WOW social aspect: from a different pov

[Synstir]

I was just posting on a different thread, while this thought came into my mind. I added it in there... but I thaught that it was this interesting to think/talk about it, that I created a seperate thread for it.

Just what the titel says, the theme is the social aspect but from a different point of view.

Okay, here we go. WOW is considered a social game. Community is preceived as being very important. A lot of people are complaining now that server-community is destroyed and that Blizzard should try to fix that. People saying wow is boring but they are still there because of the social aspect of the game.
Well it seems to me that it is pretty obvious that this social aspect is very important.

The only thing is, that this social aspect is being looked at from an ingame pov.
We come online and there our friends are. They could be irl friends or friends you only know online.
They are there when you come online.

In order to be online, you had to break away from your family/friends irl.
And this is the pov I want to look at this.

If you play another game, lets say monopoly, risk, xbox, wii you can do this together with your friends/family.
If you have brothers/sisters you can enjoy some time together.
I play a lot with my children... I have a twin, boy and girl. So we enjoy xbox, wii and also boardgames together.
These games bring people together irl.

If you want to play, you have to break away from these people, in order to go online, meet up with some people and socialize.
And this I find strange..... Most games will let you play together with family/friends.
WOW (and others I know, but we're talking wow here) need you to leave people irl and go online seperately.
You can't play together with your kids, family unless you buy them all a seperate account.
If you're playing wow and your children, spouce, anybody want attention, you can't give it because it will bring down your performance.

So you get now where I want to talk about now. From a irl perspective, just how social is wow?
And how do you justify socializing online against avouding people irl?
Can we, from an irl pov, call wow a social game?

I have done a LAN party with some irl friends, playing wow.
Still this can't be done everytime and everyday.

While othe games (monopoly, risk, xbox, wii) unites people irl, wow tend to seperate them.
Still we cal it a social game, from an ingame pov.
But how about a irl pov?

I hope to have a serious exchange of information about this topic please.
Like, how does your immediate family reacts when you go online, not interacting with them?
How, if you any, do you brothers and sisters react when they are playing something and you are sitting at your computer socializing online?

How does wow affects you socializing irl in general?

[Cowt]

While othe games (monopoly, risk, xbox, wii) unites people irl, wow tend to seperate them.

I think your biggest mistake is to compare a single game (WoW) to an entire console (XBox/Wii).

You'd get a more accurate comparison if you look at your PC as a whole, and not single out one game.

As a platform, a PC can be incredible for socializing.

[Synstir]

I agree that a pc is terrible for socializing, but a pc is not made for spending 24 hours behind it. We do what we need to do and that's it.

I took WOW, because a lot of people are calling it a social game.
I took WOW because a lot pof people want the grind beck, so the time needed online do achieve something, will be more.

Blizz is developping towards a system that even if you spend 1 hour online, you will have progression.
A lot of players are against it. Their arguments are like, not everyone should have everything. If they do want it, they have to spend spend time online, they will have to invest.

Raiding takes skill. Skill takes time. People are spending like 100's if wipes getting a boss down...... I'm okay with that.
But the trend now is, easier raids, nerfs over time, so people can progress. There are a lot of arguments against it.
If people don't invest time, they don't need to have the gear.
And Blizz is moving the other way now.

So while I agree with your point, I wanted to exchange wow-experiences. This is s site where most of the members are wow-players.
I still hope we can share information.

I will give an example:
I have this friend, he introduced me to WOW. Back when we where younger, we played Dungeons and Dragins together. So I knew the world, clasees and stuff.
When I saw the online world, I was immediately attracted. I got wow and played it from then on...... TBC time.

When I started playing, this friend of mine was working. He is painter. He had a girlfriend, a house he rented. He had a pretty good life al to gether.
He was quite hooked, i have to say. He played like hell, if there wasn't anything else in this world.
Night and day.. he called in sick, because he was online the whole night. Going to work, and coming back after half a day, because he wanted that particulair piece of loot, so ran dungeons therest of the day.

He would sit behind his pc and play.. meanwhile throwing some words to his girlfriend so now and then. He tried to create the illusion of talking.
I would visit... I would sit there,. have coffee talk to his girlfriend, he would be sitting behind pc, playing.. and sometime laugh at us and say something like... ahah, yeah, wow etc. If I ask him to join us, he would be like, I'm here and talking am I not?

So, after a short while he got fired. He wasn't performing at work, not always there. Customers complaining and stuff.
So it looked like he didn't care for it either. He went on playing..... after a while I got message that he has to leave his house, with 48 hours. He would loose everything in the house after 48 hours. I found out he wasn't paying rent, went on quite some time.

So we spend 36 hours, straight moving all his stuff out. We lost a lot of things, but could save some.

His girlfriend left him, after he lost the house. He went to his brother, got a small room there.
Girlfriend left him, because she wouldn't any attention at all; the guy was playing, nothing else.

Today, he doesn't have money. He gets welfare.. but that money is takekn away from him. He gets 50 Euro for necessities, like food, drinks.
So that's all the money he gets... therest is used to pay his bills. He is not in control of his own money.....

His brother threw him out, because he locked himself in his room, would not talk, sit or anything with the other people in the house.
He got a house from welfare.

He is all alone....... with his pc. If something breaks, he will call mne, cause he doesn't have any money.

He still got things online and somehow he enjoys it.
I'm not there anymore... I moved recently to India.
IRL he is alone, online he has some friends, I'm still there online.

This is what I'm talking about. Playing and socializing online brought him loneliness.
Everything he lost, he lost because he wouldn't spend time irl.
Even if I visited, he was like, after some time: Go home, meet me online; we'll do something.
It was like he rather spend time with me online, then irl.

So wow socializing from a irl perspective.

I know, we could say a lot about pc's, other gamnes, gambling, alcohol... I know... but this is MMO-C.
So lets talk about wow.......

[Deleted]

Poker with friends can be fun. Poker played like a meth addict can detroy your life...same goes for wow.

See i've got a story for you, i've met people on my year of playing wow, known them for 4 years now. We go on vacations together, we go on trips together, we do some IRL sometimes. I mean they're friends nom, irl friends.
Still have other friends of course, but you see you can find some good in this too.

And trust me, there is people that closes themselves from the others with solo playing games aswell.

It's mostly not the game, but what you do with it. (It could however be argued that wow might indeed have a good potential at acting like an addiction)

[Deleted]

I do not agree on PC is bad at socializing you look at One game to entire things, like X-box or boardgames, you cant just compare it like that.
Beisde, i do not find wow to be bad for the family, i think the problem is your family dont play, because mine does, i have my father, mother and sister playing, i have some cousins who also plays it, and a damn lot of IRL friends.

Like you said, then all need to have a account, but in the same way, so does a X-Box, all need a controler, else they are just watching you play, and then they could just as well, watch you play wow.

I find wow to be okay with socializing as i said, i have a family who plays it, and many friends who plays it, We chat, about In game or IRL stuff, we plan things, and so on And yes ofc some people fuck completly up and dont have IRL socializing but you can find the same, with people who plays other games, or consoles, achohol, People who find a B/G friend who just stays away from everybody else.

What "Synstir " said, i have personal not have a friend who have become like that, just the other way around, i found my dad and mum to be a lot cooler when we had wow togetter, I met my best Friend because of we both played wow, so we could play togetter, even on a school day after we had done homework, when i growth older i took to Lan partys, where i also met some cool people, and friends. So i find it wrong to say wow is bad at socializing In real life, since it have given me so much IRL. It is still only a game, and i think that is most of all what people need to realise, i would probaly not have my friends if all we did was wow, and never hang out but the socializing aspect of wow made us better friends