The World of Nerdcraft

Rich's comment on last night's discussion of fortitude reminded me of WarCraft. What's WarCraft? Now, to be honest, I'm not at all sure. All I really know is that it occupies enough of some of my friends' time that I'm amazed they still have girlfriends. And if you were wondering, none of my friends that are into warcraft are lesbians. I believe that when Scott renounced WarCraft, Jeff bought it for Ryan with the open purpose of addicting him to keep Jeff company.

Well, that's not exactly all I know. I know that warcraft is a game. I recently sat down with Rich and Jeff to discuss what the big whoop was over this thing, and they did their best to explain it to me. It is, they say, a role-playing game. You make up a unique character for yourself and it's yours for life. Or beyond, actually. Your character may die time and again in the act of battling other people's avatars, but his points remain to resurrect him. The above image is an example of one such character--she is a "Human Mage," and she is one of the classier images on display at the World of Warcraft Website (I was going to use the Dwarven Racial Shield wallpaper but it would have been insensitive). This is a site, by the way, which list two separate links in its sidebar for "In-Game Events" and "Real-Life Events."

But I'm getting ahead of myself: You start by paying money. In exchange for your real money, like Euros and American Dollars, you receive three months of playing time in which to make a lot of fake money. The gold coins you pick up in Craft Land or whatever it's called are highly coveted, as are the points you get for kicking ass; apparently if you do well you can sell your character to other nerds for more real money. Rich says there are third-world factories where the fruits of cheap video-game-playing labor are sold on the open market. But only a sicko or a mercenary would really sell his character, because after all that intimate role play, it would be like selling yourself.

What, I wanted to know, is the fake money good for? "Can you turn it into something useful?" I asked, "Like spa gift certificates? Or just lame things like, I dunno, dexterity?"

"It's fortitude," Jeff answered coldly, "Not dexterity."