Breakfast Topic: Is there a WoW community?
by Mike Schramm 
Mar 19th 2007 at 9:03AM
So there's eight million of us around the world. We've got guys, girls, old and young, and people from all kinds of different backgrounds. And we all love playing this gigantic game with each other.But does that actually make it a community? This forum thread is a really good read, and the two sides in it both have valid points. Some people say yes, WoW players all have one thing in common (playing WoW), and that makes them a community-- we have our own in-jokes, our own realm of knowledge, and we've all shared an experience that sets us apart from the rest of the world. That, they say, makes us a community of individuals, no matter what other experiences or identities we may have.
But others say it's nothing like a community-- the only thing we have in common is that we all sit alone in a room with a computer for extended periods of time. WoW friends, they say, aren't really friends-- they're acquaintances, and the fact that someone else knows about WoW doesn't connect you to them any more than a random person on the street.
So who do you think? Are we a community, or just a bunch of crazy people playing a game? Personally, I feel closer to my own guild as a community then I do to the player base at large, and even then I don't know how I'd associate with my guildies in real life (never done it). But then again, I do feel more connected to someone I meet when I find out they play WoW-- there is definitely a shared experience there that brings people together closer than if they had no connection at all.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mats Mar 19th 2007 9:17AM
I feel closer to the people in my guild, then any of the people I have shared a workspace with.
KitKatDruid Mar 19th 2007 9:26AM
It kind of depends...I started playing to play with some friends, and i have made some really good friends in WoW outside of my guild and on different servers, and we've done things such as share problems, thrown in-game birthday parties, etc.
Maybe it's just because I'm a psychology major, but I've always felt that communication is communication, and that people don't have to be physically there for it to be meaningful, or to form a bond with a person.
shugoran Mar 19th 2007 9:41AM
The nay-sayers are basically saying that members of any given religion are not members of a community.
For instance, how many Evangelical Lutheran Church in America member do you think personally know every member of ELCA (or for that matter, all that many members of their hometown congregation)? I'm guessing none. They may know a few outside of their family, but not many.
The same applies to any community, game-based or otherwise.
FireStar Mar 19th 2007 10:38AM
I think it's like a community. I've met people in game and then met them in real life where i know i probably would not have wanted to associate with them in RL (trashy town etc). At the worst it should be a smaller definition of community...some type of new word that is defined by the use of meeting people on the internet
Mithral on Kael'thas Mar 19th 2007 9:58AM
It's not a community, its a nation.
Once you get past around 150 or so people,
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number) you can't really form close social bonds. We're linked and all, and if I meet someone IRL that plays WoW, there's a "specail bond" that forms more quickly than with non-WoW players.
WoW Insider readers are a community of sorts, your guild is a community, (or at least it should be....), the top raiding guilds on each server can form a community, etc. But all of WoW is WAAYYYY too big to form a community.
Larawen Mar 19th 2007 10:24AM
A community, generally speaking, is working towards a common goal. So a guild is more of a community than WOW as a whole. I mean what is the common goal of all the WOW players? As stated above even WOW insider can be a community because we are here with the common goal of gaining more information about WOW, and to be on the leading edge of information. However I also feel more connected to anyone that I cross IRL that plays WOW, and it doesnt matter (much) what side they are on or what realm they are in.
Flit Mar 19th 2007 10:30AM
I see it as the same relationship as people you meet at the bar. You know these people, but the relationships are pure community.
Sylythn Mar 19th 2007 11:31AM
Does it change the dynamic when you meet up in real life? I just spent the weekend hanging out with my girlfriend and two of our fellow guildies - who until this visit had never met in person. Turns out they're only an hour away from me, and this won't be the last time we hang out together. My guild's also considering a get-together in Ohio for anyone able to come - and this may spur more get-togethers, or even an annual "con" which other online RPGs I've been in have done.
Dracula Jones Mar 19th 2007 11:31AM
For some reason that I can't seem to figure out, the community aspect of WOW is severely lacking compared to old school EverQuest. I haven't played EQ in 5 years and I still post on my old guild's message board. In contrast, I can't even remember the guilds I was in when I played through 60 the first time in WOW.
