Decoding Dragons

[MMOs] Social Ills in Games: Narcotics in our MMOs?

While Massively has not been my MMO news outlet of choice for a while, today it has posed an interesting question. Do narcotics belong in MMOs? The article in question compares the inclusion or exclusion of narcotics to violence, gore, sex and thievery, but I think there is a more interesting question at the heart of this issue.

If not narcotics

As someone with a bit of a bent for so-called ‘Social Justice blogging’, I regularly call out things that I feel are problematic. This might be detailed analysis of the way a company handles being called out over a particular turn of phrase  (a’la Blizzard and Geek Chic Cosmetics), or it might be a more textual analysis of gender roles within a game. So for me the parallel in this phrase comes from those sources. Whenever players like me cry out about the heteronormativity of things like the Goblin Starter Quest, or even when companies like Bioware start introducing Gay and Lesbian romance options; there is invariably someone ready to say ‘why do I have to deal with these real world issues in my game, I just want to have fun’.

I may have paraphrased with that, but essentially it’s another version of the ‘It’s fine as long as it’s not in my face.’ The SF&F world has long prided itself on being more progressive and open-minded than the mainstream. While shows like Star Trek look dated and sexist these days, back in the day they were somewhat revolutionary. Yet the all pervasiveness of the erasure fantasy is going strong.  Not only drugs are supposedly erased from the MMO market, but so are addicts and the associated social problems. Representation of poverty is sanitised, made clean.

Sanitised Narcotics

The Massively article makes mention of Spice in Star Wars Galaxies, and pipeweed in LOTRO. As I understand it, Eve: Online has an actual drugs trade as part of it massive economy, although I am not familiar with the in game mechanics (is it just a commodity, or can you actually take the drug?) In World of Warcraft players are able to buy alcohol, and will experience short lived ‘drunk effects’ – drunkenness is often played for a laugh in game. Blood Elves are known for their addiction to magic, and addiction to magic is a fairly common trope in the SFF world.

Downer Effects

I’ll venture to say that ‘temporary drunk effects’ are probably the most a player will see of withdrawal symptoms, or what the presence of drug addiction can do to a person and their community. While there are great SFF books based around drug addicted protagonists (hello Sherlock), I’m not really certain how that could translate into a playable, fun game for users. I’ve talked about immersion and absorption as goals for world building before, is this one of those cases where things get too real?

However, that, for me, segues back into the discussion of NPCs with disabilities generally not being in games. You might hear of a character in a wheelchair (Oracle springs to mind) but for the most part physical disability is erased from the fantasy/sf world, except in cases where physical deformity is used as a manifestation of mental weakness (i.e. drug-induced madness.)

Presentation of poverty

I haven’t been able to do a lot of research for this post, so please excuse the brevity of the references. In Warcraft the only addicts we actually see represented are the Wretched. In many ways they are remarkably similar to the Broken, who are pretty classic post-apocalyse-survivor types. Their bodies are physical manifestations of their addiction, in the same way that we might associate looking pale, thin and sickly with drug addiction. One crucial point here is that the addiction is accompanied by madness. Representations of mental illness in SFF are generally beyond the pale, so I’m not going to focus on that in this post, but the characterisation of these addicts as being beyond help and something to eradicate is important to note. Sympathy for addicts and recovering addicts is often in short supply in the real world, so it’s not surprising that beings who succumb to their addiction are shunned almost without thought in fantasy. Blood Elf players are shown this attitude to addiction in their starting area.

In many ways this approach is also rife with classism, as it is in the real world. A rich addict can get support and help – in effect they can afford their addiction. A poor person, already marginalised by the education system, jobs, and other factors becomes an outcast even amongst their peers. In a world of limited resources, the only way to cope with someone in this position is to de-humanise them.  In Blood Elf society, we know that Blood Thistle Addicts are looked down on as well, so this disdain for what is seen as weak behaviour is inherent even in an entire race of elves that continues to struggle on a racial level with issues of addiction.

Yes, I know I’m muttering about de-humanising an elf.

In contrast the consumption of alcohol is often played for laughs, or even celebrated because it is much more socially acceptable and not viewed in the same class as narcotics. This is probably due to the ability of millions to partake in moderation, where ‘moderate’ use of any kind of narcotic is pretty much invisible due to it’s illegal nature. Thus when poverty is presented in a game like Warcraft, which is very cartoony, it is often in the form of refugees and bandits (see the current version of Westfall in particular.)

One of the things that struck me about Star Wars: The Old Republic was it’s willingness to show the down side of life – a product both of Bioware being more aware of social issues and one of the original protagonists of the Star Wars movies being a smuggler. It’s hard to be all neutral and all about the contraband if the contraband and it’s consumers aren’t actually in the universe.  I’ve not played SW:TOR for a few months so I cannot easily research exactly how this is presented, but I do seem to recall that drugs and smuggling were definitely something associated with the ‘underdog’ aliens that suffered other economic and social opressions.

