#teganhanlon

In "Playing with Names: Gaming and Naming in World of Warcraft," Charlotte Hagstrom ruminates on why players choose the names they do in WOW, and if names influence the experience of the game. 

WOW requires all characters to have a name in order to enter Azeroth. No name, no World of Warcraft for you. But, that presents an issue: You're about to enter an unknown world and you need to create a virtual identity — what's acceptable? How can you fit in? 

In Orc Rogue's case, he's trying to find out what name will make him the most friends. 

"I am going to make the greatest name in the history of makin' names in the history of World of Warcraft," he says in the machinima, "Picking Your WoW Name" by WowCrendor. (Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7gVysecIUE).

He debates trying to make a rogue name, but they didn't seem creative enough. Then, he considers making a hard to pronounce name, "but then I can't even pronounce that name, and then how will people invite me to their friend's list?!"

The Orc Rogue moves to a forum to get some suggestions — he shoots down a Tauren name, Bubblez, to which he replies "I ain't a girl." 

The solution: "Screw it, I'm just gonna hit random a bunch of time and add or remove a letter." 

I picked this machinima because making Nagett (who ended up just being the mirror image of Tegan + a "t" because some other curious soul wanted "Naget") was a huge process. I had no idea what to name her, hell — I didn't even know if I wanted her to be a "her." I threw around some boring names, all of which were taken, and all of which escape me know — so obviously, Nagett-if-she-wasn't-Nagett would not have been all that memorable. I didn't know what WOW characters were normally named — so for all I knew people were just a series of numbers or maybe just a letter... I was on my own. 

Hagstrom says that when one enters the WOW universe they need to get used to "totally unfamiliar names." These naming patterns hardly resemble those that we're used to. And, Hagstrom notes that fear of being "unaccepted" because of your player's name is not totally irrational. "...There is a normative system in place; just as in real life, names can be, and are, questioned, banned, ridiculed, prized, mocked, and admired by fellow players" (266). 

After analyzing the names of characters in Azeroth, Hagstrom concluded that when it comes to a player's imagination in naming characters — neither race nor level matter. Additionally, she noticed no significant difference between the names on role-playing servers and other servers. She said that few people she talked to used the name generator because, "for them, creating names is an essential part of the game and something they want to do themselves" (270). 

The first time Nagett died, I panicked. I knew as a priest I was healing people left and right (Ok, not really) but, I thought they were just… I don’t know dead projections, dead set ups for me to practice on. Anyway, when I died I thought: Well, damn I’m going to fail this class. I didn’t make it to level 2, and now Nagett is dead forever. But, she wasn’t dead forever, ghost Nagett could go find her body. And we did. And she came back. 

My Internet ignorance appears to blanket over all technologies. Analyzing video games has never popped into my head as something I desired to do. But, after reading Lisbeth Klastrup’s “What Makes World of Warcraft a World? A Note on Death and Dying” I started thinking more about the concept of death in a game, and what role it serves. Klastrup writes about how game developers use death as a punishment, as a way to make gamers respect the world that they live in. This all makes complete sense. “Since all characters inevitably run out of health points at some point during their life cycle, “death,” therefore, not least to new players, serves as punishment for not watching out for one’s character or for playing imprudently” (145). If there wasn’t that threat of dying in World of Warcraft, I would be totally reckless. I mean, I still don’t really know what I’m doing so I’m about a 75 percent on the reckless scale, but I do know I don’t want to die.

But, why is WOW dying so bad? Klastrup writes how game developers need to make death the perfect balance — to keep the world challenging, but keep it fun. In WOW, you can immediately come back to life when your at a not-so-high level, or you can go find your corpse. I didn’t know the former, so I’ve always corpse hunted — which is time consuming. You can’t level up when your dead forever trying to locate yourself. It’s no good. But, at the same time, it’s just “annoying” not devastating. So, the games still fun. Death is something to be avoided. But, when it happens you just need to spend about three minutes of hunt time. 

So — until class today I never thought about whether or not I would choose to be a girl character in the Alliance race. I mean I’m a girl in real life, why wouldn’t I be a girl… in this case in Azeroth? In fact, when Victoria  gave us a quick World of Warcraft 101, I tried to figure out the step-by-step to making a character and, I just, assumed I would click the female button. But, why? I mean, come on I could be a big burly man, with muscles and a beard and other burly man things.

Hilde G. Corneliussen wrote about feminism in World of Warcraft, and the “his-story” of Azeroth. I feel totally blindsided when reading things about video games, and sexualized female characters, and the history of a game. It’s not that I don’t buy it. It’s not that I have any negative feelings towards it, I just — I just don’t get it. I mean… it’s a game. I guess it makes sense that it has a history, since so many “people components” go into it every day — making decisions, earning gold, etc. But, who wrote it down? Or am I just not understanding the concept of history at all in this case?

Corneliussen writes, “Despite these stories of strong women, most of Azeroth’s history is a story of war and conflict played out by men, which leaves most to the population of Azeroth, including most of the female characters, invisible” (70). It’s statements like this that I just don’t understand — why can’t a female character fight with the best of them? Dammit, why can’t I be a woman priest and heal with the best of them? She goes on to say that female characters “need to be females” to enter in relationships with males or evil forces and “drive the story forward.” So do female characters not have a chance from the get-go — is it in the game programming?

Well, here are the chapters I chose to read: 24 — “Stop. Hey. What’s that Sound,” 27 — “Spin the Painting: An Interview with Nadine Robinson,” 29 — “Fear of a Muslim Planet: Hip-Hops Hidden History,” 30 — “Three Pieces,” 32 — “What One Must Do: Comments and Asides on Musical Philosophy,” 33 — “An Interview with Pierre Boulez,” 34 — “Adh’an: The Sounds of an Islamized Orthodoxy,” 35 — “Theater of the Spirits: Joseph Cornell and Silence,” and finally, 36 — “Where did the Music Go.”

Aside from general piqued interest after reading the titles, I didn’t have much methodology behind which chapters I chose to single out this week. I decided to read Lanier’s piece, because of name recognition. His essay echoed his argument from You Are Not a Gadget that our music today simply mimics the music of the past. He writes, “I’m not complaining about how crummy the new pop music is. If only! I’m complaining that there is no pop music to complain about” (385). He goes on to ask where the new musical styles are that respond to AIDS and terrorism.

Two other pieces that I chose to read based on things other than alluring titles were chapters 32 and chapter 30. Both of these essays had interesting forms. Chuck D’s “Three Pieces” vary in form — the first and third read like poems or raps, while the second — I can’t put my finger on what “form” that is — perhaps a blog? Perhaps a series of rap lyrics crammed into paragraphs — with caps locked words for emphasis? Daniel Bernard Roumain writes chapter 32 as a series of entries under different topics ranging from “iPod” to “Lenon” to “Great Harmony.” Chuck D compares hip-hop to rap and says that hip-hop has proved victorious.

Both Chuck D and Roumain weave comments on race and its relations to sound throughout their essays. Roumain writes, “I believe hip-hop’s music beginnings were founded in the idea of delivering the words of brothers and sisters to brothers and sisters, in the hopes of creating a more informed, tolerant, and moral society” (359). Chuck D is much more explicit about his problems with what he calls, “Amerikkka.” He says, “I have a problem with Amerikkka walking out and damn near shitting on the WORLD RACISM CONFERENCE in SOUTH AFRICA” (340). Comments about race carry over to other pieces like the interview with Nadine Robinson where she makes a silent boom painting to represent voicelessness in America — mainly among African Americans.