Rearticulating Rewards in WoW - Wordplay and the Discourse of Video Games - page 124

are required to accomplish almost anything, game play in WoW is typifi ed
by players playing the game alone, rather than in groups.
At launch and throughout most of pre-expansion WoW , the highest-
level rewards were exclusively available to players working in groups. If
players did not participate in raids, typically composed of forty players, or
organized PvP groups to grind to Grand Marshal or High Warlord, they
had little chance of acquiring the best loot. Welfare epics changed this, as
all players had a chance to earn something, although the number of epics
they could acquire is infl uenced by their success (or lack thereof) and time
spent playing. In Cytheria's lengthy breakdown of the play time needed to
acquire her desired set, she makes it clear that the primary change brought
by alteration of the reward structure is that she no longer has to play with
people she does not like. She notes that “the only thing I feel that Blizzard
has done by re-adding purples to high level PVP is removed Guilds and
other Social Graces (aka forcefriendships [sic], dealing with people you hate
etc) out of the obtaining epic equation.” 47 Cytheria concludes even more
simply, stating, “All these pvp items do is remove the social formalities and
guilds from the epic gaining aspect of the game.” Free to work on their
own, the terrain of character progression is once again returned to the solo-
based play that WoW players often pursue while leveling. Ef ectively, these
items added content for the players WoW ended up attracting, rather than
those who frequently typifi ed other, more intensely social, MMOGs.
Adding epics for people who do not have large guilds or organized social
structures of ers a wider base of players a reason to continue playing WoW .
No longer lef t to leveling alternate characters or watching other players pass
them by, individuals expressed excitement at the changes and the opportu-
nity to have something to work toward. John Himes noted that the debut
of Season 3 led “to a fl urry of activity” on his server and wrote about how,
although he's “been rather horrible at PvP” he and his partner are discuss-
ing how to “maximize our PvP potential” to seek new weapons. 48 Adding
the ability for individuals to play independently and still receive rewards
marked a departure from the original design of WoW , but moved to better
serve the player base the game found.
Because it is easier to level in WoW than in other games, a higher num-
ber of players reach the highest level in the game and, to keep subscriptions
fl owing, Blizzard must provide something to keep players busy after they
fi nish leveling their character. Players seem acutely aware of this situation;
one writes,
This is a carrot-chasing game. We keep the cart moving by trying to bit
[sic] at the carrot. For some of us it takes weeks, others months. Why
one donkey cares what the other donkey is doing I'll never know. But to
stay in business they have to let us nibble on the carrot sometimes lest
we lose sight of why we're playing and get a taste for apples. 49