NP-Contemplation

There’s been a lot of effort and thought put into working out why World of Warcraft has been so much more popular than other MMOs. Most numbers put them at ten times the active subscriptions of their closest competitor, though I don’t know of any that break it down by region. (From my memory of launch dates, I suspect there’s some interesting information buried in the regional break-down) In North America alone, WoW has a reported 2 million subscribers, more than any other MMO since the Lineage games at their peak.

The focus in these analyses of popularity usually tends to emphasize the game mechanics. There is, of course, the psychologically addictive behaviour created by epic loot drops and other intermittent rewards. There’s the sense of progress and development as your character levels or advances through raids. There’s the raid encounters themselves and the extreme commitment required to learn them. But really, none of this stuff is particularly original. It’s not even more smoothly-executed than other contemporary MMOs. Yes, the graphics are friendlier. The interface is slicker. Some of the high-level stuff is more casual-friendly. To some degree, “network externalities” (thank you, Bradford C. Walker) mean that WoW’s popular because WoW’s popular. But based on my experience playing WoW and watching others play WoW, I think this stuff is all a fancy side-show to the real deal.

WoW’s more popular because scattered across all these things, in bits and pieces that add up to a significant whole, is a game that’s much, much better at doing the thing MMOs do best than any of its competitors. It’s better at being a Third Place, an informal venue for socialization.

As Kathy Sierra noted when discussing Twitter, the feeling of connectedness is a strong motivator. People want to feel connected to their friends, and want to feel like they’re building new connections. Traditionally, this has happened outside of the workplace and home, in “Third Places” that encourage casual socialization. But our modern society has been purposefully eliminating these places, and continues to do so. I suspect that some of the popularity of MMOs is due to their ability to fill that void, by providing a virtual space for casual socialization. If this is the case, it’s worth examining how WoW enhances this socialization, both at the interpersonal level and at progressively wider communal levels.

The design of the levelling process is the most obvious influence at the interpersonal level. The most natural gameplay activity for a small group of friends, or casual acquaintances, is levelling together. Other group activity requires larger groups and more coordination. WoW emphasizes levelling through questing much more heavily than most of its predecessors. This provides focus and direction to the group’s play, giving them an intermediate-term motivation and objective beyond killing the next monster. Since levelling is so easy, particularly in groups, friends are free to socialize and clown around in-game while slaughtering digital hordes. I know of many people that play the game solely because they enjoy levelling with friends. These players and their friends abandon characters that get too close to the level cap and start over, often with different classes or races, to continue playing the game in a way they enjoy.

Quests also focus player activity into specific areas, which ensures that both solo players and groups of friends levelling together will encounter the broader community. While these encounters will typically be adversarial (IE, players competing for the same mobs or objectives), the potential of an amicable encounter between members of the same faction exists. Some of my best levelling play was based on this kind of encounter, including one Rogue that I ran into by chance over and over while levelling my Priest in Stranglethorn Vale. This is actually one area where WoW’s gameplay mechanics come into conflict with its role as a third place. The respawn rate of mobs and other quest objectives is typically fairly long - at least a couple of minutes, sometimes as many as 5, occasionally 30 or more. I would guess that this is an attempt to encourage inter-faction rivalry over scarce resources, but it also serves to limit cooperation between members of the same faction. I’m curious as to the potential of a more intelligent world that responds to the presence of multiple players in the same area and shapes monster spawns, patrol patterns, and objective locations to encourage them to cooperate.

For those players that do reach the level cap, socialization takes on a different form through the dual avenues of Guild and Raids. The impact of WoW’s Raid mechanics on socialization are particularly interesting. Raid instances are long and complicated affairs, requiring the participation of 10-25 players and several hours of time. Completing a Raid instance demands not just skill and practice on the part of individual players, but organization and coordination of the Raid as a whole. Raids also have lockout timers. After participating in a Raid instance, the player is prohibited from joining a different instance of that same Raid until the instance “resets”, usually once a week. The upside of this is that the group’s progress in the raid is saved, and they can split their attempt over several nights. These mechanics combine to encourage players to form Guilds structured as social organizations similar to amateur sports teams. The members of a Guild raid together regularly, and become the first choice for other, non-Raid activity. (IE, grinding for consumables or reputation, levelling new characters, PvP, etc) This encourages the development of friendships and association within the Guild. And also, of course, politics.

Finally, the game provides multiple avenues for connection with the wider community. In-game chat channels allow easy communication with other players that are neither Guildmates nor nearby. “General” channels for an area are often used for chatting by players playing (or even just hanging out) in those areas, particularly those for major cities and “newbie zones”. Anyone who’s levelled a character on the Horde side probably knows of the horrors of “Barrens Chat”. Trade channels allow players to exchange goods and services, possibly forming friendships with frequent business partners. Similarly, the PvP Battlegrounds throw together usually-random players in teams, pitting them in a contest against a team of players from the opposite faction. This allows players to meet other players of similar advancement on their server and the other servers linked to it in a “battlegroup”.

Here, the social aspect has been slightly hindered as WoW matured. Originally, battlegrounds were server-local. You would only play with or against others on the same server. This lead to fairly long waits between games, but a very strong culture. You got to know and recognize the other people you were playing with and against, and formed loose associations with them through the heat of battle. If you were good, you could build lasting connections with other players, who would seek you out when creating “pre-made” teams. With wider, inter-server battlegroups, games are more prompt, but the population of players is so large that seeing the same people twice is extraordinarily unlikely.

The widest forum for socialization is, of course, the game’s official forums. All active players can post and discuss there in several venues, which are largely unmoderated. While this does tend to create an insipid blend of stupidity, pointless griping, sarcastic one-liners, and rampaging memes, it also fosters a real sense of community among all players of the game. WoW’s predecessors - at least those I’m aware of - either lacked official forums entirely or aggressively moderated them, which I believe would prevent the same game-wide community from developing. Most posters are only sporadic, and the large main forums are too high-traffic for any real social groupings to form. But on lower-traffic sub-forums, regular posters can gradually get to know each other and create informal communities with common interests or objectives. (IE, getting Blizzard to stop nerfing Priests ;) )

I think these factors have strongly contributed to WoW’s popularity, though I’m unsure whether the developers recognize their contribution. I do know that the flavour of the community and socialization is very different from that of any other MMO I’ve tried. It is, in my opinion, the game’s strongest feature. When I was trying to make the decision to quit, the gameplay wasn’t what was holding me back. It was the community and social aspects.