A Battle for Azeroth: Bringing it All Together

On August 13th (or 14th depending on where you were in the world) at 6pm EDT, Blizzard Entertainment released the latest expansion to World of Warcraft–the seventh expansion to be released for the nearly fourteen-year-old game. While WoW may be nearly thirteen, the Warcraft franchise itself is nearly twenty-four, as Warcraft: Orcs & Humans was released in 1994. As one of the longest-running MMOs, WoW and its universe clearly has to be doing something right.

In order to tie everything we’ve talked about so far together, I’m going to end by looking at the success of World of Warcraft not only as a game, but the ways in which they engage with their players in order to ensure success and account for the possibility of failure. Rather than only doing one or two things right, World of Warcraft is in fact, doing a lot of smaller things right, so that when failures come (*cough* Warlords of Draenor *cough*), the game continues to survive.

As I mentioned in the second content post of this series, I’ve been playing World of Warcraft since the early months of 2007. Eleven years of content, of characters, and of social situations, and yet, I continue to come back, why? Probably for the same reasons everyone else does–Blizzard has gotten me successfully engaged.

One of the first areas I noticed the depth of my emotional and psychological investment in Azeroth was when I was faced with having to switch factions last year. While I have played both sides of the faction divide over the years, I’ve always only played seriously on the Alliance. My first characters were Alliance, and most importantly, my now-main character was Alliance.

WoWScrnShot_021016_201536 — A Draenei restoration shaman, to be exact.

I swapped to my Draenei shaman not too long after learning the ropes of the game. By the time Patch 2.3.0 launched in November of 2007, I had gotten my bearings and was actively clearing raid content with my original guild. After we eventually got into Zul’Aman, the raid launched with 2.3.0, it became apparent that we would need a specific kind of class in order to complete it. That class was a restoration shaman. I offered to swap classes from warrior and never looked back. Suffice to say, my main character Shebalo and I have been through a lot, and she’s become an an extension of myself more than I had realized.

After re-rolling to a healer class, my ambitions soared. I got involved with more difficult content, and eventually joined Hello Kitty Club, who I’m still with today, after a lot of on-and-off periods. During one of those off-periods last year, I was part of a splinter group from HKC. We were comprised of the most ambitious and skilled of our raiders, who ultimately decided that the only way we could continue to progress through current Mythic (the highest difficulty) raid content was to swap to Horde on Akama, where there would be more bodies to recruit. Many of my peers easily made the change, quickly swapping to whatever Horde race they decided fit them best.

I, on the other hand, struggled. And naturally, thanks to running my Twitch, I recorded it. And so, for a very brief period of time, I was a Troll restoration shaman.

It never quite felt right, and the emotional turmoil I went through to swap sides, is visible throughout the two-hour plus highlight video. I felt my emotions welling up as I tried to transfer, bought the wrong transfer, ticketed Blizzard to get the right transfer–all the while dreading what I was about to do. It wasn’t just about leaving my guild home, it was going against my very in-game identity to become the opposite side.

In that moment, Azeroth was a very real place (Ruch 2009). It was not simply a place filled with pixels where I passed through. It was a place I “lived” in, a place I experienced the passing of time through, it was very real.

While I never really participated in roleplay within the game on Shebalo, over time, I built a headcannon about her movements through Azeroth, about her place, my place,in the community and the world. We were one in the same, and much like my aversion to playing Renegade Sheppard in Mass Effect, so too was I against playing something I didn’t feel to be me.

Despite a lack of active roleplay, I did (and continue) to consider how my character might react given in-game situations. In particular, during the last expansion Legion, players were finally able to visit Argus, the former Draenei homeworld. Naturally, when this first launched, I was still playing on the Horde and it felt as though something was missing. When Argus had been announced at a previous BlizzCon, I had already started to think about what it would be to “return home” as my character. As a Troll, this no longer applied.

