or take. I would then have a mini existential crisis where I would look at that screen of alts and wonder, "Why do I keep rolling alts that I never play? No more of this!" I would then log in to each alt individually, sell all of their stuff, send the money to my main, and delete them. I would then promise to myself that I would not roll another alt without having a good reason to do so. I have gone through this whole process at least four times thus far, enough times to have gained some insight into how and why it happens.

One thing that is consistent with most of the alts I roll is that I never roll them for the sake of just leveling them. In most cases, what motivates me to roll an alt is the desire to use that alt in end-game content. It's usually jealousy of that class's abilities and perceived strengths that draws me away from my druid. Perhaps a class looks fun to play as a DPS, or perhaps the class's healing or tanking style looks more varied than my druid's and thus more engaging. Inevitably, though, I realize that it will likely take me months to reach that point (that point being level 80), and I realize that I will likely never be able to use my alt for group content. (What's that you say? Run dungeons on the way to 80? Um... no.) And with the possibility of using that alt for level cap content gone, my motivation to level it goes as well.

So it seems the issue is a disjunction between my motivation for rolling the alt in the first place and the amount of effort I am willing to put up with to get it there. After all, when you roll an alt, you start with a very small selection of that class's abilities, and if the goal is to play the class because of the class's playstyle, it's disheartening to only be able to start with a skeleton of that playstyle (it's really just the ribcage, if we want to stick with that metaphor). That's part of the reason that I've always thought that a good middleground between the people who want to be able to start alts at level 55 and the people who think we shouldn't be able to do that would be the ability for us to start our alts at level 20. That way, you skip the most boring levels and start at the point where most classes start to come into their own and feel like the class they are. In other words, you could skill the lol-smite/lol-wrath/lol-judgment stages in which the classes are incredibly boring to play. But that's a topic for another time.

Of course, the obvious answer is to just roll an alt for the sake of playing the alt, for the sake of experiencing the class as it evolves and comes into its own. My most successful alt, my shaman, who is now level 66, was rolled for exactly this reason, which is part of the reason why I have stuck with him for so long. So why isn't this enough of a motivator for me to stick with an alt? Why isn't playing an alt for its own sake enough to motivate me to roll an alt?

I think it has something to do with the issue of meaning. Perhaps in WoW, as in life, we desire a meaning for our actions, a motivating factor to motivate us to play. Fun can certainly be that motivating factor, but I see fun in WoW as similar to happiness in real life: they're both one answer to the question of what to live for, but for some, they are insufficient answers, not enough to make all it worth it. Perhaps you don't know what I mean, but maybe some of you reading this do; maybe you have experienced the dissatisfaction with living for day-to-day experiences rather than for something greater. Life isn't constantly enjoyable, so living only for the moment can backfire when that moment isn't a particularly good one.

Alts are the same way. They are certainly fun, but some parts of the leveling process are just plain grueling, including the lol-phases listed above, the 40-50 stretch, quest items with aggravatingly low drop-rates, etc. In those moments, it can be easy to forget the fun times you had with your alt and the fun times you will have if you continue playing. That's where that long-term goal comes in. That long-term goal is what will keep you playing through those uninteresting stretches, because achieving that goal will make it all worth it.

So the real question becomes, are those long term goals necessary, or are the fun moments themselves enough motivation to keep playing one's alt? I guess this is just a question that every player needs to answer for themselves.

Overarching motivation, in-universe and out

One of the things I'm sure most of us love about the world of World of Warcraft is just how open of a world is it. There's so much to do with so many classes and races to do it with, and it's this scope that has kept me playing the game for what will soon be five years. But with this kind of open world comes the risk that it may be too open. A game like WoW runs the risk of becoming a quicksand box (a play on the term "sandbox game", which describes a game like WoW where there are tons of things you do and you can choose what you do), in which a sandbox game becomes so open that the player has no motivation to play, usually due to a lack of goals to accomplish. I know many of you will probably say that WoW's extensive array of quests prevent it from becoming a quicksand box, and as much as I may agree with you, quite of a few of my friend has tried WoW and stopped playing because of an overall lack of general motivation. There are quests, but for what purpose do we complete these quests? How does me helping a drunken gnome with his buzzboxes relate to defending Darnassus? Most of us probably get too caught up in these little intermediary goals to really think about our characters' lack of overall motivation (art reflects life, indeed), which is why we are able to overlook it.

