GP Covers the Ron Paul World of Warcraft March
GP Covers the Ron Paul World of Warcraft March
January 2, 2008
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.
Comments
Otherwise I would of joined.
The tram queue reminds me of that TF2 griefing vid that was on Joystiq about a week ago. "I'll let you through the portal if you promise to vote for Ron Paul."
This text incorrectly implies that Second Life is a game[ing venue].
"apparently, Whisperwind is non-PvP, so there was no chance for a repeat of the funeral raid. Pity, that would’ve raised a lot more awareness."
Perhaps they were testing the waters, so to speak, to see how chaotic it would be, before trying it on a PvP server. It's too bad they took the tram, otherwise Horde players could have joined in the march too...
All-in-all it was a good event, but I can't see what kind of positive impact this would have, because Whisperwind people just largely were mad because we quequed up their server. Anyway, I have a ton of screenshots, and I will find somewhere to host them later this evening.
"... I saw wave of low level alliance characters die from hunter snake traps. Also, tricked a few 70’s into flagging with me as bait, and had an undead rogue in tow..."
Those low levels who died to traps were not flagged. It is a bug with snake traps. I have to agree with SlyFox as well "... WOW isn’t a public service, it’s a paid for game and doing something of this magnitude would indeed lag a server, thereby detracting from others’ paid for experience and in-game time."
All those RP-bots lagged the server and caused other people who pay their money to play a less than enjoyable experience. So, a couple hundred people who pay their $15 a month, the majority were probably not even from that server... are more important than those that pay their $15 a month to go relax, enjoy themselves, and get away from the stresses of reality?
The bot whose comment was... “I’m a longtime Libertarian and against the war in Iraq.” So this person may very well be what... 20, 21? What is the average age of a RP supporter? From the gamer comments, younger than most other candidates. Now, GP might have gotten a 40 year old... but I have my doubts.
Glad this wasn't on my server so I could enjoy my time without lag and in peace.
Mort, Mort, Mort... I've heard that name before. Planescape Torment! The floating skull character, right? Am I on the right track?
Jalana, Medivh (not my main). I know the snake trap bug. I overly compressed my story. I tricked a few people into flagging themsleves (gank bait) in another location.
(Note: The name on Lightbringer is Kled, pally, human. Say "hi" if you are there. I will most likely say high back.)
I standardly play horde on Tortheldrin.
PVP servers ftw.
While that is the floating skull's name if I recall... this is from Terry Pratchett's wonderful series Discworld. 'Mort' was the first book of his I read and fell in love with him as an author. The recent announcement concerning his health was a sad day for me.
To all those complaining that the march interfered with their gaming, I say, "Get a life and read a book for the night."
Good Day.
Get a life? What if you have a life, and Tuesday night is the only time you have to play each week? Or you had 25 people clear their schedules to raid Gruul's lair? Which again, is nomally done only once a week.
So perhaps you are being unfair to people who would complain about this, can you say you know their reasons? I'm not saying they shouldn't have organized this event, because they aren't breaking the ToS or other rules. But I am saying that this message, statement and march comes at a price for the normal players of Whisperwind. To whom I apologize to. Because even the "report as spam" function stopped working, so they had no avenue to report people who may have been spamming, or breaking other ToS rules. But like I said, overall, I like the idea of this event. Even though I don't support RP.
"To all those complaining that the march interfered with their gaming, I say, “Get a life and read a book for the night.”
Consider that next time you pay to do something and are prevented. It's no different from someone parking on a toll turnpike and backing up traffic behind them. Oh, you paid to use the road too? Sorry, your date/movie/whatever will have to be postponed. Go read a book. Sorry, that's just hugely obnoxious of you.
Anyway, I think this was the wrong venue, and a badly misguided idea, if for no other reason than Ron Paul is already regarded as the crazy candidate, and having a bunch of warlocks and mages and gnomes marching in support doesn't make him look any more sane to the mainstream. Ordinarily, I don't care what the mainstream thinks, but when it comes to presidential elections, no one's getting anywhere without them.
I'd have done it simply because they're political activists. Not worth $15 a month IMO though.
It might have called attention to the fact that RP has a surprising amount of internet-based support - but that's not a surprise to anyone paying attention to the election, and the media has acknowledged that RP's stayed in the race thus far almost entirely because of a strong network that uses the internet wisely.
