This post is going to be a rather philosophical one. It’s not an opinion piece per say, nor is it going to throw facts at you (this is, after all, the Internet) in an attempt to convert you to a point of view. Instead, I want to ramble about the ramifications of World of Warcraft in general.

Outside of gamer circles, games like Age of Conan or EVE Online aren’t known quantities, but there are WoW references all over the place. In certain circles, knowledge that WoW simply exists is common, even if those who are aware of it don’t have a clue as to what it is, exactly. There’s action figures, a TCG, a PnP game…clothing, for crying out loud. It’s one of the few properties that hasn’t yet had a movie treatment that has broken out of the domain of gamers and has seeped into the mainstream.

As people who are familiar with WoW, that’s really of no consequence. We’ve all been living in it’s shadow for several years now, and have had to deal with it’s presence not only through the millions of players who seem to pop up practically everywhere, but also through it’s influence on gaming as a whole. Not just MMOs, of course, but in all types of games.

In fact, it’s not only influenced game and mechanic design, but it follows us no matter where we go. People talk about WoW in the chat channels of other games, or in voice chat. It seems to be a rite of passage for any new MMO for it’s players to gather around the general chat water cooler and discuss how this game compares to WoW, how those present feel about WoW, and for all those present to relate his or her experiences – in agonizing and irrelevant detail – re: certain circumstances within WoW.

Wait…aren’t we playing a different game here?

If something is experienced by almost everyone, is discussed everywhere, there’s an assumed level of familiarity. A lot of people talk about WoW these days, in gaming circles, and appear to assume that the people they’re talking to know what the hell they’re talking about. They don’t even think twice to  consider that there are people who don’t play WoW. That’s really the result of a combination between gamer hubris and the reach of WoW, but the game can be thought of as a rug worn threadbare by years of heavy traffic. The rug might have been very attractive when it was first laid down, but now it’s just kind of there. It’s always been there, and now we walk all over it without giving it a second thought. We might acknowledge it in certain circumstances – when we need to wipe our feet after coming in from the rain, or when we trip on it’s frayed edge – but otherwise…?

There’s nothing new in WoW to discuss. Expansion packs get most of their press in the run-up, but like all games, it’s buzz dies dies down mere days to weeks after it’s release. WoW expansions are even worse, as players hungry for more levels and more content mindlessly zerg through them (a self-defeating activity, to be sure). All too soon, we’re back to WoW as pre-expansion background noise.

It could be said that because of it’s penetration into the various crevasses of culture that WoW is more relevant then it ever was, especially since we who play other MMOs have to deal with it’s fallout in our own games, but consider this: when you drive by a house with an attractive red-brick facade, do you think “I like the brick facade”, or do you think “that’s some damn fine mortar work.”? WoW has become the glue that has spread itself thin between the boards, or the mortar that as distributed itself between the bricks of gamer culture. We know it’s there, and can recognize it when we want to acknowledge it, but otherwise, we take it’s presence for granted, even when we do discuss it. It’s like how “talking about the weather” is an idiom for mindless small talk used to fill a void of silence.