Ron Paul's World of Warcraft rally
On New Year's day supporters of Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul gathered on the Whisperwind (US) realm in World of Warcraft to march across Azeroth and show their support for their candidate of choice. The rally started outside Ironforge with approximately 240 players (with 400 members in their RP Revolution guild) and traveled to Stormwind, Westfall, Booty Bay, Ratchet, and finally Orgrimmar. And if you didn't make it, you can still experience the rally vicariously via our image gallery below (and if you did make it, feel free to send screenshots to us at aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com!) or video above!
To the best of our knowledge, this was the first political rally to be held in World of Warcraft -- and looking at their numbers it seems to have been a successful and upbeat gathering (or at least it was upbeat for the participants). Will this event help Ron Paul's chances in the election? It's hard to say until the votes are cast, but the uniqueness of the event is causing it to get a lot of media coverage. (And no press is bad press, so long as they spell your name properly, right?) Read on for impressions of the event.
The real question here is whether voters notice or care what happens in a video game. OC Register spoke with political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, who commented that "the rally will likely only bring the name 'Ron Paul' to the minds of young people, who... are not likely to vote in elections." And even if the event brings Paul's name to the attention of the mass media, will voters take a game-based rally seriously?
But if these become more common (and as games become larger and larger -- with over nine million people in World of Warcraft, it's become a legitimate social space), voters and politicians will have to take notice. GamePolitics comments that, "While some may have found the Ron Paul event silly, inconsequential or simply annoying, my take is that it was a most unique way to harness the social and political potential of the game space." (Though this isn't the only place politics coincides with WoW -- a search of the armory shows a variety of politicians represented in character names.) So will we be seeing more of these in the future? One of the event organizers, lemur, says:
The RP Revolution guild is on Whisperwind to stay! We made so many wonderful friends, and had a blast being together in a guild where we could intelligently discuss the world's problems with likeminded folks. Most of our members came from other servers, and many (including myself) are now considering moving our mains there. It's highly likely that many of those who joined with the free trial will be staying with the game as well.
While we may be on the verge of a new political landscape that takes gamers seriously as a demographic, players on the Whisperwind realm aren't thrilled about all the attention. The influx of new players caused a queue to log on to the realm as well as extensive lag in the areas they rally ran through. Some players have gone so far as to demand the banning of all accounts participating in the rally -- because it disrupted their gameplay experience and brought real world politics into a fantasy world that many use to get away from real life concerns. However, the official terms of use don't seem to support this as a bannable offense (at least as long as they were not spamming or specifically harassing other players, which doesn't seem to have been the case). And in the end, the rally seems to have been okayed by at least one GM (again, per event organizer lemur).
And my take? Anything that gets politicians to take gamers seriously as a demographic -- instead of using them and the games they love as a scapegoat for violence -- is a good thing. But only time will tell whether this is the start of a trend or simply a one time occurance. But I have to say that if I were a player on Whisperwind, I'd be awfully irritated at my inability to play, as well. If World of Warcraft continues to be gain acceptance as a social space, Blizzard is going to have to address the issue of server reliability during event-driven population spikes.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
1-03-2008 @ 2:57PM
Naix said...
As a Giuliani supporter I would gank them. If I saw such a rally on my PVP server.
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1-03-2008 @ 3:05PM
flor said...
"As a Giuliani supporter I would gank them."
Is it too early to give out a 2008 WOWinsider comment of the year nomination?
1-03-2008 @ 3:32PM
Nathan said...
Are you sure you'd gank them? Are you sure you wouldn't just 9/11 the 9/11's, and then 9/11?
1-10-2008 @ 1:06PM
Peters said...
Agreed. aspies for ron paul sums up most of these goons quite well.
1-03-2008 @ 2:59PM
Mr. Applebutter said...
Waste of time. Ron Paul has absolutely no chance of ever becoming president. He is the Ross Perot of this election. That is, assuming he runs as a 3rd party when he loses in the primaries.
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1-03-2008 @ 3:00PM
epsilon343 said...
Such an enormous waste of resources...
Seeing as this story hasn't spread past gaming blogs, I'd actually say this was a failure more than anything. Ron Paul is going to be out of this race before the average American can even get a chance to give him support.
I'd be complaining too if my normal play time was interrupted by these people, especially if it's going to become a seemingly permanent fixture on Whisperwind. It's inevitable that things are going to flare up between the Paul supporters and normal players, especially seeing as they're a rather pushy group from what I've experienced and make a point of trying to force his crackpot ideas on you.
/rant
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1-03-2008 @ 3:18PM
MightyIdle said...
You're discussing Ron Paul here. That smacks of success on their part, to me.
There will be plenty of people on Insider who will be curious as to who this Ron Paul person is and they'll do a little research on him. He may win a couple of converts from it.
Like his ideas or not, this was a quick, cheap, and easy way to get his name on a couple of hundred minds.
1-03-2008 @ 3:03PM
Epiny said...
