World of Warcraft, also referred to as WoW, is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released by Blizzard Entertainment in November 2004. World of Warcraft has a subscriber base of ten million, the largest amount among role-playing games of its type. In World of Warcraft, teams of players gather to tackle dungeons, complete missions, which is known as raiding, or to accrue experience for their characters, known as leveling. Communication is a key part of playing World of Warcraft. Players of World of Warcraft communicate both inside and outside of the online game experience in order to better co-ordinate with each other, plan out strategy, or just as friends.

There are people who are intimidated by World of Warcraft. They watch videos of the game being played and see images that can be very hard for someone unfamiliar with the game to understand. People who are not familiar with World of Warcraft can also hear people who play the game talk about the game and become more apprehensive toward this product. Some may argue that this is purposeful, that the language used by people who actively play World of Warcraft is designed to keep people away from the game. Is this really the case? Is the language that is used by active player of World of Warcraft truly exclusionary?

In order to attempt to answer this question, I chose to listen to a group of people who actively play World of Warcraft talk about the game. For this purpose, I chose to listen to a podcast produced independently of Blizzard Entertainment, produced instead by a group of people who play World of Warcraft. The Best Little Horde House In Azeroth, or Horse House for short, is a podcast focused on World of Warcraft. The hosts of the podcast talk about news, issues, and their own experiences playing World of Warcraft. The purpose of Horde House is for the hosts to gather and talk about their experiences playing World of Warcraft, and also to give other players of World of Warcraft something to listen to that pertains to the game. For this paper, episodes seventy-four, seventy-five, seventy-six, and seventy-seven are used as material.

The regular hosts for the show are Rob, Shane Xtopher, and Grandpa. Rob and Xtopher are present for all four of the episodes used for this paper. Shane is present for episodes seventy-four, seventy-six, and seventy-seven. Grandpa is present for episodes seventy-four, seventy-five, and seventy-six. A special guest host named Sunshine is present during episode seventy-five. The hosts of the show seem to have a lot of experience and knowledge about World of Warcraft.

The Best Little Horde House In Azeroth is a show that integrates the internet into the production and execution of the show. The hosts of the show call each other, using the online telecommunication program Skype. Each of the hosts brings a news story, obtained from the internet, which is presented and discussed. Listeners of the show can interact with the show either through the show’s Email, Twitter, or Facebook segments. The program is recorded and disseminated by one of the hosts, most likely Rob.

One kind of language to be explained is the way that patches are explained. A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. During episode seventy-four of The Best Little Horde House In Azeroth, Shane describes the latest patch to World of Warcraft like this:

Shane- Yeah, this isn’t big news though. This is just a little news story called “They Updated The Game With A New Patch”. It’s a very minor patch, 5.0.5, and most of it seems to be tool tip corrections, because of the random rebalancing they’ve been doing constantly to the game. But there are a couple of neat bug fixes that people can appreciate, like the spell graphic for the Arcane Bomb during the, uh, Queen Azshara encounter, and, um, you know that instance, that stupid one, Eternity. It’s been reduced to what they call a reasonable size, because if you’ve played that instance since the patch came out, 5.0.4, it takes up, like, the entire screen. I think it goes on a little bit to the wall behind my computer monitor.

(Rob, Xtopher, Shane, & Grandpa, The Best Little Horse House In Azeroth- Episode 74- Quit being so fat, you guys!, 2012)

Shane is basing his description of the effect of the patch from the World of Warcraft Patch 5.0.5 Notes and is also adding in some of his own experience. While Shane is describing the effect of the patch in a way that some people may not understand, it can be argued that Shane is merely cutting through the technical jargon that is found in the source material. This is an excerpt of the World of Warcraft Patch 5.0.5 Notes, including the section Shane referencing the Arcane Bomb:

Bug Fixes

· Well of Eternity

· The spell graphic for Arcane Bomb during the Queen Azshara encounter has been reduced to a reasonable size.

Ulduar

· The Silence and Pacify effects from Conservator's Grip are now removed from players once they step within the appropriate area radius of a Healthy Spore mushroom.

Dragon Soul

· Player pets should no longer experience pathing issues when attacking Deathwing's Arm Tentacles.

· Congealing Bloods now move at slower base speed.

