Today’s article is a guest post from Bravetank.
Identity in WoW is an intriguing concept. I’ve previously written in my blog about how the “me” in game is distressingly similar to the “me” outside of the game – whether I’m playing Human, Blood Elf, Gnome or Tauren. My real self is always the underlying constant – annoyingly so for a game that should be a form of escape.
And yet some aspects of identity in WoW are more fluid. In the social sciences the term “identity” is often used to describe one’s understanding of one’s individual self and/or one’s role within a wider group setting.
Individual self identity can encompass such things as self knowledge and self esteem. What does this mean in relation to our sense of self in WoW? Self knowledge is a tricky one. For me I have very little “knowledge” of any of the characters I play beyond what buttons to press to get awesome dps (or at the very least to put me somewhere in the middle of the Recount list), to pull the mobs, to heal the tank. I don’t know any of my characters in WoW in the sense of having defined/explored their personality. I’ve never roleplayed so that part of their identity is undeveloped. In terms of their history- I know why I (the Creator!) made them, but I know very little about the history of their race, class and even faction. I casually switch from Alliance toon to Horde without blinking an eye. The other day I noticed my toon looked particularly thin (specifically her legs) and I wondered if my monitor was on the blink. Then I remembered I was playing blood elf not human! The race of the character was clearly not uppermost in my mind. That later led to further problems when I aimlessly wandered into Stormwind and tried to buy some cheese but that’s another story.