Practicum 8-Carly

Now that I have finished exploring World of Warcraft for this practicum project, there are several conclusions that I can draw from my gameplay experience. Identity and community are the two major recurring themes that I thought were most important when thinking about World of Warcraft in terms of this class. Your identity in World of Warcraft shapes your entire experience within the game as it impacts what you can do, who you can communicate with, and what journeys and missions you will attempt as you play. World of Warcraft is also strongly based on community development and promoting a group identity; the game encourages interaction among other players as those who choose to work in teams as the game progresses tend to fare better as things become more challenging in the different realms. For much of the course of this project, I played World of Warcraft by myself; much of the missions that I accepted at lower levels did not require any interaction with other players and eventually I found that tedious and repetitive; I had trouble looking forward to playing because I felt that I constantly did the same thing over and over. When I played on a friend's higher-level account, I had a much more enjoyable time as it required me to work with other people. It was strange to talk to people that I have never met or seen before and even stranger to do it in the context of World of Warcraft, but it no doubt made the game more interesting and intriguing and easier to see why the game has attracted over 12 million members since its initial introduction.