Posts with tag community

There's a great question fluttering around the community lately: just when are we anyway? It's a good one for the Lore Nerd, actually, and maybe he can answer it in more detail than I can, but it's almost a question of relativity as much as it is of lore. The official lore says that World of Warcraft takes place four years after Warcraft III (hence the reason for the "four years have passed..." in the opening cinematic). And since then, we've heard from Blizzard that they consider every expansion to be another year in the history of Azeroth -- Burning Crusade takes place a year after the original game, and Wrath of the Lich King two years after that. But when, for example, did Van Cleef fall? Has it been just under two years since his plan to attack Stormwind was defeated? And what about our characters -- you'd assume that if you started from level 1 today, the story would be beginning four years after the events of Warcraft III again, so have our characters aged two years since they first stepped foot out of Elwynn or Durotar? And we'll ignore that when you get to Orgrimmar, you might see Death Knights walking around, who technically won't join the Horde until two years in the future.

See how confusing? Of course, the right answer to all of these questions is "it's just a game," but there are plenty of interesting thought experiments here. Time and story in the World of Warcraft aren't necessarily connected, which is why Blizzard can get away with things like having Kael'thas in two places at once, but still tripped up by things like getting Onyxia out of Stormwind. Phasing helps a little bit (and who knows what WoW would be like if Blizzard designed it from the ground up with phasing -- we'll have to wait for the next-gen MMO to see how that works). The official timeline has Arthas brooding in Icecrown for around six years. But just like real relativity, our characters have experienced that time period in all sorts of different ways.

Snaboo of Greymane shouted out to the Blizzard posters on the forums. He appreciates that they are being customer focused and social. This elicited positive responses from a handful of blue posters, except Bornakk, who's still grumpy.

Some posters disagreed about the attention the blues pay to the community. That they are slow to respond to "serious" questions or that they seem disrespectful of players. Crygil pointed out that in many cases there are several threads on a particular subject. The blues try to address at least one of them, but aren't able to respond in all of the threads on a single topic.

Children's Week is here, and with it this year comes our friend Brigwyn's Child's Play auction. You can look through all of the available items in his on-site catalogue, or head on over to eBay and start bidding on whatever you like. All of the proceeds from the auction will go to help Penny Arcade's very worthy Child's Play charity, which goes to help put videogames in hospitals where sick children can play with them. Brigwyn himself has experience with their work (which he's written about over on his site), so he knows just what kind of good they can do.

And of course, we'll point out our own contribution to the auction page -- we've donated a free guest spot on our podcast, the WoW Insider Show. If you've ever wanted to tell me in virtual person how wrong I am, or encourage Turpster's already oversize ego, or weigh in with us during the Meat of the Show, now's your chance. With your bid there, not only are you helping children who are going through some terrible experiences, but you might also get the chance to speak your mind about World of Warcraft right alongside us on the show. Oh, and we'll poke around our WoW Insider prize closet for some other fun stuff for you, too -- maybe loot cards, a Turpster drawing, or whatever else we've got sitting around.

So please bid -- on our item or any of the others. There's also some loot cards, some items from BRK and other well-known bloggers from around the community, and lots of extremely fun one-of-a-kind WoW items (Sure, this original signed art by Cadistra of WoW, Eh? is nice, but a Hooter's t-shirt? That's Epic if we ever saw it). The bids are coming in already, so please get yours in there ASAP!

Don't forget: if you haven't entered our Guild of the Month contest yet, do so now -- we'll be choosing April's winner in just a few days. All you have to do is send about 200 words on how awesome your guild is to guildofthemonth@gmail.com, and be from either the US or Canada (excluding Quebec -- sorry Quebecois and EU folks, them's the legal rules). The winner will get a profile of their guild right here on WoW Insider (our first group of winners, back in March, was doing some amazing things with both raiding and professions, but we're awarding the prize every month based on the criteria of performance in raiding, originality, and community), and they'll also pick up a raid pack for their officers from our friends at Warcraft.Swagdog.com.

