Assignment 10

For this assignment I chose to play World of Warcraft for an hour. This was a pretty simple choice as i already have two accounts for the game. When picking a character for WoW you have the choice between horde and alliance. Alliance is made up of humans, gnomes, night elves. Horde players tend to stereotype the alliance as a bunch of little kids. The horde seems to get more mature players. The Horde is made up trolls, orcs, and tauren which are humanoid bulls/cows. Your choice of race also determines what classes are available to you. Classes consist of mage, hunter, warrior, shaman, druid, priest, etc. They all have unique skill sets and different uses for pvp or pve gameplay (player versus player or player versus environment).

My two characters are horde, a troll shaman named Tetsuo and a tauren druid named Mordo. Wow is a fantasy setting so characters have all sorts of interesting armor and weapons. The troll character I have has blue skin and tusks. He carries a big axe and is specialized for up close fighting. I tend to be louder and more talkative when I play this character. I think this is more because of his play style than his appearance. Playing him is easy because he fights up close and action tends to be quick and exciting. He also only needs to use two attacks most of the time so playing him is really simple. Because of this I have hands free to type in chat and socialize.

My druid on the other hand Is a tauren so hes the largest race in regards to size. Even though he has a big physical presence, I dont talk as much using this character. Hes a healer for raids (upwards of ten people for dungeon bosses) so when I play him I'm focusing on healing other people during a very complicated battle. This character is my down to business character. His gear is the highest quality and the end game content I use him for is more serious in its difficulty and commitment. Because this character is used for hardcore content, the really tough stuff, I need to focus on playing and keeping people alive,not on talking.

I found that in WoW a character's class influences a persons behavior when playing more than their appearance. The class a character chooses defines their role in the game, is dependent on race, and determines the gear they wear. There is conformity in WoW in that there are expectations for each class in what they contribute to a group. This is more a product of game mechanics than it is social interaction. The norms established by the people who play WoW are there because they are the most effective/efficient way to play a class. The attraction factors seen in the Yee & Bailenson (2007) study do not really apply to WoW in that the avatars are not necessarily human in appearance. I found in my time playing WoW that it was my class and not my avatars appearance that influenced my behavior.