Information about Make Love, Not Warcraft

“Make Love, Not Warcraft
South Park episode
Machinima was used extensively in "Make Love, Not Warcraft", albeit in a manner inconsistent with the gameplay of World of Warcraft. Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny's characters are shown in the background.
Episode no.	Season 10 Episode 147
Written by
Original airdate	October 4, 2006
Season 10 episodes
South Park - Season 10 March 22, 2006 – November 15, 2006
The Return of Chef Smug Alert! Cartoon Wars Part I Cartoon Wars Part II A Million Little Fibers ManBearPig Tsst Make Love, Not Warcraft Mystery of the Urinal Deuce Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy Hell on Earth 2006 Go God Go Go God Go XII Stanley's Cup
← Season 9	Season 11 ?
List of South Park episodes

"Make Love, Not Warcraft" is episode 147 of Comedy Central's animated series South Park which first aired on October 4, 2006. This episode is a parody commenting on the massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), World of Warcraft and gamers themselves. The episode was announced by Comedy Central on September 30, 2006 and was advertised as the tenth season second half premiere.^[1]

The episode uses machinima in many of its scenes to create a better emulation of the game.^[2] It was originally scheduled to air as episode #145, but was later delayed because of difficulties in creating the machinima.^[3]

Since the airing of the episode, it was planned that the fictitious Sword of a Thousand Truths used in the episode would be added as a part of , although it would not have the same capabilities as in the show.^[4]

In 2007 the episode won the Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour).^[5]

Plot

A mage griefer named Jenkins^[I|] repeatedly kills the South Park boys' characters in World of Warcraft. The griefer, a highly dedicated player, is said to have been playing nearly every hour of every day for a year and a half and has advanced through many levels, allowing him to disobey Blizzard Entertainment's rules and kill players as well as GMs (Game Masters) and Admins (Administrators) at will. Randy, Stan's dad, becomes interested in the game, and does not survive long before being killed by the mage.

Cartman gathers all the boys of South Park to collaborate in an attack on him. They conspire to log in simultaneously and attack him. However, the griefer summons scorpions and easily dispatches the boys' characters. Afterwards, everyone gives up and finds other interests. The executives at Blizzard then realize that everyone will soon become too frustrated from being killed every time they log on, and will quit playing altogether, which would very well bring down the profits of the World of Warcraft and end it. However, Cartman isn't ready to give up, and convinces Stan, Kyle, and Kenny to keep playing. "You can stand here and toss a ball around... or you can sit at your computer, and do something that matters." For the next two months, they play the game for twenty-one hours a day (giving themselves 3 hours of sleep), killing boars in the game's forests to gain experience points (very slowly), and hiding from the mage.^[II|] In the process, the boys become lazy, long-haired, grossly overweight (except for Cartman who was already overweight; he becomes morbidly obese and continues to eat so much so that his mother has to hold out a bedpan when he needs to use the bathroom.) They even become acne-ridden from eating only Hot Pockets and Rockstar energy drinks during their crusade. In addition, the boys develop large Internet vocabularies, using terms such as "Über" and "pwned" and "r-tard" in daily conversation. The boys' characters grow so quickly that the Blizzard executives take notice, realizing that the boys have no personal lives at all. They see this as chance to stop the griefer since it will end Warcraft's popularity if he's not stopped.

Determined to help the boys slay the evil one, the executives decide to give the boys the Sword of a Thousand Truths, a weapon so powerful that it was removed from the game and stored on a 1 GB flash drive. However, "Salzman from Accounting" predicted that it would eventually be put to use. Unaware of the plan, however, the boys have already begun a seventeen-hour crusade against the mage griefer, which the executives predict to be unsuccessful. The executives arrive at Stan's house with the flash drive, unaware that the boys are actually at Cartman's house. They reluctantly give Randy the sword "We can't trust the Sword of a Thousand Truths to a n00b!" Randy agrees to take the sword and give it to the boys, eventually logging onto a Warcraft demo at Best Buy. Randy gives Stan the weapon, although he is mortally wounded by the griefer in the process. Angered, Stan attacks the griefer with the sword completely draining his mana, leaving him unable to use his shields. Taking advantage, Kenny shoots him with his bow followed by Kyle hitting him with a fire spell. The mage falls to the ground and Cartman bashes his head in, moments before Randy's character finally dies.

As the World of Warcraft players celebrate his demise, Cartman notes that the boys can now "finally play the game".

Production details

Collaboration

The South Park creators collaborated with Blizzard Entertainment, the company that created the Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo franchises, to craft the machinima used in the episode. They stated in their commentary for the episode they were completely shocked that the company was on board to help them out. The machinima scenes were created using shots of the in-game footage, and re-creation of the characters in Maya, with Blizzard Entertainment providing their own character models and computers to test with.^[5] Blizzard also gave the producers permission to use the alpha server of the expansion pack to shoot the scenes on.^[5] Michael Morhaime, president and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment, issued a statement over the collaboration:

We were excited to hear that the creators of 'South Park' were interested in featuring World of Warcraft in the opening of their new season, and we really enjoyed collaborating with them to make this happen. We're looking forward to sharing the experience with our employees and our players as well when the season debuts this week.[6]

However, the animation in the episode is modified from the gameplay of World of Warcraft,^[7] and contains elements that do not exist in the game: talking animations, controlled NPCs, human hunters, and increased gore.

Due to the reception of the episode, the South Park Season 10 DVD includes a 14-day free trial for the actual World of Warcraft game.

Production time

Although the planning of the episode and data-collecting began on September 1, 2006, the actual production of the machinima was done in five "shooting" days, the first being September 20, 2006, which lasted about 3-5 hours, and the last being October 3, 2006.^[5] The regular South Park animation was created simultaneously, with all the other non-machinima episodes of the series routinely finishing within 12 hours of their airing as well.^[5]

Reception

The episode received generally high review ratings. IGN, a multimedia news and reviews website, reviewed the episode and gave it an overall rating of 9.3, labeling it as "one of the funniest episodes ever produced".^[8] The episode also shows a user average score of 9.5 at TV.com,^[9] a 9.2 average at IMDb,^[10] and a reader average of 9.6 at IGN.^[10]

The original television airing of the episode drew 3.4 million viewers, most between the ages of 18 and 49.^[11] This popularity made the episode Comedy Central's highest-rated midseason premiere since the year 2000.<ref name="TV_notes" /> However, the highest ratings for the tenth season belong to the season's premiere, "The Return of Chef", which drew more than 3.5 million viewers.^[12]

In the May 2007 UK poll Paramount Comedy's Top 10 Episodes, this episode was ranked number 1.

The episode won Outstanding Animated Program (for programming less than one hour) for the 2007 Emmy Awards.

Notes

References

External links

• Official information on the episode
• Blizzard press release regarding the episode

Preceded by "Tsst"

South Park episodes

Followed by "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce"