ABSTRACT
‘Darn,’ I cursed at myself as I walked up to my desk to turn on my computer. It was mid-September 2006, I looked at my watch, it was already 7:15 pm and I wanted to be logged onto the online game World of Warcraft around 7:30 pm. Considering that it was a Sunday evening, there would probably be a queue of a few hundred players who wanted to connect to the Argent Dawn role-play server, just like me. This meant it would be impossible to get logged on before 8:00 pm. I tried to remember what Eiswein wrote in his post on the official server forum. The caravan of the Argent Archives would leave for Thelsamar from outside the gates of the Alliance city of Ironforge at 8:30 pm. The dwarven Archivar Eiswein, a character played by Jørgen (24, Norwegian), head of the Argent Archives roleplay guild and organizer of the event, had asked player-characters to arrive early so he could hand out assignments and missions. While Windows loaded, I made a quick to-do list: 1) As we would be traveling through the virtual winter landscape of Dun Morogh I had to dress my gnome character Speckles Snapwiggle in proper clothes – gloves and furrylooking boots would be essential for a wintry feel, 2) I had to move Speckles from the Alliance capital city of Stormwind to Ironforge – the Deeprun Tram that runs between the two cities would probably be the fastest, 3) I wanted to answer some letters sent through the in-game postal system. Most of them were job offers for Speckles, who together with her twin sister Freckles formed a photographers duo called the Snap Sisters. This means they take on jobs that involve photographing characters and role-play events such as weddings, sporting events, trials, beauty pageants, markets, and, in this case, the Archives caravan. I (29, Dutch) picked up my mobile phone and rang my friend Zoe (28, Dutch), who played the role of the character Freckles. ‘Are you already in?’ I asked, ‘Is there a queue?’ It turned out that she had been playing the whole day, and yes, she heard there was quite a queue. There were 260 players in front of me in the queue – I mumbled. Zoe laughed: ‘Be happy if you make it by eight.’ ‘I’ll get something to eat first, then,’ I replied.
