World of Warcraft (WOW)
Introduction
According to the World of Warcraft Community Site, World of Warcraft is “a massively multiplayer online game…enabling thousands of players to come together online and battle against the world and each other. Players from across the globe can leave the real world behind and undertake grand quests and heroic exploits in a land of fantastic adventure” (“World of Warcraft Guide“). Although the origins of MMORPGs can be traced to the 1970’s, the release of Ultima Online and Everquest, commonly called UO and EQ respectively, in the late 1990’s brought MMORPGs to a broader PC gaming audience. Since the release of UO and EQ, MMORPGs have become a multi-billion dollar market. World of Warcraft went live in November of 2004, and its community has since grown to over 1.5 million players. Effective community management was made a staple in the industry by its two most notable pioneers. Community management is vital to the success of a MMORPG, and WoW is no exception.
Need for Player Representation in MMORPGs
A system of communication between the players and developers has the potential to directly influence customer satisfaction. Jeremy Kelly points out “it is assumed that developers seek to maximize profits” (Kelly). From a developer’s standpoint, knowing the thoughts and feelings of the player base is one of the most important parts of the ongoing development MMORPGs are known for. Joshua Hong states that the key difference between a MMORPG and other online or offline videogames is the existence of a persistent world (6). Creating a MMORPG costs upwards of 15 million dollars, and this figure does not even include the cost of continued support after the game launches (Hong 8). “These games demand virtual worlds, significant hardware requirements from the developer (e.g., servers and bandwidth), and dedicated support staff” (“MMORPG”). Due to the unusually large investment needed to develop a MMORPG compared to normal games, MMORPGs only thrive financially through longevity. It is therefore imperative that good communication exists so customer satisfaction can be kept high. As seen in Figure 1, 63.5% of MMORPG players consider the most important aspect of the game to be influenced or directly controlled by mechanics coded by the developers (“Making friends” and “Pretending to be someone else” are considered to be primarily soci...
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...esentation system for World of Warcraft similar to the systems used in other leading MMORPGs.
Works Cited
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Kelly, Jeremy. “Play Time.” Anthemion.org – Words. 8 Feb. 2004. Anthemion. 13 May
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“Team Leads.” The Camelot Herald. 2005. Mythic Entertainment. 30 April 2005.
“Who are Correspondents and What do They Do.” Station.com: Star Wars
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“World of Warcraft Guide.” World of Warcraft Community Site. 2005. Blizzard
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“World of Warcraft Sets New Milestone with 1.5 Million Subscribers Worldwide;
Blizzard's MMORPG Achieves Unprecedented Global Success.” TMCnet News. 17 March 2005. TMCnet. 13 May 2005.
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