I agree. You didn't happen to gank me or see me running around there? I saw a few lvl 70 allies around there.
To turn the RP arguement. WoW is not RL (regardless of what the players might think at times). They do not have politics, well as we know them. A sword tends to make a debate or campaign short. (Hordes!!)
They were their to show support of a RL persona running for an office outside of WoW. That is not RP. RP is in lines with the world you are playing in. Did they have the "right"? Yep since it is not a barred activity and they are paying members. Did the griefs have the right to complain? You betcha.
political or not, most of you who were griefing (or wanted to) would have been griefing regardless of the reason for the gathering.
Not telling you how to do your job, just trying to help.
"RP" in this case I believe (don't quote me) stands for Ron Paul, the candidate not Roleplaying, what WoW is for.
I assume that you are one of the ones who is annoyed by reality enough to prefer escaping to WoW where consider yourself to be 'Uber.' I believe that EZK's assertation of "Go read a book" fits your bill, but perhaps "get a girlfrend/boyfriend" is needed more. I am sorry for lagging your server, but losers like yourself give WoW players a bad name. There's a fine line between "Healthy Escape," and, "My Real Life is so shitty that I have no will to better it, so I work only to pay my internet bill and WoW fee." If that last line stings a bit you might consider hanging up your riding crop for a few months and lvl up irl.
I meant Ron Paul by RP, sorry that's my mistake.
FYI: Allfree is my toon on Whisperwind. I'm actually 28 years old and just finishing law school in May.
I'm sure there are young supporters, like the people vacationing in Iowa for the candidate, but I'm not one of them.
I didn't know you could get 200+ people on screen at once in WoW.
Another question I had was, could the march have been attacked by another large group? Maybe an ambush waiting for them?
I think this would have been interesting to watch, like GP did.
Sorry. I knew it would offend. I simply cannot understand why anyone would want to pay $50+ for the game disk and then another $15 per month to actually be allowed to play the game. (Then again, plenty of people pay $30+ a month to watch TV and be bombarded by advertising)
I think I understand the position of those who may have had plans made long before the march was announced, but really is it that important that a little lag is going to totally screw up your life? Is it something that simply could not wait another day or perhaps another week?
By the way, could anyone actually describe the level of lag caused by this march? I am familiar with LAN games of Unreal 2003 and the potential lag in that.
Unreal 2003 supports what, like 16 or maybe 32 players per game? And those games are hosted locally by one of the players, rather than at a central server for all the players. Lag in an MMO is far worse than any lag in a shooter, simply because the amount of data each server receives and sends out and the amount of data each client must receive and render is exponentially higher.
If these Ron Paul Supporters were planning to do this for more than one night, I could see a reason to complain. But because it was only for one night and only a couple of hours at that, it does not seem to be anything of consiquence to get your panties all twisted about.
So are we looking at jumpy animations or are we talking about the screen freezing and as soon as you start moving again you are 20-30 meters away being eaten by a bear?
There are 3 issues: Lag, Latency, and Server Queque.
When you get that many people logged into a certain area, your PC client has trouble rendering that many avatars, this causes lag, and is an issue when in a major city, because you are lagging while managing inventory, gold etc. and can cause issues. This is mostly an issue on the users computer, but a system with well beyond the recommended specs will see slowdown, unless you are cranking out over 60 fps.
Latency issues can occur with that many people, but this is due to the server being underpowered, and is generally not an isse anymore, because Blizzard upgraded their hardware with the release of the BC expansion.
The main issue is the server queque, which prevents people from logging in once a realm gets to "full" capacity. This ameliorates server-side latency issues, see the above paragraph. This person must wait until a certain number of people logout, and with a 400+ queque, where a bulk of non-normal users are not logging out, can mean waitng indefinitely. For example, on Medivh (once a premier raiding guild server) when the BC expansion was released only saw 250 peak queques during it's peak usership. So a 400 plus wait time is absurd. This can upset people's plans, especially when you are talking about coordinating 5, 10, or 25 people all from different timezones, work schedules, etc.
"I simply cannot understand why anyone would want to pay $50+ for the game disk and then another $15 per month to actually be allowed to play the game."
