Race Selection

I am an avid gamer and was curious about why people play a certain race. So I have decided to to a little research. I have 2 lvl 80 characters, one druid and a DK on Hellscream. this is the outline I am going to follow so any pointers or criticisms are welcome.

The question is pertaining to race on the realm of Hellscream. The actual question is What factors influence the popularity of the most prevalent race within the realm of Hellscream. Therefore, I will address the reasoning behind such popularity. In the paper The ideal Elf: Identity Exploration in World of Warcraft by Bessiere, it is shown that players identify with their avatars on many different levels. I will further investigate their research by specifically addressing what makes the most popular race, popular. After the question of popularity is addressed, I will be able to began the main focus of my study and distribute an online survey through surveymonkey.com to the most popular race. This will ask questions that will illuminate the players’ reasons behind choosing that race for an avatar. In addition to this, observations of culture and backgrounds of the top race will be compared to the data pooled from surveys to provide a meaningful analysis. It is my presumption that the most popular race will stem from reflections of real life personal characteristics and ideals.

While the primary method behind this study will be the survey administration, it will also be important to first provide preliminary data to address which race is most popular. To provide information comprised of representative data, I will observe characters in and around the auction house and banks of Stormwind City, Ironforge City, and Shattrath City. This would be respectively done by an Alliance character. The same method will be applied as a Horde character at Orgrimmar, Undercity, and Shattrath City. The reasoning behind Shattrath city being used twice was due to its zone neutrality. This would be done as to get an unbiased base example to connect my sample group to the World of Warcraft censes. This trial is a quantitative based study that will be analyzed for consistencies and patterns. To make my finding consistent and relative I will compare the sample to the website called WarcraftRealms.com; this website collects and displays statistics from all the realms within World of Warcraft. Among these statistics are race, class, level, total characters within the realm, total faction difference, and Alliance to Horde ratio. I will be taking their data and comparing it to my results, as well as interpreting what significance the data holds as to which race is most popular.

As to how the data will be collected, I will observe and record the races that are around the bank and auction house. I will use this as a sample group for the server as it has the heaviest foot traffic, and also appears to be a diverse and objective group of players. This will be done at around 8 pm on weekends; the reason for this is that it is a good time to capture data as it is a peak time of interest. The size of the preliminary data collected will be in the range of 50-150 people. In addition to the census, this shall give sufficient results to conclude from. The groups that will be looked at are those that are playing in game. From the preliminary data, I will be able to analyze the data and conclude which race is most prevalent in the Hellscream realm. However, more significant than the preliminary data collection, will be the survey administration to the race that is found most popular. This survey will consist of 5 questions which address the factors that influenced those players decision to choose their race. I will administer the survey to fellow guild members within the Hellscream realm, which are the respective popular race. The questions I intend to ask are:

1.) How much did you develop your character based on your own physical traits, Not at all, somewhat, or very similar?

2.) How important do you find faith/religion, Not at all, somewhat, or very much?

3.) How important is your primary characters racial traits to you, Not at all, somewhat, or very much?

4.) Do you enjoy gaming alone or with other players?

5.) Why did you choose the (Popular race)?

Preliminary data suggests that Humans are the most popular race. Because many of the differences between races come down to differences in background and culture, the questions proposed will be illuminating in deriving the most important facets of the Human race which draw players to choose that race.

The method that I will employ will be best for this type of study, however time limitations will vastly impact my ability to collect. At any rate, I will perform data collection to find out which race is most popular. From this, I will administer a survey to address why players chose this specific race, and ultimately, I will be able to find out what factors make that race most popular. Also certain other limitations may stem from players giving false data. This could either skew the results or further empower them. Another limitation may come from the Warcraftrealms.com. From this website there is no actual way of knowing if there data is correct.
The texts that I will be looking for will be papers that look at the avatar creation process as well as psychological factors of this. The final limitation of this study will be that the survey will only be given to my guild members. However, this should provide an ample representative group for the Hellscream realm.

When interpreting the data I will look at simply which race is most popular. From this, I will address the factors that influence the popularity of this race. The timeline of this project will consist of one day of data collection after this; I will look at Warcraftrealms.com and record this data. I will analyze this data and discover the overall popularity of race. Finally, I will administer the survey to my guild members and analyze the data as it comes in. All in all this should take about a week, from start to finish, although several weeks would be necessary to get very precise results.

While the research methodology does contain certain limitations, it should provide meaningful data nonetheless. After this project is concluded, I will be able to answer what factors contribute to the popularity of the most prevalent race in the Hellscream realm. This is an important study because it will address the underlying factors of avatar creation in massively multiplayer online role playing games.