Bit by Bit by Andrew Ervin

Author:Andrew Ervin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2017-05-02T04:00:00+00:00

The massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft, released on November 23, 2004, was an immediate creative and financial success. The basic premise is straightforward: the player, inhabiting a character, completes a series of tasks in a fictional, high-fantasy realm in order to gain greater powers. There is no winning or losing, no final challenge to overcome. If and when a character attains the highest level (the threshold of which still rises every few years) the so-called endgame involves acquiring better and better gear and working in teams. Multi-player collaborations—complex dungeon raids involving a combination of skill and problem solving—can take weeks or months to complete. One does not play World of Warcraft so much as live in it. As Ian Bogost told me, “it doesn’t make much sense to compare WoW to Super Mario Bros. WoW is more like Walmart.”

At any moment, potentially millions of people around the globe are still traipsing about Azeroth. Life goes on in that persistent world even when one logs off. Stormwind and Orgrimmar, the capital Alliance and Horde cities respectively, have functioning economies and offer every manner of amenity and service for a growing toon. They are digital cities that never sleep.

The sheer size of the world in World of Warcraft was remarkable when it launched and it has only continued to grow. Traveling on foot—that is, without using a mount or the in-game flying methods—it would take hours to get from Moonglade (on the northern tip of Kalimdor) to Tanaris (a desert enclave in the south). In the course of leveling up my character, I trekked through the leafy forest of Elwynn, the fetid Swamp of Sorrows, and the snow-capped peaks of Dun Morgh. As is the case with my native Philadelphia, some areas of Azeroth are stunningly beautiful to behold and others difficult to endure.

When I began playing World of Warcraft in 2009, the game had already expanded well beyond its initial form through expansion packs. My time on Azeroth began during Wrath of the Lich King (2008), which introduced the continent of Northrend and the Death Knight class, and a seemingly impossible-to-reach level cap of 80. Naturally, owing to nostalgia, I felt most invested in this content, especially the chain of events leading up to the defeat of the Lich King himself. My first few hours of World of Warcraft, when I was figuring out the simple mechanics and quest chains, were among the most enjoyable gaming experiences of my life. After a few weeks, and living far from my young nephews, I bought them copies for Christmas so we could play together online. Looking back, I hope that wasn’t a mistake.

There have been several occasions when I felt that my otherwise enjoyable search for an inhabitation of Zen-ness in World of Warcraft became something more intense and troubling. When I was away from the game I would, at times, feel a phantom-limb sensation of knowing that Bootzilla lived on in my absence. I was constantly two places

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