For an MMO, there is cost of service. Any game that is constantly changing has to get money someway. Blizzard gets this in a monthly access fee, but give away content patches fairly regularly (at least quarterly). Other MMOs have no fees, but you must buy updated content patches.
As an ex-WoW player (not ex by choice), trust me, you have no idea what its like to lose that game. Its been seven months now, and it still hurts a little (doesnt help i have to watch my dad play it every day). That may sound a little sad and pathetic, but honestly, it was possibly the greatest gaming experience i ever had. Seeing as ive attempted to put together large man groups, or even 5-mans before for the higher end instances (dungeons), it can be incredibly difficult to get together enough people who can survive it long enough. Ive actually seen a 25-man planned out a month in advance before, so it is with due cause for those individuals to complain about lag. By the way, lag is a fact in WoW, so if their complaining about it, it must have been something terrible, 2-7 FPS (frames per second), for them to complain about it.
P.S. It is so, so, SOOOO worth the $15 a month once you understand what you're doing.
Ah my bad took it out of context.
It was AWESOME to see everyone even level 1s and 2s storming the blimp tower and some actually making it to the top at the end!!! =)
Do people get pissed off if their electricity goes out on a night they are going to raid and call their electric company to complain that they can not get on WoW?? Please take no offense to that, it was joke.
Actually, I don't take any offense to that... however I do call them because I pay for their service and want it to work as intended. Now, I pay Blizz to support their server, when people log on and disrupt the server, it is akin to Nat'l Lampoon's Christmas Carol when Chevy Chase turns on the lights and blacks out the town. But not to such an extreme degree.
Long story short, if Blizz caused the lag I would be upset with them. However, under normal conditions, the servers work fine. This RP demonstration was not normal conditions, hence it was the problem. So I have sympathy for those who are upset at the problems caused.
@Mr. X
Didn't mean to insult, but it seems a lot of RP's supporters are not 28 year old law students. And to someone young, a couple years seems like a lifetime.
@ EZK
$15 a month, so think going to see two movies a month in the theater. However, for that $15 in the theater you get 3-4 hours. So roughly $4-5 an hour. Now, in WoW Say you put one hour a day, so 30 hours... $0.50 an hour. It is probably the cheapest form of "entertainment" outside of reading a book, cheaper still if you play to obsession like I used to. 6 hours a day, give or take. Now with that RL thing, that job thing, all that jazz, I am at less than an hour a week day.
To say that video games have no political agenda only reveals ignorance about media in general. Everything, especially warm media, has a political agenda, whether intended or not. To say that video games are exempt from such agendas is foolhardy. Refer to the work of Ian Bogost in terms of the Persuasive Power of games.
@Slyfox
I feel like you argument as a whole is a Democratic one. "Lets stifle the voices of some because it inconveniences others." In a brutalized form, that is what Democrats stand for. We see that even now with the censorship, attempted video game legislation, etc. The true heart of democracy is organized chaos - anarchy, just not as loud :-).
I'm still stuck on the negativity. This, in truth, didn't do much. But who knows?! Gamers did something that had true societal value, however miniscule. You can't expect for the first foray into this kind of realm to be system-changing. It will be a process, but look at the first step. I may not be an Ally fan (Horde-love), but man - if you have any sense of wanting to be taken seriously -- you have to love them for what they did. The so-called 'Real life' will infiltrate where-ever you try to hide. Nothing is free from political sway, political agenda, or political view points, not even World of Warcraft. To assert anything other than is just be hiding your head in the sand ...
@DP
Actually, I believe that SecondLife is in fact, classified as an MMORPG for lack of a better category for it.
@Dan
I find the article inspiring. I find the idea inspiring. The tone in your post implies that you don't play games, and have no respect for those who do. Why troll then?
In the end that's what we wanted to have, fun. It was a chaotic night all-together, and we tried our best to nip any spamming in the bud, and apologize for any Ron Paul supporters who did not respect that aspect of the night. Being part of that many people, enough to stretch from the gates of IF through Koranos, and trying to keep track of instructions and guild chat was just crazy.
While I expected to accomplish nothing more than entertainment, if there was something I would hope it is that someone through researching Ron Paul will learn about Habeas Corpus. I don't necessarily want people to support Dr. Paul as I do, I would just like to have a very heartfelt discussion about how do we best restore the loss of this particular right. It seems scary to me that after what we’ve been through these last seven years, we don’t have a far more serious discussion on how to heal the damage done.
