World of Warcraft has millions of active members.
That’s what happens when every member is encourage to join or start their own guild, tackle objectives together and compete against other guilds.
It’s really quite impressive.
Imagine what elements you can use to make your community a success.
I actually have written 2 articles on this exact subject. One of which was on Mashable: http://mashable.com/2009/05/11/world-of-warcraft-social-media/
Posted by: Stuart Foster | Monday, 29 June 2009 at 15:44
But how can we make engaging with our communited as addictive as World of Warcraft (or Warcrack as it's often reffered to)?
Posted by: Simon | Tuesday, 30 June 2009 at 13:26
With 6 years of incredibly hard work, focusing on exactly what is required to build a community.
First, make something amazing, something that nobody else does (World of Warcraft did something that Everquest, Ultima Online and the other MMO's did not. Don't ask, I don't know what, but it should be findable). Second, keep on improving it (currently, over 20 updates to the content including new area's and more levels and bosses to kill). Third, make it easy and acceptable to invite new members.
It wasn't 11 million people at first. 18 months ago, it was 6 million, 18 months before that, 3 million. Do not underestimate the amount of work that has gone into creating WoW and making it amazing.
Posted by: Sebastian | Thursday, 02 July 2009 at 06:23
A little research through the archives of an MMO review blog (tobolds.blogspot.com) tells me that, as I suspected, World of Warcraft was amazing because of the polish.
This is something of a cultural thing at Blizzard, who have made a total of 7 games across the last 12 years, every single one recieving rave reviews, from critics and from players.
Quality is everything, no passion = no quality.
Posted by: Sebastian | Thursday, 02 July 2009 at 06:37
I disagree slightly with that Sebastian. I don't believe World of Warcraft is the best MMO out there. There is usually only a limited correlation between the quality of the game and it's success. The Sims is awful, but shockingly popular.
Instead, I believe they did what the Nintendo Wii did. They targeted a new audience.
They turned MMO's from a geek audience to the mass market. They used their Warcraft strategy audience to help promote it and went for the mass market rather than the niche MMO audience.
Certainly Eve Online is the best MMO :-)
Posted by: Richard Millington | Friday, 03 July 2009 at 00:45
I guess there really is no best MMO. As the saying goes - beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. We have different preferences, that's why we play/like different games.
Posted by: world of warcraft gold | Monday, 06 July 2009 at 03:07
Richard: Eve may be the best now (arguable, I wouldn't enjoy the non-consensual PvP) but it wasn't an option in 2004. Then it was Everquest or WoW, that is a completely different situation than it is now.
For the record, since WoW launched there have been multiple 'better' MMO's, Eve, Darkfall, Dark Age of Camelot etc. etc. etc. but they failed to reach the success of WoW because they didn't build their community well.
For the record, I'm about to quit WoW and go try Dungeons and Dragons online... we'll see how that goes.
Posted by: Sebastian | Thursday, 09 July 2009 at 04:22
Also, you have a really high quality of gold seller spam... I didn't even realise that's what it was until I say the name/URL
Posted by: Sebastian | Thursday, 09 July 2009 at 04:23
hello,
Thanks for post. It’s really imformative stuff.
I really like to read.Hope to learn a lot and have a nice experience here! my best regards guys!
--
DevidHussay
Posted by: DevidHussay | Saturday, 11 July 2009 at 19:23
I do agree this. WoW has innumerably huge number of members.
Posted by: World of Warcraft Accounts | Thursday, 30 July 2009 at 15:56