Perhaps World of Warcraft may be infamous for tearing people apart, but for others, it helps bring them together – and Blizzard is asking players to share their stories.
If you aren’t one of the eleven million people playing World of Warcraft, and I ask you to think about WoW players, what would be the first thing to come to mind? Would it be a certain Paladin with no self-preservation instincts? Would it be a raid leader with ridiculously high blood pressure? What about the PvP raid on the in-game funeral?
Though these are all rather entertaining, perhaps they aren’t the best choices to sell the social aspects of World of Warcraft to non-players. And yes, there are positive social aspects in the game. Naturally, the latter sort of thing is the type of news that Blizzard would probably prefer to focus on, and with the new Player Stories section, that’s exactly what the company is doing.
Eluvia tells the story about how she got the game to finally understand what her boyfriend and his friends were always talking about. A 65-year-old “Level 80 Grandmother” named Peacelady plays the game with her ailing husband to keep him company in lieu of more physically strenuous activities. A mother expresses pride that grouping together in Azeroth WoW got her two sons to start cooperating better out-of-game as well. And Lovemymonkey, deployed overseas in Iraq, discusses how WoW helped him and his friends unwind after dangerous days – and how it’ll let them keep in touch once they’re back in the States when their tour of duty is over.
These are all short stories, and naturally there’s none that are critical about the game – just go to the WoW forums for that sort of thing – but if you’re in the mood for some feel-good stories about how online games like WoW can bring people together, it’s worth a few minutes to read some of them.
(Via Wired)
Published: Sep 17, 2009 08:50 pm