What this suggests is that the avatar is neither entirely “me,” nor entirely “not me,” but a version of me that only exists in a particular mediated context. When that context, and with it the avatar, ceases to be, that part of the self dies as well. That part of the self, expressed and projected through the avatar in a shared virtual world, is as much a creation of the group as the group is a creation of the individuals within it (Pearce 119).

I went through many crises of identity while playing Horde side on my main character that truly demonstrated to me just how much I had invested not only in the game, but also who I was in the game. When I finally switched back to Alliance, everything just felt right. I quickly was able to re-select the face and attributes of the model I had used for so many years (with backup screenshots just in case).

Heading into Battle for Azeroth, I don’t think I could have had it any other way.

WoWScrnShot_080718_160101 — For the Alliance!

My time spent on Shebalo wasn’t just about my own relationship with my character, but also with my community. As I discussed in the previous post, I was lucky to find such long-standing friendships through Hello Kitty Club. Not only did we experience the rise and fall of our raiding progression (Juul 2013), we also spent extensive time exploring the virtual-physical world of Azeroth together, well into the late hours of the morning. Blizzard is well-known for including reclusive Easter Eggs, abandoned content, and memorials throughout their games (Gibbs et al. 2012), WoW being no exception. While we explored the world, we learned about the game and each other. We were able to interact without the chaos of raid combat, and friendships increased.

Over time, people have come and gone from our guild, but there’s a large core that’s remained the same. We interact on various social medias, and over time, have repeatedly brought each other back into the game. Beyond the itch to play, the promise of social interaction with a known group of engaged individuals, helps to keep us engaged in the content.

Our stories are not unique, and in truth, it’s probably one of the biggest features that keeps World of Warcraft so popular over time. So long as your social group stays, so too are you likely to as well. Combined with guild meetups and bringing virtual friendships into the tangible space, things become even more real and engaging. Conversely, if you only play alone, or have lost touch with the friends you used to play with, the draw to stay in Azeroth is likely lessened. The “massively multiplayer” component is not only important from a gameplay perspective, but also affects our engagement with the world. When the novelty wears off, when you can’t possibly fathom running your face into the same boss for another week in a row, friends and social experiences keep you engaged. Because of this, over the years, even in the recent Battle for Azeroth expansion, Blizzard continues to strive to increase friendship and community engagement.

World of Warcraft also succeeds at keeping players invested in line with the Sunk Cost Fallacy. After nearly fourteen years of running, it’s hard for players to turn away from their digital investments. Astonishingly, it’s also probably how World of Warcraft has retained their subscription fee, while other MMOs continue to drop theirs. Like an un-used gym membership, I have known countless people over the years who retain their WoW subscriptions, even when they play rarely-to-never, “Just in case” they want to return. It’s not even just subscription fees, the cost of accumulated expansion costs, in-game services (server transfer, faction transfer, race change, etc.), memorabilia, paratexts (novels, table books), and virtual goods (pets, mounts, etc.) are compounded into the real-world costs and fears of value loss.

To further encourage people to invest in their time with the game, Blizzard has also offered alternative sources of funding like the WoW token, which can be bought and sold with real money, for in-game currency, and vice versa. This has allowed people to invest more time into the game, by accumulating digital wealth, so that they can spend it on “real-life” costs, like subscription fees and Battle.Net currency for other Blizzard games.

Blizzard also continues to update the base value of the game, so that it is affordable for new and returning players. In July, they announced that new and returning accounts would be able to play all the way through Legion content with just a subscription. No longer are players required to buy-in to the game, or its previous expansions. Instead, the entire world of Azeroth is available to players up and until the most recent content, Battle for Azeroth. In this way, Blizzard capitalizes on existing players’ social capital, as well as WoW’s reputation as an MMO, to encourage new players or returning players to re-invest in the virtual landscape.

Finally, one of the ways in which Blizzard continues to enrapture their audience is through their extensive worldbuilding and storytelling. Not only are there the narratives which occur within the Warcraft games, but Blizzard also releases paratextual books, audiodramas, cinematics, and comics to expand their world.