Master Looters can again assign loot to players in other groups within a raid.

The Refer-A-Friend Summon should again function as expected.

Worgen players on pre-Cataclysm accounts should be able to accept and complete all Gilneas quests.

Players should again be able to teleport out of the Firelands Hatchery in Hyjal if they have completed Aessina's Miracle.

Players should be able to use the new Fishing spell where appropriate.

Crossing coalesced zone boundaries should not duplicate profession recipes.

Players should no longer inappropriately receive the "Requires master riding skill" or "Requires artisan riding skill" errors when attempting to mount certain mounts.

Items in the Auction House UI should no longer display in reverse order when sorted.

The PvP node capture bar should be back in expected locations such as Wintergrasp, Tol Barad and Venture Bay.

Players should no longer be placed into battlegrounds that they have downvoted while queueing for a Random battleground.

Flying over Wintergrasp when no battle is active should no longer cause a forced dismount.

Accepting a quest that flags you for PvP combat should no longer prevent you from accepting further quests.

Resolved a Mac issue related to CPU usage.

As he deserves, Crithto should now be attackable by both Alliance and Horde players.

(Kaivax, 2012)

The language seen in these patch notes assumes the reader has a high level of knowledge about the things being references, as well as a small amount of technical knowledge. The use of this kind of language is not unique to Blizzard Entertainment and World of Warcraft. This is a small section of how Apple describes the security updates made in the latest patch to the iTunes software, 10.7:

iTunes 10.7

§ WebKit

Available for: Windows 7, Vista, XP SP2 or later

Impact: Visiting a maliciously crafted website may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution

Description: Multiple memory corruption issues existed in WebKit. These issues are addressed through improved memory handling.

CVE-ID

CVE-2011-3016 : miaubiz

CVE-2011-3021 : Arthur Gerkis

CVE-2011-3027 : miaubiz

CVE-2011-3032 : Arthur Gerkis

CVE-2011-3034 : Arthur Gerkis

CVE-2011-3035 : wushi of team509 working with iDefense VCP, Arthur Gerkis

CVE-2011-3036 : miaubiz

(Apple Inc., 2012) This description of the security update goes on for several pages in this kind of form.

This is how Adobe describes the 11.5 Update to Adobe Flash Player:

ADOBE FLASH PLAYER 11.5 (WIN AND MAC) AND 11.2 (LINUX) - 32 BIT AND 64 BIT DEBUGGER (AKA DEBUG PLAYER OR CONTENT DEBUGGERS) AND STANDALONE (AKA PROJECTORS) PLAYERS FOR FLEX AND FLASH DEVELOPERS.

11/6/2012 – Updated debugger and standalone versions of Flash Player. These players contain fixes for critical vulnerabilities identified in Security Bulletin APSB12-24 . The latest versions are 11.5.502.110 (Win and Mac), 11.3.276.12 (Windows 8) and 11.2.202.251 (Linux). All users are encouraged to update to these latest versions.

(Adobe Systems Incorporated, 2012)

While this kind of complex technical language used to describe software updates seems to be common among most computer companies, a question arises if this language is also common among video game companies. Assassin’s Creed III is a video game released on October 30^th, 2012 by the Canadian based developer Ubisoft. This is an excerpt of how Ubisoft describes the Assassin’s Creed III Thanksgiving Patch:

Multiplayer

Multiplayer Modes
- ASSASSINATE - Instances where it was possible for players to kill players that were not their target in Assassinate have been corrected.
- ASSASSINATE - Bodyguards no longer fail to stun when they are locked by the pursuer of the player they protect.
- DEATHMATCH - In Fort Wolcott, fixed a bug where players would remained stuck on warmup screen.
- MANHUNT - The cooldown boosts for loss streak bonus are not permanently active for all abilities during a manhunt round anymore.

Multiplayer Abilities
- Loss Streak now correctly triggers when players lose their contracts five times in a row.
- Disruption now breaks the hitting player’s lock.
- The Smoke Bomb’s drop behavior has been updated. It now drops at the user’s feet instead of dropping in front of them. However, if players drop it from a ledge, it will drop below them.
- Throwing Knives used against players hiding in haystacks will now make them get out of this haystack.
- Using Throwing Knives against a target now prevents the target from contesting the kill.
- Players are no longer stuck after using the Money Bomb from a ledge.

