GamePolitics was on hand last night for a unique combination of MMORPG and grassroots presidential politics, the Ron Paul march within World of Warcraft.
I arrived at the Alliance city of Ironforge at about 8:10 PM Eastern time, 20 minutes ahead of scheduled jump-off. I was using an avatar named Gamepolitics (what else?), a gnome mage that I created just for this event. I play WoW, but not on the Whisperwind server where the march was being held.
Upon arrival I wandered around IF near the auction house and bank, but didn't see any sign of the Ron Paul crowd. A character named Xionn recognized the GP name and we exchanged greetings.
Still in search of the march, I wandered out the front gates of IF and found a couple of avatars sporting "RP Revolution" guild tags. This must be the place! The bulk of the marchers were assembling on the hilly road leading up to IF. I estimated 200+ characters in line. Many bore names that related to Ron Paul in some way. The organizers seemed to be at the head of the line and were trying to get everyone into single file.
I didn't join the march line for a couple of reasons. First, I've not yet made up my mind about who I'm voting for. Also, I was there to cover the event, not participate in it. So I stood off to the side and followed along as the march jumped off about five minutes behind schedule. That's not bad when dealing with so many event participants.
I took some screenshots as the march proceeded up the hill into IF and paraded around the interior of the city a bit. Next, everyone lined up to board the underground tram to Stormwind. While on the tram to SW I asked a character named Allfree why she (or he) is for Ron Paul. Answer: "I'm a longtime Libertarian and against the war in Iraq."
There was a lengthy queue to get through the tram portal into Stormwind (see pic at left). Once into the city, I followed the march for a bit longer, but then had to bail before they headed for Westfall, their next destination. At that point I felt like I'd gotten the flavor of the event and seen what I needed to see.
Based on what I observed, the march participants were well behaved. I noticed that some members of the RP Revolution guild wore a tabard with a scroll design on it which I believe was intended to represent the U.S. Constitution.
Many non-marchers were not so thrilled about the event, feeling that it detracted from their enjoyment of the game. Many seemed surprised that it was taking place, despite the advance publicity. Complaints were voiced that the march was causing lag. Indeed, the Whisperwind server did seem a bit laggy. There were some calls to ban further political activities on WoW. Some anti-Ron Paul griefers spammed rude messages. A character /spit on a paladin marcher named Ronpaulidan. Someone else threw a snowball at the marchers. None of this was too surprising and it didn't really detract from the march.
While some may have found the Ron Paul event silly, inconsequential or simply annoying, my take is that it was a most unique way to harness the social and political potential of the game space. Such activities have primarily been confined to Second Life up until this point, so it's good to see gamers pushing the envelope in other gaming venues.
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GP Covers the Ron Paul World of Warcraft March
January 2, 2008 -
Shout box
Monte: trolls are just at their absolute worst when it comes to women and feminist. You could bet good money that if the developer were male the trolls would be silent and the conversation would actually focus on the journalism.10/18/2014 - 9:18pm
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Monte: Papa: Not the first time we've had a journalism scandals before, but the harassment never got close to this level; the difference with this scandal is that feminists are involved. Without the feminist angle, their would be A LOT less harrassment10/18/2014 - 9:15pm
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Papa Midnight: Monte: That's honestly rather short-sighted. As has been proven with other persons who have been targeted, if it wasn't Quinn, it would be someone else.10/18/2014 - 6:26pm
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Avalongod: I think that's part of what gives an esoteric news story like this real life...it taps into a larger narrative about misogyny in society outside of games.10/18/2014 - 3:29pm
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Avalongod: @Monte, well the trolls made death threats that came to police (and media attention). I think this is tapping into a larger issue outside of games about how women are treated in society (like all the "real rape" stuff during the last election)10/18/2014 - 3:28pm
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Wonderkarp: Zippy : Havent tried the PS4 controller. might later.10/18/2014 - 2:37pm
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Monte: Seirously, If Quinn was not involved and GG was instead about something like the Mordor Marketing contracts, the trolling would have never grown so vile and disgusting. There have been plenty of movements in the past that never sufferred from behavior..10/18/2014 - 1:57pm