World creation has become a core feature of many recent digital games, and this fits hand-in-glove with the generic features of fantasy; the carefully crafted, extensive worlds found in massively multiplayer role-playing online games such as Guild Wars, EverQuest II, and World of Warcraft offer players the opportunity to inhabit such worlds wherein they play and interact with others in the guise of heroic adventurers. It can be said that most popular cultural artifacts are reliant on intertextual features for the generation of meaning and recognition…these [contribute] to the high-fantasy ambience of the game, even if at times more quotidian aspects come to the fore, and provides in different ways the means of locating players meaningfully in the game world (Krzywinska 123-124).

Alongside the game’s paratexts, the world itself is filled with extensive quest-text, cut-scenes, cinematics, flavour text, lost pages, monuments, memorials, and Easter Eggs to discover. The cities are busy with NPCs (and ideally players as well), and increasingly lively, as Blizzard continues to make NPCs more immersive, including models, postures, and voice acting.

Further still, painstaking detail is put into not only the textural features of the world’s story, but also in its audio-visual aspects as well. Vast sweeping landscapes, digital sunsets, fanciful festivals, and haunting melodies encourage players to explore and to stay a while. There’s always the suggestion that there’s just a little bit more below the surface–some rare secret you might just get the chance to discover. There’s even an entire discord community devoted to just that prospect.

All of these contributing factors combine to keep World of Warcraft not only afloat, but sailing through the vast sea of other MMO efforts. In a genre that’s largely perceived of as dying, or at least who’s future survival is constantly questioned, Blizzard continues moving forward. In addition to the areas covered here, they also continue to innovate and improve upon game mechanics, player quality of life features, and storytelling ability. It raises the question, if all of this is not only the reason for their success, but also demanded by our current video game marketplace. The ability to hook and maintain investment of such a large segment of the globe for nearly fourteen straight years is an impressive feat.

Blizzard’s ability to continually engage with and emblaze their World of Warcraft community members is readily demonstrated through their cosplayers, Role-Players, fan-writers, community leaders, and gaming participants. How many other games do you know of that start real-life virtual protests of a fictional characters’ actions, thanks to another fictional character’s rebellious actions? Further still that the #NoHonorNoPauldron movement even charged-up players who don’t play anymore?

Whether it be a calculated advertising tactic, brilliant storytelling, or just dumb-luck side effects of a highly effective gameplay experience, Blizzard’s ongoing development of World of Warcraft and it’s virtual universe shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. They’ve survived a number of setbacks, but they continue to push forward and to learn from their mistakes, thanks to their successes in encouraging multi-faceted levels of player interest and emotional investment in Azeroth.

Essentially…

– Gibbs, Martin et al. (2012) Tomestones, Uncanny Monuments and Epic Quests: Memorials in World of Warcraft
– Juul, Jesper. (2013) The Art of Failure
– Krzywinska, Tanya (2008) World Creation and Lore: World of Warcraft as Rich Text in Digital Culture, Play, and Identity: A World of Warcraft Reader, Hilde G. Corneliussen and Jill Walker Rettberg eds.
– Pearce, Celia (2009) Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds
– Ruch, Adam (2009) World of Warcraft: Service or Space?

Heroines of Warcraft: Magical Maidens Edition

This week, In honor of Women’s History month, we conclude our heroines series with two of the most powerful mages Azeroth has ever known.

This week, In honor of Women’s History month, we conclude our Heroines series with two of the most powerful mages Azeroth has ever known.

MAGNA AEGWYNN, GUARDIAN OF TIRISFAL

“I was facing dangers far worse than that little twerp of a demon when your great-grandparents were infants.” – Cycle of Hatred, 209

Aegwynn was one of five human apprentices under Guardian Magna Scavell, and was the only woman. They often goaded her, trying to dissuade her from her studies to be a wizard. She persevered, despite their antics, and went on to master the Meitre scrolls, great ancient Highborne magic documents left behind nine thousand years before Aegwynn’s classes. These scrolls were often left for human mages at the end of their training, and even most elven mages didn’t even look at the scrolls until their tenth year. This accomplishment ensured her place in line as the next Guardian of Tirisfall, following Scavell. Her peers complained, but the council insisted that she was best suited for the job. She spared no time in getting started as Azeroth’s next Guardian once she was given the powers of the Tirisfalen.

