BBC article and radio show about raiding
Earlier today the BBC posted an article about raiding, particularly in relation to hard core or elite raiding and I was interviewed for this article for my “thoughts” about raiding and what my research is telling me. They also spoke to Paragon to get the added perspective from an elite raiding guild (nice job, Xaar!). Here is the article, if you are interested:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12326825
(If you back up to the main technology page, they’ve got a pretty impressive image to advertise the article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology/, though I doubt that image will be up for too many days.)
The interview was also included in a radio show called Outriders, which is aired on BBC 5. I have no idea if folks outside of the UK can listen to it, but here’s that information if anyone is curious.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/outriders/2011/02/tracked_televised_taught_and_t.shtml
The segment on WoW raiding starts around 19 minutes into the show. Aside from the presenter mispronouncing my name, I think it's a nice discussion about how raiding works.
I can’t say how much stock you can put into this, but my mother (who has very little understanding of video or computer games, let alone raiding in WoW) claims that she now understands raiding a lot better now having listened to my interview. Go Mum!
- Ladan's blog
- Log in to post comments
Comments
That is quite awesome reading about WoW and raiding on such a huge platform like the BBC. Great work there Ladan and Arx.
PS: Ladan, I hope the PhD is coming among nicely :)
Tue, 01/02/2011 - 23:54
There may be another quirky but fun thing in the works, too.... stay tuned!
And the PhD continues apace... slow but steady wins the race, right? I just have to find a way to make the days longer. :) How goes your master's, Nils? :)
Wed, 02/02/2011 - 13:01
Slowly but steady. Deadline end of March. No turning back ;)
Wed, 02/02/2011 - 14:03
Hi,
I play a holy priest on US Kirin Tor server, and as an officer in my guild I tend to constantly be finding all sorts of things around the web. Last night I listened to this interview on BBC. I wanted to thank you for your perspective offered. Far too often, people are just interested in telling people what they want to hear. What I enjoyed about this interview was the straightforward speaking from experience. Its easy for people who do not play the game to not understand our world, and its often equally as difficult to hope to explain things to them in ways they can understand. I think my favorite comment was getting 25 people to actually coordinate, and how you could have 25 people physically in the same room and this would be most likely even more difficult to achieve.
I used to find the social aspects of the game more important than always being competitive, and over the years I have found that its natural for people as they aquire more skills to want to play the game at the level of difficulty they most enjoy, while perhaps still surrouding themselves with people they enjoy playing the game with or that constantly challenge them to be at the top of their game. I was in a genuine casual guild that did raids since original wow all the way through B.C. , and now I am in a progression level raiding guild and loving every minute of it.
Despite feeling that we are limited at times by the level of players on server (not to mention RPers), its still very enjoyable to get a server first kill, even if we are hitting a world kill somewhere in the first couple of thousand at times.
I very much appreciate what you are doing, and if I can ever offer my time to answer any questions you have about the sort of raiding environments I have witnessed over the years, in hopes of aiding your work, I would be honored to do so.
Gamer mentality always seems to be vast and yet still highly unexplored field of study, and there is definately more to us than staring at a computer screen like zombies.
Sat, 05/02/2011 - 02:43
Hey Durlockozk
So glad to hear the radio show was accessible from outside the UK. Honestly, I was so embarrassed about it that I didn't tell anyone until I listened to it first... just to make sure I didn't sound like a complete moron. Since I didn't sound completely moronic, I decided to let people know about it. :)
Kudos to BBC, tbh, for being forward thinking enough to consider the bigger picture of games and raiding. I had a million answers prepared for the "isn't gaming antisocial and making everyone into games-addicted losers?" questions but they didn't really opt to go there. I think it's nice to see the media's willingness to move beyond focusing only on alarmism.
I have tried, all throughout my work, to take our quirky online world of raiding and present it to an external audience, while still remaining true to my own identity as a gamer and academic. Of course I do think it's important to not ignore the problematic issues in online gaming (health issues, addiction, antisocial behaviour) but I don't see why it has to stop there. Something interesting *is* happening, even in more mainstream raiding guilds, like what most of us belong to. How we navigate the everyday challenges of raiding is actually important, like how we make sure everyone is available at raid start time or trying to get Joe Player to actually *post* on the forums when he's going on holiday rather than abruptly disappearing... how do we manage our group activities and ensure some degree of success?
Anyway! I'll PM you--I never turn an offer of a raider to provide me with a brain dump! :)
Mon, 07/02/2011 - 14:51