Braddock Mar 19th 2007 11:38AM
I have been part of an online gaming group for almost 4 years now... we are about to have our third annual get-together where we actually pick a central location within the US to have as many as can swing it, to meet up and enjoy a weekend together in the flesh. For most of us, we've never met each other prior to gaming. However, through our various games (not just WoW) we've built a lasting relationship and that plays more into a real community feeling than the game that you play. I know that our group of individuals have a great deal of diversity and we've faced many challenges along the way, but it's like a family in some sense, because we can work through those trials and come out better in the end than we first faced the challenge. It's not the game that makes it happen for us, it's the people... WoW although a great game, isn't what holds those people together (at least the very close groups of players) it's just the catalyst that brings them together...
Trancet Mar 19th 2007 12:09PM
"For The Horde!"
Maybe its just that the Horde is a community?
Cracky Mar 19th 2007 12:24PM
WoW has a rubbish community!
The game does not encourage long-term team work until the big instances.
If you NEED community from the beginning that matures with time, play Eve Online instead where you can't do without your fellow man.
WoW is excellent for solo players who like to have occasional human contact. BUT it's not necessary or meaningful human contact.
mindtrigger Mar 19th 2007 12:25PM
I play MMOs for the interaction with other people. Having come from Star Wars Galaxies (before SOE destroyed it) I can agree completely with the lack of community in WoW. The reason is simple. The gameplay does nothing to create a community. The auction house, while being speedy and convenient, eliminates most of the reason people in this game would interact and build relationships.
As an example, in SWG, there was player housing. I won't get into details on the crafting system, but it was 1000 times more complex (and fun) than the one in WoW, and allowed players to build basic stuff, or find the best resource spawns in the game and build exceptional items. Players had the ability to put their own vendors in their player housing or use their house(s) as shops to sell their goods. I would say half the players on my server were in to some form of crafting, and played very little combat if any. Hell, crafting items was like a mini-game the way it worked, and allowed for 'experimentation' which may yield a special item or a disaster.
Without the direct interaction of crafters and buyers, there is no other way to build relationships. In SWG, thanks to player housing and player vendors, an extremely dynamic community was created because people had to interact to buy things. Even if you didn't want to run in groups, or join a guild, you still had to buy weapons, armor, food, meds, pets, buffs and stuff from other players. I had a large group of top quality crafters that I kept in almost constant contact with for my needs. I made friends that way, met and recommended people use my favorite shops, etc.
Crafters would send out emails to customers letting them know when new/special items were in stock or on sale. They would also contract out people like me to gather specific resources for them. I set one of my toons up to be a hunter/ranger that I used specifically to make money doing contract hunting/gathering for people, and had a lot of fun doing it. (Rangers Lead the Way.)
People used the game forums over at the SWG website to advertise their goods and give you coords to their vendors. Some people even kept track of where all the resources were in the world, and what the current stats were on them. I would advertise my contract hunting there as well.
This really is just a small example. If I had time, I could write up what the whole system was, but anyone who played SWG pre-NGE will agree with me that it was the crafting system combined with player housing/vendors that built the community in that game and made it special to all the people who played it. When SOE tried to dumb the whole game down in an attempt to be more WoW-like, they removed most of these elements. The game has been dying ever since. SWG's game was no where near as solid as WoW, but the depth of the crafting system (pre-NGE) made it much more fun and dynamic
I should mention the entertainer profession in SWG as well. In SWG there were taverns you could go to and watch/listen to entertainers for various reasons. Entertainers could heal your wounds, and give you buffs through their music/dancing and people would pay for it. This took a little time, so people would always hang out in the bars chatting it up while getting healed/buffed. Again, you would meet cool people in certain bars, and so you would go back to that bar eventually becoming a 'regular'. I met tons of entertainer friends and met other good people while hanging out in this social environment.
WoW to me feels a lot like Guild Wars. In Guild Wars everything is instanced, so you usually jump in some PUG and do your quests. When you are done in that area, the PUG breaks up, and those people are gone. Guilds were the only form of socializing, much like WoW, and the experience is less than satisfying. It was the reason I left Guild Wars. Why the hell play an MMO that feels like an offline RPG 99% of the time?
I've been playing WoW for a year now. I'm a casual player and about to hit 70 on my main. I won't be sticking around much longer because the only motivation to do so would be leveling more toons. I have no attachment to my toon, or most of the other players, let alone the game like I did in SWG. If there was a great sence of community and friendship in WoW, I think I would stick around much longer. I played SWG for 3 years because I knew and enjoyed a HUGE number of people on my server. In WoW, I know a handful of people in my large guild, and that's about it. Everyone else is just background noise or eyecandy. Other than the occasional PUG or random quest group, I don't talk to many people at all. Blizzard has chosen to downplay community in WoW, and people are starting to notice.
