Talk:World of Warcraft/Archive 11

Latest comment: 15 years ago by 139.164.160.138 in topic WoW Addiction
Archive 5 Archive 9 Archive 10 Archive 11 Archive 12 Archive 13 Archive 15

Pic

Somone take off the picture of the "mod" before and after. The player was bragging on the wow forums, and it should be like the last pic with no name so nobody gets advertised. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Virus Errupt (talkcontribs) 00:31, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Done Sir. Denton22 (talk) 16:30, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

In other media

How about the swedish comedian Björn Gustafssons joke? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azE5ueU22jo Egon Eagle (talk) 21:08, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Probaly not. See WP:TRIVIA Gazimoff WriteRead 21:53, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
What about a mention of the American Dad! episode Dungeons and Wagons? I cannot seem to create it myself. 99.254.124.230 (talk) 05:38, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Is that episode actually about WoW or just online RPGs in general. Do they mention world of warcraft at all in the episode, I can't remember myself. Dark verdant (talk) 10:27, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
No it's not about WoW. It's not even worth a mention in this article. Even if it was about WoW, it still would be trivia, unless it was something along the lines of Make Love, Not Warcraft. -- Atamachat 19:01, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

In all fairness, if these rules apply to Dungeons And Wagons, then Marge Gamer should not be included either, as it is just a spoof of many MMORPGS and doesn't make a mention of WoW either. So, i'm going to add it in, and if you delete it then you should also remove Marge Gamer.Dragonixta —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.128.182.95 (talk) 13:18, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

That is a completely valid statement. To be honest, I had never noticed that little blurb in there about The Simpsons. I've removed it and the American Dad information because (1) neither was about WoW, (2) neither was a big deal (unlike the South Park episode which received a lot of press attention and was also a collaboration with Blizzard and (3) there were no references (not that references would have made a difference, unless those references somehow disputed my first two points). Thanks for pointing that out. -- Atamachat 15:34, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Credit to other games, from Blizzard

I was thinking about adding a small topic on the page about the Larion and Muigin (Mario and Luigi) and Linken (Link, from Zelda) in Un'goro Crater, showing how blizzard is giving credit to Mario and Link series', both of which were revolutionary to gameing.

Thoughts? --Recipies (talk) 23:05, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

As Gazimoff said above, WP:TRIVIA recommends we keep trivia out of the article. Now, there used to be an entire article devoted to "Cultural references in World of Warcraft" or something along those lines but it was deleted because it was essentially one giant trivia article. -- Atamachat 23:42, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
WP:HTRIVIA is another guideline to consider as well. -- Atamachat 23:46, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
"This guideline does not suggest the inclusion or exclusion of any information; it only gives style recommendations. Issues of inclusion are addressed by content policies." This is from WP:TRIVIA Dannysjgdf (talk) 08:22, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
If this is something Wikipedia needs, I would say it should go at the cited games, in something like "In Other Media". But...there is already WAY too much coverage of computer gaming in Wikipedia (opinion, clearly)... how much more game trivia does a truly great general purpose encyclopedia need? A great deal of this stuff should be in the gaming sites... or possibly in books and articles that would be cited by Wikipedia articles, if only they existed. :) sinneed (talk) 13:29, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Delisted Good Article

I've removed this article from the Good Article List. The "good article" version should never even have been promoted considering it had a maintenance tag, lousy prose, poor sourcing, etc. The problems with the current revision:

  • Poor prose: Lists where prose will do; one-sentence paragraphs; poor grammar; one-paragraph sections, excessive wikilinking to WoWWiki (this is confusing to new users, who may not know the difference between our website and theirs)
  • Poor organization: No logical flow/structure in the article; bad summary style for criticism/controversy
  • Insufficient breadth of coverage: Critical reception and development are way too short; in-game related material is too long