If you entered for March, you've got to enter again for April (we want to give everyone a chance every month), and official rules are right here if you need them. Good luck to everyone who enters -- we've gotten some terrific submissions already, and we can't wait to spotlight one of the best guilds in the game.

Just a quick word of congrats tonight to our friends the moderators of the WoW Ladies Livejournal group -- their community has been spotlighted over on the Livejournal front page. Definitely some well-deserved recognition for one of the best sub-communities in World of Warcraft.

The mods over there are ready to deal with the exposure, too -- though you can see over in this thread that they're a little "dazzled" by all of the new traffic, they've (as usual) got things well in hand. They've created a series of "Master Posts" to keep overflow on the channel to a minimum, and as you can see from their main page, they're taking the growth right in stride, still showing all kinds of interesting viewpoints on the game from their various posters.

The WoW community is a gigantic one, but it's all of the little interrelated communities within it (from us here at WoW Insider to the theorycrafters on Elitist Jerks to all of the hundreds of WoW player blogs, each with their own little voice and insight) that really make it such a diverse and creative group. Good to see one of the best WoW communities out there spotlighted on a major mainstream site.

A little while after BigRedKitty closed shop on his blog last week, there was another post from TJ on there asking for help with a "secret project" (that lots of you let us know about -- thanks!). And now, the secret has been revealed: a few of BRK's fans have put together a goodbye video for the knowledgeable Hunter with the big red cat, and you can watch the whole thing above.

Very touching, and very cool to see a community come together to thank someone who's done a lot for them. BRK also reported on his blog this week that he hasn't left Warcraft for good, but it does sound like the choice to focus on his real life and family rather than what happens in Azeroth was an excellent one. We've also heard, through the grapevine, that Blizzard may be honoring BRK in their own way in the future, much like they did with Phaelia of Resto4Life. We'll keep an eye out for nay Big Red items we may come across.

Our good friend and colleague Daniel "BigRedKitty" Howell has announced on his blog that he is taking a break from World of Warcraft. He's taking time off of the game and his blog to, as he says, "rededicate myself to my family." He thanks readers for their attention and kind words, and hopes that everyone will understand his decision, as well as examine their own lives to make sure that they focus on what's most important to them.

We of course wish him well -- BRK was an excellent contributor to our site and podcast, and we commend him on making the decision to do what's right for him and his family. We hope that everything turns out OK. And as many of his commenters have said, we wish him the best of luck in everything, WoW-related and otherwise.

Phaelia of Resto4Life, you'll remember, also closed her blog down recently, also choosing to focus on her family (and the sapling about to grow into it). Trying to figure out a good balance between your free time and your work and family life is a tough thing -- our Azeroth Interrupted column has covered exactly that battle. And as even Blizzard says, if any other part of your life is suffering because you're choosing to play this game or be a part of this community, it's time to make a break. Raiding the wilds of Azeroth is a lot of fun, and it's possible to do it while leading a healthy life. But if that balance ever gets thrown off, it's time to take a step back and do what's right for you and those closest to you.

This is a pretty insightful thread, from all sides, on what the forums and customer feedback are really for. Rekker on Detheroc makes a good point, and that is that while people will complain about anything, almost no one speaks up when things are working right. We talked a little bit about this on the podcast this past week: are Blizzard's decisions based on a player base that never seems to be happy, no matter what you throw at them, or on some arbitrary design guidelines that Blizzard has stuck with from the beginning?

Ghostcrawler, as you might expect, says it's a little bit of both. Blizzard doesn't just do what players say -- they consider player feedback and then make decisions from there. But at the same time, they can't ignore what players say, either. GC agrees that the forums are not the best sample of feedback, for the same reasons that Rekker gives: players go there because something is bothering them and they want it changed, not usually because they really love something in the game and want it to stay the same.

