World of Warcraft—Standard Edition

World of Warcraft continues where Warcraft 3 leaves off. The first three games in the franchise follow the ongoing war between the Orcs and Humans, with other peoples and factions later entering the fray. These include the playable races in World of Warcraft: Night Elves, Blood Elves, Pandarin, Worgen, Dwarves, Tauren, Gnomes, Trolls, Goblins, and Draenei.

Each of these peoples have specific stakes in the war, but have teamed up as two different primary factions—the Horde and the Alliance. In the game, Horde players cannot speak to Alliance players and vice versa. In multiplayer Battlegrounds, Horde and Alliance players fight one another, and occasionally players from one faction will invade the other's towns and cities.

World of Warcraft's story is a bit complex, and mainly occurs in the background of play, because of the roleplaying nature of the game. Basically, the Orcs are a race of people from another dimension whose homeland has been taken from them. They have been attempting to stake a claim in Azeroth, but Azeroth's inhabitants are less than happy about their methods of invasion. Other peoples have been dragged into the conflict; for instance, the peaceful, environmentalist Night Elves, who would see their ancestral home returned to nature, and the Draenei, an alien race who have crash-landed in Azeroth.

Many of World of Warcraft's themes revolve around this conflict. Environmentalism, greed, and culture clash all come into play. Despite the somewhat serious nature of the main storyline, World of Warcraft is mostly light-hearted, and at times downright silly. Humor is a mainstay of the franchise.

Players can log out at any time, but there may be a short cooldown before logging out in danger zones. More importantly, because it is an online multiplayer game, players may have trouble logging out and "abandoning" their teammates at any time.

World of Warcraft is fairly easy, but some aspects of the game will necessitate group play.

World of Warcraft's community is extremely large (in the tens of millions), and thus some objectionable chat is unavoidable. However, the community moderators are fairly active, and the community itself is largely decent and diverse.

When two groups of people are fighting, and neither is evil, who is in the right? What are some ways to stop the fighting?

If a group of people is ousted from its historic home because of violence or natural disaster, where can the group go? Do other peoples have a moral duty to help them, even if they don't share the same core values?

When is it okay to turn against your leaders, or even your people?

Many of the races in the Warcraft universe are stereotypical representations of different cultures or nationalities-at what point does stereotype become damaging? Is a stereotype inherently damaging to the people it is applied to?

What sort of ethical or moral code do you follow when you're playing an MMORPG like World of Warcraft? Does your code change based on other players' actions? Does it resemble your personal code in real life?