On top of this, there is still a "cleanup" tag from April. The article needs some serious work.-Wafulz (talk) 17:08, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not too surprised at this, we've been struggling to keep the cruft out of the article but it creeps in. I dispute the WoWWiki criticism, the only alternative is to not Wikilink much of anything because there's no way we're ever going to have that information in Wikipedia, deletionists will firebomb any WoW article that's not heavily sourced and thoroughly notable. The WoWWiki links are a pretty smart compromise. If they're not okay, we'll just have to leave those subjects de-linked I suppose, which is a shame.
I also don't understand the "Critical Reception" length complaint, is it the Reception or Criticism section that is too short? Criticism is spun off into another article due to length, while Reception could indeed be expanded, sure. The Development section is actually a relatively new section, when the Good Article status was granted it didn't even exist yet. The "poor sourcing" criticism isn't very helpful... How is sourcing poor? Not enough? This article will be improved, though, thanks for your feedback. -- Atamachat 17:35, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
"Critical reception" means "Reception" in this case. Comparing it to featured video game articles highlights the deficiencies (see Halo 3#Critical reception and impact, for example). The WoWWiki links should be used sparingly - users may get confused if they're directed to another Wiki. I don't know of any other articles that link to external wikis. The sourcing comment refers to things like unsourced paragraphs, citations without full information (publisher, title , accessdate, etc), and ambiguous citations (the citation is placed in the middle of a sentence or paragraph).-Wafulz (talk) 18:58, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I've turned all the regular inter-wiki links into refs to make it clear that they're not local. There are a few non-standard interwiki links which I left as-is. - Denimadept (talk) 19:09, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, that's worse; we'll get crapshot at GAC/FAC for having them in references. This is a rather frustrating point...
As for the delisting, this should probably have been taken to GAR, rather than arbitrarily delisted. I disagree with the process, but do feel that the article does not meet the criteria of a good article. --Izno (talk) 19:20, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Feel free to revert it. - Denimadept (talk) 19:54, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I've finished the spinoff Gameplay of World of Warcraft. I'd now suggest we trim this down and start some heavy cleanup work. I'll do what I can on the reception, legacy and popular culture side of things to get the ball rolling.Gazimoff WriteRead 20:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I'll see what I can do to trim it down. One or two paragraphs, maybe? --Izno (talk) 04:55, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
I've got a sandbox at User: Gazimoff/wow sandbox that I'm working on at the moment in order to sort out the article before merging it back in. Feel free to give me a hand there on performing some open-heart surgery on it before bringing it back in. Hope this helps, Gazimoff WriteRead 12:46, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Player Characters (PCs, or simply "players") This statement was correct at one time the term at the moment is Toon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bladeyama (talkcontribs) 01:29, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

No, "toon" is slang, and not only slang but fairly unpopular slang. In fact, I personally don't remember ever hearing anyone actually use the term "toon" in my years playing WoW. I've heard "avatar" a number of times. Officially, however, Blizzard refers to them as PCs or players as the article states. -- Atamachat 15:46, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I've expanded the Reception sections with citations. I'm going to start work on compressing down the Gameplay section next and merging content into either Legacy or Development. Anyone who wants to help, please feel free to lend a hand. I'd like to shrink down the Pricing section into Development as well, removing the fees table but keeping in the important distinction on the differences between subscription and pay-as-you-go models used in different regions. Any thoughts? Gazimoff WriteRead 21:12, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Easter egg

Adding a small topic on the page about the Larion and Muigin (Mario and Luigi) and Linken (Link, from Zelda) would not be inappropriate because Blizzard is not giving credit to the games. These are just Easter Eggs with some similarity in the names nothing more. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bladeyama (talkcontribs) 01:59, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

There was some discussion of this sort of thing at Talk:World of Warcraft/Archive 6#Pop references. I think it is generally reckoned that there are far, far too many such easter eggs to put into this article; and that a separate article on them would be unavoidably Original Research. --Stormie (talk) 02:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
There actually was a separate article at one time if I recall and it was nuked in the "Great WoW Article Massacre". -- Atamachat 15:48, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
And people deny the Holocaust existed, nobody denys the massacre existed Grimreape513 (talk) 14:25, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Most Popular

I think it may be innacurate to call it The most popular as this page says that Maplestory, a different MMO has 71 million subscribers.

http://www.wonderlandblog.com/wonderland/2008/04/maplestory-71m.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by HappyDragon (talkcontribs) 11:15, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

The comment says that it's according to the Guinness Book of Records, here. As it's a reliable source, I see no problem with keeping the comment. Gazimoff WriteRead 11:25, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Also on the Maplestory article in wikipedia says it has 50 Million

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MapleStory —Preceding unsigned comment added by HappyDragon (talkcontribs) 11:29, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

You can't really compare subscription figures between a pay-to-play game like WoW and a free-to-play game like Maple Story. I'm sure the Guinness record was for paid subscriptions. --Stormie (talk) 12:09, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

The business model of the games companies do not matter at all. Simply saying "you are sure" still leaves room for doubt. Wikipedia kind of has a bad name for being unable to verify their references we must try and change this by being as rigorous as possible. We are currently contradicting ourselves with these two articles 124.169.136.30 (talk) 06:21, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