Of course, forums are not the only form of feedback from the community, and there are many places Blizzard can get feedback about things in the game that players like (ahem). But just like Blizzard does, whenever you look at the forums, you have to realize that you're looking at just a slice of the feedback. People don't make QQ posts about the stuff they appreciate and like having in the game.

Think your guild is one of the best in all of the World of Warcraft? Have you dominated your server since vanilla WoW, or run a packed RP event every week for years? Are you leading one of the biggest guilds in the game, running group after group through Naxx without any drama or wipes? Think your guild is awesome? Prove it!

WoW Insider is proud to present our brand new Guild of the Month contest. Each month, we'll be choosing a guild from the game who impresses us through performance in raiding, originality in what they do as a group, or just plain old community (because casual guilds need love, too). And the winner will not only get profiled here on the site as our Guild of the Month, but they'll also get a $100 gift certificate to Warcraft.Swagdog.com, where they'll be able to pick up custom-made guild shirts for the top members of the guild.

To nominate your guild, just send a short message (no longer than 200 words, please) to guildofthemonth@gmail.com stating why your guild should be chosen as a winner. Make sure to tell us why your guild stands out from the rest -- you don't have to have conquered all of the raid content, but you do have to be doing something extraordinary and special with your little ingame community. Every month, we'll choose a winner from those entries, and profile them here on the site (so don't enter if you don't want to get profiled), as well as award them the gift certificate from the kind folks at Swagdog. More rules after the break:

So remember when Curse introduced their database last year called WoWDB, and we pointed out that it bore a strong resemblance to that other popular WoW database, Wowhead? Turns out ZAM, the owners of Wowhead after the acquisition a little while ago, agreed: completely under the radar last May, they filed a lawsuit for copyright infringment to the tune of no less than $1.5 million. ZAM says in the suit, copies of which we've obtained, that they've "expended substantial resources to maintain, update, and promote use of the WOWHEAD website so that it would become... one of the most recognized, and utilized websites designed to attract individuals" who play World of Warcraft. They claimed that WoWDB stole their look and layout purposely to create confusion among customers. This story wasn't reported in the WoW community at the time -- we hadn't heard about it at all until now.

And then, in January of this year, the case was dismissed completely by a judge. We've also seen a copy of the order for dismissal, and from what it says, both sides wanted out: "Pursuant to the parties' stipulation for dismissal, the court hereby dismisses the above-captioned action without prejudice." We don't have any information, however, why the case was suddenly dismissed, but there may have been an agreement made between the two parties -- either money changed hands or WoWDB offered to change its look (as you can see, there's still many similarities between the two sites). Or, as a third option, ZAM just decided it wasn't worth fighting -- according to the comments and activity on both sites, WoWDB doesn't seem to be a serious threat to Wowhead.

We've contacted both sides for comment, and we'll let you know if we hear anything from either one. On the front of it, this looks like ZAM was merely covering themselves -- they filed suit just in case, but never found cause to follow through. But there may be some other agreement between these two companies that lead to the case's dismissal.

This is interesting -- a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (just up the road from me here in Chicago) says that World of Warcraft is an emerging new "third place." That is, it's a place in between your work and home where you make friends and otherwise interact with new people. Starbucks has even used the term in their actual marketing (to try to make their coffee shops a hangout more than just a place that you stop by and grab a cuppa joe), and WoW isn't even the first videogame to fit the critera -- Sony advertised the Playstation 2 as a "third place" in Europe.

But even though Blizzard has never actually marketed the game as a "third place," it almost fits the definition most. Sure, it's not actually a different place -- most people do play at home, I'd imagine -- but in terms of having a different crowd of people that you interact with outside your home or work, that is often exactly what WoW is for us. As Professor Constance Steinkuehler (who has a pretty wild website for a college professor) says, "most people go for the game and stay for the people."

Tank Spot and WoW Achievements have both been added to the official World of Warcraft fansite program. The fansite program is Blizzard's way of recognizing sites they like, and really contains an excellent listing of places to get your WoW fix (besides WoW Insider, of course).