For 500 years she stood steadfast against demons and ill turns of fate for the globe before she came to meet Sargeras, or at least his avatar. In Northrend, she battled a group of demons which were attacking dragons there. Near the ashes of the burned demons, arose the avatar of Sargeras. The dragons rose to her aid, and combined, they defeated the avatar, or so she thought. Unbeknownst to her, Sargeras’ essence had sealed itself within her. This battle would come to set the many paths of Azeroth and Draenor’s denizens into the events which would ultimately comprise the Warcraft titles, as well as World of Warcraft today.

Current *Legion* model for the Avatar of Sargeras

Unknowingly imbued with the Dark Titan’s powers, Aegwynn grew arrogant following the historic battle. She turned her back on the council and its ways, deciding that it would be she who would determine her successor, not the council. After this decision was made, Aegwynn disappeared and became increasingly distant from human affairs. She used her magic powers to extend her life, and elude various traps and trackers set out by the council, in efforts to reel her in. Eventually, Aegwynn came to Karazhan, a tower of solace she had built and kept secret for a long time. Eventually, the mages found her, and she was forced to escape into the shattered remains of Suramar, where she would remain for over two hundred and fifty years.

About seventy years before the start of the World of Warcraft timeline, Aegwynn emerged from her solitude as she knew she would have to find a successor for her powers. Still determined to prevent the council any say in where those powers went, she ultimately chose to consort with Nielas Aran. This union would result in the birth of Medivh (Keeper of Secrets in Highborne), a well-known figure in the minds of current World of Warcraft players for his association with Karazhan dungeon/raid and the Black Morass dungeon, where players relive the opening of the Dark Portal, which brought Orcs to Azeroth from Draenor. But Medivh’s story is not our focus today.

In giving birth to Medivh, the essence of Sargeras passed into his body, freeing her from its influence alongside the loss of her Guardian abilities. When he reached maturity, Sargeras’ plan for Medivh began to reveal itself. Aegwynn tried to warn King Llane about the impending invasion by the orcs, however, now lacking the powers of a Guardian, she knew there was very little else she could do for Azeroth. She took to her refuge and intended to die away from the peoples of Azeroth – a goal which was frequently interrupted. Once, events caused her to revive her fallen son after his corruption had passed, and two, when Jaina Proudmoore located her and beseeched her help in hunting a herd of thunder lizards. In this quest, Jaina and Aegwynn were sealed away by Aegwynn’s old foe and narrowly escaped. Aegwynn sacrificed most of herself by imbuing Jaina with her essence, in order to escape the demon who trapped them. Afterward, she accepted an advisor position along Jaina’s side, under the premise that her true identity never be revealed. Some players have speculated her presence within World of Warcraft in either the characters of Pained or Tabetha.

LADY JAINA PROUDMOORE

“You can control the winds as a shaman. But the winds of war are blowing, and if we do not stop Garrosh now, many innocents will pay the price for our hesitation.” – Tides of War

Lady Jaina Proudmoore has been a prominent figure throughout Warcraft and World of Warcraft‘s titles. Jaina is the youngest of Admiral Daelin Proudmoore of Kul Tiras, a human naval empire, and ally to Lordaeron before the First War. Jaina grew up in the ranks of human nobility and after demonstrating significant magical prowess at a young age Jaina edged her way into the student ranks at Dalaran, under Antonidas. Like Aegwynn, she too was one of the few female wizards studying at the time. Throughout her studies, she struggled to maintain focus on magic, alongside her royal responsibilities. Through these responsibilities, she would be ultimately matched with then Prince Arthas. While they maintained a friendship, their impending union was questioned by Arthas, and caused them to go their separate ways in order to focus on themselves first.

