Digging up the dirt

Whilst going through some old files, I came across an old webcomic I used to do: A-Soc. This was done from 2004-8 and was based on a group of friends and the wacky stuff we did. We were all bound together in an anime society and although some of the faces changed over the course of the webcomic, it pretty much documented the weird stuff we did. I wrote and drew all of the comics (except on the few occasions when i let some guests in) and was pretty much in complete control. I even snuck in a few jokes related to my view of the world and drew some with a personal resonance.

One thing I did during this time is make a few jokes at WoW's expense. Now whilst I'd yet to play the game, these were done from an outsiders opinion. Now, having played WoW and with the passage of time, how do this comics look? Well let's find out:



This cartoon was inspired on two fronts: The first is Free Will. It's something that interests me (mostly because it's something good to have) to a point where it terrifies me to think that someone will create a reality which we will all willingly surrender to and essentially make the real world, and eventually our living bodies of flesh and blood, obsolete. It may seem like a scifi scenario but with each technological advancement, it seems possible that this destiny may be sooner then we'd like to admit.
Secondly, much has been said about WoW winning over many players to a point were they do little interacting with the real world. Thus it wasn't hard to put two ideas together.
Mind you, i do recall this got a lot of bad comment when it was originally published.

From the perspective of a WoW player I have done some interacting with other players and found most of them aren't misanthropic shut ins - they are regular people with regular lives (well the one's I've talked to). Still there are still stories that keep coming up of people dropping dead from gaming marathons, not to mention the persistent hikikomori problem in Korea. So in that sense maybe is cartoon is relevant.



Again another meditation on the break down of the real world with the player character growing a sense of identity - which subsequently leads to an existential crisis.
Having said that, looking back at this cartoon, it's a good idea conveyed poorly making it looked forced and dumb. Oh well, can't win them all...



This cartoon plays on the idea that people play WoW solely for the satisfaction of beating up other players. Now I realise it genuinely happens and it's called PvP so this cartoon doesn't really make a lot of sense. Still it could be said that the idea of PvP being integrated in as a feature of WoW does take away the freedom/rebelliousness/antagonism of the original concept.....



Again playing on the themes of the previous cartoon. But having this type of thing happen to me (as described in a previous post), this cartoon now hits closer to home than any of it's brothers. Like a wine, it got better with time. Or something.



Saved the best for last - A play on the addictive nature of WoW and having sampled it for myself I can see this was pretty much spot on - not bad for an outsider view. And yes in looking back at these, this was the one I enjoyed the most. Call it a fluke I guess XD
So many people have played Tetris over the years and most likely will continue to do so for decades to come. Makes you wonder if WoW will prove to have the same staying power...