10 things to distinguish WoW from real life

As you’ve probably seen, I’m one of those recovering Blizzard fans. I’ve been at it for a while, then stopped to get my bearings and figure out why I couldn’t stop playing before. Now that I think about it, I realized that by equating World of Warcraft as something more than a game, I allowed the game to hold power over who I was.

Well, maybe it’s time we all broke free from the thrall of Thrall and whispers of Whisperwind. Here are 10 things to help WoW-addicted gamers to distinguish between observations we find in real life and the illusions of WoW.

10. Conjured Bread and Water.

While it’s true that there are people who do beg for bread and water in real life, note that there are no mages who can conjure those up in the real world. If someone asks for alms, help them get to a shelter or give them food or money, but don’t expect to hand them thin air and say, “BREAD!”

NOTE: Claim does not hold true for Jesus Christ, though he could presumably multiply bread and fish and possibly transmute stone into bread rather than conjure it up from nothing.

9. No one in their right mind would really dance like Michael Jackson

Um… this should be self-explanatory.

8. You never end up face-first from a fall in WoW.

Not everyone notices this, but take it as a minor fact. You will always land on your feet at the end of that hundred-foot drop from Ironforge to the ground.

The full article awaits after the jump!

As you’ve probably seen, I’m one of those recovering Blizzard fans. I’ve been at it for a while, then stopped to get my bearings and figure out why I couldn’t stop playing before. Now that I think about it, I realized that by equating World of Warcraft as something more than a game, I allowed the game to hold power over who I was.

Well, maybe it’s time we all broke free from the thrall of Thrall and whispers of Whisperwind. Here are 10 things to help WoW-addicted gamers to distinguish between observations we find in real life and the illusions of WoW.

10. Conjured Bread and Water.

While it’s true that there are people who do beg for bread and water in real life, note that there are no mages who can conjure those up in the real world. If someone asks for alms, help them get to a shelter or give them food or money, but don’t expect to hand them thin air and say, “BREAD!”

NOTE: Claim does not hold true for Jesus Christ, though he could presumably multiply bread and fish and possibly transmute stone into bread rather than conjure it up from nothing.

9. No one in their right mind would really dance like Michael Jackson

Um… this should be self-explanatory.

8. You never end up face-first from a fall in WoW.

Not everyone notices this, but take it as a minor fact. You will always land on your feet at the end of that hundred-foot drop from Ironforge to the ground.

7. Chickens will never really follow you around.

Only one chicken will ever willingly follow your commands, and that’s the pre-programmed one from the online Burger King advertisement called “Subservient Chicken.”

6. Have you smelled a cow lately?

Seriously. One big difference between WoW and real life is that you can’t smell anything.

5. Goretusk Liver Pie

Simply put, if the real world had this famous World of Warcraft dish, you would not be eating it. It’s pie made from the liver of a boar! The only reason you’d eat it in WoW is because you can’t taste the bloody thing.

4. Speaking of blood…

With the exception of Hakkar’s corrupted blood bug, there are no actual long term viruses in WoW. You’d be hard-pressed to pick up a sexually transmitted disease too, since you probably wouldn’t be getting any. Note: that would be a good thing.

3. Have you seen any fat people?

Azeroth will always be an idealized place, where good, evil, and neutrality have very visible and evident clues. In each of these cases, the ideal is still a natural factor in the construction of the game; therefore, if the world’s ideal is to be slim, then the World of Warcraft will try and accommodate that in their game.

Hence, I am automatically always 140 pounds lighter than I naturally am when I play the game, and the difference between the real-world and online-world weight will increase as I spend more time playing the game.

2. Fair distribution of goods.

Like it or not, the game is set up to have almost limitless natural resources. Given that assumption, there are no actual “poor” people in the game.

In the real world, not only are resources scarce, but there is also an undercurrent of actual poverty that makes the listing of a “10 Things to Distinguish WoW from Real Life” article a luxury rather than a necessity. Yep, there was actually a point to number three.

1. Who would pay money to have sex with strangers?

1. You are a drone.

Like it or not, within the seemingly limitless realms of the online world, you are a drone.

As some others have probably pointed out before, you cannot jump, you run endlessly, you always look good, and you’re always ready to fight. What you may not have noticed is that your days are summed up by the deaths of virtual characters, rather than by the achievements you’ve done outside (helped someone, said hello to someone you fancy, hugged your mom).

Continuous play where one begins to value the game for itself rather than as a pasttime means that the game has become routine. It’s the reason why we have words like grinding and farming for those repetitive tasks we do for a false sense of accomplishment.

That’s one big difference from reality right there. There’s so much more unpredictability in living that an online game can only simulate the feelings of achievement by doing the same menial tasks over and over. That’s the main reason why life has some things that definitely one-up the online play.

As much as I’d love to spam fireballs and cast spells, I’d much rather prefer to learn how to cook Spam and teach spelling to little kids. That’s the choice between real life and WoW right there.