World of Warcraft

For those of you that are familiar with behaviorism, this game is one big operant conditioning experiment on YOU.

It is a variable ratio schedule of reinforcement. You don't know how many responses (ie - attacks on an enemy, or whatever) it will take to get the payoff (experience, treasure, or just the buzz from watching a creature die). A VR schedule produces the highest rate of responding, in chimpanzee, pigeons... or YOU. That is why it is the most common schedule of reinforcement in the game.

The game also uses fixed interval schedules, when certain tasks can only be completed at certain times of the day or month.

One of the keys in a reinforcement schedule is to not have the payoff require too many responses, otherwise there is ratio strain (too much effort for too little reward).

The game gets around this by creating a strong reinforcement history, having a small Variable Ratio schedule maybe VR4 (an average of 4 attacks will kill a creature at level 1 or 2). Once you have been conditioned, the reinforcement schedule is "thinned" (it takes 10, then 20, then 40, then 200, then 1,000 attacks to get the reward).

"Thinning" is done slowly - they are training you to do more and more for less and less - one step at a time.

Behaviorists have trained monkeys to press a lever 10,000 times for a single banana in this manner. They will press the lever until they tear muscles, break their own bones, bleed themselves, for hours.

Are you feeling smart now? For more information, look up behaviorism, or reinforcement theory, on the net.

When you are done reading, delete your character, cancel your account, and chop the game disks into small pieces with a sharp pair of scissors.

Blizzard has always delivered a quality, well-thought-out product. World of Warcraft is certainly no exception. When this game was announced, it already had many fans (prospective players): those who played the original Warcraft games (of which there were three).

This game now has 50.6% of the entire MMORPG market (according to http://www.mmogchart.com/) at the time of this writing. Blizzard is doing something that most other MMO creators have yet to do consistently: stay on top of the problems. Yes, it has some things that need to be fixed, but far less that any other MMO I've played.

The world in which this game is set is absolutely stunning and brilliant in complexity as well as it's immersive nature. Players choose sites between either the Horde or Alliance, then select a race followed by a class (i.e.: a warrior, a mage, etc). The Warcraft series has already developed a full, rich lore on which the World of Warcraft can draw it's own story line.

I know that Wikipedia isn't always overly accurate, but I must say, if you're curious about this game, I'd say read the Wikipedia article.

Gold is easier to amass.

The new LFG system is one of the best additions ever to the game.

Recruit a friend bonuses and perks make for fast leveling.

Heirloom items bound to account make leveling Alts fun and very smooth.

The Game has never been this well rounded before.

I've played since original launch and have never had this much of a good time playing.

The new LFG system is painless and you are able to gain emblems with extreme ease.

Recruiting a friend makes the whole game a lot more fun. each of you gain perks and special abilities.

cant wait for the next expansion.

Edit: Revamps and additions ruined the game, had to walk away.

Excitement, adventure, and amazement unfolded when the game first came out, like opening the gates of a wonderland. Focused on polished game play and community, World of Warcraft learned much from its declining predecessors and impressively has this original version in tact. Role play servers were for role-players and was a norm both in random interaction as well as guilds.

Customer service is a definite highlight, changes are positive as they are in response to player's interests/requests. Finding quests can be a bit of a challenge at times and in the series, this version is the most difficult to survive questing especially solo.

Although Classic is still around today, the wave of nostalgia players have come and gone (now that Burning Crusade Classic is the rage). This means there's not really much of a community anymore as well as little to buy/sell at the auction house. Few role players can be found on the role play server. On the upside, there's no competition for questing, nuisance chat or spam, so the world feels big again. Difficulty is up, finding groups, earning gold, and a good-fit guild is down.

Great Characters and Story lines. I never got bored of this game. There is no way of completing it, once you have reached the maximum level there are endless ways of bettering your character. Then you can start with a new race and have all new levels and quests. I also like looking for all of the homage to things in the real world. If you look at the trivia section in IMDb and have a look, some of them are really obvious but you don't see them.

Best game i have ever played. But the game takes over your life. If you are thinking of starting to play be very careful as it is highly addictive. But like i said it is the best game i have ever played. Enough said.