Originally posted on VGD Sister Site, Heatwaves & Gamma Rays

I’ve been on a Battlestar binge lately, but the reference is perfect. When a Cylon dies their conciousness is downloaded into a reproduction facility and transferred to a new body. Essentially, there are no inexperienced Cylons. Like videogame players they learn from death and adjust accordingly in their next life.

And now, as World of Warcraft reaches its peak playerbase, you can see the same thing. That level 40 Hunter isn’t really a level 40 Hunter, he’s a level 70 Paladin, who is a level 70 Rogue on another server. It’s hard to find someone that’s still on their first character, who hasn’t transferred their experience to another class.

For the Cylons that means they’re incredibly dangerous to their enemies, and the same thing applies to WoW players. In fact, I would guess that a WoW player who has lead several different virtual lives with different characters has built up a wealth of experience within that game system that is unparalleled. An FPS player might be an excellent shot with the MP-5, so it should go without saying that he’s a crack shot with a pistol — it’s not like other games don’t have this transfer of knowledge, but firing a virtual weapon at a target isn’t a skill that takes long to learn. It may take a long time to master, yes, but WoW’s nine classes all play quite differently. A player who used to be his enemy has a lot of valuable knowledge at hand.

But I wonder if this isn’t detimental to a virtual world. At the outset of the experience I felt quite a bit of wonder and excitement as I explored the world with others. But now we all know where everything is, and what everyone does, because we’ve been there before.