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Warcraft is much maligned these days for encouraging obsessive play (can be true), hurting real world relationships (certainly possible), promoting violence (uh, never understood this one really), etc. Obviously I’m biased, since I love the game, but I believe the most interesting part of the game for me is the ability to stay in touch with friends and acquaintances that I otherwise wouldn’t see much or even at all.

I’m one of the group of people (general males, I think) who’s friends tend to be people I associate with for some primary reason other than friendship. Ultimate (frisbee), soccer, hiking, technology, work, etc., are all foundations for friendships for me. My few non-pragmatic friends are the exception.

For me it’s largely about convenience. I don’t want to make a phone call to someone out of the blue to arrange a time to get together for coffee or some beers. I don’t want to go out of my way to insert myself into their life and largely I assume they feel the same way about it.

Warcraft provides a common theme that’s non-intrusive. It’s like showing up at work and having some time to chat with your friends there. It’s not that you purposefully arrange to meet with them, no, everyone just knows that there’s a good chance we’ll see each other at work. Warcraft works in a similar fashion. Depending on people’s playstyles they’ll logon a few times or even every day of the week for an hour or perhaps a few hours. Once you’ve added them to your “friends” list you get an alert when they logon, so you can choose to say hello.

Managing online friendships in Warcraft is particularly challenging in that it’s a different medium from real world relationships. People can’t see you. They may not be able to hear you. They have very little if any knowledge of your history or abilities outside of the game. This is why, I believe, most Warcraft friendships I know of are based on real world friendships. Being able to expand the interaction outside of the Warcraft environment allows us to fill in the missing areas using familiar behaviors.

I’ve spoken before (Vivaty - web browser 3D chat rooms) about the power of a virtual environment and Warcraft really is the model I look at when I begin to envision the future. I can see a world where I maintain a “house” in a neighborhood with my siblings. A place where if my sister want’s to say hello she’ll “look” down the street and see if I’m home, then “walk” over and “knock” on the door. I’ll be able to express my emotions through my avatar, to help facilitate the communication. So when I open the door looking sleep deprived and disheveled she’ll recognize that now’s not the best time and offer to come back later. Or more likely she’ll take the opportunity to give me a hard time becasue that’s more fun.

This is all prompted because last night I ran into an old acquaintance via Warcraft. We’d not spoken in quite some time. I wouldn’t have called him out of the blue. He wouldn’t have called me either. Without Warcraft I probably would have dropped him an email around the holidays to make sure his address was still correct. Long live Warcraft.