Multiplayer Ladders
- Several issues which occurred when players would quit a Manhunt pre-session lobby and join their friends the same session later have been corrected.
- After a session ends on a draw, both teams will now receive the same rate for Abstergo ladder, instead of one team getting a winning rate and the other getting a losing rate.
- Players are now granted Abstergo points normally even if one or several players get the idle state at the end of the session (The idle players do not get any Abstergo points)

Multiplayer Misc
- It is now possible for players to lock their target when their target has just stunned them.
- Changing the ability set three times during a game can no longer reset the ability’s cooldown.
- The X icon no longer inaccurately persistently displays.
- It is no longer possible for players to get up and perform a kill under certain conditions while they’re vulnerable.
- Transitions to join Multiplayer sessions after an invite now work correctly.
- Warm up games are no longer interrupted when the host player leaves.
- It is now possible to stun a vulnerable pursuer.
- The X icon no longer displays above the pursuer’s previous target when they have been stunned after being vulnerable.

(FredEx919, 2012)

The kind of complex technical jargon may be difficult for even people with knowledge of the product being described to understand, much less people who are new to the product. Shane’s attempt to cut through the jargon allows people who may not readily understand the language commonly used to describe the patches software companies make to their products understand the effects of the patch. So, in this example, the language Shane used is not exclusionary.

Another example of language people who don’t play World of Warcraft might not understand comes from episode seventy-five of Horde House.

Rob- What’s you plan for Pandaria? Who’s your first character that you’re taking to ninety?

Sunshine- I don’t know. I mean, probably my Death Knight. I mean, she’s still, kind of, my main, but I don’t know. Probably my Druid after that, and, I don’t know.

Rob- You know you’re going to roll a Monk somewhere.

Sunshine- Oh yeah. That, honestly, that going to be, probably, my first thing I focus on actually, because I’m not really going to be in a rush to hit ninety.

(Rob, Xtopher, Grandpa, & Sunshine, The Best Little Horse House In Azeroth- Episode 75- Cataclysm, Sashay Away!, 2012)

In this excerpt, Rob and Sunshine use several different terms to describe the various characters Sunshine plays in the game. Similar descriptive language is used by Rob and Shane in this excerpt from episode seventy-four of Horde House, responding to a question from a listener named Phantamous.

Rob- Monk or Priest? Shane, I haven’t played around with Monk. What would you say are kind of the differences that Phantamous needs to consider? I mean, at the end of the day, I don’t know, what fits your play style, right?

Shane- Well, the first thing is what spec are you going? Because if he’s doing, choosing between those two, I assume, the only thing they really share is healing, since their DPS is ranged or melee when one tanks. So, if he’s going Priest, you might be able to speak to that a little bit more, but for Monk healing, it’s all about, like, how your spells work with one another. And it looks like you better be prepared so melee some too.

Rob- As far as Priests go, if you like to play with the bubbles and the shields, the Disc Priests get to do a lot of that. It’s really about anticipating damage, whereas Holy is a little bit more about reacting to damage. I think Holy is a little bit underrated, because a lot of people are like “Holy Priests are so plain”, but there is a lot of flexibility within Holy Priest because of the chakras. There are different, because you could be a tank healer or a raid healer all in one. I gotta hand it to Holy because it’s got that ability. Disc you can kind of do that to an extent too. They’re both very flexible kinds of healers. I would imagine Monk is going to have one particular kind of style to it, whereas with a Priest if you really want to heal you can have that flexibility. And, of course, there’s Shadow Priest.

Xtopher- And, if you wanna be the best, be a Druid.

(Rob, Xtopher, Shane, & Grandpa, The Best Little Horse House In Azeroth- Episode 74- Quit being so fat, you guys!, 2012)

There is also this excerpt where Sunshine goes in depth about one of his characters.