But as with life, for some of us, our lack of an overall motivation can only last so long before we begin to ask, what for? Our characters get to explore this huge world, fight impressive and intimidating monsters, earn great rewards, but why? After all, there are a finite number of quests in the game, so those intermediary motivators will eventually run out, and then we will be forced to face the question again, what for? Though the introductory cinematics that play when we make a new character do give us an abstract motivation for our avatar, we have almost no way to follow up on that motivation for any extended period of time. Take the Night Elves as an example. Our motivation is to "defend Darnassus and the wild children of nature against the Legion's encroaching corruption." Ok then, so I do the quests in Teldrassil to help protect our tree from any sort of corruption it may be suffering from, but when those run out (as they do around level 12), what then? I'm apparently supposed to protect it from the Legion's corruption, but where is this Legion? How are they corrupting our tree? What am I supposed to do to stop them? Sadly, the game gives us no answers until higher levels, when we are no longer concerned with the motivation the cinematic gave us.

While WoW may not have very practicable main motivators for our characters, it does have quests that send us to new zones once we have outgrown the quests within an old zone, such as What's Wrong at Cenarion Thicket?, which sends players in Outland from Zangermarsh to Terokkar Forest. WoW abounds with these kinds of quests, and they allow us to make sure there are always quests for us to do, people for us to help, etc., so our character is never lacking in motivation Problem is, they still don't give our characters any overall motivation. They help give our characters overall motivation about as much as adding more quests to our starting zone would; they simply delay the realization that our characters don't have a larger purpose or goal.

As you can probably tell by now, I am mostly considering this issue from a lore/in-universe standpoint. We players have plenty of overarching motivators to keep us playing: leveling up, getting loot, experiencing content, overcoming long and difficult challenges, etc. How much story matters to us is something that varies from player to player, but you can't deny that the story of Warcraft truly is an amazing story, and it's a shame for a player to play without any thought for the lore whatsoever. After all, a player who plays with no thought for the story is really playing only for the numbers (be they gold, experience, stats, or whatever), and I would think that most of us would like to think of ourselves as more than people pushing buttons to make numbers bigger.

But though we would like to think that we have larger goals in mind when we play WoW, I think the current state of overall motivation in the WoW universe mirrors our own motivation for playing. Sure, we may have goals like getting more money, more levels, better gear, etc., but when you think about it, those motivators are a lot like our characters' seeming motivation (doing more quests): they give the illusion of a larger, overall purpose, but are really comprised of a series of smaller, nearly identical goals. In-universe, our characters really just do task after task for other people in exchange for money, experience, and occasionally gear. Expanded into the real world, this model still holds. Those of us who play the game to level up are really just chasing a series of milestones that result in a number increasing by one (as well as our characters evolving to become more powerful). Those of us who try to get better gear are really just chasing a series of small upgrades that have the larger effect of increasing some numbers on our character panel. I could go on, but I think you get my point.

But we players do have an overarching motivator that keeps us playing, something grander and deeper than increasing numbers: fun. We play this game because we enjoy it, plain and simple. Everyone has different definitions of fun, so I won't write a long expository paragraph of examples of ways that WoW is fun, and I don't think I have to. With rare exception, I'm sure most of you who read this won't need to be convinced that you play WoW because it is fun.

So if we players have an overarching motivator that isn't explicitly shown in the game, can our characters have one, too? I think so. It's a motivating factor that can't be found in our quests, our introductory cinematic, or maybe even our lore. It's something that may not even be able to be summarized in one word, but I shall try regardless. That motivating factor is what I would call honor (not that kind). You can call it whatever you like--dignity, valor, integrity--they are all words to describe the same thing: that sense of doing what is right. We help those in trouble because it's the right thing to do. We accomplish to intermediary goals because, by doing so, we are helping other people and making their lives better. Obviously I am talking about our avatars, though the same priciples apply in real life, as well. Considering how ephemeral our accomplishment in Azeroth are (different people can help the same NPC multiple times, and they'll still need our help when we roll a new character; gear upgrades never last forever; level gains are only as impressive as they are close to the level cap, and we can always do away with those gains by rolling an alt), something intangible like honor may be closest thing our characters have to a practicable, overarching goal.

Why have solo content in a Massively Multiplayer Online Game?

