World of Warcraft guided me through previous dark times — it can do it again
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As the long national quarantine comes upon us — confined in our own homes, playing out Huis Clos with our immediate families, missing our elderly relatives — what will we do to pass the time? Tempted though I am by umpteen repeat watchings of the three-hour director’s cut of Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, I have a sneaking sense of what it will have to be.
I will do what I swore I would only do again if civilization were actually coming to an end, because it very possibly is — which is an excellent excuse. I will re-activate my subscription to World of Warcraft. And I will ride forth once more on my creaky mechanical ostrich to do battle with dragons and ogres in the magical realm of Azeroth. I urge you, friends, to join me.
World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, or MMORPG. It takes place in a vast sub-Tolkien fantasy world of mages and warlocks, elves and rogues and warriors. It has its own market economy, and its own ecosystem of professions and careers. It has vast landscapes to explore — some of them very beautiful in a 1970s album-cover way — and enormous numbers of quests to fulfil and missions to run.
You start out as weak as a kitten, and as you “level up” by running errands, killing monsters, practising skills and collecting treasure, you grow in strength. It is fiendishly well calibrated to keep you playing. It’s wicked fun. Like bingeing on chocolate or cocaine: you know you’ll regret it but you can’t resist that tiny bit more. I know so many people who couldn’t bear to look at their “/played” number: the in-game log that tells you to the second how long you’ve spent in the game.
Every time you think you might just log off now and, I don’t know, go to bed or make some food or go out to the pub to meet flesh-and-blood human beings, you’ll catch sight of a non-player character flashing with the little yellow exclamation mark that indicates they have a quest for you. Or you’ll think: I’d best just go to the Auction House to flog what I don’t want from my latest haul of booty. Or you’ll think, gosh, if I just dig up another ten bars of platinum in this quarry I’ll have what I need to craft that nifty pair of gauntlets I’ve been craving. So on, for another ten minutes, you go… and another ten.. and another ten….
And, happily, no death in Azeroth is forever. Every time a monster kills you, your ghost pops up in a nearby graveyard and you can hasten, incorporeally, back to your downed body to resurrect yourself. You can try that battle again, resume that quest, pick up where you left off. You’re always going forward, however slowly. It’s comforting in that way. It’s comforting in all sorts of ways.
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Oh dear, just what’s needed in these troubled times: a game glorifying warfare, violence, bloodletting, and human suffering.
Will little boys ever grow up? Sorry, that’s a rhetorical question. Despite the lessons that history should has taught us, men haven’t really progressed much since hunter-gatherer times. And by continuing to feed little boys the myth of the “glory” of warfare, I fear that the male of our species never will.
Sshh, don’t tell too many people, but there are oodles of “peaceful” games that require skill, ingenuity, and brainpower. Don’t believe me? Do an online search and you’ll find them.
Let’s say something just so we don’t stay silent.