I mean, he's definitely the best choice on the Republican side. His ideas on restoring the gold standard and the Iraq war and stuff are great.
But I really can't get past his pro-life anti-evolution stance (which are both incredibly important to me).
Easy, use the tried and true method. Blame the guy before you for everything that is wrong, going wrong, isn't going as well as planned, or just because you feel like it.
In all seriousness, that is a valid question. How do we unscrew the pooch? Have any candidates discussed it? More importantly, have any potential presidential candidates discussed it? DK might have this great idea for all I know, but sadly it won't make much difference because he doesn't have a chance, same for RP.
Chances are no serious front-runners have discussed it in great depth as that would be seen as badmouthing the pres, and the war, and be labeled anti-American and unpatriotic.
Although he is pro-life, he seems to want to leave abortion laws up to the individual states. So, there is hope there.
As for his evolution beliefs, I don't agree with them either, but what he personally believes isn't much of my concern. I don't think he's the type to try to force his own beliefs on America as a whole.
His supporters don't seemed to be helping him much.
Say what you will about the Ron Paul'ers, at least they were semi-aware of the world around them and chose to support an event that didn't immediately benefit them or amount to an elaborate scheme to gank noobs. Seems to me that speaks of at least some desirable qualities.
I'm not quite thinking of the "read a book" (though it couldn't hurt); Here's the thing. We're in an election year. Unless you wall yourself off in a room somewhere and don't come out until 2K9, the election WILL disrupt your life somehow. Maybe because of signs on the freeway, maybe because of political ads. Maybe telemarketers will call you for ballot issues, maybe just because you live near your polling place and get stuck in traffic. I don't know. Either way, I don't see this being a whole lot different. So the election disrupted your life in WoW, get used to it. It's not like it's much of a realism game anyway, people scream ads on the broadcast channels for pete sake.
Like I said, it's an election year and the iowa caucases are tomorrow. You might as well get used to it.
Normal rallies and protests disrupt people’s lives, who is to say that they cannot do this in a game as well?
An example usually proves a point so I will give one. When I was at college last election, John Kerry held a rally down the road from my school and cut off half the campus, with his party’s organizers harassing the students as we tried to walk to class. This was not a campus rally; this was not at a public school. This was at a privet university that I pay 30k a year to go to, their rally made me late for my classes, and in turn I missed a quiz showing up more than 15min for classes.
Yes, I play WoW as well. Stormrage server
Now hold it right there. This has absolutley nothing to do with who or which party committed the act, and if you're trying to make it so, then you're simply splitting hairs. It doesn't matter who committed the act but that the act was actually committed, causing usual players from that server to forfeit there plans that are to, believe it or not, be apart of there routine. Last time I checked, political in-game marches weren't a routine occurrence, nor was it commonplace for vast groups of people to just converge on a single server. This isn't like Halo 3 where the more people the better because there are more people to form matches with; it's more like the more people there are, the more regular server users have to wait and contend with the lag issues caused. And, yes, raiders can certainly re-schedule their plans, but when the party is 45 or more, it becomes exceedingly difficult to accommodate everyone involved.
That said, I wouldn't mind so much if they tryed this in something like Halo 3; at least there one's displeasure can be voiced with the mighty sniper bullet or smack to the head, which would prove profitable to the shooter/beater in the form of award medals.
Did you enjoy missing that quiz because you were being harrassed? I'm sorry but it almost seems as thought you're saying, "Oh well, it disrupts real life so why should someone's free time be any different?" Sounds alot like Pirates 2: "Life is cruel. Why should the afterlife be any different?"
Overall it was fun, even with 3 BSODs LOL
Personally, I think it is cool that RP supporters are taking to teh nets and ghamez to rally. Very creative, and meaningful. The rally certainly did that, it rallied the supporters, haters and griefers. Mission Accomplished.
If you had a bad experience and it ruined your evening, well, you might be a little too wound up over a game. But, the WoW players of the world seem to take their game more seriously than other gamers. I've played the game and understand why, though. It can be very consuming if you have the time to play it and like collecting things (all social aspects aside).
