Day 2

Day 2 on the Runetotem server in World of Warcraft and I was in Thunderbluff, the Tauren capitol. I only had about a half hour to spend online so I thought I'd see if I couldn't find some people to talk to. I don't normally talk much in online games eschewing the social aspect for play. Mostly I really like to be able to see peoples reactions to what I'm saying. Not necessarily their verbal response but their physical response. I know things are going bad from looking not only into a person's face but by their expressions and body language. Of course in an online game I get none of this, it's like being at a costume party, no wait it's even worse then that because you can't even read a person's body language or listen to the tone of their voice, plus you have to wait for their response.

When I talk to people online if they don't respond immediately I get nervous that I said something wrong or that I am boring them. How do I socialize then in online games? Well truth be told I really don't do all that much socializing in these games. I love to tell people all about the possibilities for socializing online but honestly I'm just reporting what I observe around me which is pretty difficult in the first place because people can keep their conversations to themselves. Most of the time I can't even tell if people are talking to each other.

There are only two types of chat that all players can read /say and /yell. /say is essentially like speaking in a normal tone all of the people in the vicinity can hear what you have to say. /yell is well yelling so everyone in the “zone” can hear, zones are kinda like states they cover large swaths of land and are delineated by mostly natural borders. Besides those two, players can choose from all sorts of different channels to speak in such as general chat which again spans a whole zone like /yell but it is not considered obnoxious to use.

On with the story, after fifteen minutes of waving hello to everyone I saw like an idiot somebody finally waved backed and used /say to say hi to me. Taken aback I faltered for a few moments. “What should I say, I have no idea how to break the ice online,” I thought to my self so I typed /say how's it goin. He responded /say not bad. I then went on to complement his turtle named Raphael (I assume in reference to the Ninja Turtles of yore) and I asked him a few questions about how the new the server was and some other details about it. He told me it was a month old when a fellow fishing nearby piped in and said there were only ten level 60s in total on the server. I'm sad to say that after the guy piped in the conversation fell apart pretty fast as I accidentally started him to talking about computer hardware.

I guess this isn't so bad from a research point-of-view, maybe that's what people talk about and I shouldn't be trying to change it to meet my expectations, especially since I am not on a role-playing server where some players openly pretend to be their characters. I suppose just like travelers on the highways and interstates talk about the machines that get them from place to place it makes sense that electronic travelers would want to talk about the machines they use to transport them around the virtual world.

We continued to talk about computer hardware for a bit. The guy with the turtle must've gotten bored as he bid us farewell. I sent him a private message asking if I could add him to my friends list. He said he didn't care, wanting to be polite, I thanked him for the courtesy. There is no way for him to know I had added him to my friends list but I thought it would in some way be like the way people trade phone numbers in real life to subtely say to each they want to be friends. After, he left I talked to fisherman for a bit longer until he dissapeared without warning, whether he voluntarily logged off or was disconnected I'll never know. After that I decided it was time to call it a night and logged off myself.

I'll add some picture as soon as I get a chance to upload them.