The community of World of Warcraft
From Mod Mania
GRAP 1041 Design Studies- Mod Mania
Chen Hsi S3304076
TASK 1: Consumer Communities
World of Warcraft
What is World of Warcraft?
World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) which is created by Blizzard. It is the fourth released set in the series of Warcraft. The first one is “Warcraft: Orcs & Human” launched in 1994. World of Warcraft takes place in the warcraft world of Azeroth, approximately 4 years after the event at the conclusion of Blizzard’s previous Warcraft expansion, “Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne”.
There are 3 expansion of the game: firstly, The Burning Crusade, which was released on January 16, 2007, secondly, Wrath of the King, was released on November 13, 2008, and finally, Cataclysm, was released on December 7,2010.
With more than 12 million subscribers in October 2010, World of Warcraft is currently the world’s most subscribed massively multiplayer online role playing game. It is fact that it was estimated to hold 62 percent of the MMORPG subscription market.
About World of Warcraft Communities
World of Warcraft has many different kind of communities, according to my research, it can be divided into “official type” and ”player type”.
Official type Community
1. Blizzard Entertainment: Community
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/community/
Due to the growth of the player population, Blizzard Entertainment company has set up official communities for players to allow them to discuss and share experiences and feelings of playing games, The picture above was cut from a website which shows different categories of community such as Fan Art and Blizzard Youtube Channel, etc. Especially BlizzCast, it is podcast for the player wanting go behind the scenes to experience the world of Blizzard Entertainment game making. Each episode of BlizzCast will interview a Blizzard Entertainment developer to tell people who are interested about what it is like to make the games which the player so much love from their perspective.
2. BlizzCon
Blizzard Entertainment’s BlizzCon gaming celebration is one of the most significant events of World of Warcraft. This activity is held at Anaheim Convention Center on October 21-22 every year. BlizzCon is a unique opportunity for their players to meet one another, strengthen the friendships they have formed online, and have a great time while celebrating a shared passion for gaming together with Blizzard employees. And for those who can’t attend, they are pleased to be providing an unprecedented level of access to the activities and attractions that BlizzCon has to offer. In addition, BlizzCon will serve an array of activities including discussion panels, competitive and casual tournaments, contests, and much more.
Player type community
1. MMO-Champion
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/
This is the biggest player community, player can find the newest content and blue post which updated here. In addition, it provides useful database for player search everything in World of Warcraft, including items, achievement, creatures, Quests, Spells and so on.
Warcraftmovies
http://www.warcraftmovies.com/
This is the biggest player community for sharing movie. There are many type of videos including PVP, Dungeons, How to/Guide, etc. The most popular type video in this website is player vs player (PVP). In the game, Blizzard Entertainment provides three kinds of place for player can experience PVP in the World of Warcraft, one is Open-World, the other one Arena and another is Battleground.
Online forums
http://www.mmo-champion.com/forum.php
Online forums is the most important activity in World of Warcraft. Most of World of Warcraft communities were born from online forums, such as MMO-Champion. In this forum, player can share their thoughts and opinion with each other. If player encounters some problem in the game, he can ask other player here. Everyone who had solved kind of problem will give advice with great enthusiasm.
Conclusion
In my opinion, World of Warcraft is the most successful MMORPG I have ever played. I am one of the subscribers in the warcraft world of Azeroth as well. Moreover, I have played the game for about 3 years. There are 3 main motivations which make me play World of Warcraft for long periods. Firstly, its endless form, with a number of expansions which allows players to follow the story and beat enemies with their game leaders, and also experience the epic history. Secondly, the social interaction brought about through the player’s interactions in World of Warcraft which develops relationships such as cohesive teams, friends and guilds, etc. Since there is a server located in Taiwan, I can chat with other players to know what’s happening in Taiwan, which makes me feel I am not alone even though I am in Australia now. My final reason for liking this game so much is a feature known as “achievement”. Achievement gives you bonus points and opportunities to “go on Raids” which makes you play a lot more than you normally would. It challenges you and makes you do ridiculous things, just so that it enters your score for all other worldwide players to see. This feature is highly addictive and makes you waste an enormous amount of time you could have spent being productive elsewhere. Achievements are evil; however, it was a smart move on Blizzard’s part to add it into the game.
References
Blizzard Entertainment: 20th Anniversary, http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/b20/videos.html, [Accessed 28 March, 2011]
Blizzard Entertainment: Games, http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/games/, [Accessed 26 Match, 2011]
BlizzCon 2010 Convention Details, Gaming, http://www.hitechreview.com/, [Accessed 29 March, 2011]