Whenever I talk about solo content in WoW, if I ever lament the sad state of it these days (whether it be on this blog, in the comments section of WoW.com, or anywhere else), I frequently get reactions that sound something like this: "WoW is a massively multiplayer online RPG. Why worry about the solo content?" I think we can all agree that WoW needs some solo content. The question is, how extensive should that solo content be? Should we expect Blizzard to deliver engaging solo content to us players on a regular basis, or should we greet extensive solo content with a surprised, "Solo content? In my MMO?"

Picture is unrelated.

It's pretty obvious why an MMO needs any solo content at all: when players are just starting out, it's a pretty big challenge for them to try to get a hold of all the new game mechanics that WoW throws at them; needing to learn group mechanics would make it even more difficult. Solo content allows people to become familiar with the game and get a feeling for the way their class plays. It allows them to push their class to its limits without the risk of letting other people down if the fail. Solo content is, if nothing else, a training ground for new players to get them comfortable with the game before they enter group play. There is a risk in that set-up, though. Blizzard could, if they so desired, make sub-par solo content to try to motivate people to move into group play, but if they did that, no one would stick around to see the group content, no matter how awesome it may be. Blizzard needs to make WoW's solo content fun and engaging to draw players in, so they do. This is where the trouble starts.

Though WoW may be a MMO, it is really the solo content that gets people hooked. However, people respond differently to the solo content: some say, "If playing alone is this fun, I bet playing with other people must be even more fun!" These people end up being raiders. Some say, "If the game is this fun fighting computer-controlled enemies, fighting other players must be even more fun!" These people end up fighting in battlegrounds or competing in the arena. Then you have the players like me. Players like me go into raids and say, "Ack, this is too much of a time commitment/too much pressure/etc." Players like me go into battlegrounds and say, "Ack, this is too much of a variable experience, and I play this game to relax. " Or maybe we just don't PvP as a matter of principle. Either way, we don't enjoy the group content that WoW seems to be geared towards getting us to play, so we are quite content with playing the part of the game we enjoy, the part that drew us in in the first place: the solo content.

This leaves Blizzard in a tight spot. They designed WoW to be, at its core, a group game. Ghostcrawler has even said explicitly that their goal is to get PvE'ers into raids. The solo content was meant to draw us in so we could move on to bigger and supposedly better things; to paraphrase one of my commenters, "If I want to play a solo-RPG, I'll play Dragon Age or Mass Effect." However, if the poll on the side of my blog is anything to go on, a fair amount of us prefer to stick with the solo content, in spite of the greater challenges to be had by grouping up.

It seems Blizzard doesn't mind that fact, though, or if they do, they have at least resigned themselves to designing solo content in spite of their larger goals for WoW players. Why else would they release solo content with each expansions pack and with many of the patches? In spite of Ghostcrawler's statement, it seems Blizzard has made it their goal to satisfy all WoW player, including those of us who are quite happy to chuckle at Ghostcrawler's sentiment and keep on solo-ing.

Why is he smiling? That can't be a good sign.

That could, however, all be an illusion. As I said in my post on the homogenization of Wrath of the Lich King solo content, solo content in Wrath of the Lich King has been streamlined to make it more straightforward and make the road from solo-ing to heroics to raiding a smoother one, and the road is only going to become smoother. One of the major promises of Cataclysm is that the old world will be made over to make leveling from 1 to 60 more fun and more like leveling through Outland or Northrend, i.e., smoother. After all, one of the biggest obstacles to getting to level 80 is vanilla Azeroth, which wasn't designed for fast leveling, but that's going to change. Come Cataclysm, the road to the level cap will have even fewer roadblocks than it does now, and the road to raiding will be similarly affected, assuming Blizzard sticks with their current design for solo content. What am I trying to get at here? It seems to me that Blizzard is designing their solo content to make it easier for people to get into heroics and raids, rather than as its own stand-alone content. Solo content in WoW is merely a stepping stone to bigger things, and they are making those steps even smaller.

I know that's a tough contention to prove. After all, why would Blizzard add two extra zones (Icecrown and Storm Peaks) of quests to do after hitting level 80 if they wanted to get us into raids as soon as possible? Well, those quests certainly provided a large chunk of cash, cash we needed to get some basic gear upgrades before starting heroics. (Hell, if you put in enough gold and effort, you could get your gear to the point where it was good enough for starting Naxx-10 without ever entering a heroic; I did. It wasn't advisable, but it was possible.) They also provided the back-story and starting points to the plots of the various heroics and raids those zones contained or would eventually contain, plots we could only see the conclusions of by running those heroics and raids. I think you get what I'm trying to say.