Plus, you know, the dark side often seems very much about addiction to power when you first take a look at it. And a second look. And possibly a third look. The fate of Darth Vader is very much tied up in what addiction can do to a person, although poverty certainly doesn’t impact on his life.

Lore and world appropriate

The original Massively article makes a point about game makers sanitising narcotics for the sake of censors and other such things, which in some ways simply baits the reader for a response of ‘well they let all those violent naked chicks through, why does a little drugs hurt’? And in many ways I agree with them. It certainly isn’t appropriate to touch on heroin use in Hello Kitty Online, but seeing as addiction is actually referred to in many more adult MMOs perhaps it is time for developers to think a bit more about how drugs and alcohol are handled in game. A society’s attitudes to alcohol and narcotics is a large part of world building, as it will touch on everything from social traditions and ceremonies, to social entertainment. Attitudes towards substance abuse inform class-stratification, and add depth to the world you’re trying to create.

This is one of the reasons I’m hemming and hawwing about getting an a copy of The Secret World. As an ‘alternate universe’ game set in the real world, it’s approach to sexuality, gender, race, class and disability may well be thrown more into the spotlight than in a game like EvE: Online where you almost may as well not have a humanoid avatar at all. (I have taken to imagining all EvE players to be like the Pilot from Farscape.)

[MMOs] Social Ills in Games: Narcotics in our MMOs? was published on May 31st, 2012, with the tags , , , , , , , , under the Game Development, Games, Social Activism, Star Wars: The Old Republic, The Secret World, Warcraft category. There are currently 6 comments on this article so far.

I’m all lost in the supermarket

This is a personal post, and somewhat rambly. This blog will return to elemental shaman stuff shortly. If you’re wondering where I’ve been, I’ve been co-hosting the Obscurecast along with Gazimoff of Mana Obscura and I left my authenticator at his house after the great Blizzcon weekend podcast-a-thon. I’ve also been extremely busy with my day job, and with raiding now finished in my guild, an old problem of mine has re-emerged.


The kids in the halls and the pipes in the walls
Make me noises for company
Long distance callers make long distance calls
And the silence makes me lonely

Lost in the Supermarket by The Clash

World of Warcraft is like a supermarket. A British one, specifically, except prettier. Whenever I go to a supermarket I lose a lot of my impulse control, and I lose the ability to focus. It’s been like this since I was very small. Something about the bright lights and colours caused something of a sensory overload and I wander around in a bit of a trance. To combat this as an adult I’ve had to cultivate some techniques in order to achieve grocery shopping. Usually they involve getting my partner to go instead, because is impulse control is better than mine. Alternatively I have to be very driven to acquire something in particular, as opposed to ‘groceries’ in general. If I go in to do the weekly shop I’ll come out with cake, some salami, 3 cans of baked beans, wensleydale cheese, assorted pretzels and an egg whisk (we have 5.) If I go in to achieve baking powder or fabric conditioner, for example, I’ll come out with a decent bag of shopping but forget those items in particular.

It will also take me an hour to pick up 5 items, because I’ll get distracted by pineapples. And then by tea towels.

Warcraft is very much like a supermarket for me at the moment. I don’t have a specific activity to log on for, such as raids. I do have multiple tasks I wish to do – such as practise my abysmal PvP so the commenters over at WoW Insider don’t pull me apart on my first Elemental PvP column over there. Or drop herbalism and level alchemy. I’ve always got multiple strands of research going on, such from gender/sexuality/ethics related looks at the new quests in beta, to item lists for future blog posts, to attempting to get in on a raid so I can actually see the new bosses.

And then there are cool Elemental Invasions going on, and I want to be a part of that.

I’m playing catch up at the moment, because I left my authenticator at Obscurecast mission control, following the epic An Obscure All Things Blizzcon podcasting weekend. I’m thus a little out of the habit of playing WoW, and am missing some of the drive and goals that keep my play time efficient and fun. So yesterday I log in to try and do one or more of these things I listed. I am not completely certain what I actually did, but I believe it involved flying around in circles, mainly around Zul’drak. At the end of the evening I logged off, frustrated with myself and wondering what I had been doing all evening that I had achieved precisely zero. Not only that, but I have very little memory of what I was actually doing. I know I answered some guildies questions in guild chat, and I know I rode my Cenarion War Hippogryph around in circles outside the Sapphire Hive. But somehow three whole hours have gone, and not in a ‘where DID the time go?’ type of way.

I should have been writing, I should have been cleaning the bathroom or doing laundry. Or packing, because we’re due to move right after New Years. I should have been doing so many things, and Warcraft is a legitmate activity for me to be doing, but the lack of habit and drive has rendered it hypnotic and trance inducing to me. Between all the activities that I could and should be doing, I am left vacantly staring at the bright colours and pretty pictures. Literally wandering around in circles, and not even really looking at what I’m doing or where I am.

