For those that don’t remember their History lessons from grade school, the United States was often referred to as “The Great Melting Pot” because of all the different types of cultures that were united on common ground. As a result, our culture is extremely diverse and ever-changing.
Today I set off on my two-week tour of Texas to visit all the family (so any form of consistency my blog did or did not have will almost certainly have some inconsistency). As I drove back to my home state, I began to think of my past, present and future. I have no idea where I will end up geographically speaking, but I know that The South will always have a presence in my past, should I find myself making a life elsewhere.
All that pondering got me thinking about culture variations and what it might mean for me and my family someday, and then I began to think about the effect it has on WoW.
The Guild Effect
Some guilds are comprised of local individuals that all play WoW together. Some guilds are built from people who only know each other through WoW. Either way, unless you’re pretty restrictive about recruiting people for your guild, you will find yourself in the midst of some players from all around the world.
If you’re not in an entirely local guild, you might be surprised at the different regions represented on your roster. Making a guild map can really open your eyes to where people are geographically (no stalker business now…). I learned that we have a significant number of individuals from Canada, as well as one or two in the Philippines o.o
It’s natural for guilds to wind up generally occupying just two to three time zones because people will want to be on playing at peak log-in times for their guild. Of course, though, there’s always the one or two odd individuals that will play whenever it suits them :P
Raid times are generally what effects the distribution of your members geographically. Certain raid times will benefit certain time zones based on your general work/school schedule, so people will often migrate to groups that raid at times lining up with their personal free time.
The Role Culture Plays
Blizzard had certianly acknowledged the worldwide acclaim of World of Warcraft by developing realm groupings based on country. So far we have US, European, Korean, Chinese and Taiwan, and I think I’ve heard news of Russian servers in the works (feel free to fill in on any zones I’ve overlooked, I’m afraid I haven’t done my homework on this =X).
Aside from geographical targeting and languages associated with each region of servers, there’s a few game play differences. For instance, on Chinese servers the Forsaken race has a different model than it does on other servers due to cultural beliefs regarding corpses and the revealing of bones.
Blizzard does all kinds of region-specific marketing. I think most people know about the World of Warcraft commercials, in different languages, along with the numerous knock-offs. There’s also the various holidays through out the year such as the Lunar Festival and Brewfest that are modeled after actual cultural celebrations.
It’s quite obvious that Blizzard is aware of the people playing their game. I think it’s really interesting to see how the different cultures influence the game both socially as well as developmentally.