Now, I'm not saying that this design is a bad thing. There are plenty of people who just want to get into the group play, but without solo content, those heroics and raids would have no back story, and there would be no motivation to run them. Solo content also allows those who didn't get good gear in the last expansion to get on even ground with those who did, which prevents people from being locked out of raiding because they arrived at the party late (metaphorically speaking). Solo content is a good thing, even for people who prefer group content. The question is, how far should this smoothing of the path from solo-ing to heroics and raids go? When solo content is designed for the people who hope to surpass it, those who are quite content to stay within it are left behind.

I think Blizzard owes it to us soloists to not leave us out in the dust with their solo content. They drew us in with the solo content, and though they might want us to move on to bigger and supposedly better things, we would rather not. We like where we are, and that isn't going to change any time soon without a big change to the way raiding or PvP works. Now, granted, solo content shouldn't hinder people who want to go right into raiding or PvP, so where can a happy medium be found? Long-term goals. Burning Crusade had reputations like the Consortium and Sporeggar that gave solo-ists something they could work for that couldn't be steam-roled by grouping. The closest thing we have to them in Wrath of the Lich King is the Kalu'ak, and I hit exalted with them a week after hitting 80. What we need is more solo content that takes a large commitment of time to complete and provides appropriate rewards for that commitment. Supposedly, the Path of the Titans will be along the lines of what I am thinking of; let's hope Blizzard does it well.

Advice on blogging

Though I haven't been blogging as long as some of the more established bloggers here in the WoW blagoblag, I have been blogging long enough to learn my fair share of lessons about blogging. Blogging is an interesting hobby, and a fun one for those who enjoy writing and want to be read without the usual pressures of writing for a commercial outlet. Though there are certainly other great articles out there on the interwebs with advice on blogging, it never hurts to put one's own wisdom out there as well, and that's exactly what I intend to do here.

1. If you want to blog, you better enjoy writing.

I'll be honest; I put this rule here more to discuss it than to just state it. I say that because, before I started blogging, I thought I didn't enjoy writing. However, that was mostly because the extent of my writing had been academic writing, hardly a fun form of it. The few times that I wrote of my own volition, I did enjoy it, but I was never able to stick with any one project because I simply had no motivation to stick with it. Blogging was my savior in that it gave me the perfect medium to exercise my writing muscles. Blogging is a good outlet for writers who enjoy writing but can't stick with any one piece for very long. The fact that most posts are self-contained entities means that you don't need a long attention span to blog successfully, since posts don't take a long time to write (compared to writing short stories or novels). The prospect of being read is also good motivation to stick with it, but even that will only take you so far.

Here is where I would say that if you don't enjoy writing, you shouldn't blog, but what I will instead say is this: if you feel that blogging itch, then even if you think you don't enjoy writing, give blogging a chance. It may be the outlet you were looking for to start writing consistently. If you don't want to make the commitment of starting a blog, then try just writing some entries in a Word document for a week or so. That way, if you do start blogging, you'll have some starter material to work with, and if you find out you don't like writing in a blog-like format, no harm done.

That said, you'll figure out pretty quickly whether or not you enjoy writing. To paraphrase WoW.com, unless you already have a reputation for thoughtful commentary, useful advice, or for being entertaining (if Alamo had a blog, I would read it), you'll be starting from scratch. If any of those cases apply to you, then you probably enjoy writing already, since you probably had to write a lot to build up such a reputation (unless you had one funny post that made you infamous for life). If that's not the case, you'll need to build a reputation of some kind if you want to be read, but that takes time. Until that happens, you'll be writing for the sake of writing. Some can do that, as I did for my first five months of blogging. Some, however, will find that, without anything tangible motivating them to write, they just can't do it, and there's nothing wrong with that. Blogging is a hobby, and if you don't enjoy it, you shouldn't force yourself to do it.

