World of Warcraft and Politics Dont Mix
Posted on January 2, 2008
Filed Under News, World of Warcraft
The current buzz in the World of Warcraft world is the Ron Paul campaign march from Ironforge to Stormrage. Game politics had a interesting write up about the whole ordeal, and it looks like there was quite a showing. I’m glad that I don’t play on that server normally due to the fact that because of this march the queues to enter the otherwise quiet server was around 400 at the time of the march.
So what happened with the march?
It seems alot of the complaints were from the queue times to log in to the server, as well as the server becoming very laggy(slow/choppy). There was a thread I spotted calling out a ban of all accounts that was present in the march in that server’s realm forums. There are a few other threads in the Whisperwind Realm forums both complaining or congratulating the march as well.
I don’t blame the people who are complaining. People go into play a game for their enjoyment, not to start up a public gathering. I don’t go parading through the middle of the field for your sport games to promote stuff that doesn’t involve sports. So don’t come into my game to promote politics.
It would be interesting to see the new characters created just for this event. Unfortunately the armory doesn’t pick up people who are under level 10 so I can’t find those stats out. However according to Game Politics, there was a guild called RP Revolution just for the event(guild not listed in armory at this time). Game politics also plugged a Youtube video of the event showing him running from the end of the march into Ironforge.
Regarding this situation, Sherry Bebitch Jeffe(a political analyst from Southern Carolina) commented:
“I think the main reason for the rally is to have the media focus on it, and then have some voters in the United States talking about Ron Paul.”
I think she got it right, though the outcomes I don’t think are going to be that great. Many of the gamers aren’t voting age, and the older ones who do probably didn’t want their quiet time ruined by this. What Ron Paul supporters might have done might have been good for them today, but when these kids grow up they’ll remember the people who rudely came into their game. Created a queue so that they couldn’t get their fix before bedtime.
One thing to note though, is that the people from Ron Paul’s forum that organized this event atleast thought some of it through.
Concerns: Getting banned. Probably true but I can’t see them giving more than a day or 2. Worth it to me.
Atleast they knew what might happen to them when the march goes through. Also they picked a PVE server so that nobody could bother them when they did the march. (PVE servers do not allow interaction between opposing races unless flagged)
My end thoughts on this? These nubs better not reroll Horde, I heard this march wiped on Hogger.
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FYI, that’s not me running around in the video. Just something I picked up from YouTube. Someone else made it.
GamePolitics’s last blog post..GP Covers the Ron Paul World of Warcraft March
Wow. Just wow!
A politic campaign being run in an online game server?
Okay, this is the first time I have ever heard of such a thing. -_-
Mate, I gotta agree with the headline here.
Well, I’ll modify it so it is more generalized.
“Online Games and Politics Don’t Mix”
There you go!
Cheers!
Deimos Tel`Arin’s last blog post..Bloggers? Gathering – Coffee Therapy for Bloggers
@ Gamepolitics – Thanks for the clarification, I couldn’t see character names too well on this screen so I wasn’t sure.
@ Deimos – haha yea maybe I should have used that title instead. While its probably not the first time, nor the last time this sort of thing will happen. Blizzard needs to set an example so that their customers don’t leave because of this.
I think the concept is a good one. In that people are spending more time in front of the PC and less in front of the TV. If you want to reach them today using the PC is the best way.
Gabs last blog post..Best MMORPG review – online rpg games
I had heard about this a while back, but hadn’t found any real articles about it. Thanks for the coverage.
Regarding social gatherings within WoW, I think that that can be some of the fun, but it should be a spontaneous event, not some politically motivated plug.
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[...] it definitely isn’t the first time that a politician shows up in a video game. I for one am hoping that it will be one of the last times. Check out what this pic of Obama on [...]
Seems pretty pointless.
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