Sunshine- I’ve been leveling my Warlock, who I hadn’t really touched since the beginning of Cataclysm, because Warlocks were really, kind of like, really overbloated in Cataclysm with the rotations, and stuff. You know, one of the things they were touting with the new talent overhaul and class overhauls is that each Warlock spec is going to have its own resource system now. They’ve cleaned up the rotations. So, my Warlock, she’s mainly affliction, but I also decided to give her a destruction spec, because destruction always felt, kind of, like just a firery version of a regular Warlock. It’s so different now. It’s really weird. You have a passive skill that increases you mana regen by, like, I think 625%. Basically you’re just like spamming you nuke, pretty much, and hitting some things whenever they’re charged up, and your building up burning embers. So, it’s kind of really interesting and unique caster spec. But, I still prefer affliction.

(Rob, Xtopher, Grandpa, & Sunshine, The Best Little Horse House In Azeroth- Episode 75- Cataclysm, Sashay Away!, 2012)

Setting aside the question about what “spamming you nuke” means, a person who doesn’t play World of Warcraft may be puzzled about some of the terms used to describe the characters being played. What do words like Death Knight, Druid, Monk, Priest, and Warlock mean, and how do they relate to the characters being discussed?

A way to answer this question is to think about a busy office workplace. Usually in an office setting everybody doesn’t do the same job. Different people work on different things, based on that person’s skills and expertise. In an office that works in a coherent fashion, different people with different skills work on different parts of a task to accomplish a common goal. Such is the case with World of Warcraft.

Death Knight, Druid, Monk, Priest, and Warlock are examples of different job classes in World of Warcraft. When a player creates a new character in WoW, there are nine different job classes to choose from, with a tenth class that can be unlocked later in the game. Each of these job classes come with different attributes and abilities that the character can utilize. These different attributes and abilities help the player, as well as people in that player’s group, achieve the goals they wish to accomplish.

World of Warcraft is not alone it its use of job classes. There are many video games that utilize a job class system. Final Fantasy X-2, a role playing game like World of Warcraft, features seventeen different job classes, ranging from Alchemist to White Mage to Mascot. Guild Wars 2, an online role playing game that competes against World of Warcraft, features eight different job classes broken down into three different character professions. Even Battlefield 3, a first person shooter played primarily online, features four different classes to choose from, representing the different roles that a soldier can take on the field of battle.

The use of job classes in other video games shows a commonality in the use of this language. Different games use job classes differently, and different names are used for what may be the same kind of job class, but the concept is the same. However, a problem arises in the following example:

Rob- You know, I think Allen is going through something similar. Now, he’s not here to defend himself, but since he lives with me, I’ll feel the need to speak on his behalf. He’s been having a hard time adjusting to the talents too. He’s not been playing WoW as much, and I think that a lot of it too, and he’s a Boomkin, and I think a lot of it is, like, “What do you mean there’s no Insect Swarm?”

(Rob, Xtopher, Grandpa, & Sunshine, The Best Little Horse House In Azeroth- Episode 75- Cataclysm, Sashay Away!, 2012)

In this case, the use of the word “Boomkin” may be particularly perplexing for people who do not play World of Warcraft. Even people who play other role playing games may be confused as to what this word means. Describing something as a “Death Knight” causes people to make an association with a Black Knight, common in medieval lore. Describing something as a “White Mage” causes people to make an association with someone who uses magic for a positive end. What association is made with a “Boomkin”? What is a Boomkin?

A search for an explaination of the word “Boomkin” brings up the following answer:

Players have given the moonkin form many nicknames. These are normally short and end with -kin; some of them are: Boomkin, a moonkin druid with a high damage output; Oomkin, a moonkin with poor mana regen; Doomkin, a good PVP moonkin (rarely used); Noob/newbkin, a bad/inexperienced moonkin druid; and Panzerkin, a tanking moonkin. Sometimes these nicknames are used to describe a particular druid, but most of the time players use them as a general term. Many moonkin druids find some of these nicknames insulting.

(Wikia, Inc., 2012)

The use of the word Boomkin to describe this character may have the effect of alienating people who do not play the game. There is no ready association between the character and the word used to describe that character. Other problems of this nature come when looking at language used to describe how the game is played.

This excerpt is from episode seventy-four of Horde House:

Shane- And then, LFR is stupid. And it just teases you with stuff.

