Warcrafter

English

Etymology

From Warcraft +‎ -er.

Noun

Warcrafter (plural Warcrafters)

1. A player of the Warcraft franchise of video games.
   • (Can we date this quote?), Computer Gaming World:

     Within a few weeks of its release, avid Warcrafters had uploaded dozens of home-brew scenarios, filling up the file areas of online services and bulletin boards. […] Warcraft II may be the current king of the scenario editing hill, but the battle is far from over.

   • 1997 January, PC Games, pages 30–31:

     734 Maps for Warcraft II, from newcomer Cybertooth Technology, offers exactly—wild guess here—734 new maps for map-starved Warcrafters, including hundreds designed specifically for multiplayer battle.

   • 2002 August 19, Phil Larose, “Game goes beyond addictive”, in The Island Packet, page 9-B:

     “Abandon all hope of a real life, all ye who enter here.” There’s no warning label like that on the “Warcraft III” box, but there should be. […] So I took a crash course at the elbow of a veteran Warcrafter, who offered his expertise to get me started in the latest incarnation of the game.

   1. A player of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft.

      Synonyms: World of Warcrafter, WoWer

      • 2003 February, “World of Warcraft”, in Hyper, page 28:

        Choose from the classic Warcraft races and character types for your avatar, and then join thousands of other Warcrafters to investigate dungeons, huge cities, snowy mountains, magical forests and scorching deserts.

      • 2004 September 3, The Palm Beach Post, volume 96, number 147, page 19:

        To players, this equates to smooth, stable and secure Internet-based gameplay with thousands of other Warcrafters, simultaneously, in that communal orgy of ogre-slaying way of MMORPGs. World of Warcraft is undergoing extensive beta testing with retail launch scheduled for October.

      • 2010 April, Pavel Barter, “Are You Being Served?”, in PC Zone, page 16:

        Not liking the thought of jail, some of the biggest private servers disbanded. Toxic Wow, Ani Wow, Wowfusion, Wowscape: all gone. This, many Warcrafters believed, was the beginning of the end.

      • 2010 July 14, “Rhodri Marsden: Online anonymity lets us behave badly”, in The Independent‎^[1], archived from the original on 15 December 2022:

        If you've played World of Warcraft you'll know it's not the most restrained social arena (particularly if you're trying to annihilate Kaz'rogal in the Battle for Mount Hyjal) and the prospect of online altercations spilling over into the real world scared many people. […] Some respondents during the ensuing 2,000-page discussion on this topic dared to suggest that privacy wasn't really an issue, but they were forced to eat their words when a Blizzard employee, after revealing his real name in defence of the system, suddenly found his phone number, address, details of his parents, siblings and spouse, and even pictures of his childhood home posted online by Warcrafters trying to make a point.

      • 2013 November 8, Matt Purslow, “World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor catapults all players to level 90, features Outland pre-fiery death”, in PCGamesN‎^[2], archived from the original on 10 November 2013:

        Thankfully Blizzard have realised that this expansion is likely to draw in some Warcrafters who left the cause years ago, and also a fair load of newbies.

      • 2016 June 3, Richard Trenholm, “Memories of Warcraft: Fans including Duncan Jones remember their WoW experiences”, in CNET‎^[3], archived from the original on 15 December 2022:

        As "Warcraft: The Beginning" hits theatres, Warcrafters here at CNET and GameSpot -- alongside the film's director, Duncan Jones -- share some of their favourite memories of the game.

      • 2022, David Seelow, quoting Gabor, Games as Transformative Experiences for Critical Thinking, Cultural Awareness, and Deep Learning: Strategies & Resources, CRC Press, →ISBN:

        Warcrafters can join guilds and engage in epic battles to overcome various challenges.

Translations

World of Warcraft player — see WoWer