As naturally happens in tragic stories, the Third War broke out and Jaina was sent to investigate the Plague in Lordaeron’s kingdom. It is during this time that the events of Warcraft III take place, and where ultimately Arthas would be turned into the Lich King. While she fought alongside Arthas as long as she could, ultimately he was turned and she was forced to abandon his side after the events at Stratholme.

Following the events at Stratholme, Jaina found herself sent by a mysterious prophet (aka Medivh) to Kalimdor, where at first she did battle with the orcs there. When she came upon Thrall and Caine, the three were prevented from fighting upon interference from the prophet/Medivh. Due to this encounter, Thrall and Jaina became allies and would share a mutual respect for many years to come.

Eventually, Jaina would come to found the city of Theramore, one of the only Alliance points on the continent of Kalimdor, outside of the Night Elf zones. Jaina continued to be a force throughout Wrath of the Lich King as we saw her diplomacy after the events of the Wrathgate, throughout the exploration of Ulduar, and finally the battle against the Lich King. When retrieving the item “Jaina’s Locket” following the defeat of the Lich King, Jaina weeps for what was left of Arthas inside the Lich.

“You spit on mercy? Then you will have NONE. You want carnage?! Garrosh will get more blood than EVER he bargained for!” – Jaina, following destruction of Theramore

As events have continued to unfold for Jaina throughout World of Warcraft, she has continued to see defeats and betrayals on behalf of the Horde and the Kirin Tor. Following the destruction of Theramore by Garrosh Hellscream in Mists of Pandaria, Jaina was forever changed. In retaliation, she tried to urge Stormwind onto war, but they refused. The Kirin Tor of Dalaran too remained steadfast in their neutral ambitions. Her last blow was to nearly drowned Orgrimmar with her water elementals. Thrall attempted to stop her but failed and it was Kalcegos who ultimately did. While her rage was ultimately tempered, she purged the Blood Elves from Dalaran after learning that they had helped the Horde, despite the Kirin Tor’s neutrality.

This hatred and feelings of betrayal would only hasten through the events of Warlords of Draenor and early Legion. While Jaina has been missing since the early days of the most recent expansion, there remains a large amount of speculation over what her return to the story will bring alongside her. Will we see the rise of Kul Tiras? Will Jaina return to being a diplomatic figure in our eventual trip to Argus?

After so much pain and struggle in her life, much like Sylvannas, is it any wonder Jaina was finally pushed to her breaking point? It remains to be seen what will come of her in patches to come, however, she remains one of the strongest female figures still active in the game today. Let us hope, she saves herself from the darkness which has swept away Sylvannas.

What do you think about the power and stories of the mages we discussed today? How have you enjoyed our spotlight WoW women spotlight this month? Let us know your insights, theories, and comments in the comments below, on Facebook, Twitter, or our Discord.

Heroines of Warcraft: They Came Before Edition

In honor of Women’s History month, beginning March 8th, we’ll be running a series of editorials surveying the lore and history surrounding some of Azeroth’s most notable heroines and figures.

EONAR, THE LIFE-BINDER

“No one knows when or why the first titan awoke, but legends hold that his name was Aman’Thul” – *World of Warcraft Chronicle: Volume 1*, 19

One of the earliest notable female figures in Azeroth’s history comes from a time before history was even known on Azeroth; possibly before even Azeroth itself. Hailing from the race of celestial wanderers, the Titans, Eonar is the only confirmed female titan. While there are some in-game and fan theories suggesting that Azeroth too may be a female, Eonar was at least the first.

Awakened by Aman’Thul, the Highfather, Eonar would become his bronze-skinned consort. She carried an alabaster staff through the cosmos as she stood vigilant as the protector of life, nature, and healing in the universe. She often kept from the field of battle, preferring a supporting role in the great Titan Pantheon. If brought to fight, she remained a fierce force who would confuse and disperse her enemies before engaging them. She stood in opposition to the dark Titan Sargeras, and aided the Pantheon in combating him until her ultimate demise at his hand.