(Rob, Xtopher, Shane, & Grandpa, The Best Little Horse House In Azeroth- Episode 74- Quit being so fat, you guys!, 2012)

This is an excerpt from episode seventy-five of Horde House:

Sunshine- I thought LFR was great. I mean, even though the other people in it aren’t always great, just, you know, the steps that they took to make the game more accessable, which has really been something has started really back in mid-Rath, when they introduced the dungeon finder, and stuff.

(Rob, Xtopher, Grandpa, & Sunshine, The Best Little Horse House In Azeroth- Episode 75- Cataclysm, Sashay Away!, 2012)

In both of these excerpts, something called “LFR” is mentioned. Shane expresses a dislike for LFR, while Sunshine says he likes LFR, but neither of them says what LFR is. In fact, nowhere during the four episodes of Horse House used as material for this essay is LFR explained.

There are places online where LFR is explained. According to Wowpedia, “The Raid Finder (or “Looking For Raid”, commonly abbreviated as “LFR”), similar to the Dungeon Finder, is a tool that helps players find and join a random or specific raid instance with others.” The problem with this is that if you were unfamiliar with World of Warcraft and wanted to know what LFR was, you could not rely on the players of World of Warcraft to explain it. An outsider would have had to use an online source because those on the inside spoke in a way that only those on the inside understand.

Another example of this behavior occurs during episode seventy-four of Horde House.

Grandpa- Have you ever tanked, Rob?

Rob- Not- No- Ah, actually I take it back. I do have an endgame character, my Warrior is eighty-five, and I use that player. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it.

Shane- I plan on becoming a Druid tank again in the next pack.

Rob- I, on Drenden, where the official Horde House guild is- Best Little Horde House on Drenden Hordeside- on Drenden server, I have a level twenty-five Paladin that I was tanking with. Jamie and I were leveling characters over there. That was a lot of fun. I love the Captain America tanking. That’s fun.

Xtopher- And with the change to Holy power, it actually, I hear, makes tanking a lot of fun on Paladins.

Rob- What about you Grandpa? You have a tank?

Grandpa- I have everything.

(Rob, Xtopher, Shane, & Grandpa, The Best Little Horse House In Azeroth- Episode 74- Quit being so fat, you guys!, 2012)

In this excerpt Rob and Shane discuss their experience tanking. Shane talks about how he wants to be a druid tank, while Rob talks about how he used his level twenty-five Paladin as a tank. Neither host gives an explanation as to what tanking is. This is despite tanking being an activity that one must prepare themselves to do, as is shown in this excerpt from episode seventy-five:

Xtopher- Also, I have this interest in tanking this time. But, ah, I didn’t realize that with the talent reset they actually kept you two specs that you had before, you know. So, I didn’t really venture into respecing yet. Plus, I don’t have any gear for the other specs.

(Rob, Xtopher, Grandpa, & Sunshine, The Best Little Horse House In Azeroth- Episode 75- Cataclysm, Sashay Away!, 2012)

Tanking also appears to be an enjoyable way to play the game, as is shown in this excerpt from later on in episode seventy-five:

Rob- Let’s get into some Warcraft Tweets at Twitter.com/HordeHouse. FlacoJones starting us off tonight. “My favorite part of the scenario was tanking as an Elemental Shaman. Reminded me of early WoW, we did more unorthodox stuff.”

(Rob, Xtopher, Grandpa, & Sunshine, The Best Little Horse House In Azeroth- Episode 75- Cataclysm, Sashay Away!, 2012)

There are several conclusion that can be drawn from these examples of how players of World of Warcraft speak. The general tone of The Best Little Horde House In Azeroth seems to be friendly, comical, and generally non-confrontational. All of the hosts seem to be friends who know each other and how each of them plays the game. The familiarity had between the hosts of the show allows them to feel free to talk about things that go on in the game. This friendly atmosphere may explain why the hosts discussed things in the way that they did without feeling the need to explain what they were talking about. Even people who have knowledge and experience in playing other video games, and even other role playing video games, may have a problem following the discussion had in this podcast. Not all of the examples presented here are purposefully exclusionary. Some of the exclusionary tactics are a result of the way that companies communicate with the public, or how the normal public may be unaware of the mechanics that video games are commonly built on. However, these exclusionary tactics are there, and are a part of the reason that people who do not actively play World of Warcraft are intimidated from doing so.

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