The Global Dynamic of World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft (WoW) maintains 7.8 million subscribers and the number of activated

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1 Greene 1 Kelly Greene English Nancy Leonard Final Draft 17 November 2014 The Global Dynamic of World of Warcraft World of Warcraft (WoW) maintains 7.8 million subscribers and the number of activated accounts continues to rise. The game holds a global appeal for all levels of game players from beginners to novices to experts to hardcore tournies. As an MMORPG (that is, a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), WoW offers players the chance to immerse themselves in a virtual world where they decide what faction, race, class, and role to play. The diverse gameplay mechanics Blizzard (the company that designed WoW) employs within WoW creates the unparalleled global appeal WoW currently possesses. And while the gameplay may be the major reason for WoW s global success, the fact WoW is accessible around the world plays an important role in the game s success. People from around the globe play WoW. The game contains a large population of players from countries like Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Britain, North America (including Latin America and Canada), South Africa, Japan, Korea, China even Malaysia. Name a country chances are, someone in the country plays WoW. Blizzard knows how diverse their players are, and the company makes the game as accessible as possible. The game runs on both PCs and Macs, and, according to Anne Stickney (an author for WoW Insider), the minimum technical requirements for a player with a PC are as follows: Operating System of Windows XP or

2 Greene 2 higher; an Intel Core 2 Duo E66000 or AMD Phenom X3 8750; and an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT, ATI Radeon HD 4850, or Intel HD Graphics 3000, while the minimum technical requirements for a player with a Mac are: Mac OS X 10.8; Intel Core 2 Duo; and an NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT or ATI Radeon HD 4850, with a combined requirement of Thirty five gigabytes (GB) of hard drive space, two GB of ram [memory], broadband internet, a keyboard and mouse, a DVD ROM drive, and at least a 1024x768 display resolution, regardless of whether the person possesses a Mac or a PC (Stickney). Only one other component is needed money. WoW costs $14.99, but the price lowers when subscribers bundle payments in 3 or 6 month packages. In the 3 month package, the cost is reduced to $13.99 per month while in the 6 month package, the cost is reduced to $12.99 per month. Because Blizzard understands the reluctance players have to pay for games, they offer a starter edition of WoW for the first 20 levels. In addition, Blizzard offers an incentive program for currently subscribed players to recruit other players to the game called Recruit A Friend. In the Recruit a Friend program, a veteran player convinces a new player to purchase a single month of game time. When the new player purchases a month of game time, the veteran player earns a free month of personal game time within a week of the purchase date as well as one of eight epic mounts. Both the veteran player and the new player receive in game benefits for participating in the program, such as the ability for each player to summon (or pull) the other to wherever he or she is in the world and a threefold increase in the experience gained while leveling up (Blizzard Entertainment. Recruit ). The benefits granted by the Recruit a Friend program give Blizzard an edge other MMORPGs lack in terms of subscriber retention, but the minimum technical requirements and incentive programs barely scratch the surface of the appeal the game holds.

3 Greene 3 The versatility of the roles player can assume, along with the rich storyline, is where the core of the game s global appeal is located. The first choice a player makes is what faction he or she will side with Horde or Alliance. The way Blizzard presents the two factions is thus: In Warcraft, there are two large, opposing factions. On one side is the noble Alliance, which comprises the valiant humans, the stalwart dwarves, the ingenious gnomes, the spiritual night elves, the mystical draenei, and the bestial worgen;on the other side is the mighty Horde, made up of the battle hardened orcs, the cunning trolls, the hulking tauren, the cursed Forsaken, the extravagant blood elves, and the devious goblins (Blizzard Entertainment. What is World of Warcraft? ) Each race, whether Horde or Alliance, comes equipped with specific abilities unique to that race. The Pandaren race, not mentioned in Blizzard s article, is the only race found in both factions due to the faction neutrality of the Pandaren race that the storyline of the Mists of Pandaria expansion was built around. Specifically, the storyline was based on the neutrality of the Pandaren Monk, and a player who chooses to play a Pandaren Monk will play the first 10 levels without an alignment to either the Horde or Alliance faction. When said player reaches level 10, however, he or she must decide which of the two factions is the best to join. The monk is one of the eleven classes a player may choose. The other ten classes include the druid, mage, death knight, warrior, warlock, shaman, priest, paladin, rogue, and hunter class. Each class comes with a unique skillset and storyline, but each class is restricted in terms of what race and role can be utilized. Three major roles exist in WoW tanking, healing, and damage dealing. In Blizzard s guide for beginners, the role tanks assume is explained thus: Tanks fight by outlasting their enemies. They are rugged, durable characters that can soak up a lot of damage before they go

