world of warcraft
The gamerDNA/Razer WoW Contest – It’s Over!
That’s right guys, it’s time to announce the winners of the gamerDNA/Razer World of Warcraft contest! If you need a refresher on what was being offered, check out the blog post here.
Without further ado, I’d like to announce the winners of the 2nd place prize, one of five Razer DeathAdder™ desktop mice:
And finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for….the winner of the grand prize, a complete Razer desktop set, featuring:
- A Razer DeathAdder™ mouse, with an 1800dpi sensor for precise control
- A Razer Lycosa™ keyboard, with fully programmable keys for macro creation
- A Razer Destructor™ mousepad, optimized for gaming grade mice
- A Razer Piranha™, with pristine sound quality and comfort for the long hours in voice chat
Congratulations to all the winners – if you didn’t win, I’m sorry, it was just the luck of the draw – don’t worry, though, we’ll be hold many more contests on gamerDNA, and there’s a pretty good chance that you WoW players will be part of it!
And to you winners – I’ve already contacted you via PM, so check your inboxes!!!
gamerDNA Launches WoW:WotLK Custom Signatures!
To commemorate the newly dubbed fastest selling game of all time, gamerDNA is launching a brand new, dynamic World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King custom signature!
The signature automatically updates with your character stats, and it even tracks events in the game! Did you just hit level 80? Did you just score an awesome item? Let the world know with the gamerDNA WoW:WotLK signature! Want to get your own? More after the jump
Play World of Warcraft, win Razer Gear!
Hey guys, I’m sure every World of Warcraft fan is waiting with bated breath for the release of the hotly anticipated World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King expansion pack, which is why we here at gamerDNA are getting together with Razer™ to offer some gear that’s sure to ensure that you’re ready to take on the ruler of Northrend.
Here’s what we’re offering to you:
One Grand Prize Pack, featuring a complete Razer desktop set that includes:
- A Razer DeathAdder™ mouse, with an 1800dpi sensor for precise control
- A Razer Lycosa™ keyboard, with fully programmable keys for macro creation
- A Razer Destructor™ mousepad, optimized for gaming grade mice
- A Razer Piranha™, with pristine sound quality and comfort for the long hours in voice chat
In addition to the grand prize, we’re also offering five Razer DeathAdder™ mice to winners who didn’t get a chance to nab the grand prize!
Now, onto the big question – How do I enter?
Well, most likely, you already have! Here’s the deal -
First, you have to make sure you’ve got an account on gamerDNA.
Next, between now and the end of the contest -Wednesday, November 26, 2008 - you can enter by performing one of the following tasks:
- Adding your World of Warcraft character to your gamerDNA – your character on gamerDNA will automatically update as you climb to level 80!
- Adding an image and associating it with World of Warcraft – show off your new gear or just prove to the world that your guild just accomplished the impossible – anything goes as long as it’s World of Warcraft! (Note that only one image entered during the duration of the contest will count as an entry).
- Adding a World of Warcraft experience – tell the world about your favorite World of Warcraft memories.
- Playing the Game! As long as you have your Xfire ID listed as an AKA – you can enter the contest by simply playing WoW!
You can have a maximum of three entries, so get to it!
We’ll announce the winners on Monday, December 1st – make sure you keep an eye on your private messages, we’ll be contacting you through there.
Just to clarify – you don’t need the expansion to enter, but if you’re a serious WoW player, you’re probably going to get it anyway!
Also, please note that the contest is limited to North America.
Horde vs. Alliance Data Smackdown!
As promised, we’re back this week with a better breakdown of Horde/Alliance. Also, this week we’re going to try hosting our charts OURSELVES. I would like to congratulate the readers of the GamerDNA blog for collectively crashing the Chartgizmo server by hammering the everloving heck out of our pretty charts. A big salute and a hug to Steve and Sam, who redid the data from scratch (taking into account all the new people who came over to add their voices to the data). And, um, an apology to Chartgizmo. Sorry, guys. I didn’t mean to love your service to death.
