Cooper 1

TylerCooper
ProfessorGreene
UWRT1102091
19September2016
Topic Proposal
The game and the community which lives inside of it that I have decided to research is
World of Warcraft. Its a MMORPG which stands for massive multiplayer online role playing
game. It was created by Blizzard Entertainment and the game first launched November 23rd 2004.
Since then it has become the biggest MMORPG on the market as well as the biggest subscriber
based video game. At one point World of Warcraft housed more than 12 million subscribers at its
peak.
The community is among one of the most diverse E-communities around. The game has
players of all ages, races, and cultural backgrounds. Its played in North America, South
America, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific. Players come from all backgrounds of life and social
classes. The game isnt about the players background, its about the character the player chooses
and creates him/herself. As an RPG its often many players only interact with other players
through their characters persona and never break that persona. This is called roleplaying, there
are a few servers dedicated for these players who enjoy these aspects of the game.
I will be specifically focusing on the interactions between players through third party
communication programs such as Skype, Discord, and Ventrillo. I will be comparing the different
programs and why players chose to use them. There is an in game voice client but no one seems

Cooper 2
to use it. I will investigate why players prefer to go out of the World of Warcraft in order to
communicate with each other.
The three sources that I will use to compare and investigate my inquiry questions are as
follows:
By Late Afternoon on October 1st, Blizzard Had Fixed the Issue with Voice Chat and Has since
Turned on the Service for All Realms.[1]. "Voice over Internet Protocol." WoWWiki. N.p., n.d. Web. 20
Sept. 2016.

Explains VoIP and how many players in WOW use them and why theyre useful.
By Signing Up, You Agree to Our Terms and That You Have Read Our Privacy Policy and Content
Policy. "Why Should I Use Discord Instead of Skype and TS3? /r/discordapp." Reddit. N.p., n.d.
Web. 20 Sept. 2016.

Contains forum where users explain the benefits of using Discord over Skype and TS3
By Christopher Lysy | August 11th 2009 12:07 PM | 25 Comments | Print | E-mail | Track Comments.
"World Of Warcraft Is Antisocial? I Think Not."Science 2.0. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2016.

An article that researches and analyzes the social interactions in World of Warcraft and the
different areas of the game you can interact with other players and how.