The statement says "...holds the Guinness World Record for the most popular MMORPG."The reference backs this up, stating that it does hold the Guinness World Record. If the holder of the world record changes, so can the statement. Until then, the article accurately reflects what the sources state. If your issue is with World of Warcraft holding the world record, you may want to take this up with Guinness, as articles can only reflect what the sources indicate. Hope this helps, Gazimoff WriteRead 09:04, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Also note that a similar argument was made before, see here where the argument was about how Lineage II had larger numbers than WoW, however this article states that WoW is the largest MMORPG in terms of monthly subscribers. The same argument applies again, where MapleStory does not have a monthly subscription. As far as the popularity question goes, as Gazimoff stated, if you contest the statement find a more reliable source that Guinness. -- Atamachat 18:42, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

WoW Addiction

Addiction is a big issue in the popular culture surrounding the game, and perhaps more should be written in this section. One common situation that seems to occur is when conflict arises from either long play hours or scheduled raiding, or both. It's a fact that some guilds require significant playtime dedication in order to achieve greater rewards in the game. Oftentimes, it seems that players feel like they must dedicate large amounts of time to the game in order to be successful and experience the artistic content to its fullest potential.

The section is large enough already. To add more to it would be to give it undue weight. Remember there is a whole other article devoted just to WoW controversies, Criticism of World of Warcraft. If you want to expand on this subject please do it there. Just remember that if you do, you're not allowed to add your own personal experiences, theories, or opinions on the matter as that is original research, everything has to be properly sourced. -- Atamachat 20:23, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
What's happened to criticism of World of Warcraft then? It just redirects here. Since criticism is no longer covered in a seperate article, I argue that expanding the criticism section in this one will not give it undue weight. Perhaps we should mention a site like WOW detox where 1500 WOW players and acquaintances have posted testimonies as to what they feel is the game's habit forming nature. It should be acknowledged that some do make claims as to WOW's addicting nature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.105.249.165 (talk) 14:44, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
See here for the decision to merge it with this article. It's a tough call, I almost think there could be a World of Warcraft addiction article, but it would be an uphill battle to prove notability on an article like that. -- Atamachat 16:29, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
I would argue that aside from a small summary of the issue and a link to Video game addiction that the addiction thing doesn't need additional coverage. It applies to any popular video game. While I do know personally a few WoW addicts, most (the ones old enough) were EQ or UO addicts before that. Some of us started off with Adventure on line printer terminals, playing all night and programming all day... this isn't a new problem, it isn't particular to WoW... and in fact has nothing directly to do with WoW. And all that is OR and wouldn't go in an article. ;0)~ I have not studied the addiction article, and so I am not claiming it is good (or bad)... only that it is there. sinneed (talk) 16:48, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


In 2008, FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate stated that online gaming addiction was one of the top reasons for college drop-outs. However, she did not identify any source to validate the statement, nor identify its position in relation to other causes, such as getting a good job offer.[95][96]

Am I the only one who thinks "getting a good job offer" opinionated?. My reason for bringing this up is that the fact how WoW leads to what the last sentence claims, the both reference 95 and 96 did not have make mention of it. I don't want to just go and edit an article if I was the only one to think that way. BlueIslandWolf (talk) 22:31, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
This is being discussed at Talk:World of Warcraft#Recent Game Addiction edit. I intend to kill it.sinneed (talk) 02:39, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

There is absolutely no reason to put addiction in quotation marks, it makes the phrase opinionated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.164.160.138 (talk) 10:43, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Active Subscriptions Graph

I think it would be a great addition to the article to have a graph showing the evolution of the number of subscriptions (see http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart11.html) Chandrasonic (talk) 00:01, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

No Further Mention of Character Customization

There is no mention of how customizable is your character avatar. Could someone include an entry on it, as I would like to know - and I'm sure others do as well - about how much personalizing can be had on WoW? Psypho (talk) 20:19, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

We have to be careful how much we get into detail in describing game features. Too much and it begins to resemble a game guide, and that is beyond the scope of this encyclopedia. -- Atamachat 17:53, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Addition to setting

The setting speaks of Draenor, but it is more commonly known as Outland. I think it would be appropriate to add this for the sake of clarity, so that people unfamiliar with the history or people who haven't played that far into thew game will understand.--Loknidas (talk) 14:56, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

How about adding something like "(aka Outland)" to it? - Denimadept (talk) 15:10, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Semi-protection

Why is the article under semi-protection? (Regardless of the reasons, I think it should be made clear what they are) Karbinski (talk) 15:47, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

