Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an MMORPG

"WP:MMO" and "WP:MMORPG" redirect here. For the former MMORPG project (which was upmerged), see Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games.

Wikipedia
Developer(s)	Wikimedia Foundation, you,
Designer(s)	Jimbo Wales, Larry Sanger, Hatsune Miku, Steve Jobs, Dan Houser, John Smith, Jonathan Huang, Paul Allen, Stephen Colbert, John Seigenthaler, Mr. Burns, ClueBot NG, Donald Trump, India "Willie" Bush, Spongebob, Elmo, Santa Claus, George W. Bush.
Series	Wikimedia
Engine	MediaWiki
Platform(s)	browser game
Release	WW: January 15, 2001
Genre(s)	Fantasy, MMORPG
Mode(s)	Multiplayer, online

Wikipedia is a sequel to the game Nupedia, an encyclopedia-themed MMORPG in a hack and slash and "article roaming" style. It was released for web browsers by the Wikimedia Foundation in 2001, and was developed by the community.

Gameworld

Wikipedia has an immersive gameworld with 48,115,484 players and 6,896,521 unique locations, including 54,006 undiscovered secret areas, 40,344 fully excavated dungeons, and 6,599 legendary dungeons. Magical items and powers can be found scattered over these locations, whose navigation is aided by maps of the game world. Some of these locations, as well as items and powers, become problematic and unbalance the game world. Players will generally dislike these, and Game Masters respond by removing them or, if they are heretical, by vaporizing them.

The in-game universe can take several years to explore completely, with several regions to explore. Dungeons within the game vary greatly in size. Some are so large that they can take hours to explore, whereas some are so small that players can see the entire dungeon at a glance.

Game mechanics

Players can accumulate experience points (EXP), allowing them to advance to higher levels and climb up the ranking ladder. Some players focus too much on increasing EXP and, despite their extremely high levels, they are not valued in the community. A special fairy always tracks EXP. Players develop a unique distribution of statistics, and can choose between a number of classes, such as Gunner, Spy, Wizard, Sorcerer, Archer, and Priest, or can choose to be multiple classes at once. Players can choose from one of several races, such as gnomes, ogres, dragons and imps. Other players can forgo choosing a race, and may instead be just a regular person. In some cases, a player may choose to play with excessive summons, or play with multiple warriors at the same time. This provides an additional challenge, because they must avoid being caught by Bounty Hunters, who are tasked with rooting them out and destroying them. The in-game currency (WikiMoney) has largely fallen out of use, and most players prefer to accumulate collectables given by others, including stars, question marks, green medals, and even legendary bronze stars. Players can take on quests, fight boss battles, enter player versus player battle arenas, and even take class change trials to become Game Masters. It is also possible to stumble upon random encounters that allow for fights with vicious monsters.

Non-player characters (often abbreviated as "NPCs"), or minions, can also be found in the game. Wikipedia differs from other MMORPGs in that ordinary players may design their own NPCs, and submit them to be approved for inclusion in the game world. NPCs can be seen throughout the game world, doing tasks such as slaying monsters, cleaning up taverns, and other helpful tasks.

After acquiring ten EXP in four days, gamers gain additional powers, such as the ability to change the names of caves, bypass weaker magic chains, and import art into the game world. After acquiring 500 EXP in 30 days, gamers unlock the ability to bypass boosted chains and undergo trials to become Game Masters.

Social

Every unique location in the gameworld has a tavern where players have the opportunity to interact with any other player in real time. Players often become friends with other players, and some have even arranged to meet offline. Players may even build their own houses with furniture and receive messages from other players. On the darker side, some players become addicted, unable to leave the game, and spend all their waking hours on the site. It is often the most experienced players who end up spending the most amount of time in the gameworld.

Players with similar ideals will group together to form guilds, and raids may form to tackle exceptionally difficult quests and adventures.

People tend to play a given MMORPG for six to eighteen months at a high level of involvement; a similar pattern has been noted in hardcore Wikipedia players.

Battle

Trolls are one of the most common enemies in the gameworld, and often turn up in skirmishes. Orcs, the natural enemies of the Trolls, fight their enemies using methods which are equally unethical or destructive (such as baiting).

Weapons such as swords are used normally, but handguns and heavy artillery can be used to defeat an undefeatable enemy. Many players also carry a shield to help protect dungeons they are guarding. Often, players will monitor dungeons that they are (or have been) involved with special cameras, which are connected to a private area which belongs to that player and that only they can access.

Weapons can be used for purposes other than fighting enemies, but breaking the three hit rule may result in an Ice Block.

Barbarian-fighting is a common form of combat that has many similarities to a variation of spawn kill.

