Mac gaming: Fun with the S.E.L.F.I.E. camera in World of Warcraft

Selfies have become an established staple use of cameras in mobile phones over the last ten years or so. But taking selfies of your real self gets a little boring after a while, unless you are a total narcissist.

But if you’re a Mac gamer who plays World of Warcraft, you can actually get the S.E.L.F.I.E. camera that lets you take selfies of your WOW characters right in the game. I just got the camera recently, and it’s been a lot of fun.

At first I thought it was just another silly mission reward that I wouldn’t care about, but then I started using it and I realized that Blizzard did a great job of capturing what selfies are all about.

The camera will capture your character making funny faces that mimic the behavior of real humans taking selfies. It’s quite funny to watch a troll druid engage in selfie antics in a fantasy roleplaying game.

But it actually gets better, there is a second version of the selfie camera that offers Instagram type filters and can be used by any character on your account. I don’t have the second model yet, but hopefully I’ll get it soon.

You can access your WOW selfies by opening the World of Warcraft folder in Applications, and then by going to the Screenshots folder. I’ve taken mine and added them to my WOW wallpaper folder so I can see them as the background on my 5K iMac desktop.

How to get the S.E.L.F.I.E. camera in World of Warcraft

Elizabeth Harper at Blizzard Watch has some helpful information on how to get the S.E.L.F.I.E. camera:

The selfie camera is a drop from the garrison mission Field Photography, and that’s where the patience requirement really kicks in. The mission is level 100 and won’t show up until you have a least one level 100 follower — and though you can do that before hitting level 100 yourself and without necessarily committing a lot of time to gameplay, it will take some effort.

The next hurdle is that missions spawn randomly, and Field Photography could pop up the first day you have a level 100 follower, or it could take weeks of running missions to get it. If you’re trying to get your own camera, there’s no magic trick to making the mission pop up: just keep completing missions, which will make new ones pop up.

Your initial camera is an inventory item that, when used, sends you into an interface very much like the vehicle interface. Your button bars go away and are replaced with a selfie interface that lets you snap a picture or exit the camera.

While you’re in selfie mode, your character will run through a series of facial expressions and you can snap a photo whenever you’d like — and you can move, jump, or emote to modify your look. But bear in mind that you can’t use skills and only have access to some restricted camera angles, which means that in some situations taking screenshots outside of selfie mode may be more appealing.

More at Blizzard Watch

Beware of photo bombers in World of Warcraft

I started taking selfies in the Warsong Gulch battleground, right before the match started. And sure enough a warlock photo bombed me. He kept running back and forth in front of me and one of his horns ended up sticking out of me (see the screenshot below). The stinker knew exactly what to do when he saw me taking that selfie. Ha, ha.

I have to admit that photo bombers were not something I’d considered when I got the S.E.L.F.I.E. camera! But then again I never thought about taking selfies in World of Warcraft until I got the camera. It just goes to show you though that the same behaviors that happen in real life also happen in fantasy games.

Here are some selfies from World of Warcraft

I’ll close this post with some of the selfies of one of my characters in WOW, my troll druid. Since he can shift into various animal forms, a couple of the photos show him in bear form and orca form.

If you’re a Mac gamer and you haven’t gotten the S.E.L.F.I.E. camera in WOW, you’re missing out on a lot of silly fun.

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