Blizzard has every right to ban these supporters, and I think they should. We log onto WoW to get away from this stuff. If they want to hold a election over Thrall go for it.
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1-03-2008 @ 3:10PM
Alexisonfire said...
I really did half expect them to start swinging the banhammer left and right. But, think about it. What will have more of a consequence on Blizzard? Banning a gathering of random players complaining about the state of their class? Or the supporters of a US presidential candidate?
While I agree that any positive light on video games in politics is definately a good thing, I don't know if this is the best method. And I think the banning of these people would result in just more bad media for the industry. I do, however, think that all the players should at least give a warning and Blizzard should make any further political movements in Azeroth bannable offences.
1-03-2008 @ 3:07PM
Derkaiser said...
My main man Bush would crit Ron Paul for 10K just for thinking about filing his seat.
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1-03-2008 @ 4:21PM
Candina@WH said...
Dude, your main man doesn't know how to use a computer :-D
1-03-2008 @ 3:08PM
Runstadrey said...
It's singularly appropriate that the camera operator died at the end, much like the Ron Paul campaign, a noble effort doomed from the start.
It's sad that they didn't throw themselves on the walls of Org in a futile effort to muscle their way in.
LoL at all of them.
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1-03-2008 @ 3:14PM
darian said...
If everyone involved had fun, I can hardly see it as a waste of time. It's a landmark in the history of gaming, perhaps note a major one but a landmark none the less.
It may have inconvenienced people, but then again so does ganking.
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1-03-2008 @ 3:21PM
MightyIdle said...
People are complaining about the number of Ron Paul supporters in the rally causing lag?
All of the Chuck Norris supporters are laughing at their puny efforts.
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1-03-2008 @ 3:33PM
Junipero said...
Sherry Bebitch Jeffe has been wrong about most every subject she has ever commented on. She said Arnold wouldn't win in the CA recall election, I have no clue why So. Cal media use her for comments.
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1-03-2008 @ 3:34PM
Starman said...
Blizzard let these Paultards stay for one reason: more money. They banned the warrior ralliers, they banned the pally ralliers, but they let the new people that used a trial account stay.
Now these idiots are on my server spamming Ron Paul crap all the time and it's getting annoying.
Not to mention all the blatant naming violations that Blizzard hasn't done anything about.
Yeah, it was fun. I had 57 PvP kills and two deaths. Our guild waited on the hill at Ratchet for all the level 70 flagged Alliance toons and ganked them all. Then someone on the horde side found a way to send out snakes and attack and flag the level 1 toons. They didn't mention THAT did they? I have a pic of the carnage. Nothing but bones of level 1 toons everywhere.
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1-03-2008 @ 3:37PM
Arras said...
I don't see how this was a success at all
Ron Paul supporters complain he gets no coverage in the mainstream media (conspiracy! conspiracy!) so they hold a rally in a video game that's not mainstream and therefore doesn't get mainstream coverage.
They claim success by pissing off a large portion of the Whisperwind community. Most suffered from chat and trade channels bogged down with ron paul drivel, lag and other stability issues. And of course, the return of the queues. Most of us (myself included) couldn't log in at all.
A successful political rally shouldn't interfere with people who aren't interested. Forcing people that don't support you into dealing with you is not how you win elections - no matter how in your face and real you think you're being.
I am disturbed that Blizzard has done nothing about this intentional act of disruption on their servers. Whether it was their goal or not, the ron paul supporters actively prevented others from enjoying the game and disrupted other's play times. People who joined the warrior and priest riots were suspended for 24 or more hours. People involved in the ron paul march shouldn't be treated any differently
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1-03-2008 @ 3:40PM
Merus said...
I hate to make political comments, but anyone remember how well Internet darling Snakes on a Plane did? I don't think the 'groundswell' of support for Ron Paul will translate to anything other than a historical footnote and a note for candidates to not pay too close attention to what the Internet thinks of you.
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1-03-2008 @ 3:44PM
Malyfactian said...
I actually agree with a lot of Ron Paul's ideas, and I sincerely believe that he's the most principled candidate in this election cycle. Anyone who calls him a "crackpot" obviously hasn't taken the time to listen and examine his platform with an open mind.
That being said, Dr. Paul has some of the most annoying, pushy and off-putting hardcore supporters I've ever seen in any political race. While using WoW as a marketing tool is a pretty good idea in terms of publicity, it goes against not only Blizzard's TOS but also the spirit of the game in general. Like an earlier poster said, we play this game to get away from the real world, not to be reminded of it.
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1-03-2008 @ 3:47PM
BaconandEggs said...
I do not think anyone should be banned for this. No one should have been banned for the past rallies either (even though they were). To state that the folks who did it first were banned so anyone after should be seems a bit off kilter. The true test will be if there is /another/ class rally and blizzard starts waving the ban hammer then its time to get upset again. That said, maybe this is evidence that blizzard learned a lesson from the previous bans.
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