The Undiscussed Classes of "World of Warcraft"

As a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) with over eleven million monthly subscribers, World of Warcraft's in-game environments, goals, and tools must cater to a huge amount of different players with varying interests.

In “Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs,” Richard Bartle describes the a player of Massively Multiplayer Online games as being one of four types; an Achiever, an Explorer, a Socializer, or a Killer. Achievers focus on “points-gathering and rising in levels,” delighting in being the best of the best. Explorers search for discoveries in the game and the world of the game, “looking for interesting features” and glitches. Socializers tend to be more focused on other players rather than the game itself, using the environment as a “backdrop, a common ground where” players from all distances can interact. Killers choose to cause harm and destruction (possibly even being a griefer, or a user that plays a game to purposefully harass other players) without a real care for other aspects of the game; to a Killer, they're “all just means to an end.” The creators of World of Warcraft modeled the game to allow all these different types of players to coexist, and continue to upgrade the game's system to accompany them. In the game's upcoming patch, Achievers will have a huge amount of goals to strive for. A new system of, oddly enough, Achievements (various objectives that are scattered around the game that vary in difficulty and rewards) will be implemented and connected with the already copious amount of plot-driven quests. Achievers can also go to battlegrounds and fight in arenas to harvest points and tokens, allowing them to buy gear that will let them be more powerful. For the Explorer, there is usually no end to places to investigate. With each expansion of WoW more lands are added on; as of the second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, the game world will consist of three large continents, a separate world slightly smaller in size than a continent, several large islands, and countless hidden or untraceable areas. Since many of the lands hold large buildings and structures that are constantly being worked on, Explorers have numerous places to search for glitches or tricks. Many famous findings include jumping strategically on an almost completely vertical surface to climb to places otherwise unreachable, or using unseen holes in the graphics to sneak into (or under) cities. Socializers, however, are given one big drawback. The plot of WoW (and the Warcraft series) involve wars between different races, and in WoW the races are divided up into two separate factions. Unfortunately, those on opposing factions cannot contact each other except for using emotes (special commands for users to make their characters do an action, such as dancing, laughing, or crying) when “face-to-face” or taking advantage of extremely rare occasions. When dealing with those in the same faction, however, players have lots of options. In WoW, players can be in “multiple contexts” of the game, within many “social spheres” such as in a guild, “amongst acquaintances,” strangers, or even with friends from off the computer (Taylor, Multiple Pleasures, pg. 2). When in the same area they can speak, yell, use the area's “channel,” or use emotes. There are several safe, open areas that were made for “foster[ing] sociability and communication” in-game (Taylor, Intentional Bodies, pg. 29). From any distance players can group up into a party and chat, whisper each other, or use their guild's chat channel. Killers, as well, are given many opportunities to wreak havoc, although WoW tries to keep them from griefing constantly. Killers can “gank” (attack opponents that have no chance of fighting back, whether because they are at a lower level or due to some other circumstance) other players or group up and invade towns of the opposing faction, halting progress there completely.

While there is a lot to do in the environments of WoW, not much is open in the area of character development. Players can choose a faction, a race from that faction, a gender, class, and several cosmetic items, but often are forced to go with whatever armor or clothes they can get (as using something less “powerful” will make the game too difficult, even if the look of the weaker clothes is preferred). However, steps have been taken to try to make characters more personalized. Upcoming updates to WoW include “Barber Shops” where players can change their character's look multiple times, and titles that can be added to the player's character's name. Although there is still a great deal of improvement needed in customization, the creators of WoW are aware of the huge number older women players. Players can have multiple accounts (in fact, according to a poll by Nick Yee, the average number of characters per person is 8.7), so families can play together, share accounts, and have different characters for questing and socializing. The openendedness of WoW makes it perfect for the generation of older gamers, who seem to prefer having games as an “outlet to relieve stress, interact with a community, and just have fun...according to their own schedules,” as opposed to games that follow a plot then end abruptly (Matthew Bromberg for Pearce, The Truth About Baby Boomer Gamers, pg. 2).

Emily Cribb

Comments

[Brock Lesner]

hello buddy i read your comment but dear i don't have knowledge about it but dear i learn alot of things from your comment dear thanx for this information

Anybody know where the World of Warcraft European servers are located? Someone said they are all in Britain but I am not sure. Would they have some in Germany, some in Finland etc?

I am trying to do a business plan for my own massive multiplayer game and was wonder how they spread out the resources.
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Brock Lesner
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WoW Europe Gold-WoW Europe Gold