Chelvendra Sathieaanandha
The online documentary: /Invite. It’s about World of Warcraft, and the communities present in it – Click here 
Well it ain’t pretty because I seriously lack web design skills - it would look a whole lot different if I knew how to use flash. I also would like to write more, and clarify certain ambiguities that may arise for people who are not familiar with the game at all. There are whole series of things I would have liked to add to this documentary, but unfortunately I do not have any more time, and I did not have any more time to allocate to this particular subject. Thanks goes out to Jeremy, Tracy, the anonymous interviewee, Wes Chan, and my honours buddies.
Let me know if there are any big issues on the online documentary that I can quickly fix up 
Again, some stuff for the TS online documentary. Mine, being on the game, World of Warcraft.
There are number of activities in the game that are quite festive and seem like things you would do with friends or perhaps family. Who, in-game, would one do these activities with? What kind of community?
Some “photos” (screenshots) of a World of Warcraft wedding here. Now, I can’t yet figure out whether the lucky couple were just doing this virtual wedding for kicks, and I couldn’t even tell if they’d met each other in real life, but nonetheless, they are getting married, with a “priest” running the ceremony, and with a numerous guests (and the odd enemy trying to stop the proceedings). I have heard of people meeting up over the game and then, being interested in each other, the people meet up in real life, and then MAYBE get into a relationship – I wonder if this is one of those things that lead to a wedding which was both in game and in RL. Although marriages do not help your game process at all (though I guess, if the two “married” people are valuable players, together they have more influence in raids/groups/guild), Blizzard has set up the items needed to have a wedding – tuxedo, wedding dress, rings, alcohol, special food, fireworks and even a cathedral. Strange?
And read point number 7 in this article
Wedding dress… why?
World of Warcraft has been so successful because it replaces real life in so many ways, but the fact remains that you’re actually not progressing anywhere or really helping anyone out - so it’s an entertaining leech on life. Nevertheless it’s successful because it emulates life in such a clever way that “knowing the right people” will get you everything and everywhere. To have a great World of Warcraft character that can tear the opposition to pieces, it’s usually about WHO you know and not necessarily about HOW good you are. Your game skill does matter, but someone who is quite average in the game (who makes a lot of mistakes) can collect powerful gear (items) if they are associated with the right people who can “carry” them through the game. It’s a major part of the game dynamic and the communities formed within the larger WoW community. To be successful at World of Warcraft you need to build a network and preferably be able to move in various different circles while strengthening an inner circle you can rely on to help you progress through the game content.
Here are some things to consider in my project (analysis of the World of Warcraft community) and comparisons to the real world: (more…)
As previously stated, my online documentary will be on the community that is World of Warcraft.
I sent an email to Blizzard, the company behind World of Warcraft, asking whether I could use their screenshots in the online documentary and they eventually sent me a brief email with a link outlining their legal position:
http://www.battle.net/legalfaq.shtml
This basically says that Blizzard will allow me to use their screenshots on a website like the documentary I’m creating, as long as I place the disclamer for the particular game I’m using screenshots from, on my website. These disclamers etc can be found here: http://www.battle.net/copyright.shtml
An example:
Screenshot from the game: World of Warcraft™
World of Warcraft and Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.
Anyone see any forseeable problems?
A lot of factual information regarding World of Warcraft…
“Some players try to misuse the game – In one case, a transgender player formed a transgender guild and Blizzard Entertainment banned this. People for and against the action voiced their protest and the game got into a needless controversy. In another case, around June 2005, a child died because of WOW-addiction. According to a leading psychologist, around 40% of WOW players are addicted to it. Well, whatever the criticism, World of Warcraft is growing stronger by the day.”
The transgender guild being created is interesting evidence of communities created within the larger WoW community, which can in turn replace communities in reality… It’s almost as interesting that the guild got banned, bringing attention to the governing body of the game, its GMs and some constitution-like code of World of Warcraft ethics and rules.
Behind the sorcery: Allow myself to introduce, myself…
It’s kind of interesting to see the various character names employed by one person, and how they take up the alias of their more successful character. I remember in the game, if you happen to bump into someone’s “alt” - another of their characters – they say, “hey its me Bob” or whatever character name you are familiar with in reference to that person. One of a person’s many characters becomes the one they primarily identify with… and thus the achievements of this character are inscribed accordingly onto various character names. His blog is not, it seems, written under his own name, but rather his character name from World of Warcraft. I guess I’m doing the same thing on this blog – sathfilms – not my actual name, but I guess that can easily found by clicking on the honours student link on my blogroll. Nonetheless, the character/person handle or alias thing is quite fascinating since the communities are built up on this – calling somoene “starfire” or “boobdust” over a voice communications program or even in chat is not even considered that strange.
Poseurism » End of the World (…….of Warcraft)
I searched the word “mundane” on technorati.com and this was like the fourth or fifth search result… And since I thought I’d do my oh so complex “Online Documentary” on the community of World of Warcraft and how it’s a synthetic replacement for real life or “RL” (which is often referred to as some sort of crazy distant plane of existence by some players… and the common “RL over WOW, man” or “sometimes, RL happens”) I thought it might a good idea to link this to my blog so that I wouldn’t forget about it.
