World of Warcraft on South Park

As a World of Warcraft player, I had mixed reactions to South Park’s “Make Love, Not Warcraft,” the 10th season premier episode that showcased the game. I didn’t find anything wrong with the humor, of course; everything they portrayed was exaggerated but otherwise true. The machinima sequences were, of course, superb (and supposedly supplied by Blizzard itself). I was a little disappointed, though, that there wasn’t more insider humor for the actual WoW players to enjoy.

If you haven’t had a chance to see it, here’s the full video. It’s about 22 minutes long, so sit back and enjoy.

I won’t bother pointing out the inconsistencies between South Park’s portrayal and World of Warcraft itself. The South Park creators no doubt thought it was unnecessary for those not schooled in the game to know every detail (e.g. the fact that not all players are on the same persistent world, etc.). In reality, that probably would’ve killed the humor for them.

As for the portrayal itself, the style of gameplay was exaggerated but accurate. Players who become hardcore are known to adopt a dull, monotoned, announcer-like voice when coordinating over TeamSpeak. Some players do become addicted to World of Warcraft, neglecting their families, their schoolwork, and even their health, although this by no means describes the majority of players.

As I mentioned, I was a little disappointed at the lack of insider humor, although I shouldn’t have expected much in the first place. After all, most of South Park’s audience probably doesn’t play World of Warcraft. They instead decided to focus on the game’s outwardly boring appearance and life-consuming tendencies without getting very much into the in-game stuff. This must have seemed very amusing to non-gamers, while leaving the rest of us yawning. After all, it’s not as funny when you could understand every word of what Cartman was saying.

At any rate, it was still a positive step for the game and a memorable episode of South Park. It feels gratifying that the South Park folks, who are well-known for poking fun at the most widespread controversies of our time, finally decided to direct their attention to an MMORPG. Thanks for the hat tip, South Park. We, the players of World of Warcraft, tip our hats back to you.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 6th, 2006 at 10:31 am and is filed under World of Warcraft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.