I sat back and read most of the posts here, and aside from being stunned that BlackIce hates me because I'm a republican, I find it hilarious to think what someone that never played a game would think about this conversation. It would be like reading another language; one you can read, but can't understand.
Priceless.
Long live teh ghamez!
otherPeople = suspensionOfDisbelief--
Pretty much, you know what the professor said to me when I told him why I was late? Tough luck. Stuff like this interferes not just with peoples free time but also their lives everyday activities. That why I gave my example. Because a disruption in a days events (or your game) for something like this is a fact of life, get over it.
WoW is a scourge upon gaming..
why is the right of the Ron Paulers to play the game as they see fit any less then the right of the other players of the game?
basically they paid their money into the game as well, if they want to spend the time they have doing a march, let them
granted this causes a lot of lag, and perhaps the people who normally play on that server have a right to be upset, but the Ron Paulers have just as much right to be on the server playing the game how they see fit as everyone else does
I think they should try two other marches. One on a PvP server, through contested teritory. Let's see if there are enough supporters to keep them alive. And another of level 40 and up supporters. You can hold that one on multiple servers simultaneously. Just all the level 40 and up RP supporters get together in one place on each server.
To put it one way, these kinds of things are usually for one purpose, to try and say "Look how many there are of us, we aren't crackpots!" However, usually when you need to go to great lengths to do so, it usually means there aren't many of you... and that you are crackpots.
Also, not anything about there policies, but is anyone else reminded of Ross Perot supporters trying to inflate their numbers to appear viable?
You are correct. The first attempt as using a popular game space for a political rally wasn't earth-shattering. So? It's the idea that important, and for the first of it's kind - a success.
Now, to all the "Can't you re-schedule your raid crowd" - Sure you can, if you know about this, but this was hardly publicized. I frequent several WoW related sites -and only found this via GP (not suprising, being the only dediated game/politics site out there in the ether). So again, if this had been my home server, I would have been upset. Now, there isn't much I can do about it - the rally broke no rules (except Spam in the chat, but typically Blizz only chat bans folks as a first recourse.) The lag and queque are part of the game, albeit the least favorites of most folks. It's akin to being late for work because some pro/anti crowd blocked traffic. You can hope the cops arrest them for blocking traffic, but you are still late.
I wouldn't expect this to be a huge movent that propels RP into the Presidency. But to say, this won't help him win so why bother? That is what is exactly wrong with US politics. You DO NOT HAVE TO VOTE FOR THE WINNING CANDIDATE! You vote for who you think will be the best leader. Period. It's not a horse race, it's not an anyone but him/her race. The Republicrats and Demicans just love it when we all think that way, because it keeps the power in the family, so to speak.
Unexpected delays should always be in your plans no matter if it is real life or game life. If you make an appointment in real life, you should make sure to have a back up plan incase there is an over turned semi on the road.
The same with game life. If you make plas to do a raid on a certain night, you need to take into account the possible hold ups. For one, Tuesday night was New Years day and a lot more people would be off work and able to play WoW. So there you have one possible hold up. Another is what if the server went down unexpectedly.
To say that you cannot reschedule is the same as as saying, "we did not plan well enough." It is just as easy to plan an alternative day as it is to plan the first day.
They can reschedule their raid. It is just a headache and a frustration to do, as I am sure anyone who has tried to get 25 people to turn up at the same time and place can tell you. Just like if you were heading somewhere and there was an overturned semi... most would not be "Oh well, time to go to plan B." In all likelihood it would be "Stupid trucker, can't even drive, damn my date is going to be pissed that I am late."
However, around this time of year, a lot of raids are hard to come by. Holidays play hell with raiders. Lose one or two important people, no raid. With New Year's Eve, there was one night of raiding out of seven gone. This RP disruption makes two of seven. Most serious guilds raid 4-5 nights a week. You just took two off days and lumped them next to each other. Not to mention that school is starting back up for the kiddies, so anyone in school is out, no more late night raids for some guilds.
I still don't see how you can take the next step and say that getting upset about ruined plans is not a normal, warranted reaction. IRL, I have recourse about a protest blocking traffic - the police, alternate route, etc. In the game, the 'Report Spam' function stopped functioning shortly after the march, and their is not alternate route into WoW. Regulars to Whisperwind have every bit of a reason to be upset, but the march idea doesn't break any rules - only individual spammers did that. By and large, I support this type of event, but your callous dismissal of any reason to be upset about it is kind of close minded, or at least uninformed. Basically, if it were my home server, I'd have been pissed, sent a round of txt messages/emails apologizing to my guildies, and done something else. But I won't pretend there's no reason to get pissed.
