Virtual Community Report

My chosen community is fans, players, and general followers of the Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game World of Warcraft.

The general purpose of the site is to allow discussion between members of the fanbase, but more importantly it gives blizzard an insight into what the players are asking for, and gives them near instant feedback on the evolution of their world.

In certain instances it also gives members a direct line of contact with blizzard, who not only moderate the forums but will on occasion directly respond to questions or concerns which they feel are especially important.

The playerbase for WoW is huge, I am unsure of the exact figure but it runs in the millions across several countries. Not all players use the forums, or at least participate in them actively, but a significant amount do, and this amount is even higher if you take into account the number of people who use it infrequently as a reference point, which does not require registration.

This actually creates problems as all WoW servers are shutdown at approximately the same time each week for maintenance, and the website / forum servers are bombarded so heavily that it is often difficult or impossible to access the services during the downtime.