Eonar also spent a great deal of time establishing the titanforged which would one day nurture Azeroth, in addition to empowering the naturally-occurring life which Azeroth itself created, namely, the dragons. While Eonar was defeated, her essence and gifts lived on in the populations of Azeroth. She is worshiped where her memory remains, including both the great red and green Dragonflights, which tasked themselves with combating chaos and destruction, while maintaining nature, healing, and life, within the world.

Some hypothesize a connection between Eonar and Elune, as well as the Tauren’s Earthmother, as all three share many common threads of beliefs and traits; however, at this time, we have no formal notes from Blizzard about how these entities are connected.

ALEXSTRASZA, THE LIFE-BINDER & DRAGONQUEEN

“The nurturing and ever-merciful Freya called upon her creator, Eonar, to empower the proto-dragon Alexstrasza. Known thereafter as the Life-Binder…” *World of Warcraft Chronicle: Volume 1*, 46

While the Titans would eventually come to create the titanforged to safeguard Azeroth, the planet had already gone about creating its own species of life, one of these were the dragons. While the Pantheon created the Keepers (better known for their appearance in-game in Ulduar) to safeguard the planet and the mechanization they had set in motion, there was nothing let to govern Azeroth’s native entities. Over time, one dragon came to overtake them all and tore about Kalimdor destroying and consuming everything in its path. His name was Galakrond. The Keepers came to decide that they would empower the smartest of the nascent species and help to take the great beast down. These would come to be known as the Dragon Aspects, of which Alexstrasza was one. The Keeper Freya had been created by Eonar and it was she who infused Alexstrasza and her dragonflight with guardianship of all life on Azeroth.

In-game, the Life-Binder can be found in many areas, including atop the Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight, and in the Dragon Soul raid. No longer content to step aside and watch the world in its suffering, she brought the Dragon Aspects and their flights together in order to actively defend against evils which would harm life on her beloved planet. Even in light of sacrificing her power to save the world from Deathwing, her fallen brother Neltharion, back in Cataclysm, the Dragon Mother remains the most powerful, if not the eldest dragon alive today. She is also one of the last remaining of the original Dragon Aspects.

YSERA, THE DREAMER

“Freya also beseeched Eonar to bless Alexstrasza’s younger sister, the proto-dragon Ysera, with natures influence. Ysera was charged with keeping watch over the flowering wilds of Azeroth from within the Emerald Dream.” – *World of Warcraft Chronicle: Volume 1*, 46

While Alexstrasza’s charge was to guard the life of the world, Ysera was in charge of its dream, the Emerald Dream, a place which held the original blueprint for Azeroth’s ordering by the Titans. All creatures would visit the Dream in their rest, but it was Ysera’s domain to watch over. Like her older sister, she would be a part of all lives on Azeroth, and would also take up arms to protect it. She fought alongside her siblings in protecting Azeroth, titanforged and native creatures alike. Ysera spent a great deal of time asleep in order to defend the Emerald Dream, waking only so often when situations were dire enough to warrant it. As a result, in-game, we bore witness to Ysera’s active role in Cataclysm throughout Mount Hyjal, as well as in the Dragon Soul raid, where she used the latent power of Eonar which made her an Aspect of the green dragonflight, in order to help stop Neltharion.

While tragedy befell her this expansion during the campaign in Val’sharah, her spirit lives on in the Emerald Dream and wanders through its purified fields, no longer a creature of both worlds.

Do you have any favourite female characters from the dawn of the world of Azeroth? Let us know in the comments below, or join in the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, or Discord!

Storming Suramar and the Reunification of the Elven People

The storming of Suramar is the culmination of centuries of devision and magical evolution within World of Warcraft lore.

With Nighthold’s release coming ever closer, the storyline continues to grow to epic proportions in Suramar. Beyond getting new phat-lewts and encounters, there’s a lot of interesting things lore-wise taking place with what Blizzard’s lining up. Join us as we continue to explore the story of the Nightborne.

Tag: Lore