Make Love, Not Warcraft
Encyclopedia
"Make Love, Not Warcraft" is the eighth episode of the tenth season
South Park (season 10)
Season 10 of South Park, an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, began airing on March 22, 2006. The tenth season concluded after 14 episodes on November 15, 2006...

 of the animated television series South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...

, and the 147th episode overall. It first aired on Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....

 in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 on October 4, 2006. In the episode, Cartman
Eric Cartman
Eric Theodore Cartman is a fictional character in the American animated television series South Park. One of four main characters, along with Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Kenny McCormick, he is generally referred to within the series by his last name...

, Kyle
Kyle Broflovski
Kyle Broflovski is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by co-creator Matt Stone. Kyle is one of the show's four central characters, along with his friends Stan Marsh, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman...

, Stan
Stan Marsh
Stanley Randall "Stan" Marsh is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by and loosely based on series co-creator Trey Parker. Stan is one of the show's four central characters, along with his friends Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman...

 and Kenny
Kenny McCormick
Kenneth "Kenny" McCormick is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is one of the four central characters along with his friends Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Eric Cartman. His oft-muffled and indiscernible speech—the result of his parka hood covering his...

 enjoy playing the popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....

 (MMORPG) World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...

. When a high level player goes around killing other players in the game, they start playing Warcraft every day to try and stop him.

The episode was written by series co-creator Trey Parker
Trey Parker
Trey Parker is an American animator, screenwriter, director, producer, voice artist, musician and actor, best known for being the co-creator of the television series South Park along with his creative partner and best friend Matt Stone.Parker started his film career in 1992, making a holiday short...

 and is rated TV-MA in the United States. The episode takes a satirical look at, and on videogamers
Gamer
Historically, the term "gamer" usually referred to someone who played role-playing games and wargames. Since they became very popular, the term has included players of video games...

.

Plot

A griefer
Griefer
A griefer is a player in a multiplayer video game that deliberately irritates and harasses other players.-History:The term was applied to online, multiplayer computer games by the year 2000 or earlier, as illustrated by postings to the rec.games.computer.ultima.online USENET group.-Overview:A...

 named Jenkins (in reference to Leeroy Jenkins
Leeroy Jenkins
Leeroy Jenkins, sometimes misspelled Leroy Jenkins and often elongated with numerous additional letters, is an Internet phenomenon named for a player character created by Ben Schulz in Blizzard Entertainment's MMORPG, World of Warcraft. The character became popular due to a video of the game that...

) repeatedly kills Cartman
Eric Cartman
Eric Theodore Cartman is a fictional character in the American animated television series South Park. One of four main characters, along with Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Kenny McCormick, he is generally referred to within the series by his last name...

, Kyle
Kyle Broflovski
Kyle Broflovski is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by co-creator Matt Stone. Kyle is one of the show's four central characters, along with his friends Stan Marsh, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman...

, Stan
Stan Marsh
Stanley Randall "Stan" Marsh is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by and loosely based on series co-creator Trey Parker. Stan is one of the show's four central characters, along with his friends Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman...

 and Kenny's
Kenny McCormick
Kenneth "Kenny" McCormick is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is one of the four central characters along with his friends Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Eric Cartman. His oft-muffled and indiscernible speech—the result of his parka hood covering his...

 characters in the online game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....

, "World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...

". Jenkins is depicted as a silent, obsessive, obese
Obesity
Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems...

 adult player who "has absolutely no life." According to the in-episode Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher founded on February 8, 1991 under the name Silicon & Synapse by three graduates of UCLA, Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham and Frank Pearce and currently owned by French company Activision Blizzard...

 staff, the griefer is said to have been playing the game nearly every hour of every day for a year and a half since the game was released. Due to this, his character has reached a level that was previously thought unreachable, allowing him to disobey Blizzard Entertainment's rules and kill players, Game Masters and even Administrators at will. Stan's father, Randy, becomes interested in the game, but does not survive long before being killed by Jenkins. The game developers soon become worried that the griefer cannot be stopped as he has "no life" followed by one of the developers asking "How do you kill that which has no life?"

Cartman gathers all the boys of South Park and convinces them all to log in at the same time in order to execute a massive retaliatory attack on the griefer. However, once the battle begins, the griefer summons scorpions and easily dispatches the boys' characters. Afterwards, the defeated players give up and find other interests. The executives at Blizzard come to realize that many players will soon become too frustrated from being killed every time they log on, and will stop playing altogether, which would very well cause "the end of the World ... of Warcraft." However, Cartman is not ready to give up, and convinces Stan, Kyle, and Kenny to keep playing. For the next two months, the boys play the game for 21 hours a day, killing
Grind (gaming)
Grinding is a term used in video gaming to describe the process of engaging in repetitive and/or boring tasks not pertaining to the story line of the game...

 low-level boar
Boar
Wild boar, also wild pig, is a species of the pig genus Sus, part of the biological family Suidae. The species includes many subspecies. It is the wild ancestor of the domestic pig, an animal with which it freely hybridises...

s in the game's forests to gain experience points (in a montage set to Paul Stanley
Paul Stanley
Stanley Harvey Eisen , better known by his stage name Paul Stanley, is an American hard rock guitarist, singer, musician, painter and songwriter best known for being the rhythm guitarist and primary lead vocalist of the rock band Kiss. He is the writer or co-writer of many of the band's...