Bartle, Gender, and WOW
Last week’s article was such a hit that we decided to take your advice and do it again, with WoW.
Side note: Feel free to send a comment and let us know what other titles you’d like to see. Note that the data for a particular title is more powerful the more DNA profiles we have – so if you want us to cover a game that you play, make sure you’ve got all your friends from that game over here as well. That sounds like dreadfully gratuitous pimping, I know, but the fact is I can’t draw any conclusions from a data pool of forty people, three of them female. So if you play a less than mainstream title, encourage your friends to sign up, and spread the word on fan sites!
Let’s get going. First, the class breakdown overall:
Obviously, this is less meaningful than the WAR chart, as there is no way (from the data we used) to tell how many of the warriors are Horde and how many are Alliance, and so on. Still, the spread is pretty even, ranging from 6% Shaman to 16% Hunter. The latter makes sense given the mechanics of many WoW encounters. In a future column, we’ll try to dig out the breakdown by Alliance/Horde for you. All I can say for certain is that my data shows Alliance outnumbering Horde by a hair under 6%.
Next, let’s look at the gender breakdown (Note: Gender of the actual player, NOT the gender of the in-game character):
Here’s where I really want to see the Alliance/Horde breakdown, because I suspect some of this balance has to do with which races can play which classes, as it did with the WAR classes. These results aren’t quite as insanely skewed as WAR, but we can see that women are drastically more likely to choose a priest – and men are three times more likely to choose the warrior class as women are, according to their proportion of the population.
Until we get that Alliance/Horde breakdown by class, we can get a rough idea by seeing the player gender breakdown by race:
Okay, on some level, you know some poor researcher is googling “race gender issues” for a Serious Project on Important Topics, and he’s going to get here and see “elves” and “undead.” Furthermore, he’s going to discover a segment of society that cares a whole heck of a lot more about Taurens and Orcs than anything he’s researching. And I wish I could see that guy’s face.
But back on topic: I’ve grouped the Alliance races first, followed by Horde. Again we see women going for the sexy and the lovely, while almost totally avoiding the less delicate races. Orcs and dwarves are sadly neglected among women. Men’s preferences are less pronounced with less of a range. I note with amusement that a slightly higher proportion of women than men choose to play… trolls.
By the way, due to the fact that men outnumber women in WoW, the percentage of players who play a human (remember, last week I pointed out that while everyone tries the freak races, they tend to gravitate to human before long) is at 38% of the total playerbase, even as it’s 20% of all men and 19% of all women. This is why you really need to trust the person spouting statistics at you – it’s really easy to slant things.
As a side note related to proportion, there are nearly four and a half times as many men playing WoW as women. WAR’s proportion of women is nowhere near that, which makes sense given the marketing choices of both games. However, to be fair, women are more likely to play an MMO after watching a friend or loved one take up the game. They are also less likely to be early adopters, since they tend to form long term connections and are wary of the cost of forming such bonds in an environment with no proof of longevity. We’ll come back and take another look in a few years to see if the proportion of women climbed at all. I suspect it will.
So, how about Bartle? What is the percentage of users with each predominate “type”?
Well, the proportion of users who primarily identify themselves as killers is lower than in WAR, obviously. I find it fascinating that in WoW, Killers and Achievers are almost exactly even. Explorers have a whopping 39.5% of the pie, leaving 13.4% for Socializers – exactly the same percentage is WAR has.
Now, let’s see which Bartle types prefer what classes:
Wow, nothing like the definite preferences we saw with WAR. Most types have several classes they like, with the exception of the Explorer having a decided liking for the Hunter above the other classes. However, you can see that the Hunter appeals to all of the archetypes quite evenly.
Finally, since we’re waiting for next week to break it down exactly, let’s see how Bartle might predict a player’s choice of Horde or Alliance:
Wow. That tells me… nothing. Well, okay, not NOTHING. I see that killers prefer Horde by 15% over Alliance. The other three types have a slight preference for Alliance. The proportion of each type that enjoys a particular race is remarkably even.