When it wasn't it was being vandalized constantly. Vandlism is still not rare but it's no longer happening a dozen times a day. -- Atamachat 16:36, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
I love vandalfighting. But the WoW article was vandalized so much that I never even tried. I didn't even put it on my watch list... it was like a constant assault and I wouldn't find other article changes in the WoWspam. sinneed (talk) 17:45, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Instances: related to factions in Outland

The nature of TBC instances is to be related to a faction. Perhaps this should be woven into the Instances section... Karbinski (talk) 18:00, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

We're looking at trimming down the gameplay section of this article now, as we have the spinoff Gameplay of World of Warcraft. Having said that, it's important not to venture too far into gameguide material. Mentioning the reputation system and how it rewards players is great, but I think that discussing it in further detail without having sources to back up that increase in detail is probably unwarranted. Remember, if you can't cite it, don't say it. Gazimoff WriteRead 19:16, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
We should call you "Gameplay Gazimoff" now. -- Atamachat 20:17, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Har har :) I've finished rewriting the gameplay section on this article, although I think I could be a bit heavier with the knife. I'm going to be working on the development section next before moving on to cleaning up the legacy section and finally the lead. I'm going to remove the part on pricing, but merge some of it into development in order to demonstrate the subtle differences in subscription methods between territories. I'm sure that there's a guideline somewhere that states that pricing information shouldn't be included in articles. Gazimoff WriteRead 20:43, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Starting paragraph

In the starting paragraph they say that World of Warcraft has 10 million subscribers, which is true, then basing off a graph which im not sure how old it is, says it has 62% of all MMOG's. I went to a couple of other MMORPG's and found they also had around 10 million, so I was wondering how this information could be correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brandox1 (talkcontribs) 23:39, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

The confusion often arises from comparing WoW's 10 million paying subscribers to the player figures of free-to-play MMORPGs. But one thing I notice - we should not say "The current subscriber base for all MMOGs is 16 million" and use mmogchart.com as a reference. Whilst Bruce Woodcock does sterling work with mmogchart, he says "I am the first to admit that the data is not always reliable."[1] I have revised that sentence to "As of 2008, the current subscriber base for all MMOGs has been estimated at approximately 16 million." --Stormie (talk) 03:36, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to point out that 16 million subscriptions does not equal 16 million people playing the game. I have multiple accounts myself, and it seems to be a big practice to have more than one account. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.158.61.140 (talk) 16:41, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
At the same time, I've shared an account with my wife in many games, so it's possible for one account to have more than one player. It's impossible to keep track of any of that stuff, so "subscriptions" is the best we can do. -- Atamachat 16:56, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Scientific Conference in World of Warcraft

John Bohannon: Slaying Monsters for Science, Science 20 June 2008, Vol. 320. no. 5883, p. 1592, doi:10.1126/science.320.5883.1592c, material -- Cherubino (talk) 14:25, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Two new games

Since I'm not allowed to edit the main article (only this discussion article), can someone change this: "World of Warcraft has inspired a board game produced by Fantasy Flight Games, as well as a trading card game produced by Upper Deck Entertainment.[citation needed]"

to: "World of Warcraft has inspired two board games (World of Warcraft: The Board Game and World of Warcraft: The Adventure Game) produced by Fantasy Flight Games, as well as an upcoming miniature figure game (World of WarCraft Miniatures Game) and a trading card game produced by Upper Deck Entertainment."

Sources for the two additional games: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/wow-adventure/ http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/wowmini/en/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lowlevelio (talkcontribs) 21:46, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd be glad to do the corrections. Do you know if these games have been picked up in any news sources, or if there's any press releases announcing them? Many thanks, Gazimoff(mentor/review) 22:01, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
Well the second board game certainly seems to be released and available, based on the link provided ([2]), and Amazon is listing it for sale currently ([3]). I can't find an official press release (although it is on Fantasy Flight Games front page news ([4]). Here's an article about it's release from a gaming blog: [5].
As for the upcoming miniatures game, there's a microsite for it on Upper Deck's website, including a FAQ ([6]) listing it as "slated to launch in fall 2008". Aha, found an initial press release from Upper Deck announcing it: [7]. --Stormie (talk) 00:10, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Okies, I'll get on to it tomorrow - getting a bit late for me now. I also need to get some information on the action figures, the figure Prints stuff, the other various bits and pieces and maybe the Jinx clothing range before rounding it off. Gazimoff(mentor/review) 00:16, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
I put the new games in as requested by Lowlevelio, with refs for all the games. Please tweak if you think it needs tweaking. --Stormie (talk) 08:54, 28 July 2008 (UTC)