Adventures in Azeroth #1: The Metagames of Warcraft or YO DAWG I HEARD YOU LIKE GAMES!

How does one play an MMORPG? For World of Warcraft (and most MMOs), the answer seems simple enough. Starting at level 1, players are immediately told that if they wish to grow in power they must complete quests and kill things. Once you reach the level cap, a player has some options. They can choose to join with groups of about 20 players to go kill end world bosses together, play games like Capture the Flag and King of the Hill against rival factions, or hone their professional craft skills in order to make their virtual fortune by selling their goods to other players.

But what about the times when a player doesn't want to do any of that? How do they play the game when they're not actually playing the game? Being in a guild like The Knights of Arcadia (KoA), I found that the social nature of players inevitably leads to the creation of random games and events specific to that guild.

Some of those activities take advantage of what's already programmed into the game. For example, guild members will occasionally head towards a major in-game town for an impromptu dance party. As you may (or may not) have guessed, pants are optional at these dances. Naturally, I decided to follow tradition.


And yes I also dance with my pet turtle between my legs. That's just how I roll.

This was one of the first events I participated in after joining the guild, and it gave me a chance to meet some of the guild members I was not previously familiar with from the real world.

In general dancing in WoW seems to be quite popular for some reason. When guild members hold a "Pants Off Dance Off," many players passing through the town will stop and join in the festivities for a while before returning to their previous tasks. Even when I'm questing, I'll occasionally find a group of players dancing. Sometimes they'll be wearing pants, and sometimes they'll be dancing on the top of a light post. Oh, and the players will also be transformed into bears.


I'm not quite sure how three bears even get up to the top of a lamp post in the first place.

Another aspect of play built into the world mechanics is the various novelty items found within the game. At this year's Comic-Con, my friend Mathne won a free in-game item that was essentially an ethereal tiger designed to look like one of those sandbox animal rides you see in playgrounds at public parks. He brought it out for the entire guild and we all took turns riding it.


Needless to say, I think we had more fun with it than we should have.

There are also a number of items players can toss to each other. While the first thought that comes to mind is players can play catch with these items, my friend Karami came up with a better idea.


She and a few guild members would take turns holding a snowball, while the players without snowballs went to hide. The ball holder would look for the other players and throw the ball to the first person they found. The person tagged with the ball would then hunt for everyone else in the next round. It's basically hide-and-seek with magic, but the game would occasionally be structured in a way so that there was a point system. I should also note that Karami is a rouge and has the ability to turn pseudo-invisible.


Of course players who aren't rogues see this as an unfair advantage and will pelt poor Karami with snowballs whenever they get a chance.

So what does this all say about World of Warcraft as a game? Is the fact that players tend to create their own form of fun within the game a sign of poor game design? After all, why even bother playing the game if you're just going to sit and make your avatar dance all the time. I think that opinion of the game is a bit shallow in its analysis. It forgets how social WoW and many other so called "virtual worlds" are. One of the reasons many people play WoW is for the social aspect of the game. People enjoy doing things with other people, whether it be doing a dungeon raid on the latest boss, or dancing in Ironforge. The difference between those two events is that dancing is less structured than a raid and allows players to just relax and socialize with other players.

Another way to look at WoW is from a virtual world point of view. If a virtual world is supposed to simulate a real world lifestyle in a fantastical setting, then why shouldn't its inhabitants have some downtime in between epic journeys and fights against the forces of evil? Even in a fictional world like Middle Earth, Theoden and party still had time to have a couple pints before they journeyed to Gondor's aid. The point is, even in a virtual world that's centered around conflict, people will still (and should) find time to relax and play with friends.

However, there are some games that might actually suggest parts of the game are poorly designed. These games come in the form of third party add-ons that players can install in their game's GUI. One of the biggest ones? A WoW themed version of Popcap Games's casual hit Peggle:


The idea behind the Peggle add-on is that it gives players something to do on long flying mount rides across a continent or while they're waiting for their raid to start. Raid leaders can even use the game as a way of deciding who earns loot at the end of a boss fight.

While I like the idea of using Peggle as a loot divvying tool, playing the game because of waiting times inherently placed in the game definitely suggests there is a problem with some of WoW's mechanics. The game already provides players with items and animations for making their own fun, so why is a game that comes from outside of the world necessary to make the game fun? If a player is so bored that they have to play a different type of game inside of a game, then Blizzard might want to look at how to keep such a situation from happening.

Next Time on Adventures in Azeroth: Traveling the World(s)!