's Live to Win
Live to Win
Live to Win is the second solo album from Kiss vocalist, guitarist and co-founder Paul Stanley, released on October 24, 2006.The album's title track was featured on the South Park episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft", twenty days prior to the album's release.Stanley last released a solo album in 1978,...

), and hiding from Jenkins. In the process, the boys become lazy, long-haired, overweight and acne-ridden. During this period, they also consume mainly Hot Pockets
Hot Pockets
Hot Pockets are microwaveable turnovers usually containing a combination of cheese, meat, and vegetables. Hot Pockets are currently produced by Hylan Steez.- Varieties :...

, Rockstar energy drink
Rockstar (drink)
Rockstar is an energy drink created in 2001. With 14% of the US market in 2008, Rockstar is a leading energy drink brand. Rockstar is based in Las Vegas...

s and Ramen noodles and develop large internet vocabularies, using terms such as "über
Über
Über comes from the German language. It has one umlaut. It is a cognate of both Latin super and Greek ὑπέρ...

" and "pwn
Pwn
Pwn is a leetspeak slang term derived from the verb own, as meaning to appropriate or to conquer to gain ownership. The term implies domination or humiliation of a rival, used primarily in the Internet-based video game culture to taunt an opponent who has just been soundly defeated .In hacker...

ed" 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 a chance to stop Jenkins since he will end Warcrafts popularity if he is not stopped. However, they calculate that even with the amazing rise in their levels, the boys still have a 90% chance of failure.

Determined to help the boys slay the evil griefer, the executives decide to give the boys the Sword of a Thousand Truths
Magic sword
The term magic sword refers to any kind of mythological or fictional sword imbued with magical power to increase its strength or grant it other supernatural qualities. The archetype originated in myth and legend, and occurs regularly in fantasy fiction....

, a weapon so powerful that it was removed from the game. It was stored on a 1 GB
Gigabyte
The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is...

 USB flash drive
USB flash drive
A flash drive is a data storage device that consists of flash memory with an integrated Universal Serial Bus interface. flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, and physically much smaller than a floppy disk. Most weigh less than 30 g...

 as "Salzman from Accounting" foretold that it would eventually be put to use at a time of great need. Unaware of the plan, however, the boys have already initiated what becomes a seventeen-hour battle against the griefer, which the executives predict to be unsuccessful without the aid of the powerful sword. The executives arrive at Stan's house with the flash drive, unaware that the boys are actually at Cartman's house. Randy tells the executives that although he is a "n00b
Newbie
Newbie or noob is a slang term for a novice or newcomer, or somebody inexperienced in any profession or activity. Contemporary use can particularly refer to a beginner or new user of computers, often concerning Internet activity, such as online gaming or Linux use...

", he can log in with the sword and give it to the boys' characters online. The executives eventually, though reluctantly, give Randy the sword, initially stating that "We can't trust the Sword of a Thousand Truths to a newb!" Eventually logging onto a Warcraft demo at a Best Buy
Best Buy
Best Buy Co., Inc. is an American specialty retailer of consumer electronics in the United States, accounting for 19% of the market. It also operates in Mexico, Canada & China. The company's subsidiaries include Geek Squad, CinemaNow, Magnolia Audio Video, Pacific Sales, and, in Canada operates...

, Randy gives Stan the weapon, but Randy's character is mortally wounded by the griefer in the process. Angered, Stan attacks the griefer with the sword, weakening Jenkins. The boys attack and Jenkins is slain by Cartman, who smashes Jenkin's head with his hammer.

Numerous World of Warcraft players come out of hiding and celebrate the griefer's demise, praising the boys as heroes. Stan asks what they will do next, prompting Cartman to respond "What do you mean? Now we can finally play the game."

Production

The episode uses machinima
Machinima
Machinima is the use of real-time 3D computer graphics rendering engines to create a cinematic production. Most often, video games are used to generate the computer animation...