2. If you want to be read, you need to have something to say.

The great thing about blogging is that you can add your own unique voice to whatever you write about. That's why people read more than just two or three blogs: even if people say that same thing, no one says it quite like how another person says it. That's why people want more from your blog than links to other posts. Sure, there's a place for such posts, but that place is as a starting point for your commentary. We have already established that to successfully blog, you need to enjoy writing, so a blog consisting of unoriginal content is really a cop-out of real blogging. If you want people to read your posts, you need to give them a reason to read them, and if you are simply posting things they can find elsewhere, why should they read your post at all?

To put this advice into practical terms, avoid posts that only consist of a brief introduction followed by something you copied and pasted from elsewhere. This means no posts whose only purpose is to contain patch notes, blue posts, other blogger's posts or anything like that. It's far better to post those things and follow them with your own commentary. Even if you feel as if you have nothing to say about it, sometimes the simplest comments are the most effective at getting people thinking and commenting on your post.

3. Be consistent.

When I say be consistent, I mean it in two ways: One, keep your topics consistent. Two, post consistently. People read blogs because they like what they read, so if you want to keep people reading, it helps to stick with a theme. Even if that theme is something simple like stories from when you play, commentary on other posts, a class or two, or anything else, people will come to expect that theme from your blog. Keeping readers happy requires giving them what you have taught them to expect, so don't write posts that are all over the place in terms of topic.

On that note, it helps when your readers know when to expect a new post. Believe it or not, some of us still check blogs manually rather than just subscribing to them and forgetting them until our feed is updated. As such, we like to know when a post will go up so we don't need to check constantly to see if the blog has updated yet. Not seeing a blog update can be disheartening to your readers and make them less motivated to read your blog, but if they know when to expect a post, this will not be an issue. Keep to a schedule, even if it's only a loose one, and let your readers know if that schedule is going to change.

4. Write about what you know and what you enjoy writing about.

I write many of my advice posts about the Druid class because I know a lot about the druid class. I write my philosophy posts because I enjoy philosophy and I enjoy philosophizing about... well, everything, so that includes WoW. As I said earlier, one of most important aspects of blogging is keeping yourself motivated to write. If you write about what you know, then writing will be easier since you'll be able to draw mostly from your own knowledge, rather than needing to research your information, and writing about what you enjoy writing about will certainly make writing more enjoyable, further motivating you to stick with it. Both of these points simply make blogging more fun, and as I have said, if you don't enjoy blogging, why do it?

5. Write down any ideas you have

There have been a few times when I had a great idea for a post and it was never written because I simply forgot it (or maybe they were horrible ideas; we'll never know). If an idea for a post strikes you, write it down or make note of it somehow. Even if you don't use it immediately, it helps to have a reserve of back-up ideas when you want to stay consistent with your posting but can't think of anything to write about. That said, it's also important to write down a bit of exposition about your ideas. I have a few ideas languishing in disuse because I never wrote down any details to them and can't for the life of me figure out where I was planning on going with them. So, when you write down your ideas, think about them for a while and jot down a few notes of where you could go with them.

Where should you jot those ideas down? I personally have a draft post that I have set to be published in the year 2020, and I keep my ideas written down in that post. Why 2020? Because, that way, it's always on the top of my list when I go to the "Edit Posts" page, and if I accidentally hit the Publish button, there's no risk of all of my ideas being open to the world. You can also keep a plain text file on your desktop to hold your ideas, or use the Stickies application if you are on a Mac. Just do whatever works for you.

6. Don't be afraid to evolve, and don't preclude yourself from doing so.

People change; it's a fact of life, and your interests are no exception. You may be a dedicated raider now, but you may one day find more entertainment in PvP. You may be dedicated to one class now and be dedicated to another in the future. You may stop playing casually and get really into theorycraft. If those changes happen, you're blogging habits will likely reflect those changes, and you'll be forced to change the direction and focus of your blog. This is not a bad thing. Writing about a part of the game you no longer enjoy or engage in just makes no sense. As such, don't be afraid of changing the focus of your blog; while you may lose a large part of your readership if they have grown accustomed to one thing and you start writing about something else, there's just no way to avoid that.

With that stated, you should be proactive and not preclude yourself form making such a change should your interests shift. Don't lock yourself down with a blog name or domain name that is too specific unless you are very sure you won't be deviating from that subject area. I called my blog "WoW Philosophized" because I knew that I love philosophy, a fact that is not likely to change in the future. There is nothing else entailed in that blog title, so it was a good choice. Now, if I called my blog "The Philosophical Tank," that would have made my title a misnomer when I switched to restoration being my main spec or when I went from being a frequent tanker of heroics to being more of an ineffectual loner. Had I called this blog "The Philosophizing Druid," that would have made things sticky when I started focusing more on my Shaman or Priest alt.

