Rupturing Warcraft

Rupture is a World of Warcraft social networking site in its infancy. However, despite still being in beta, it already has many of the features I would expect, and several surprising ones that I did not expect. It’s main purpose is to allow for guilds or individuals to chat outside of WoW and to keep detailed records on one’s characters.

The pros of Rupture were easy to identify even in the short period I had to look at it. Once you get your account, the program will catalogue everything about your character. It peeks inside your bags and your stats, creating a profile of your gear, items, bags, skills, kills in PvP, healing in PvP, where your hearthstone is set, your mother’s maiden name, your social security number, credit ca… Ok, so maybe a little overboard on those last few. However, it certainly gives a very clear picture of what your character is like in profile. It also catalogues guild information as well.

The chat feature is quite useful, allowing people to carry on conversations small and large. There is automatically a channel for help, and a channel for your guild and your server. Depending on the dynamics of one’s guild, the chat could either be useless or awesome. If you’ve got sister-guilds, then you can all meet in Rupture. If you’d like to chat at work, and want a sleek, safe-for-work-looking window, then Rupture can help you. On the other hand, if you tend to stick with your one guild and have all your friends on the same server (very few of us do), then Rupture won’t augment your chatting capability.

Rupture is quite open about the fact that it is still developing, it is in beta, and might not work perfectly. It is only for WoW at the moment, and anyone not a Rupture member can obviously not be befriended or chatted with. It also automatically begins when the computer starts, which can be bothersome if one does not actually wish to play.

On the whole, Rupture is an excellent networking site, and if keeping in touch and keeping tabs are a problem for you, then I’d suggest it. Hopefully, if the beta is a success, then they’ll expand the function, and they’ll make provisions so friends from different games will be able to chat in one place. The people who created Rupture have brought us innovative programs in the past, and so I’m hopeful about the success of this venture.