Is this normal? Well everyone procrastinates and wastes time. That much is pretty normal. However my entire life has this issue. It’s not the lack of want to focus, or even a lack of things to focus on, it’s just that without certain triggers and habits it becomes almost an impossibility. This applies to work, travel, chores, and even my leisure time. This was a massive problem for me in school, and it’s very hard to pin down and explain to people. It is very easy for friends and family to turn around and say ‘buck up‘ or ‘concentrate‘ and ‘everyone procrastinates, you just need to have some discipline.’ If it was as simple as ‘learning to prioritise’, I would be living my life like that all the time.

There are good days and there are bad days. I am a productive member of society, I pay my taxes, I have friends, I work (just about), and do my best to be a good friend and daughter. I often fail, but I work hard at not failing. The attention difficulties are something I’ve always lived with and am only, in the last 2 years, learning to cope with. The seeming passivity it results in is hard to explain, but that is why I generally don’t write about it in detail.

I’m all lost in the supermarket was published on November 3rd, 2010, with the tags , , , , , , , under the Analysis, Geek Life category. There are currently 18 comments on this article so far.

Shared Topic: This is a Conversation

No comments = better bloggers?.This is the question posted by this week’s Blogazeroth shared topic, as proposed by Anea. I don’t normally do these as they tend to be a bit offtopic for my blog (which already runs the gamut from mental health issues to elemental shaman theorycrafting, and I find that a bit stretching at times.) However I think it is important to establish why one blogs.

Blogs, Journals, Diaries, Letters

Blogging is not entirely new and unique to the computer age, in my opinion. It follows in a long line of semi-public correspondence, memoirs, journalling, letters to the newspaper. Granted, the responses are much quicker and the readership more random and open. And anonymous. And unedited. I think you get the picture anyway, but the readership is open, and topics are subject to public response. On matters believed important enough, this happens via newspaper opinion columns, letters to the editor in more serious papers, and full on journal articles in the humanities and sciences.

I swear, during my post-graduate studies, half the journal articles I read were littered with passive aggressive personal attacks on ‘rivals’ in the field. Pettiness does not disappear in more academic circles, sadly.

In the days before the telephone and the more widespread newspaper, letters could be fairly public things. Many an intellectuals personal correspondence is published after they have passed on. The privacy of letters is something of a modern concept. Letters controlled the spread of ideas, and formed the basis of intellectual exchange between philosophers and scientists for hundreds of years, and were often written under the assumption that they would be read by more than the intended recipient.  As letter writing has declined, blogging increases. Even if the blogging is sometimes bite-sized. Twitter is many conversations, formed a line at a time, and displayed for public consumption.

Blog-o-sphere is not a forum or a guild

Now, there has been recent hubbub that I feel Tam has summarised neatly here, and one of the topics that came up there was ‘it is a public forum, prepare to be publicly answered.’ I think it is very easy to forget that our posts are accessible by everyone. You can of course make your blog accessible to only a few, and the privacy of what you post is then under your control. Post it in the sphere of ‘opinionators’ and it is subject to dissection, denouncement, praise, and so on – possibly from people you had no idea existed.

Now, where blogging does differ from the literary/academic/newspaper mediums is the immediacy of the community. However this community is not like other communities. The blogging community is not like a forum or a guild, because it is hundreds (thousands) of individual opinionators, opinionating in their own style and with no moderator or editor to slap their hand and tell them to write something else, or avoid certain topics. If a blogger wants to post paragraphs of nonsensical babble, there is no moderator to come along and delete the post as spam. If a blogger wants to post an article condemning raiders for being elitist no life bastards, there is no guild leader to /gkick them for disrespecting other members of the community.

There is a certain amount of leadership by popularity, but large blogs such as PPI and Tobold would never claim that he is in charge of anything, and I don’t think any little blogger would want that to pass.

So, Pewter, ‘conversation’? Remember the title of this post?

I blog when I feel I have something to say to the WoW Community at large. I comment on others because they say things which prompt things in me, and get me mulling over certain topics. I blog to share information, to improve my writing (slowly but surely, thank you for your patience.) I blog to hear points of view thrown back at me. To link in to the earlier analogy of letters, I write in my blog because I don’t write to my friends and certainly not on these topics. I don’t think turning comments off, or ignoring other blogs would make me a better blogger, because the dialogue would inevitably be one-sided.

Not that it isn’t already. A blog without comments is something like a soapbox or a pulpit. We would denounce, we would preach, but we wouldn’t connect, and connecting and the desire to connect is one of those fundamentals of being human.

Shared Topic: This is a Conversation was published on March 22nd, 2010, with the tags , , , , , , , under the Meta-blog category. There are currently 2 comments on this article so far.