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Monte: We have seen scandel's before but the trolling has never been as vile as what we see with GG. Trolls usually have such a tiny voice you can barely notice them, but its like moths to a flame whenever femistist are involved.10/18/2014 - 1:53pm
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ZippyDSMlee: Wonderkarp: You might be able to if you had a PS4 controller.10/18/2014 - 1:00pm
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MaskedPixelante: http://store.steampowered.com/app/327940/ Night Dive starts charging for freeware.10/18/2014 - 12:21pm
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Matthew Wilson: the sad thing is there are trolls on both sides of this. people need to stop acting like their side is so pure.10/18/2014 - 12:19pm
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MechaTama31: So, only speak out on a scandal that hasn't attracted trolls? I wouldn't hold my breath...10/18/2014 - 10:49am
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Monte: I feel like GG just needs to die. The movement is FAR to tainted by hatred and BS for it to be useful for any conversation. Let GG die, and then rally behind the NEXT gaming journalism scandal, and start the conversation fresh.10/18/2014 - 10:33am
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quiknkold: and we dont have a Dovakin to call a cease fire10/17/2014 - 7:37pm
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quiknkold: The whole thing is Futile. Both sides are so buried deep in their trenchs that there isnt a conversation. Its just Finger Pointing, Name Calling, Doxxing, Threats. there needs to be a serious conversation, and GG isnt it.10/17/2014 - 7:37pm
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quiknkold: I thought it was a good article. Jeff is right. I feel like GamerGate did destroy its message. I am for Ethics in game journalism, but man. so much hate. and its on both sides. I've seen some awful stuff spewed on twitter. Its a big reason why I exited..10/17/2014 - 7:34pm
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Matthew Wilson: while he focused on gg, he did call out both sides crap.10/17/2014 - 7:18pm
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Papa Midnight: That was a damn good read offered by Jeff Gertsmann.10/17/2014 - 7:17pm
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Matthew Wilson: http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/letter-from-the-editor-10-17-2014/1100-5049/ deferentially a nice write up.10/17/2014 - 6:44pm
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james_fudge: I think Evan killed it. He's a great guy and super smart.10/17/2014 - 6:38pm
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Comments
All would be fine and dandy....But they chose a completely random realm, which also already happened to be a high population realm and than host the event on. They had many other choices of pve low pop realms but they didn't. They chose a high population realm that knowingly gathering 200+ people is going to bog down the system. That is wrong. And no all you have to do is get a free disk for a free 30 days trial of the game. which I am guessing a lot of the people did.
@person that stated that rallies are supposed to disrupt life.
Positive political rallies for a candidate aren't supposed to disrupt normal life. They are supposed to gain support not make people hate you. And if you know anything about rallys those ones that disrupt peoples lives are on PUBLIC property. What they did was on private property. I.E. The supporters going into your office and hitting all the button on the elevators and just riding them up and down than clogging the stairwells so you couldn't take that either. That is at the building managers discretion to call the police or not....But it is still illegal, just takes some action by someone to get the ball rolling to shut it down. Which nobody at blizzard chose to do.
if i got 200 friends to agree to log into a populated server, and sit in ironforge and just talk, there is nothing we are doing wrong, and it's not our fault the servers can't handle it
and for the record i neither play WoW, or support RP, i'm just stating my oppinion on the mater (i do play CoX and i wouldn't have a problem with them doing this there)
Nor do I play wow. But knowingly bogging down servers is against the ToS. Which they did by chosing a high pop realm. Spamming is against the tos. yes both sides did it but it is still wrong.
My main problem is the fact that these organisers knew what they were doing by chosing a high pop realm and disrupting peoples "lives"(if you want to call them that.) And than when confronted about what they knowingly did be jack@sses about it and tell people to shut up and actually be very immature about it is just stupid. Honestly as a political candidate i would not support such behavior but hey it is ron paul.
But hey that is another thread about accepting donations from high ranking kkk members and keeping it.
You may not disrupt or assist in the disruption of (i) any computer used to support the Service (each a "Server"); or (ii) any other player's Game experience. ANY ATTEMPT BY YOU TO DISRUPT THE SERVICE OR UNDERMINE THE LEGITIMATE OPERATION OF THE PROGRAM MAY BE A VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAWS. You agree that you will not violate any applicable law or regulation in connection with your use of the Program or the Service.
