The Battle for Azeroth: Adventure, Alliance, And Addiction Insights into the World of Warcraft

Smart Pop

by Bill Fawcett (Editor)

Aimed at dedicated fans of the role playing game World of Warcraft, this dynamic collection of essays explores the undying fascination with a game that is a welcome escape from reality for millions of people around the world. Gaming experts, developers, and bestselling sci-fi authors examine the overwhelming success of the game and the underlying motivations for gamers to spend, on average, as much time as they would at a part-time job battling in the world of Azeroth, and address issues ranging from economics and psychology to addiction and game ethics are addressed, as are the outstanding design of the game and the histories of several main characters.

Contents:
Part one: The game --
Elegant game design: fishing for those missing hours / Scott Cuthbertson --
Underworld of Warcraft / James John Bell --
World of Warcraft: timesink of the gods / Justina Robson --
LGF--
and a little more / Nancy Berman --
Reframed relationships: MMORPGs and societies / Mel White --
The economy of World of Warcraft / Jerry Jackson --
Ancestors and competitors / Chris McCubbin --
Maps and mapping / James M. Ward --
Should we sell World of Warcraft by prescription only? / Maressa Hecht Orzack and Deborah S. Orzack --
Altaholics not so anonymous / Doranna Durgin and Nancy Durgin --
I play like a girl: yes, that level 60 night elf warrior is mine / Nancy Berman --
Advice to the WoWlorn / Jody Lynn Nye --
Part two: World of Warcraft classes / Chris McCubbin --
Paladin --
Priest --
Shaman --
Druid --
Rogue --
Mage --
Warrior --
Warlock --
Hunter.

Genres: Gaming, Games, Nonfiction

296 pages, Paperback

First published June 10, 2006

About the author

Bill Fawcett has been a professor, teacher, corporate executive, and college dean. His entire life has been spent in the creative fields and managing other creative individuals. He is one of the founders of Mayfair Games, a board and role-play gaming company. As an author, Fawcett has written or coauthored over a dozen books and dozens of articles and short stories. As a book packager, a person who prepares series of books from concept to production for major publishers, his company, Bill Fawcett & Associates, has packaged more than 250 titles for virtually every major publisher. He founded, and later sold, what is now the largest hobby shop in Northern Illinois.

Fawcett’s first commercial writing appeared as articles in the Dragon magazine and include some of the earliest appearances of classes and monster types for Dungeons & Dragons. With Mayfair Games he created, wrote, and edited many of the Role Aides role-playing game modules and supplements released in the 1970s and 1980s. During this period, he also designed almost a dozen board games, including several Charles Roberts Award (gaming's Emmy) winners, such as Empire Builder and Sanctuary.

Reviews

[Geoff Battle · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Battle for Azeroth presents twelve subjective narratives from a range of academics, writers and programmers around the phenomena of the world's greatest MMO to date. There are a further nine chapters, each dealing with the classes available for players to chose to play within the game. The content of the first part offers little that any level sixty (or now seventy) player would find insightful. There are some interesting points though, for example the chapter covering the addiction factor is a hoot, and there are plenty of interesting factual paragraphs which fans will find interesting. Unfortunately these gems are rare, buried amongst the narrative covering the 'day job' information on WoW. Newcomers to WoW will find this book far more insightful.

The second half offers a different approach. It details the 'factual' history of each of the classes and is interesting reading. It also offers some tactics (in no way as comprehensive as Prima's guides). Both new and veteran players will learn something from the latter half of the book.

Overall, it will hold your interest, although there is not enough of the 'why', it mostly covers the 'what'.

[Wayne McCoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

'The Battle for Azeroth: Adventure, Alliance and Addiction Insights into the World of Warcraft' edited by Bill Fawcett is a book that was published about 10 years ago. I was given a review copy earlier this Summer when the Warcraft movie hit the theaters.

I do not play Warcraft, but I have friends who do. I have a passing acquaintance with this addictive game and I do understand it's appeal. This book is kind of divided in half. The first half is a series of essays about the game, and the second is a detailed look at each character class.

I enjoyed the first half more. There are essays about being female and playing WOW, the rise of currency mining in the game for real world income in China, and playing multiple characters on multiple servers. The essays are sometimes funny and often times show a true passion for the game.

The second part of the book delves into the character classes. If I had any interest, this would be good because it analyzes each classes strengths and weaknesses, shows which work best for solo adventures, and gives a history of where these sort of characters reside in the real world and in literature.

I enjoyed the chance to read it, and if I played, I might have been a bit more enthusiastic about this book. I've read a few of these different titles in the Smart Pop series and this is a solid "OK."

I received a review copy of this ebook from BenBella Books, Smart Pop, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

[David Magnenat · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another stab at the social and cultural impacts of massively multiplayer online gaming in today's world, The Battle for Azeroth is long on hyperbole and short on insight. As most of these studies (in print and in visual media with documentaries like "Second Skin") this one focuses so much on the negative experiences of a few and not enough on whatever positive aspects these activities may engender.

[Amber Ziegler · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for the intelligent WoW player.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

**Self-promoting for me, and for my good friend Scott Cuthbertson!**