A Sense of Community

I had originally planned to write the first of "The Histories" for tonight's article but it is not ready to go live just yet. I desire for it to be as much a record as an entertaining and informative piece and am keen to get my facts right! Tomorrow I will start at the most recent with a post covering the Rated Battleground Saga of early Cataclysm.

Peculiar as it may seem sometimes people forget that World of Warcraft is an MMO-RPG. They fall into a trap that leads to attitudes and gameplay tendencies typical of many RPG's and miss half the game (and the genre title). This is a social game at its core and working together or against other players is the heart of progression. I would go so far as to argue it is the key factor to enjoyment of our time playing.

Yet, for all of the above, the latter years of WoW have seen a dynamic shift in the role of social factors and community. In the initial stages of the game you needed to develop social relations to participate in most aspects of the world. While it did take lengthy amounts of time to form groups for dungeons and they were very hit and miss, there were two consequences of this. Firstly, completing a dungeon and getting blue loot was something to be genuinely celebrated (those that pugged UBRS will remember that reaching Drakk was a once in a blue moon achievement). Secondly, you had to actually talk to people. You developed and maintained relationships. Your friend list served a valuable function (your ignore list sometimes served an even more valuable one; perfect for blacklisting the players who you had nightmares about grouping with way back at Level 26).

When LFG channel was worldwide (for those that were not present, LFG was a channel you could talk in no matter where you were in the world) it doubled as a great source of entertainment, social interaction, trolling and even finding the odd group here and there. Times have changed however. With cross realm dungeons, raids and battlegrounds that need to be social has largely evaporated.

Have we traded gameplay and mechanics in favour of the heart of a social world? Is it a trade we are happy to have made for us Blizzard? I'm not so sure.

Community makes a server. A competitive PVE scene complimented with healthy arena and battleground competition is part of the puzzle but the pieces that involve the drama, fame and 'historical events' that occur within the realm of a server and its community are critical as well. Sometimes we need to make an effort ourselves outside of the game to develop our experience inside it.

This blog is in a way part of my contribution to our server and its community. While it is a minor effort in the grand scheme of things, it is important that some of us do more than make up the numbers when we are logged in.