Talk:World of Warcraft/Draft

Classes

The section describing classes should be re-written to be a little more functional and to better outline what the different main roles are of each class. I feel a table will suit this purpose well. Will be working on this soon. --Eric Clevinger 14:22, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Wow! is all I can say.... Hayford Peirce 16:11, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

lol Hayford. Okay, I have added the classes table and re-designed that section. This should be fairly accurate. Let me know if there are any issues. --Eric Clevinger 22:54, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Suggestions

How about a criticism or public reception section? While the article is well written, I can't stand the game itself, and know that alot of other people feel that way. It would be good to include that info somewhere in the article. Drew R. Smith 21:22, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

This is a great idea. I'm not even a huge fan of the game anymore, just make edits now and then because I know about it. But a reception/criticism section would be great. --Eric Clevinger 23:27, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Races

I removed a couple of sentences that seemed out of place here. --Eric Clevinger 00:37, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Gameplay Section Removal

I would like to suggest removing the 'Gameplay' section, thereby making 'Settings', 'Professions', 'Characters', etc. top level sections. This is because there are going to be a lot of sections to this article, and many of those will require sub-sections and sub-sub-sections. As most of the article will refer to different aspects of 'gameplay' I believe the 'Gameplay' heading itself is redundant. What do you think? Chris Key 18:10, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Obviously you plan to discuss gameplay in much detail. This may make the main page article too long and too detailed for the "casual" reader. Therefore I would suggest to consider moving details to (a) subpage(s) or (a) separate article(s) or and restrict the main page to an overview that is informative and interesting for readers not (yet?) afficinados of the game. --Peter Schmitt 20:38, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I would agree that there is a lot of details that will belong on subpages rather than the main page. I do still believe that the overview on the main page will require sub-sections to maintain good standards of readability. For example I think that the setting overview that I wrote earlier is appropriate for the main page, but would be awkward to read if it wasn't split into several sections. Similarly the current Player Vs. Player section could do with splitting into sections for Arena, Battlegrounds and World PvP. As such, I would still like to remove the 'Gameplay' heading. --Chris Key 20:54, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

As the structure is now, the title "Gameplay" is indeed not needed (there only is References on the same level), so it can indeed be removed. It may be necessary to restructure later. E.g., 1.6. and 1.7. (maybe also 1.5) seem not to fit in "Gameplay". As to material for subpages: the tables could be candidates ... but there is no hurry, this can evolve ... --Peter Schmitt 22:23, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I think this highlights another problem with an overarching 'gameplay' section. There are too many variations on the definition. For example, 1.6 (PvP) is something that I would definately put under Gameplay. 1.7 (Servers) I agree appears to not mainly be about gameplay, however the choice of server does have a significant impact on the gameplay. It alters many of the rules of the game. Anyway, for now I shall remove the Gameplay title. --Chris Key 22:36, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Setting

The sections about the setting are very well written, but I think may just be a bit too detailed, beyond the scope of a main article (even if they are split into sections). Perhaps a more brief and to the point summary of the setting, and the 3 main continents, and then have a secondary article, World of Warcraft Universe or something like that, that goes into all the greater detail regarding Azeroth, as you have written here in the main article. --Eric Clevinger 01:47, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree - Azeroth --Chris Key 02:37, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Too focused on gameplay?

This article should be interesting to non-players of WoW. There's nothing wrong with a broad overview of the game's aspects and, indeed, WoW's breadth is incredible. Generally, though, I think most gameplay minutiae is best described when it relates to topics broader than the game itself. For example, I recall seeing a Craigslist ad (it's all over the Web now) titled "An EPIC mount! (warcraft players look inside) - w4m" and offered sex in return for an Epic Flying Mount, something that some people spend years to attain. Some people pay real money for virtual goods; others "outsource" their own playing of the game--something I'd presume they would enjoy doing--at their own financial expense. And then, of course, there is the issue of game addiction, which is a charge leveled at WoW more than any other game that I've seen. There are the obligatory follow-up questions to these observations, particularly: Why? Why do people pay real money for virtual goods? Why would a woman prostitute herself for a couple of bits stored on a server? And so on and so forth. As the most popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft can shed much light on MMORPG metaculture.

I think this article in The New Yorker about Ultima Online is highly readable and enlightening for anyone, fans of the game or not. Nick Bagnall 13:23, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Oops, I just (mistakenly) aasumed that there is no page on MMORPG (I took the abbreviation MMPORPG and spelling multi-player from the New Yorker article). I'll have to correct this. And since I trust the New Yoryker I probably will move the article to the title with the hyphen. Sorry for being hasty!

This parent page probably is the right place to discuss the social impact of these games. --Peter Schmitt 14:17, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

A first search seems to favour "multiplayer". I shall have to ask our language experts ... Peter Schmitt 14:29, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Definately "multiplayer" without the hyphen. Publishers, leading developer resource sites, leading game review sites, universities and just about everyone else in the indusry do not use a hyphen. --Chris Key 15:47, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Peter. The issues of microtransactions, addictions and social impact apply to all MMORPGs, not just WoW. WoW just tends to receive more attention as it is the biggest. Therefore most of these should be in the MMORPG page. I do however believe that there should be non-gameplay sections on things like reception and criticisms, and perhaps the WoW specific incidents such as Corrupted Blood. --Chris Key 15:55, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Certainly, for game specifics. --Peter Schmitt 23:48, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Catalogs

I have created a few Catalogs to move the tables to. This aids readability. I have just directly moved the tables so far and have not edited them for accuracy. I have seen some mistakes however, so I will do this later. --Chris Key 11:10, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Nice work on the classes table, and catalog. I knew that there were some changes to the classes announced in Cataclysm, but I just never got around to updating it. I also like the decision to leave the main class roles explained in the main article. Good work. --Eric Clevinger 00:24, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Comments

• 1st paragraph: "currently holds the Guinness World Record" -- 'currently' should be specified
• "Tanking - Which means being able" -- it would be better to use a phrase similar to that for the other items

--Peter Schmitt 23:30, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

A question of style

Personally, I dislike phrases like "Finally the player must choose their characters appearance." I can "overlook" isolated occurrences, but if they appear frequently (as here) I find them irritating. Of course, I am not a native speaker ... --Peter Schmitt 23:35, 7 June 2010 (UTC)