I say creating accounts and bogging down a server and creating que's for the sole purpose of promoting something that is not WoW is against both i & ii of section 4c of the wow ToS. But that is my reading comprehension.
Blizzard should however be actioning the accounts of everyone involved, just like they have before for other massive player gatherings/protests. They should also, just like those times, be issuing a public statement that these things are unacceptable.
Those saying that it is okay, consider other possible marches.. this is a precedent, how long before anyone with an agenda starts to organize rubbish like this in our games. And no, I don't like this rubbish in real life any more than I do in games.
Worse for me, is that it is politics.. such pathetic actions by people running for political office do nothing more than make me hope to hell they don't get in.
If everyone who attended was a regular Whisperwind realm user ok fine. You've paid your money on a regular basis, you've geared up a toon, put in the time to play. But if people from other servers rolled new toons, or used TRIAL ACCOUNTS to create new toons on Whisperwind...I have an issue. And many people (as evidenced by all the lowbies) did just that.
So its one of three things, people either need to realize it is a video game, Blizzard needs to reduce the 15 dollars a month price to 10 or they need to make the players feel more satisfied even with their persistence to MAINTAIN their serves and assure everyone that they can have fun as well. My bet is since Blizzard already does a pretty good job at maintaining their servers and the lag can be attributed to the success of the game it is a either a price issue or the fact that WoW players take their gaming SERIOUSLY.
"I forgot the fact that WoWers tend to cry a whole lot."
Or
"I forgot the fact that RonPaulers tend to cause a whole lot of problems."
Blizz does maintain their servers. This was an unforeseen load that any server would have issues dealing with. When your normal load is suddenly increased, performance suffers. You can't correct or make prep unless you know the extent. They (Blizzard) had issues with this sort of thing in the past, specifically at huge events, such as the Gates of AQ event.
This unforeseen load was caused by RP supporters, some of whom got a trial account for just this reason, hence paying Blizz nothing. Others don't play on this particular server. WoW can handle 80 people easily it seems. However 200+ it seemed to nearly choke on. Blizz knows this limitation and have worked to keep their events from causing this issue. In the expansion currently in the works they are developing two starting zones to thin the population a little. They learned from BC's release and the crash and lagfest that was Hellfire.
As a friend of mine once said, WoW is serious business. Now, it was made in jest because some people take it to seriously. But these people have worked playing wow as a leisure activity into their daily routine. When someone is a jerk and causes interruption to your daily routine, doubly so when it is your leisure time, you tend to get annoyed. This event caused interruptions, people got upset, they have that right just as Weatherlight had the right to be when John Kerry rallies caused him to be late for a quiz (unsure if he did or not, but I assume he was not to pleased).
Major server lag as a result of higher-than-normal usage usually only happens right after a major update (like when Burning Crusade was released, or the recent 2.3 patch, which had a lot of significant new content). In those situations, it is an unfortunate but natural consequence of people doing what they paid to do - log in to play the game.
However, this was a different scenario. This was a group of people gathering for a non-WoW-related event, with full knowledge that their actions would cause technical issues for the rest of the paying customers on Whisperwind. This is against the ToS, and there are precedents in support of this.
There was some change made to the warrior (I think) class a year or two ago (damned if I remember what it was, I wasn't involved or aware at the time) that got so many of them up in arms over it, they all rolled new toons on one particular server, logged in en masse, and crashed it, multiple times. It was done as a statement of their dissatisfaction. It was very much against the ToS, and Blizzard said so in no uncertain terms.
While the stimulus for the RP rally may have been different, the results were the same, and the knowledge of the rally's consequences was undeniable during every stage of the planning. They knew what the results of this mass event would be, they knew they were doing it for a reason not protected by the ToS, and they did it anyway.
I think the people who participated in the WoW rally had the right to do that because it can't be a non-WoW related event. They used their avatars, in the world of warcraft to express themselves in a creative manner. It is a part of the game, if they didn't see this kind of thing happening. Emergent gameplay. It happens.
People are just crying about something that really means absolutely nothing. So it caused some server lag, big deal. They were still acting as a community and they were still PLAYING THE GAME. It has to be WoW related as they used WoW to organize it. Are you missing that obvious connection? How the hell can something be a non-Wow related event at the same time it takes place on a WoW server?
