W.o.W.Families

So I was up playing World of Warcraft last night with my level 20 (now 23) Human Rogue and started questing in the Redridge area. I hooked up with a party of 20+ guys who knew what they were doing and we stormed this keep chock full of orcs. None survived. With the leader dead, and victory recorded in our quest logs I met two peculiar Female Night-Elf Hunters. Twins to be exact, these ladies (most likely young girls) maintained the same equipment and pets.

 My curious noob self had to ask “Can I join your guild?” They replied with laughter and stated that they were in a small “family only” guild. On that blunt of a note, I waved them good byes and thank you’s and at the corner of my eye I saw the Boss NPC’s respawn, the Twins and their pets took up arms, and I left as fast as I could because I knew they were going to die without a full party (whatever I am a rogue).

But it made me think about the debate of World of Warcraft not being an actual game. And I agree that WoW is not a game, it is a social utility. I didn’t have to probe in far enough to find out that a family is using the environment provided by blizzard to emulate family activities which, back in my day, would be Monopoly or Scrabble. From this instance I would love to figure out how many families actually play MMORPG’s tither like this because it just seems so weird in the social interfacing sense. What I encountered was a group of relatives who, even while in the same house or environment used computers in-between their interactions. I am not scared of this new form of family social activities but it is fascinating to see how families can or possibly will evolve in the future.