The answer to how to keep people subscribing after the content loses it's sparkle is 'community'. SWG's content never had a lot sparkle, and relied heavily on just being Star Wars to draw people in. What kept them there was friendship.
Cracky Mar 19th 2007 12:59PM
Mindtrigger (#13 above) is completely right.
Metaphyzxx Mar 19th 2007 1:34PM
I look at it like this:
I'm going on a business trip, waiting at the airport, when some random person sits in the waiting area next to me with one of his friends. What are the chances of sparking up a conversation? Not much, right?
Now, let him start talking about running his Tauren Hunter through Terrokar, and all of a sudden, we've got a shared conversation starter/experience.
No, I don't know everyone that plays wow. Heck, I don't play WoW very often with teh people that I DO knwo that play.
Sentius Mar 19th 2007 2:59PM
WOW is a community. You have 8 million people who see a reason to come to an online world and play out a different life. We are essentially playing out another life, another person in a world that was created for us to. Would you not call that a community? I need to drink and eat, buy and sell wares and merchandise. Travel from town to town protecting the innocent (or killing them). I interact with hundreds of different people per day. Would you not say that WOW is a community in the servers? Would you not say since we all shere this, that 8 million of us make up a larger community than most small COUNTRIES!
Halicante Mar 19th 2007 2:19PM
I love my wow community. Our day 1 server has an amazing community. We have a very active forum community, a very active facebook group, and a very active irc channel. I always have people popping into my vent just to chat or see how I'm doing. To be honest, the game can be a bit boring at times. Raiding is fun (except for kara trash...boo) and I like to instance. The real reason I still play the game is for my wow friends. I have met quite a few guildies and other people from my server irl and I always have a blast with them.
For those that don't think wow is a community, I just can't fathom where you are coming from. All I can think is that our community is fostered by our awesome server. We have had 6 free transfers to low-pop servers and the people always come back within a couple of weeks because they miss our server. We live in constant fear of a server split that will divide our community.
Rich Mar 19th 2007 3:37PM
In the broadest sense of the word it is a community. There is a certain sense of comraderie amongst the player base. The link that ties us together is that we play WoW. Beyond that, there really any sense of community on a smaller level until you hit guild level.
Mindtrigger hit the nail on the head about SWG. There was a real sense of community there on all the servers. That was all formed before the CU1 changes and continued right up until the CU2/NGE fiasco. I think that was in part there was alot of non combat things to do from crafting to entertaining. WoW is more combat oriented and there is little non-combat related stuff to do.
Part of that lack of community was designed into the game. For story purposes, they had to separate the Alliance and the Horde. As silly as it sounds(and annoying as it would be), letting the Alliance and Horde be able to communicate would go along way to creating a more server wide community.
I came from MxO and there was a big community on all of the servers. It didn't matter what side you were on, you able to interact and forge connections no matter your alliance. Everyone knew when it came time for business, personal relationships were put to the side. I stuck around MxO for alot long then I really should have only for the people and still miss the community there.
Dracula Jones Mar 19th 2007 6:24PM
Saying WoW has a community because we all play WoW is pretty much like saying Earth has a community because we all live on it. It's a given.
You all have to see that this game just doesn't foster the community aspect as well as it could. Why is that? What was it about EverQuest that on any given server, every single person knew every other person regardless of level. You could recite the list of officers of any given guild. It wasn't just your frequent-group-list that you knew. I knew (and still know, I realize as I'm typing this) the names of every single other Bard on my server.
I love WoW. I've been playing since beta and I think it's a far better game than EverQuest was. But I've never gotten that same deep sense of community from it. It's the one glaring flaw.
Snorn Mar 31st 2007 12:27PM
I definately think that the guilds are communities... Like some others have said, WoW itself is far to large to be considered a real community - I have no connections to players I dont know for example. I love my guild though, in fact more often than not when I log on I spend all my time helping out my guildmates because thats what I enjoy. Having got my hunter to 70 - I know there is still loads more for me to do, but I just dont have the motivation to do that without my guild mates with me. So they are definately a community - even more like a family. A big shout out to The Holy Lords on the EU Lightbringer server!