I think you see where I am going with this. Though it helps for your blog name to reflect the focus of your blog, don't pick one that locks you into writing about something you may lose interest it. If you give your blog a more general title and use the description to say what your focus will be, you can change the description when your interests change without needing to make a big adjustment to the site, like changing your URL. And hey, if you end up going through your entire blogging career without making any changes to your focus, no harm done.


There's my advice for you start-up bloggers out there. If I were to try to summarize all this advice in one sage tidbit, I wouldn't be able to, but I will leave you with the most important piece of advice I can give any beginning blogger: enjoy it. Blogging, like WoW, is a hobby, something done for pleasure to occupy oneself in one's spare time. As much as some of you may do it for your readers, who may depend on your advice, wisdom, or commentary, if you get nothing out of blogging, it's not worth doing. Keep your blogging experience fun, and you won't regret it.

This post last edited for grammar and spelling issues on 11/1/10, 10:40 PM. No changes to the actual content were made.

Is WoW "just a game"?

This is a question I have considered in the past, but this edition of WoW.com's The Queue, entitled, "It's Just a Game," particularly the comments that followed, got me really thinking about the issue. Something you often hear said derisively about WoW, as well as many other "games," both of the virtual and real type, is "it's only a game." Whenever anyone does anything to show that they take the game seriously and see victory as a worthy goal, expect someone nearby to tell them they take the activity (whatever it is) too seriously, and that if it is something they do in their spare time, they should take it lightly. I have several problems with this idea, the idea that WoW is "only a game." (What I say in the following post could really be applied to many activities that people snidely refer to as "only a game," but let's keep the focus on WoW for now.)

When someone says that WoW is "only a game," there are a few implications they are making. These implications stem from a few "facts," which may or may not be accurate, that people know about the game, which lead to the following assumptions:
1. WoW is done to relax, and thus it should be low-stress and (depending on who you ask) easy.
2. WoW is completely virtual; the rewards for playing (gear, money, mounts, achievements, etc.) are not real, and thus not worth getting worked up over.
3. Because WoW leads to no tangible rewards, it is not worthy of being taken seriously as a hobby.
4. Because of all the above factors, WoW is not worth spending a large amount of time on.

From the beginning, these assumptions fall apart. Not everyone plays WoW to relax; I do, which I why I often don't run content until I vastly out-gear it, but many people play WoW for the challenge--the challenge of learning new encounters, of fighting other players, of understanding the nuances of your class, of working towards a long-term goal and finally achieving it. WoW is a hobby, but that doesn't mean it should always be relaxing. After all, the true definition of a hobby is something done in one's spare time for pleasure, and what greater pleasure is there than the satisfaction of overcoming a difficult challenge? So no, just because WoW is a hobby, that doesn't mean that it should be low-stress or easy. Well, maybe low-stress, but difficult is completely fine. After all, we have enough stress in our lives as it is.

Still, we can't deny that WoW is completely virtual. That armor your character has is just an item number that the game associates with your character. Does that mean that armor (and loot in general) isn't worth getting worked up over? Is gear drama completely baseless? As I have said in the past, loot serves two functions: it serves as a gatekeeper to new content, preventing you from walking into Trial of the Grand Crusader the moment you hit 80, and it acts as a representation of your achievements in the game. For these two reasons, gear is worth getting worked up over, to an extent. Because gear is necessary to progress through the game's content, an unfair loot system or ninja looting is a malicious act because it prevents people from enjoying all that the game has to offer.

But what about mounts? I'd wager that rare mount drops have caused more drama than all other loot drops (except maybe the Dragonspine Trophy), but mounts are purely cosmetic. Not having a certain cool-looking mount doesn't prevent the player from enjoying the game, so is ninja'ing mounts worth getting worked up over? Let's be honest; as cool as rare-drop mounts looks, when you look at them critically, they are just a sign of really good luck. Sure, that person needed to be able to beat the encounter in the first place, but really, it all comes down to luck. To get one of those mounts, you need to be lucky enough for the mount to drop in the first place, and you need to be lucky enough to win a roll against the other raiders. Even if someone wins the roll, did they do anything more than the other raiders to "earn" that mount? Not really. In the end, the mounts' only benefit is that they look cool, so I would say someone getting worked up over loot drama caused by a mount dropping is one time when the phrase "It's only a game" can be justifiably used.