Illegitimate battle strategies are abundant. Malicious and sneaky Trolls like to use excessive summons and minions to trick Game Masters.

There are also enemies such as WikiPorcupines, which shoot Toxic Spikes from their heads and gang up against players. There are a similar species called WikiHedgehogs, but instead act as Trolls' pets. They are very blamey about newer players entering their territory.

Players can also attempt to destroy, mangle or disrupt parts of the game world. Player-killing is strongly discouraged, but nevertheless happens. New players are most vulnerable. Game Masters attempt to control disruption by placing offending players in ice blocks, freeze locks, or obliterating them using the ban hammer. Troublemakers may occasionally be brought before the Super Game Masters, who have the final say in dealing with them.

Game Masters

Some Wikipedia players who successfully complete a class change trial manage to become Game Masters, a secretive clan whose members have access to additional spells and items such as:

• Cave-in – a powerful spell which causes a dungeon's walls to collapse, making it inaccessible to all but the most experienced adventurers (Game Masters and Bounty Hunters). Note that large, highly tenured dungeons, i.e. those with about 5000 bricks or more, cannot be collapsed by Game Masters who are not also Knights.
  • Mining Toolkit – a number of mining tools such as a mining helmet and wooden support beams which enable Game Masters to explore collapsed dungeons and re-open them to others if they want.
  • Nuke – explodes to collapse all dungeons of a player.
• Ice Block – encases another player or minion in a block of ice, preventing them from moving for a certain length of time (or forever!). A similar version is the Freeze Lock, which locks gates or entire borders of gates from acting as entrances into the game. Whether the frozen player can speak or use hand gestures or not is up to the Game Master in either case. Any gate next to a player in an ice block automatically freeze locks.
  • Thaw – thaws a frozen player or minion out. A similar item is the reusable Sandwich-warming glove, which is a wearable item that allows Game Masters and players permitted by Game Masters to enter through any gate, whether frozen or not.
• Magic Chains – seals the entrance to a dungeon with magical chains which can only be bypassed with special items or sufficient EXP and hours spent in-game.
  • Magic chains can come in many types, as shown here:
    • Golden chains can only be bypassed by other Game Masters.
      • Red chains are placed on by the game engine itself, and cannot be bypassed by even Game Masters. However, some special items are able to bypass these, though they are far and few.
      • Similarly, Black chains are used by only Team WMF, in order to block entry to dungeons with highly dangerous traps along with a few other things.
      • Turquoise chains are special, very long versions of golden chains that extend to neighboring dungeons.
    • Pink chains can only be bypassed by Game Masters or those with the Power Pass item. It is almost exclusively used to prevent upgrading certain powers.
    • Silver chains are weak chains meant to block new players from entering difficult dungeons too quickly.
    • Sky blue chains are special chains that block bad dungeons from ever being constructed.
    • Green chains prevent access to the core of the dungeon.
    • Purple chains prevent the upgrading of items.
    • White chains are the weakest of the magic chains. New players have to get the approval of Spies in order to get into these dungeons.
    • Blue chains are upgraded versions of silver chains. They are used for preventing entry to dungeons by players that may be more experienced, but still quite new to the game. It was first used in order to enforce decisions made by the Super Game Masters, and is now additionally used to combat actions performed by deceptive minions summoned by certain players.
  • Skeleton Key – a magical key given to all Game Masters which can remove any magical chains around a dungeon entrance for that player.
• Cloak of Silence – quietens a player's footsteps, enabling them to avoid patrols. A more powerful version of the Boots of Stealth, which can be worn by most players.
• Rapid-Fire – can massively subdue multiple attacks at once. Rapid-Fire can be used by normal players by becoming Gunners, but only with the permission of Game Masters.
• Teleport – can create an inter-dimensional portal that can summon a large number of dungeons.
  • Greater Teleport – Select mages with an advanced study of portals can summon dungeons from anywhere, even outside the known universe.
• Brick dissolving: Only Game Masters may use a brick dissolver, which allows bricks in a dungeon wall to be dissolved. A dissolved brick is nothing but a clear space that still supports the bricks above it, and can be only viewed by Game Masters, Arch Mages, or miners. Whether the signature or even the name of the player who made the brick gets dissolved or not can be decided by the Game Master. The solvent is 69M per-unobtanic acid.
  • Brick crystallizer: A Game Master can also choose to re-crystallize a brick that has been dissolved, turning it back into a normally-functional brick.

Overlords

Wikipedia players can be promoted to Game Master (or demoted!) by even more powerful users known as Overlords, who, in addition to having the power to appoint new Game Masters and Overlords, can summon many powerful minions to aid them in their adventuring.

