We have chosen to focus this paper on the importance of game-components in the MMORPG-game World of Warcraft, in order to discover which of them who are the most important and create the biggest motivation to play the game for the players of World of Warcraft. We made this  investigation because we wanted to find out more about the specific reasons about what people think is especially great with World of Warcraft and makes them want to play it for hour after hour. By doing this we wanted to find out what it is that is so appreciated with this game. But this is a big area and it has therefore been difficult to find a way to satisfy and make those who have answered on our survey to feel that the game-component they enjoy most has been a part of our questions. To solve this problem we did a survey that included 200 persons and two interviews. When both the survey and the interviews had been completed, the result was being compared against each other and together to see if there was any difference between them or if they had any similarity to the attraction and motivation. This comparison was done with two theories and one model there was made for game designing. After going through the result we managed to find out that there isn’t a big difference between what attracts and what motivates a player. Our methods showed that most of the players in World of Warcraft play the game to maintain their social network that they have built up for some time. This reason was both the strongest attraction and the most important motivation to play the game. The konwledge we gained from our studie could be used by the game-creators to see which components that is of certain interest of the player. By this the creators (in this case Blizzard) could focus on making these components even better and making the player appreciate the game more.

This dissertation examines how gender is expressed and performed in the virtual gaming community of World of Warcraft. Players were approached through the medium of the game and through various on-line bulletin boards to answer surveys and open-ended interview questions about their experiences as a female player or with female players in this virtual society. In addition to answering questions, this project involved participant observations within several different types of realms or servers in World of Warcraft in order to gain a better understanding of community dynamics. The premise for this research is working through an idealistic notion that virtual communities might break down gender lines through allowing members to pick their gender or doing away with biological differences in gender altogether. This research hopes to dissect this idea and, furthermore, fill an important gap in existing sociological studies about virtual societies and games by making the argument that gender stereotypes carry over from the physical world into virtual spaces and, consequently, affect the vabried interactions of players within this virtual community as well as the gender performance of female players, in particular. Observations and game design suggests that many of the aesthetic principles of the female avatars available in World of Warcraft cater to attracting heterosexual male players. Clothing and armor is revealing and female avatars are highly sexualized not just through appearance, but through programmed behaviors in the game. This research examines the effects of such pre-conditioned parameters on the population of this top ranked game.

Onlinespel fortsätter att växa för varje år och har på ett decennium gått ifrån att vara en trevlig sidosyssla till att tas som arbete. Nutida studier visar att den stereotypiske gamern inte längre existerar. Gruppen gamers är en diversifierad grupp människor ifrån alla världens länder, båda könen inräknade. Trots detta är dock sexism fortfarande väldigt vanligt förekommande inom gamingkulturen. Denna studie syftar till att undersöka hur könsroller upplevs för de som definierar sig som kvinnor. Frågeställningarna som ligger till grund för studien är hur könsroller reproduceras online samt hur de upplevs påverka den enskilde, vilka förväntningar som könsrollerna medför på individen i en grupp online, och hur maktstrukturer samt rådande hegemoni upplevs styra online och påverka individen i sitt vardagliga liv. Resultaten visar att målgruppen generellt upplever sig marginaliserade på den virtuella arenan. Detta främst genom orealistiska förväntningar, annorlunda förutsättningar, sexistiska strukturer och orimliga skillnader i bemötande efter att deras kön offentliggjorts. / Online games continue to grow for each year and in a decade, it has gone from being a nice side activity to for some, classified as work. Contemporary studies show that the stereotypic gamer no longer exists. The gamer group is a diverse group of people from all the world's countries, including both sexes. Nevertheless, sexism is still very common in gaming culture. This study aims at investigating perceived gender roles in regard to people who define themselves as women. The questions underlying the study are how gender roles are reproduced online and how these perceive to influence the individual, what expectations gender roles bring to an individual in a group online and how power structures and current hegemony are perceived to govern online and affect the individual in their daily life. The results show that the target audience generally feels marginalized on the virtual arena. This mainly through unrealistic expectations, different conditions, sexist structures and unreasonable differences in treatment after disclosing their gender.

This thesis examines the concept of different rules within large multiplayer games, how we play thegames and what leads to different rules within a game. It establishes that rules can be explicit andimplicit, as well as based on digital hard rules, softer rules, such as community or social rules and thatplayers will design and build their own games out of these rules.The thesis performs a case study on World of Warcraft: Classics game mechanic, “World Buffs”.Extremely strong buffs that players set-up logistics and organizational tools to have access to during playsessions. As the game progressed through its 6 phases, it became more and more apparent that to raid, orparticipate in “End-Game” content, players had to collect these world buffs, which was costly, either ingold or time.In this thesis, a set of semi-structured interviews were conducted on a couple of “end-game” raidingguilds, to determine why they used world buffs in this content, what drove them to spent the resources tocollect these world buffs, even with the fragility of them, as well as if they enjoyed this practice or not.Interviewed players were both allowed to answer in public and private forms, to examine if there was asocial pressure to oblige, either way.The thesis found that there were three large themes of players, players who enjoyed world buffs, but hadproblems with implementation, players who used world buffs to save in-game resources in some wayshape or form, and players who felt they had a social obligation to bring world buffs to be allowed toparticipate. There were no players who did not take world buffs that were interviewed and only playerswho felt that they did have a social obligation answered in private.The thesis then discusses these results and what implications this can have for multiplayer design andtries to identify further studies on how we can think when designing multiplayer games in the future. Thethesis concludes that yes, players are bound not only to game rules, but also to social rules while they play these games, sometimes even at the cost of their own enjoyment.

