Semiotics

Semiotics

The theory of semiotics is the study of signs and the signification of symbols. Within WoW several symbols are used to communicate to the player a certain message. Common symbols such as question marks, exclamation points and many others are used to place emphasis on certain points in the game. An exclamation point over a characters head signifies a //Quest// or mission that your player will be given, it also symbolizes importance, when you have achieved your goal, a question mark appears on top of the //Quest// givers head, symbolizing the need to return to and communicate with to //Quest// giver again. In reality we rely on the way people look, their stature, physical appearance, the way they communicate etc, we don’t use symbols, such as an exclamation mark to know if they are important.

As well as symbols, colours are also used within WoW to communicate a certain message. Upon beginning the game, sides are to be chosen, you can either choose to be with the Alliance, represented by the colour blue or with the Horde, represented by the colour red.

Blue is universally understood to represent good while red is often used to represent the bad or evil side. The image below displays the character’s text is in red. Since the game does not have blood to display pain and death, it uses text to communicate a character getting hurt or attacked. The character’s health status in the game is communicated through a horizontal bar. It shows green when the character is in good condition while it shows red when it displays that the character is dying.

However, in reality, people do not have any health status bar display to determine their health condition. Pain while getting attacked are communicated through a person’s reaction to pain, rather than the red text through World of Warcraft.

This photo shows a battle about to ensue with my character //DanityKane// and a //Frostmane Troll Whelp.// The player can distinguish if they should attack because a red health bar appears on top of the enemy’s head and the name of the enemy appears in red as well. The red colour represents evil, thus hinting that we should attack the target.

Although WoW negatively represents reality and promotes negative interaction with the characters surroundings, there are certain similarities to the real world.

The use of darkness and colour are used in a way to represent reality in the case of death. When your character dies, the spirit is released and transferred to a graveyard. In this graveyard, tombstones are used to represent death and the game becomes black and white, symbolizing the gloominess of the situation. Your character as well becomes see through which on a connotative level reflects emptiness. In reality we use colours such as black and grey to symbolize sadness and or emptiness and tombstones to represent death, which in itself brings about the feeling of emptiness.

WoW uses symbols like this to create an aspect of reality in the game. Using such similar symbols makes the player feel as though they are part of the real world while still in the virtual world, creating a form of Cartesian duelism.