by Tamra Heathershaw-Hart

Created on: November 09, 2009

My characters in World of Warcraft have a very bad habit - they flirt with the opposite faction. A behavior that started as a way to stay alive long enough to finish questing in contested areas has turned into a major part of my in-game persona. Instead of killing the opposite faction my strategy is to use the game "emotes" feature to tease, flirt, and entertain those potential death machines to the point where they forget they're supposed to kill me. Amazingly enough, this tactic has not only kept my character alive in contested zones, it's also allowed me to make good friends out of those who are supposed to be my character's enemies.

In WoW the world is divided into two factions, Horde and Alliance, and the backstory behind our factions has them at war. Players often throw themselves 100% into their races' and factions' imaginary war, and not only compete against the opposite faction players for resources but hate them as passionately as real life rivals and enemies are hated. On Player vs Player (PvP) realms, the phrase "If they're red, they're dead" is the tagline for this attitude since in the game your enemies' names appear above their heads in red text, and your allies' names appear in green. But this type of rivalry isn't limited to battlegrounds or even to players who are at the same level of experience as you - often on PvP realms your character will be attacked by a player (or even a group of players) of a much higher level than you, often while you're fighting a monster and already low on health. This can make for some very frustrating game experiences when you are questing or gathering supplies.

In-game communication between factions is purposefully limited by Blizzard, the company who makes the game. Horde and Alliance don't speak the same languages, so the only way to get a point across is through actions (shooting, stabbing, or fireballing, for example) or by using a game mechanism known as "emotes." Emotes are commands typed in the chat area that cause your character to perform an animation (such as /dance to dance) or that display a message readable by both Horde and Alliance. In Wow, typing /kiss while having an enemy player selected displays the message "Azune blew you a kiss" on the other faction's screen. What's more, all players in the general area see the message "Azune blew Orog a kiss" so unlike a private "whisper" to another player the use of emotes make all players in the vicinity aware of your interaction.

By the time my very first

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>