Overall, even if I knew nothing about the game or its history, I would look at these charts and say this is a game that has settled into its groove.
What say you?
Edit 10/20/2008 5:45pm ET
Due to a crash of our chart provider we had to regenerate the charts after a significant number of new tests and it yielded slightly different numbers due to a few thousand more tests because of the WoW insider article. We have adjusted the article to match the new data.
Free World of Warcraft Guild Hosting (WOTLK is here)
For many November 13th, 2008 can’t come fast enough as over 10 million gamers around world wait impatiently for the release of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. With all the new and exciting stuff coming into the game, what better way to prepare your guild for battle than create a Free Guild site with a Wrath of the Lich King Guild Theme? Creating a guild on gamerDNA now gives you access to three different World of Warcraft guild themes.
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gamerDNA visits BlizzCon 2008
Photo courtesy of WoWInsider.com
This past weekend gamerDNA sent John Findlay and I (Sam Houston) to Blizzard Entertainment’s "BlizzCon" to check out the convention that WoW built. BlizzCon is a convention for all things Blizzard, which means fans from all around the world come to celebrate Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo and World of Warcraft. This year over 15,000 people attended and had the chance to play Starcraft 2, Diablo3 and Wrath of the Lich King…all before their release (and most likely years before release for Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2).
BlizzCon is definitely a sight to behold; The same high level of polish and quality that Blizzard holds their games to is definitely held to their events. The Anaheim Convention Center was decked out with huge signs, stage lighting, booths with hundreds of computers to demo games, stages for tournaments, and a gigantic room complete with a stage for concerts and panels. It’s safe to say that when Blizzard does an event..they do it in style.
What struck me the most about BlizzCon, beyond the high quality of the whole production, was how devoted Blizzard fans are to the company. Not only did 15,000 people attend the convention, but those 15,000 people bought their tickets in 15 minutes, crashing the entire BlizzCon ticket website. These people flew in to California to represent their guild, their server, and in some cases their community. Over the weekend we saw fans of all types, from people who built huge mechanised turtles that you can ride while dressed like a female Dranei, to the guildie that is there to enjoy the game and community that they love.
Blizzard Costume Contest Pictures
Like I mentioned earlier, Diablo 3 was playable at BlizzCon this year, which was the first time ever that the game has been played by the public. Naturally I had to check it out, so I waited in line to get my chance to play the newly announced class: the Wizard. Overall I enjoyed the class and the game quite a bit, I particularly liked the spell effects and the overall graphical look of the game. If you would like a full run-down of Diablo 3 check out Kotaku’s write-up about the game.
Another great part of BlizzCon was all the professional gaming tournaments that CGS and Blizzard was running for Starcraft, Warcraft, and World of Warcraft players(Event Coverage can be found here). The Blizzard event team flew in some of the best players in the world to compete in the world finals at BlizzCon, giving everyone a chance to see some great professional gaming. I’ve never experienced anything like watching the top handful of Warcraft players in the world compete with sportscasting done by the world famous djWheat from CGS. It was very exciting to watch players battle it out with a live crowd of hundreds of gamers to cheer them on and celebrate their victories.
All of this was capped off Saturday night with a live concert by Video Games Live, an orchestra of over 100 people backed by a full chorus which performed songs from all of the Blizzard games. Listening to some of the best video game music ever written while sitting in a crowd of over 15,000 people was definitely one of the coolest things I’ve done.
All in all I think the most exciting thing for me that I take away from these events, as a gamer, is that gaming is a cultural phenomenon and it is here to stay. Every race, culture and background was represented at BlizzCon and everyone of the gamers there got along. Everyone was there for one thing: To celebrate their gaming and share it with their fellow gamer.
Experience Roundup – Female Gamers Edition
Female gaming isn’t some kind of nebulous concept somewhere out there in the ether of Barbie Horse Adventures and The Sims, it’s everywhere, and this time we’re highlighting some of the coolest experiences on gamerDNA for this edition of the gamerDNA Experience Roundup.
