World of Warcraft has seen the rise of a massive community of diverse players. Most of us do not simply log into WoW, but visit a number of news sources, fan sites, and web-bases resources to stay on top of new developments in the game. Tim Howgego has created a map of the virtual WoW community. In this image he has categorized some of the most popular spaces that players visit outside of Azeroth.

His map is divided into several areas:

North-West Fringe- This serves as an entry point and an intersection between WoW and the real world.
Bay of Mods- This are includes download sites for addons and resource databases.
Southern Islands- This area is dedicated to blogs. It looks like WoW Insider, including writers and readers, has our own private island.
Hidden Islands- The designer of the map described these as smaller and more specialized groups of players like Elitist Jerks and the Azerothian Trade Union.
L2P Isle- This land includes guids that help people learn to play wow and is plagued by the "Channel of Copyright Woes."
Evil East- This continent is the home of ELUA violators such as gold farmers and glider users. You will never find a more wretched hive of... well, you get the picture.

Keep in mind this map is the concept of a single individual. Some things, like the WoW Official Forums have been left out. The designer says that Blizzard is intentional left out as that agency permeates all of the WoW universe. When referring to WoW Insider the author said, "Only one 'blog is named, WoW Insider - and arguably that's an online newspaper that merely uses blogging software. The position of WoW Insider is slightly wrong: It should be much more towards the center of the map."

The map is organized from east to west by "nice" and "naughty." And from north to south by Mainstream and Specialist content. It's an interesting form of organization. I would consider only the Evil East naughty. What do you believe is missing from the map?

I enjoyed studying this map because it helps to solidify the experiences of WoW players. Though we are distributed around the world, we develop guilds and friendships with people that we may never be able to meet in the physical world. Though it's no where on the map, we are a community.

Our journeys around the internet take us to several websites and locations. I, for one, adore the denizens of WoW Insider Island. Where will your travels take you today?

Tags: blogs, cartography, communities, community, fan-sites, fansites, geography, map, tweet-this, virtual-community, web, web-space, wow-map

Filed under: Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Blizzard