WoW Learning

Credit: Michelle A. Hoyle under an Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Figure 1: Graph demonstrating that Aluminio’s reported character played times add up to more time possible in 4 years

In a previous post, I said that a player’s /played time in World of Warcraft (WoW) can be used a good indication of their experience in WoW.  In my 2010 April survey, I asked respondents to report their /played time for three types of characters: their first character ever created, the character on which they currently spend most of their time, and the character on which they enjoy playing the most. If the characters were the same, they were asked to repeat the information. When I did my calculation, I ignored any entries that were obvious duplicates. I also asked people to make an estimate to the nearest half year of how long they had been playing World of Warcraft.

While entering data in from my 2010 April survey, I noticed that case S1-025 contained /played numbers that did not add up.  In the raw survey data, the participant—whom I have called “Aluminio”—listed 3 characters:

1. Human priest ranged, played more than 700 days
2. Gnome mage ranged, played more than 900 days
3. Human paladin tank, played more than 900 days.

That adds up to more than 2500 days. Aluminio also reported playing World of Warcraft for a total of 4 years, which amounts to 1460 days. That’s far, far short of the more than 2500 days claimed for playing his three characters, as is clearly evident in Figure 1′s graph. It is impossible for someone on their own to have played all 1460 days 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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