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

Collaboration

South Park creators Trey Parker
Trey Parker
Trey Parker is an American animator, screenwriter, director, producer, voice artist, musician and actor, best known for being the co-creator of the television series South Park along with his creative partner and best friend Matt Stone.Parker started his film career in 1992, making a holiday short...

 and Matt Stone
Matt Stone
Matthew Richard "Matt" Stone is an American screenwriter, producer, voice artist, musician and actor, best known for being the co-creator of South Park along with creative partner and best friend, Trey Parker....

 collaborated with Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher founded on February 8, 1991 under the name Silicon & Synapse by three graduates of UCLA, Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham and Frank Pearce and currently owned by French company Activision Blizzard...

 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
Maya (software)
Autodesk Maya , commonly shortened to Maya, is 3D computer graphics software that runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and Linux, originally developed by Alias Systems Corporation and currently owned and developed by Autodesk, Inc. It is used to create interactive 3D applications, including video...

, with Blizzard Entertainment providing their own character models and computers to test with. Blizzard also gave the producers permission to use the alpha server of the expansion pack World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, often referred to as TBC or BC, is the first expansion pack for the MMORPG World of Warcraft...

 to shoot the scenes on. Michael Morhaime
Michael Morhaime
Michael "Mike" Morhaime is the president and a co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment , a video game developer located in Irvine, California, currently owned by Activision Blizzard...

, president and co-founder 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."


As a reference to the episode, certain South Park Season 10 DVDs include a 14-day free trial for the World of Warcraft. This did not affect the UK release of this season in 2009.

Since the airing of the episode, the fictitious Sword of a Thousand Truths was featured in the World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, often referred to as TBC or BC, is the first expansion pack for the MMORPG World of Warcraft...

 beta test as a reward to the games arena system, although it did not have the same capabilities as in the show. The in-game caption read "Finely crafted to Salzman's specification." The sword was renamed to Gladiator's Slicer and the in-game graphic changed prior to the launch of the Burning Crusade. The visual used for the Sword of a Thousand Truths in the episode was the same as the already existing in-game sword The Hungering Cold. More recently, the sword has reappeared in the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, often referred to as WotLK, WLK or Wrath, is the second expansion set for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft, following The Burning Crusade...

 expansion as the Slayer of the Lifeless (a reference to the line within the episode, "How do you kill that which has no life?"), an entry-level raid drop that possesses the flavor text "Foretold by Salzman."

Production length

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. 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.

Reciprocation

In patch 3.0.2, preceding the release of the World of Warcraft expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, often referred to as WotLK, WLK or Wrath, is the second expansion set for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft, following The Burning Crusade...

, Blizzard included a "Make Love, Not Warcraft" PvP achievement, gained by using the "hug" emote on a dead enemy before they release their spirit.
The fictitious video game played by Butters, Hello Kitty
Hello Kitty
is a fictional character produced by the Japanese company Sanrio, first designed by Yuko Shimizu. She is portrayed as a female white Japanese bobtail cat with a red bow. The character's first appearance on an item, a vinyl coin purse, was introduced in Japan in 1974 and brought to the United States...

: Island Adventure, was referenced in a 2008 April Fools Day joke by the actual MMORPG Hello Kitty Online
Hello Kitty Online
Hello Kitty Online is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online role playing game developed by Sanrio Digital and Typhoon Games...

, announcing an "Island Adventure" expansion for the game, boasting a reduction of content rather than an "expansion", leaving players stranded on a tropical island.

Reception

The episode received high review ratings. IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...

, 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."

The original television airing of the episode drew 3.4 million viewers, most between the ages of 18 and 49. This popularity made the episode Comedy Central's highest-rated midseason premiere since the year 2000. However, the highest ratings for the tenth season belong to the season's premiere, "The Return of Chef
The Return of Chef
"The Return of Chef" is the first episode of the tenth season of the animated television series South Park, and the 140th episode overall. It first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on March 22, 2006. It was advertised as the tenth season premiere. The episode was the first after the...

", which drew more than 3.5 million viewers.

In 2007, this episode won the Primetime Emmy Award
Primetime Emmy Award
The Primetime Emmy Awards are awards presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in recognition of excellence in American primetime television programming...

 for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour)
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming less than One Hour)
The Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program is a Creative Arts Emmy Award which is given annually to an animated series which is judged to have been the best...

.

In 2008, on Comedy Central in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, fans voted this as their favorite episode of all time in a list of top ten best episodes.

In 2010, Comedy Central X in the United Kingdom voted the episode number 2 in the 100 Best South Park Episodes, losing the top spot to "Scott Tenorman Must Die
Scott Tenorman Must Die
"Scott Tenorman Must Die" is the fourth episode of the fifth season of the animated television series South Park, and the 69th episode of the series overall. "Scott Tenorman Must Die" originally aired in the United States on July 11, 2001 on Comedy Central. English rock band Radiohead guest star in...

".

External links

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