The next thing we need to consider is, can we derive satisfaction from WoW? In the end, everything we do in WoW can be reduced to some signals sent by our computer in the form of zeros and ones that causes a server to send signals back in the forms of zeros and ones, which our computer interprets as images. Does that make our achievements in game (in both sense of the word) any less real? I don't think so. The fact is that achievement is defined by satisfaction, and if you get satisfaction out of something, then it doesn't matter whether another person considers it real or not. Because WoW provides satisfaction, as well as a challenge (as we have gone over), I think that is enough to make it worthy of as much respect as other hobbies.

Because the first three implications mentioned are all bogus, the fourth one doesn't have a leg to stand on, but where does that lead us? I seem to have deviated a bit from my original question, so now I return to it; is WoW "just a game"? When we look at what people usually mean when they say that phrase, we can see that they are wrong, (unless they are saying it to someone who is freaking out over a mount drop), and that in the context they are referring to, WoW is not just a game. Put simply, if someone says that WoW is "just a game," they are probably wrong.

Still, even if the phrase itself is usually wrong, is WoW, in the end, just a game? My Macbook's Dashboard dictionary defines a game as "a form of play or sport, especially a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck." WoW certainly fits this definition, and yet it is so much more than that. It is a social medium, a way for people to play together, satisfying both the urge to be with other people and the desire for an entertaining distraction. It is a cooperative exercise, wherein people work together to accomplish a common goal. WoW is more than a game; it is an experience, one that is worth taking seriously. Not too seriously, though, for that's when you get loot drama and fun-suckers who prevent people from enjoying the game. If you can't enjoy WoW, why play it? It is, of course, possible to take something that you enjoy seriously without going overboard, which is why I say that WoW is something that can be taken seriously, just not too seriously. So, in the end, WoW is not just a game, but it is still a game.

Why I don't enjoy PvP

I'll admit it; I'm a carebear. I have a set of PvP gear left over from my Wintergrasp phase, but for the most part, I don't enjoy PvP. It's not because I don't enjoy PvP gameplay itself. I know a lot of PvP'ers think that us carebears don't enjoy PvP because it's actually a challenge, but if that were the reason, we wouldn't raid either. I quite enjoyed the challenge of PvP, since no two players ever fight the exact same way. Each battle is always different, and the thrill of it lies in the unpredictability.

But I digress. There is one reason that I don't enjoy PvP'ing, and it's more of a matter of principle than anything. Though I enjoyed PvP after I had gotten good at it, those days when I was just starting were really rough. I was always dying, and each death meant at least 30 seconds when I wasn't involved in the battle. In Wintergrasp, those 30 seconds could easily become two minutes in the right situations. Those were two minutes of me not being able to contribute to the fight at all, gain any honor, or have any fun. And those deaths happened a lot.

As I got better gear and became more skilled in the art of warfare, I began to die less often and actually be able to kill some players in fair battles. This should have been enjoyable, but those deaths I suffered back when I was starting out had done their damage. I realized that every time I killed an opponent in PvP, I was denying someone else that minute of action, of honor, of fun. All the things I didn't enjoy about PvP, I was now inflicting on someone else. That was my definition of victory: preventing another player from enjoying themselves. PvP in my opinion can best be defined as having fun by preventing another player from having fun.

Perhaps I'm just spoiled by PvE, but I find cooperative gameplay to be a lot more fun than competitive gameplay. In cooperative gameplay like raids, everyone has fun as long as everyone does their jobs. It's a win-win situation. Even if someone doesn't get gear from the encounter, they still get emblems and the satisfaction of killing someone more powerful than them. In PvP, however, every time someone wins, someone else needs to lose. I'm sure there are people who can walk away from a defeat, use it as motivation to play better next time, and be that much more satisfied when they do win, but I'm not one of those people.

Short post, I know, but there isn't a whole lot of explanation needed, really. Keep in mind that I am not saying anything against PvP; I'm just offering my reasons for not liking PvP so that maybe you PvP'ers can realize why we PvE'ers don't enjoy your part of the game.