4 Greene 4 down (Blizzard Entertainment. Getting Started ). Only five classes can tank in WoW, and those classes are druids, death knights, monks, paladins, and warriors, and each of those classes offers a different approach to tanking. The second most vital role players may choose to assume is healing. And, in the same guide previously mentioned, Blizzard explains, Healers have spells and abilities that allow them to quickly regenerate their own health and that of other players (Blizzard. Beginner s Guide: Chapter I: Getting Started ). Five classes can heal in WoW as well, and those classes are druids, monks, priests, shamans, and paladins. Just like with the tanking role, each class offers a different way to heal, so a player can choose to heal on the class most suitable for himself or herself. Healers and tanks have the most important roles to play in WoW, but damage dealing, also referred to as DPS (damage per second), is the role the majority of players assume. According to Blizzard s guide, Damage dealers excel at quickly inflicting a lot of damage. Where tanks are marathon runners, damage dealers are sprinters, trying to defeat their targets as quickly as possible while avoiding damage as best they can (Blizzard. Beginner s Guide: Chapter I: Getting Started ). Every class in the game has the ability to deal damage. Healers and tanks are the only restricted roles in terms of class, and the versatility of player choice in the terms of role, class, race, and faction is a huge factor in the global appeal of the game. The most contributive factor to the global appeal of WoW, however, is in the social aspect, expressed by Blizzard Entertainment in the article Guild Advancement and You, when the developers state, Playing with others is at the core of the World of Warcraft Experience (Blizzard Entertainment. Guild Advancement ). WoW uses an incredible in game social network that has become a vast external social network with resources outside of the game for

5 Greene 5 players to use. The major in game social components include the party system, the guild system, and the Battle.net application. The party system allows players to join a group with other players. Parties, or groups, can consist of two to five players. Any group over five players is considered a raid group, and raids are social events done at the end stage of the game. Five player groups, or parties, can be utilized from level 1 onwards, and the Looking for Group (LFG) system makes it easy for new players to find online WoW companions. A player must be level 15 to use the LFG system, which deals with dungeons (5 man events), and the player simply opens a pane in the game and clicks Look for a group and waits until a message pops up saying that a group has been found. Groups formed while leveling, or advancing through the game, leads players to guilds. Guilds are organizations within the game organized by players, and guild privileges include a private chat channel that only players within that organization may access. Guild events consist of people in that organization and are more structured than the LFG system events. At the end stage of the game, guilds compete with one another for world first achievements in raids, and ranks are established through external sites like Warcraft Logs and MMO Champion. The Battle.net application is both an external and internal source of social connection in WoW, as the app runs in the background when WoW is open but may also be downloaded onto a mobile phone. Blizzard collects data unobtrusively through the Battle.net app to determine what the majority of the subscribed players do when they play the game in order to increase the quality of the game (Blizzard Entertainment. Battle.net Terms of Use ). The data collection is agreed to when a player accepts the Terms of Service, and Blizzard maintains a policy of transparency about the game and the methods used to increase its appeal, so no player is ever out of the loop. The Battle.net application allows players on different servers to connect and

6 Greene 6 communicate with each other, and players on the same server who play different factions to connect and communicate (Blizzard Entertainment. Battle net ). Horde and Alliance faction members cannot directly communicate with one another in the game, so Battle.net is required for a cross faction conversation to occur. In addition, the Battle.net application works as a game launcher, so all players must download the Battle.net application before they can play, which makes the Battle.net application a rather ingenious program. An ingenious program that reflects the dynamic design of WoW, as well as the integration of flexible versatility into every subsystem in the game that has been the backbone of the global appeal WoW has possessed since the game was first released in Now, in 2014, a fifth expansion of the original game is set to be released, and the 7.8 million subscribers that only WoW boasts in the MMORPG industry highlights the continuation of the game s global appeal.

7 Greene 7 Works Cited Blizzard Entertainment. Battle.net Terms of Use. Battle.net. Blizzard Entertainment. 18 March Web. 29 Oct Guild Advancement. 21 Jan WoW Armory. Blizzard Entertainment. Web. 29 Oct Upgrade to the Battle.net Desktop App. 24 June WoW Armory. Blizzard Entertainment. Web. 29 Oct Beginner s Guide: Chapter I: Getting Started. n.d. WoW Armory. Blizzard Entertainment. Web. 29 Oct Beginner s Guide: What is World of Warcraft? n.d. WoW Armory. Blizzard Entertainment. Web. 29 Oct Recruit a Friend Program Offers New Rewards. WoW Armory. Blizzard Entertainment. 12 November Web. 29 Oct Rak. Siege of Orgrimmar Heroic Progress Method #1 25m, Paragon #1 10m. 17 Sep Method. Methodwow. Web. 29 Oct Stickney, Anne. Blizzard Releases System Requirements for Warlords of Draenor. WoW Insider. Joystiq. 24 Sep Web. 29 Oct 2014.