Real friends vs. virtual friends
by Mike Schramm 
Aug 20th 2007 at 3:30PM
A few weeks ago, I had some trouble with my real life friends-- they were organizing an impromptu run to the movies, but I had committed to a Gruul's raid, and had to decline, to their consternation. And yesterday, the exact opposite happened-- I went on a raid with my guild for the first time in a few weeks (because different real life issues had kept me from raiding for a while), and they gave me a little ribbing about being so behind.It just doesn't seem fair. I'm getting trouble from both my real life and my internet friends for choosing to hang out with one over the other. Of course, both groups aren't really angry at me for doing what I choose to do-- my guild isn't really bothered by my absence of late (although I don't exactly get first choice at loot rolling any more, understandably), and my real-life friends can't blame me for staying in sometimes and playing videogames (although they worry about me if I do it more often than not).
As ippy says, there are really two camps on this-- either you think that real life is always more important than virtual interaction, or that both are equally worthwhile. In the past, I've been closer to the first option-- that I should always go hang out with people in real life rather than stay at home playing WoW or Bioshock (which I will be tomorrow, no matter what my friends are doing). But lately, as my relationships in WoW grow stronger, I'm feeling more of a pull to give that priority sometimes, at least when it doesn't affect my other relationships.
Is that bad? This seems like a topic for our Azeroth Interrupted column (featured today, by the way, on the front page of the BBC's tech site-- cheers, Robin!), but I'd like to hear what you all think as well. Does real life get priority always, or is it more nuanced than that?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Guilds, Odds and ends, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Doug DeJulio Aug 20th 2007 3:38PM
Eh, the way I solve this is, every single member of my guild is also a friend that I have a connection to in real life without the use of the internet at all. So, they're the same set of people. We do not recruit strangers, and I believe we never will. If you don't have a "Bacon number" of at *most* two or three to me, well, you can join our guild ally channel, but you're not going to be a guildmate.
Sylythn Aug 20th 2007 3:42PM
I try for the best of both worlds...Elune was down recently for 48hrs, so I called up two guildies that live within an hour of me and we went out for sushi and hung out playing WoW TCG for the night. It was a wonderful break from the game and didn't leave me at home thinking about how it sucked the server was down. If the distance can be overcome real friends = virtual friends.
Hank Aug 20th 2007 3:47PM
Real friends?
Justin Aug 20th 2007 3:48PM
It is difficult for me. My best friend/Boss plays WoW, so i am either working with him, over at his house, or playing WoW.
The balance has to be between WoW and the wife. I have never been able to get the wife interested in the game at all (like most of us). That is mainly why i dont raid too much. maybe once a week at best. Since the wife doesnt like it much when i sit at the computer for 4 hours at a time. Lately, I have taken to simply leveling a character to the top and then starting another one. I like leveling better than raiding.
Zor Aug 20th 2007 3:48PM
if you talk to your friends via an electronic device....is it a real person?
must you see a person to make 'it' real?
does talking to someone on an electronic communication device make you feel less 'real'?
make way for the future, old ways of thinking and sayings must oblidge to the new.
now when marriage and birth comes in the picture, then we have a cause to worry about.
Tim Hettler Aug 20th 2007 3:56PM
This isn't really about RL vs. WoW, it's about learning to balance separate but equally important groups of friends.
Arras Aug 20th 2007 3:56PM
totally agree with #3 - are people in your guild not real friends because you haven't seen them face-to-face? How is that different than a pen-pal? Surely you talk in vent with your guildmates...how is that different from talking on the phone with your friends?
I haven't met anyone in my guild, but I consider them my friends. When my grandmother passed away recently, my guildmates were just as supportive (if not more) than my out of game friends.
Let's face it, WoW and other successful MMOs are more than just video games. They're social environments were people interact in different ways. But just because it's different doesn't make it any less real.
Kyrra Aug 20th 2007 4:04PM
I see the people that I've met in WoW as friends. I used to be in a guild that is mainly all people I've never met. That guild has been disbanded for over a year, and I still talk with many of the people of the guild (I even maintain a forum so we can still all talk).
Then my current guild consists of people that only know one another (you must be a RL friend of someone in the guild to even be invited). It's really nice to be able to do a raid event of some kind, then talk about it face-to-face at a weekly guild lunch. So there is social interactions both in game and in RL.
I've been given grief from my RL friends for choosing WoW over some RL event, but it's just something I deal with. It's a matter of balancing the 2, and I always try to plan most things I'm doing so I don't get in trouble with either group.
xcb Aug 20th 2007 4:06PM
I have neither real nor WoW friends. The only other person in my guild is my wife.
If the dog played WoW we'd be set.
jorelius Aug 20th 2007 4:14PM
You've just got to work on integrating the two!
I've got my girlfriend to play, and I count at least 12 other "real life" friends (including my sister and 2 other people's girlfriends omgladies!?!) who play wow and we're all in the same guild. I have also met a handfull of other friends from the guild who have driven upwards of 20 hours to come hang out with the group of us here.
Granted the few non-wowers who hang out with us sometimes get frustrated when we lapse into "wowtalk" at a party or bbq they've come to accept it (mostly, I think) as a given.
Juliah Aug 20th 2007 4:23PM
I just keep a calendar -- I schedule time with RL friends and I put instance runs on the calendar so I don't schedule over them.
reilamos Aug 20th 2007 4:28PM
if u choose to do a raid over real life friends you have problems...
JJ Aug 20th 2007 4:32PM
I just do whatever I am more in the mood for!
Ghen Aug 20th 2007 4:42PM
A wow friend called me in real life and told me to login.. Is that a real friend or virtual?
Zor Aug 20th 2007 4:42PM
quote - 12. if u choose to do a raid over real life friends you have problems...
responce....if you choose non virtual friends over virtual friends....your raids got problems...
j/k
Freehugz Aug 20th 2007 4:48PM
Hanging out with RL friends doesn't get me epix!
native Aug 20th 2007 4:50PM
I have zero real life friends in WoW. My real life friends and I will hunt, fish, shoot trap, build an ice shack, hang tree stands, help track and gut each others deer, etc...
I just don't see myself with my arms soaked in blood to the elbows in the middle of a woods turning to my friend and saying, "Hey. When we get back tonight how bout we jump on our computers and run around in a fictional world as an elf and a really big cow."
While they might not be mutually exclusive in my case its tough to find a friend that enjoys the same RL activies as well as the "virtual" activities in the same way I do.
Freehugz Aug 20th 2007 4:54PM
wow, you sure like to kill things
Dyermaker Aug 20th 2007 4:54PM
Tell the real life people you have a softball league night. If they cared enough to make a commitment, they could join that softball team and play with you.
When you put raid time in perspective this way, its easy.
native Aug 20th 2007 4:57PM
its rural wisconsin.
you don't just kill things. you kill them and then eat them. big difference.