Device: Laptop
Location: Bedroom
Time: 1 hour
I spent some time in the Undercity after “translocating” back to the world of the Undead. I rode a bat back to Brill, a nearby town, to work on some more side quests. I met a Dwarf named Crispin who gave me a couple of them. I didn’t do very much exploring during my last session except reach level ten. I played for thirty minutes, took a break, and then returned for another thirty.
The World of Warcraft game has noticeably prospered since it was released in 2004 probably due to its broad appeal. It’s appealing for anyone teenage or older because of the variety in characters and stylization. Even though the avatars are confined to binary sex, they are not constricted by gender in the game world (unless it involves other players). Without the constrictions of a set narrative, the game offers the option to explore without flashback scenes or mandatory check-points. The player has the freedom to progress through side quests or ignore it all together and simply explore.
The article about the under-representations of gender, race, and age in video games by Williams shows that video games don’t have proportional characters that appear in the population. White male characters are the most common characters in video games. World of Warcraft avoids pushing a specific race as the best one, but at the same time, it doesn’t offer an equal platform for each race in the game. There’s still an over-representation of whiteness through the limited skin color stylization, as I mentioned in the previous session.
In World of Warcraft, I also noticed that all of the characters are adults. There doesn’t seem to be an option for children, teens, or the elderly. I don’t personally find this problematic. Age can become an issue in the multiplayer game, especially since it there could be a higher chance of pedophilia issues. Letting a middle age man control a little girl avatar would be problematic. Having a set age seems to level the playing field. I wonder if teen or children avatars in World of Warcraft would have a lower set of skills than the adult and elderly ones.
Overall, I’ve had the most fun immersing myself in this game thus far.