General classes

Gunners

Gunners are required to be both careful and quick. To assist them, they have a wide variety of weapons at their disposal, including machine guns, sniper rifles, heavy artillery, or a general multi-purpose handgun. Despite all these weapons, some players chose to fight enemies with old-fashioned swords.

Archers

Archers wander around newly created dungeons, where they hunt unwelcome creatures such as venomous snakes, clean up toxic slime, and mark dangerous areas before newer players can venture inside. If a dungeon turns out too poorly designed to be included in the game world, Archers can send a message to Game Masters and alert them that a dungeon needs to be caved-in. Archers are required to be kind towards newer dungeon builders, and must encourage them if the intended building didn't come out as designed.

Artists

Artists are known for their ability to turn the worst most disorganized looking dungeons into works of true beauty.

Builders

Builders have the ability to turn the smallest dungeons into the most complex ones. Some increase dungeons' size, other increase their complexity, both are vital. After all, what's the point of an oversized dungeon with no mazes?

Super classes

There exist several classes of users which have even greater powers and spells than already mentioned.

Priests

Priests are a special class of Game Masters with the ability to enter dungeons protected by red chains and modify other players' inventories, and even the default inventory for the entire game. Only the most trusted Game Masters can become priests; there are only 10 priests, and one of them is a minion summoned by an overlord.

Super Game Masters

The SGMs are a clan of Game Masters with additional powers and spells. They can be asked to battle super-hard bosses that ordinary users may find difficult to defeat, and also deal with misbehaving players when other strategies fail. One must be elected to be a Super Game Master, and can only serve for a limited time before re-election is required. Super Game Masters are automatically made Bounty Hunters, and they approve which other players get to be Bounty Hunters. The Super Game Masters, if a majority of them agree, can banish a player from the world for either a year or forever, and can remove Game Master status for any misbehaving Game Master; in the process, they can also disqualify the former Game Master from reattaining Game Master status without their permission.

• Brick vaporizing: Only SGMs and players approved by SGMs, dubbed the Arch Mages, allowed to carry this. Anyone with it can permanently vaporize a dungeon's bricks. It is used when one attempts to reveal another player's secret plans and weaknesses. The blueprint for constructing a vaporized brick is kept in a vault visible only to these players. Arch Mages are usually also Game Masters.

Knights

A clan of Game Masters (or visiting Game Masters from other worlds, due to their nomadic nature) with even greater powers and abilities than their colleagues. One must be elected by other players to be a Knight, and can only be a Knight for a year before a re-election is required. Knights must be present in all worlds and be at least 18 years old and the age of majority in their area of origination. Knights have the following abilities:

• Place any player in chains of carbide in all worlds they are present in
  • Diamond cutter – allows removal of carbide chains from a player.
• Make players Bounty Hunters (but only with permission and endorsement from SGMs)
• Change any class of any player, including even the Dark Lord.
• Freeze-lock any gate or border of gates in all worlds at once or in a particular world. They have many of the privileges of Game Masters, but in every world.
• Collapse large, highly tenured dungeons, namely those with about 5000 or more bricks. Due to their size, their collapse can seriously disrupt the game world unless properly conducted; Knights must coordinate with and obtain permission from Team WMF to carry out such cave-ins.

Knights act as Bounty Hunters, Overlords, Game Masters, and the like for worlds who have not chosen any of their players to do such tasks.

The Dark Lord

The master and founder of Wikipedia and its related worlds. He patrols the game world, and in former times he has had complete and total authority, including being the only one besides the Knights who is allowed to change any user's user classes (including Knights) and also formally appointing the Super Game Masters. His power has diminished, as he has become reluctant to use his powers, and relinquished them voluntarily recently. However, he retains indirect authority as the head of the game's governing board and remains the most observed player. If you feel the game has treated you particularly unfairly, you can create free amusement for other players by asking the Dark Lord for assistance.

Team WMF

Outside the culture that the community has made, Wikipedia's development, update pathway, etc. is run by a team of staff members, developers, and the like. Their accounts are easily identifiable thanks to the (WMF) tag appended to them. While it is possible to contact a specific staff member directly using their in-game accounts, this is very unlikely and you will have more options for reaching out using either the community contact page or by following the instructions on contacting Team WMF.

There are multiple branches of Team WMF that contribute in some way to Wikipedia, such as developers that code and release new updates, quality assurance that makes sure that Wikipedia works as smooth as possible, etc. They may sometimes offer to hire as well.

See also

• Users wishing to declare that they believe Wikipedia is an MMORPG may use User:GKFX/Userboxes/WP-MMO.
• Dissent: Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a video game

External links

• Official website