Vilka medel använder sig spelarna av för att uppnå immersion, samt skapa emergenta narrativ när de rollspelar i World of Warcraft? 165 rollspelare i World of Warcraft svarade på en enkät med frågor som kretsade kring deras rollspelsvanor, samt vilka medel de använde för att rollspela och skapa immersion. Arbetet tar avstamp i Linderoths (2012) studie där han observerade en rollspelsguild i World of Warcraftunder tio månader, men utvecklar också studien vidare. Både spelet World of Warcraft och hur man rollspelar där har förändrats sedan 2012, och det är tydligt att spelare använder sig av många olika medel för att förhöja sin spelupplevelse för att uppnå immersion. Forskning på rollspel i World of Warcraft är idag bristfällig och efter denna studie står det klart att det fortfarande finns mycket att hämta kring spelarbeteenden och hur de gör för att skapa emergenta narrativ, samt immersion.

World of Warcraft (WoW) är ett onlinespel som spelas av 11,5 miljoner spelare världen över. För vissa av dessa spelare kan livet i WoW ta över nästan allt, så som jobb, skola, andra fritidsintressen och det sociala livet utanför spelet. Förståelsen för detta spelande går isär. Är det bakomliggande faktorer som bidrar till ett högfrekvent spelande eller är det spelet i sig som är beroendeframkallande? Kan man ens bli spelmissbrukare av WoW? Vi kontaktade informanter från fyra olika verksamheter, vilka alla kommer i kontakt med ungdomar, för att få deras åsikter om onlinespelande. Några av de frågeställningar vi har ämnat besvara handlar om: de professionellas föreställningar om spelaren, om de anser att det är ett socialt problem eller inte samt om det är viktigt för professionella att ha kännedom om livet i virtuella världar så som Wow?. Det vi har kommit fram till är att de professionella i sina svar tycks vara färgade av sina respektive yrkesroller. Deras olika förklaringsmodeller, som bl a handlar om bakomliggande orsaker till ett problematiskt spelande, stämmer väl överens med den verksamhet de arbetar i. Det konstateras i intervjuerna att det kan vara svårt att skilja på vad som är vanliga tonårsproblem och vad som är dataspelsberoende samt att det finns en risk för moralpanik då det handlar om dessa frågor. / World of Warcraft (WoW) is an online game that has 11.5 million players all over the world. For some players life in WoW can become more important than real life. The understanding of the game diverges. Is it the excessive amount of time playing the game or the game itself that’s addictive? Is it even possible to get addicted to WoW? We contacted four informants from four different professions, that all work with young people, to get their opinions about online gaming. Some of the questions we have tried to answer is about professional conception of the player, if they consider gaming to be a social problem or not and if it´s important for professionals to have knowledge about the life in virtual worlds such as WoW?.Our findings show that the informants seem to be influenced by their respective roles of profession. Their different explanations, which contain the underlying causes to a problematical gaming, correlates with their profession. We have come to understand that it is difficult to separate what is ordinary teenage problems and what is video game addiction and also that there is a risk for moral panic talking about these questions.

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This study delved into the influence of the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG), World of Warcraft, on players' real-life social interactions and skill development. Employing a mixed-methods approach that combined surveys and structured interviews, our findings suggested that World of Warcraft is a vibrant hub for socialisation and group activities, particularly among young adults. Our findings also revealed the formation of lasting friendships within the game, with a significant number of players extending these connections beyond the virtual realm to other online platforms and even real-life meetings. Guild membership emerged as a pivotal factor, which may have fostered a strong sense of community and belonging among players, as elucidated by the Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Additionally, our analysis revealed notable improvements in communication and teamwork skills among players, echoing the transformative potential of gameplay discussed in the Theory of Transformative Game Design (Bowman & Baird, 2022). Apart from game designers and researchers, this study is also relevant to everyone seeking to develop their social skills and confidence. These findings emphasised the potential impact of World of Warcraft in fostering social integration, skill development, and the cultivation of meaningful relationships that transcend the boundaries of the game environment. As MMORPGs continue to evolve as influential cultural phenomena, our study contributes valuable insights into the nuanced dynamics of online gaming communities and their broader implications for social interaction and personal growth.