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Minions of the NightEthnography of a World of Warcraft GuildBy: Diana Harrelson
05/05/2006
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Ming, a 27 year old mother of one from Canada, is probably not who you would expectto find sitting at a computer, at 11 p.m. on a Friday night, issuing orders over TeamSpeak to herguild-mates in the game World of Warcraft. What you may find even more surprising is that sheis actually the guild leader of this “end-game raiding guild” comprised of over 150 players.Tonight, 40 of these players are making their way through Molten Core (MC), part of the BlackRock Spire (BRS) set of instances built for players who have reached level 60, currently thehighest level achievable in the game. At this moment they are sending their bids to Isolt, Ming’sLevel 60 Night Elf Druid, for loot that dropped off a boss they just killed. Leading the raidtonight is Cameron, or his Level 60 Night Elf Druid counterpart known as Karius, also known asMing’s fiancé. They are four hours into the current run and will be calling it quits after the lastpiece of loot that dropped tonight is distributed to the highest bidder.To the uninitiated, it may seem like the above paragraph is written in some kind of foreign language. To the over 5 million people who play this game (Blizzard PR 12/05), it is justanother day in World of Warcraft (WoW). World of Warcraft is a Massively Multiplayer OnlineRole-Playing Game, better known as MMORPG. Through participant observation, surveys,polling, interviews, and other research, I have had the opportunity to view the inner workings of the Alliance Guild, Minions of the Night (MotN). This guild is one of many on the Player versusEnvironment (PvE) server Bloodhoof, in the latest Warcraft title release from game developerBlizzard. Throughout this paper, I will give you a brief history of gaming, a general introductionto this game, and an in-depth look into this guild. I will also introduce you to the strange and newlanguage that is spoken by over 90 million people who are members of what is known as the“Gamer Generation” that began circa 1975. (Beck and Wade, 17)So, what exactly are MMORPGs? Miroslaw Filiciak, in his essay on hyperidentities,describes MMORPGs as, “any computer network-mediated games in which at least one thousandplayers are role-playing simultaneously in a graphical environment.” (Filiciak, 87) But wait, that
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is not exactly an easy to understand definition either. We all know what the Internet is by now,and most of us are aware of web sites and message boards and chat programs and email. It mightbe stated that most people use the Internet as a way to communicate with others. On top of communication, many people look to the Internet as a source of entertainment, the same asmovies, or television, or even – yes – video games. Filiciak sums it up by stating, “MMORPGsare the first interactive mass medium to unite entertainment and communication in onephenomenon.” (Filiciak, 88) By combining the entertainment value of a video game and thesocializing aspect of communicating with other real live people, an incredibly interactive real-time environment is created like never before.Now that we have a better idea of what exactly an MMORPG is, the next questions is,what is the allure of an online video game? Considering the staggering number of playersplaying this game, and the number of countries from which they come, it is important to see whatis universally attractive about it. This is especially intriguing since this game costs $50 topurchase and has on-going monthly fees of $15, not including the required high speed internetaccess that typically costs anywhere from $25 to $50 a month or more.One basic thing all human beings do is communicate. We communicate today in muchmore varied and diverse ways than we ever have before. In industrialized societies, we nowcommunicate with more people in one day than our ancestors 100-200 years ago did in a week,or even a month or more. This change has been greatly influenced by the technological advancesthat have occurred during the last 200 years and these technological advances have also had agreat influence on the cultures that embraced them. As Steven Johnson, in his book InterfaceCulture writes, “Technological change has been a lightening rod for all manner of culturalelectricity over the past two centuries.” (5) It is not only that we communicate with so manypeople, but also the ways in which we communicate. Filiciak makes an interesting observation
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