Our researcher's guild is pretty well established by now, enough that it's been discovered by a Swedish journalist in the game magazine Super Play. I am not sure if the interview is (or will be) published, but he did find us in Azheroth and did an interview with me, T. L. Taylor and Jessica Langer - in our game avatars.
Running a guild like this has its special challenges. The problem with researchers is that we always have more will and curiosity than time, and with time at a premium and tight schedules, logistics becomes an issue. I never had ambitions of 40 man raids in Black Wing Lair, manned only by game researchers (although... how cool would that be? Not to mention a pre-made game researcher Alterac Valley?), but I still have ambitions of being able to just once raid Upper Black Rock Spire with the guild.
Recruiting for a guild like this is however special. We have a few non-researchers in the guild, but it's people who like to hang with us anyway. You know, the ones who are close enough friends or sufficiently fans to tolerate having their media experiences ruined by sarcastic deconstruction even after a bottle of wine, or to show up to have lunch with a bunch of strange academics and still be polite after an hour of literary references flying through the air. They are rare though, so it's not like we have a huge recruiting base.
What I am trying to do with the guild is to give the members a varied range of game experiences. We spent the spring term levelling and just learning to play. The fall has a role play motive, a plan for more in character interaction and role play events. We move through these things slowly, frustratingly so for those of us who are experienced gamers, but quickly enough for a group of folks who are constantly interrupted by conferences, deadlines and students. It's not all parts of our work that can be done ingame, after all.
But I am still having fun. It gives a warm and fuzzy feeling to log on and find scholar friends right there. See you in Orgrimmar?
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4 comments:
Hello Mistress,
that guy from the Swedish magazine made an interview even with me. I think it's hard to find Super Play here in Italy but if you can take a copy of the magazine also for me.:-) I've been away for a while but I'm back for a fall roleplaying season.
Luca/Gahrotz
I'll see what I can do, but we may have to ask one of our swedish friends to get a copy.
See you in Azheroth!
Hello,
I would really love to join your researcher's guild. I'm a geography graduate student from California. Let me know if there is some sort of application procedure. thanks.
Hello Lorien
Yes, there is a procedure, there's also the little added problem Blizzard has made for us, which demands that you have a European version of WoW to join. You have to write one of the members, me, for instance, and apply in an email with your name and a short biography detailing your game-related research or practice.
The guild is not a high-ranking raiding guild, to be honest, it's hard to get people together for instances as we are a scattered and busy bunch. But feel free to write and ask more about the guild and if it would be fun for you.
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