"It has to be WoW related as they used WoW to organize it. Are you missing that obvious connection? How the hell can something be a non-Wow related event at the same time it takes place on a WoW server?"
Um...are you serious? So if I decided to hold an pro-abortion rally (for example) in the middle of the Louvre, then it's a Louvre-related event? The PURPOSE of the rally had NOTHING to do with WoW; how can YOU not see that?
"Sorry guys but simple logic is useful."
Indeed. I recommend you try it some time.
"People are just crying about something that really means absolutely nothing. So it caused some server lag, big deal."
As someone else pointed out, when WoW is your leisure activity, and someone else is preventing you from playing it by doing something that is not a part of the game, especially something specifically prohibited by the ToS, then yes, it's a big deal and they have every right to be angry. This wasn't a ton of WoW users logging in and causing lag, it was a ton of Ron Paul supporters logging in, with full knowledge that their actions were going to inconvenience someone else.
If they held their rally in the middle of a highway and prevented people from getting to work, what would you think then? It's public property (which Blizzard servers, as we've established, are not), they'd be gathering to express their opinion, as a community. Sounds good to me, right?
If Blizzard had approved or sponsored this event, that would be different. Just as it would be different if the staff of the Louvre approved or supported my hypothetical rally. But they did not.
You can't say that everything that happens in WoW is inherently WoW-related. There are plenty of things that are not related to the game that can be brought into it by players. Those things still aren't related to the game even if they are brought it.
Most of the people taking the attitude you are are the ones this event didn't effect.
And expecting Blizzard to prepare for EVERY last little eventuality is like expecting someone to automatically know if a joke is going to offend or not, it just can't be done.
To most Americans: convenience > freedom.
What does a rally on private property(blizzards servers) have anything to do with freedom? The connection is not there. Private property has different freedoms as public property.
Say even public schools. You can't even do or say whatever you want because the rules are different.
Two things, firstly there were doubtlessly people affected by this who were not Americans and therefore could care less about a low ranking runner in your election. If you are in the game for generalizations about American's however.. this rally is a prime example of the American tendency to ruin other people's fun in order to express themselves, stamping on other people's rights or desires in order to promote their own.
Secondly, this was private property.. this is not like them campaigning in a park, this is like them running a campaign rally in a bar, or club, a gym or any other place that has private membership without the express permission of the owners.
Most importantly, Blizzard has actioned for this kind of thing before, and they should do so again.. people get warnings all the time for political speech, and the naming policy definitely rules against real world political figures... I can only hope that Blizzard has taken action as appropriate.
Basically, in America enlightened debate gets tossed out the window and the idea becomes to be as loud as possible so no one else is heard.
I try to avoid making generalizations about America on the internet in general since I am not from there and, frankly, if I was to do so I would offend a great many American's in my condemnation of their society and the religion that runs their government and many of their people obsess over (no, not Fundamentalist Christianity, but Fundamentalist American Constitutionalism).
However, in this case it is so blatantly an example of American politics and selfishness ruining the fun for many of its own people, as well as many non Americans. I have been known to loudly attack Blizzard for things such as their refusal to run all customer support departments at full staff 24/7 and their constant forcing of their customers to go without support just because of some American public holiday.. I will just as readily demand that they do not allow American politics to stamp all over our fun in World of Warcraft.
I take no offense to such generalizations as they are just that, generalizations.
And I do agree with you. I would prefer to continue my working on my game without real world politics poking it's ass into it.It's not that I don't care if my country improves or not{Even if I do doubt it will happen} I would just rather real world politics stay out of my fantasy adventure.
There's a podcast recording of an interview with this guy around if you want to know what he's about (lost the URL but someone will post it). Basically he is for rolling back US law to the time of the constitution (abolishing all healthcare, consumer and employment law for example), including abolition of the army and replacing with militia. Sounds absolutely loony to me.. I listened to it with my jaw on the floor most of the time, but he seems popular in the US... they always traditionally hated their government in that country so abolishing it completely is logical I guess.
He won't get in - The US voters basically vote for the person the TV tells them to (not much difference to anywhere else really, except it's far worse there), and there's no way in hell the media companies are going to endorse someone who'd abolish the DMCA for example.