Is the online group you are regularly participating in a community?

We spend hours together, we talk about our lives, we open our hearts to each other; the community I am in is not simply bonded by friendship, but by a bond stronger than that. Although we have never met in real life, we can recognize each others' voices, recall people by their characters names or real names, and recall each others' real life status. I dare say that my online friends, who spend several hours slaying enemies, are a community. A game, consistently ridiculed by non-players, provides feats impossible to be accomplished by any normal group which requires players to attain a higher relationship, and thus, form a community.

To provide some background information, the game I am referring to is World of Warcraft. I participate in a guild named Victory Cake, who assemble to complete difficult tasks that are otherwise impossible to accomplish without a well-developed synchronization amongst the players. The guild orientation is similar to a hierarchy in the sense that it has: a leader, a couple of officers, and members. However, even though each rank has more power than its preceding one, all players are treated as equals. There is no bias in decision-making amongst members of the guild, giving each player equal opportunity to contribute and receive rewards. Members are required to log on daily from 5:30 P.M. to 12:00 P.M., where the guild is then split into large groups called raids, consisting either twenty or forty people. These raids are formulated with the correct proportion of ‘jobs,’ such as tanking, damage-dealing, healing, crowd control, and group support. Then the guild begins to raid at 6:00 P.M, where they engage several minions and bosses in order to attain special items that make their character stronger. Each enemy, bosses in particular, require certain strategies that demand players to memorize several maneuvers and communicate heavily.

Although it seems like it is work more than play, raiding pushes players to be comfortable and closer to one another. After a certain period of time, the several of hours of raiding becomes easy and allows ample amounts of time for guild members to familiarize themselves with the rest of their guild mates. Members are required to have a microphone so they can easily communicate on the in-game chat as well as communicate orally. Since members have so many communication capabilities, it is difficult to not transcend into a community. Our guild provides a respectful and friendly environment, allowing members to open up to one another. I can recall over a hundred moments where guild members told us about their family issues, their marriages issues, their social problems, their self-esteem problems, and their deepest secrets. In this virtual community, people grab the opportunity to find themselves in this complex world and find a tight knit of friends to express themselves openly, without the fears of mockery and ridicule. I truly believe that even though most of our members have never personally met each other, we have the characteristics and bonds of a community. There are rarely occasions where I can freely express myself in real life the way I do on World of Warcraft while having the full support of the people around me.