Tank Spot offers great community with forums, videos, and guides to virtually every aspect of tanking. The folks that frequent the site are quick to offer sound advice, and can often be seen on the official forums providing key discussion within the greater tanking community.

WoW Achievements is a relatively new site, and offers great information on all the achievements in-game and the players who earn them. One of the more interesting things on the site is a listing of the top players worldwide who've earned achievement points. If you're curious, the top player right now is Beelsebub over on Azuremyst EU. He's got 7630 achievement points, which is quite amazing.

If you're interested as to why WoW Insider is not part of the fansite program, you can check out an article by Mike Schramm back in August of last year.

Buckle your seatbelts on this one -- if you aren't concerned with the bigger picture behind a virtual world like Azeroth and would rather hear about dragons fighting each other or the latest class changes, best look elsewhere on the site. But a student at Colorado University has a theory about World of Warcraft that might sound a little out there: he believes the game is a new religion.

Not necessarily in the sense that you should skip church to raid (though lots of people probably do that anyway). But in the sense that it meets a sociologist's definition of religion: it provides community, ethics, culture, and emotion. And it's hard to argue with that: we're living proof of the community around the game, there's definitely plenty of culture and emotion, and... ethics? CU student Theo Zijderveld is proposing that even if the game itself doesn't promote ethical behavior, the push is there -- we're rewarded for doing the right thing, and often punished for doing wrong. Work with others in a group, get better loot. Camp someone's corpse, and their guildie or alt shows up to camp you.

Intriguing idea, even if it does sound like something cooked up for a college student's thesis (which is in fact what it is). It's certainly not a religion in that there is no higher power involved (unless you believe that Ghostcrawler is in fact a god) -- obviously, we all believe that everything in Azeroth was made by men and women, or at least hard-working Gnomes. But as for what playing World of Warcraft creates in us and makes us feel, those results and ideas are very close in many ways to what organized religion does. Quite a theory.

Greg Street, aka Ghostcrawler, is the lead systems designer at Blizzard for World of Warcraft. It's his job to make sure all the numbers work right, that the talents are spiffy, and all that "other" stuff. He became a presence during the Wrath of the Lich King beta, posting daily about updates to the game and interacting with players in a way that hasn't been seen before.

The daily activity by Ghostcrawler has lead to him become a staple of sites such as WoW Insider and MMO-Champion. Every day you can see at least one or two items from him. We here at WoW Insider are particularly watchful of what he says, since his posts usually contain detailed information about why something was done and what might be done in the future. That's great content that we like to talk a lot about.

However despite the volumes Ghostcrawler publishes each day, some people feel that his welcome has ran out – that this experiment of him providing community interaction has failed. Some feel that his penchant for forum interaction is time wasted, that he's done nothing more than incite riots with certain classes, and that his demeanor is less than appealing. There was a forum post today about this very topic, but that in itself is nothing new as lots of people have been QQing over Ghostcrawler for a while.

Don't let all the crying fool you however – he has some major supporters throughout the community.

The Orange County Register's Blizzard Blog has posted a message from Micah Chatterton, father of Ezra "Epheonix" Chatterton, who, as we reported yesterday, passed away earlier this week. Micah's pain is tangible, but he says that Ezra loved his life, and the greatest tribute that he or anyone else can pay to Ephoenix is by trying to love life as much as he did. He also thanks the WoW community for their outpouring of support. There's no question that we can be a little silly and raucous at times (which is what makes, as Ezra certainly knew, being around this game so much fun), but when it comes down to it, we are a community, and when one member of the community suffers, we all do.

Once again, we pay our condolences, along with all of our readers who posted comments yesterday, to Micah and his family in this time of grief. Definitely give his statement a read -- it's extremely sad to hear about the suffering that Ezra went through, but Micah is exactly right: Ezra's life and the smile he had even when facing a tragedy like this should be an example for us all.

Micah also forwarded the message along to us, so we've posted it in full after the break.