But I think your point is how you deal with it, correct? And on that point I agree, a WoW-head would do well to "Read a book" instead of play occasionally. Or as I am doing, watching Bullitt (Steve McQueen Rocks!) with my wife tonite, instead of grinding my way to lvl 55 with my warlock (her armory page is down, otherwise I'd link it). (My wife's never seen that movie, and the car chase is arguably the best in cinema history)
I do think that a sideline view is important to have in such a discussion. That is afterall what we are fighting against. If we do not have the view of the outside person looking in, how can we have the full picture?
Many of the politicians that rant about how evil games are have never played them. If they refuse to play, you can never change their perception of games.
I may play WoW if I had the time and finaces to do so. But unfortunately I don't. I manage to get 1-2 hours of gaming in each week if I am lucky. I don't think that is the level of commitment needed to invest so much money into an MMO.
The same thing goes for TV. I only watch a hand full of shows and all are on Network television. So there is no incentive for me to invest in Cable or Satelite.
But I am going off topic. My point is that I will yield, but I am willing to listen and change. So if anyone wants to buy me WoW and pay for the first six months subscription to let me test the waters feel free. ;)
Folks, I can't express how important our freedoms are as I'm sure you all know. They have been whittled away slowly but surely and now it seems as the end of the line for this country. Google "North American Union" or the "Amero". Ron Paul is our ONLY hope. Thanks for your time.
AxxE
If you roll a Holy (Healing specc'd) Priest, and follow me around in battlegrounds and such, I would consider it :) Maybe a resto shaman instead ... holy pally? Man, the choices!
Anyway, we are saving for a dp on a house, so the extra $15 a month in my savings can add up. Sorry, no deal :P
@ Dennis:
"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."
I see where you're coming from, but...to what end? All the SL attempts at garnering the "young gamer vote" or promoting a candidate's "technological awareness" have met with laughable results at best. Do you truly believe that this has had any positive impact on the [potential] voter base? That anyone is going to vote for, or even listen more openly, to Ron Paul?
Seems to me that if anything a few WoWers who probably didn't care one way or the other are now going to go out of their way to vote for someone else, or possibly even badmouth Ron Paul ("that jackass got a bunch of people to lag my server!").
Is there political potential in gamespace? Certainly, and I know I don't need to remind anyone on THIS site of that fact. But has any candidate managed to properly harness, or even show proper understanding of, that potential? I don't believe so. Not as of yet, anyway.
Interesting point with the possible negative aspect of this. While yes, they got the word out that Ron Paul exists, they annoyed a number of people. Lag on that server, be it New Years or not (my server was perfect on New Years on a Full Pop, no queue, doesn't make it the norm though) the lag will be attributed to the Ron Paul rally.
Weatherlight's analogy is probably a good one for reference. By missing that quiz, was he more or less likely to support the candidate that caused his delay? Are all those people who had to wait in a long queue, had raids canceled, lagged, crashed, or anything else because of the sudden influx of players be more or less likely to like Ron Paul?
I don't really care for Paul, because he doesn't have his head on straight when it comes to womens' rights, and if he can't do right by my half of the population, then he doesn't deserve my vote. That's just the power of the free market at work. ;)
I have to laugh at womens rights issue with Ron Paul, he says its none of the federal governments business to have made the ruling in Roe vs Wade, not arguing one way or the other. This idea of his that the Federal government has no business in domestic issues is one thing I can agree with him on. There are a number of cases that I agree and disagree with the federal governments decisions. But ultimately its none of the federal governments business.
Now the irony for me is that republicans are the one saying no to federal programs, while democrats are all proposing more federal programs.
He is reasonable when explaining his pro-life stance. He doesn't think the federal government should fund abortions and he doesn't think it should be up to the federal government to say what each state can or can not do in terms of abortion. Currently under federal law its 100% legal to abort a 8 month old child. Do you think that is acceptable? If you don't agree with late term abortions then technically you don't support Roe v Wade.
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.