World of Warcraft Explained

World of WarCraft (WoW) is a race/class-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the 4th game in the Warcraft legacy, excluding all expansion packs and the cancelled Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans. The Warcraft games are set in the eponymous Warcraft Universe, a fantasy setting introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994. World of Warcraft is set four years after the events at the conclusion of Blizzard's previous release, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne.
World of Warcraft General information
World of Warcraft was simultaneously released on both Windows and Macintosh computer systems in North America, Australia and New Zealand on November 23, 2004. The game sold more than 240,000 copies in its first 24 hours on the market, more than any other PC game in history. Though not officially released in South Korea until January 18, 2005, it had been found on store shelves since November 2004. The game was released in Europe on February 11, 2005 with English, French and German language versions. On March 2, 2005, 100,000 testers signed up for China's World of Warcraft beta test within the first hour. The game was released in China on June 6, 2005. The game won high praise at E³ in 2003, including Gamer's Pulse's Best of Show award. World of Warcraft was declared by many in the computer gaming industry, including GameSpot and GameSpy, as 2004's game of the year. And, as with any game, it has its own terminology.

The World of Warcraft Launch
As is common with the launch of a MMORPG, World of Warcraft had its share of problems at first. Partly because of the huge number of people who bought the game, along with server instability, Blizzard chose to stop selling copies of the game some time after the launch. Sales were limited accordingly until more servers, called worlds, or realms, could be assembled. Due to the massive initial sales, there were also periods where players had to wait in queues before playing, as some realms were at their maximum player limit. When more servers were added, these queues became less common and sales of the game resumed. Still, in certain high population areas with World of Warcraft like Ironforge or Orgrimmar, players continued to experience game performance delays.

World of Warcraft Sales
As of August 2005, World of Warcraft has more than 4,000,000 players worldwide, making it the most popular MMORPG in the world. Over 1 million of these players live in the US. 1.5 million of these are from the World of Warcraft Chinese launch on July 7, 2005. These numbers exclude all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or canceled subscriptions, and expired pre-paid cards. Blizzard also stated that at any given time at least 500,000 World of Warcraft subscribers are online. Due to World of Warcraft's high sales it has been described as a "runaway success" with "overwhelming popularity", which other games, like The Matrix Online, blame for their lackluster sales.

On August 3, 2005, China implemented legislation which forbids minors from playing games in which players kill each other. The impact of this on World of Warcraft's revenue is still to be determined.

World of Warcraft Characters
Because World of Warcraft is a role-playing game, players create characters which serve as their avatar in the online world.

When creating a character in World of Warcraft, the player can choose from eight different races and nine different character classes. The races are split into two equally sized factions, the Alliance and the Horde:

*The Alliance consists of Humans, Night Elves, Dwarves, and Gnomes.
*The Horde consists of Orcs, Tauren, Undead (a.k.a. Forsaken) and Trolls.
*Additionally, there are many NPC races such as Goblins, Ogres, High Elves and Murlocs.

The nine available classes are Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock and Warrior. Two of the classes are faction-specific: Paladins for the Alliance and Shamans for the Horde. Classes are also limited by race.

World of Warcraft Professions
In addition to the character classes in World of Warcraft, a player may choose two primary professions and as many secondary professions as they wish. The professions consist of two types: gathering and item creation/service. Many players choose to pair two related professions, thus allowing the character to gather the required materials for the crafting skill. Some of the most commonly paired skills are Mining and Blacksmithing or Alchemy and Herbalism. Some World of Warcraft players choose to select only "gathering" professions, opting to simply supply resources to players with item creation skills. This type of player will typically offer gathered items for sale on World of Warcraft's auction houses.

World of Warcraft Virtual world
The current World of Warcraft virtual world is built around two main continents: The Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. The new World Tree of Teldrassil is off the northwestern coast of Kalimdor. While not all of the history between the end of The Frozen Throne and the four years between the start of World of Warcraft has been revealed, it is assumed that the conflict between the Horde's forces and the marines of the Theramore Isles at the end of the Orc mini-campaign were at least the kindling for the blaze of the current conflict.

Some of the notable landmarks and locations in World of Warcraft that were featured in previous Warcraft games, namely Warcraft III, are:

The Undercity, which resides under the Ruins of Lordaeron, is the main city of the Undead, ruled by Sylvanas Windrunner and Varimathras. Here they are engineering a new plague to wipe out the Scourge and all other life forms in Azeroth; The Eastern and Western Plaguelands, including places such as Andorhal, the place of origin of the Scourge and the Plague of Undeath, and Stratholme, the site of Arthas' initial fall into insanity; The Blasted Lands, home of the original Dark Portal out of which the Orcs first came into Azeroth; and Kalimdor, home to the Tauren, Orcs, Trolls, and Night Elves. Areas to the north include Ashenvale Forest, Felwood, Winterspring, Azshara and the Moonglade. These regions surround Mt. Hyjal, where the final battle against Archimonde was held and the fall of the Burning Legion's Second Invasion took place.

As of mid-2005 a number of areas in World of Warcraft's virtual world have yet to be implemented. Some examples of this are:

In Kalimdor: Mount Hyjal (south-east of Winterspring), Ahn'qiraj (south of the Scarab Wall in Silithus), and the Caverns of Time and Uldum (both in Tanaris).
In Lordaeron: Gilneas (south of the Greymane Wall), Quel'Thalas (north-east of Stratholme), and Zul'Aman (east of Quel'Thalas).
In Khaz Modan: Grim Batol (in the far east of the Wetlands).
In Azeroth (confusingly both the name of the southern continent and the name of the world): Medivh's Tower (in Deadwind Pass).

It is possible to enter these World of Warcraft zones, either accidentally or intentionally. It is however not advised as it is a bannable offense.

Several islands named on the map cannot be reached: Kul Tiras, Tol Barad, Zul'Dare, Crestfall, and Sunwell Grove.

An example of a portal from World of Warcraft.

Five portals are present but currently serve no purpose:
*The Dark Portal
*The portal in Duskwood
*The portal in Ashenvale Forest
*The portal in Feralas
*The portal in Hinterlands

The Dark Portal should lead to the Outlands. It is possible that this portal will be opened when a World of Warcraft player acquires the Book of Medivh. This book might be found on Kel'Thuzad who ought to be found in the Naxxaramas Necropolis, above Stratholme. The Naxxaramas Necropolis is not yet implemented, although you can see an inactive portal deep inside Stratholme. (Note: This is speculation based on lore; there may be more to opening the portal than just acquiring the Book of Medivh.)

The other four portals, in Ashenvale, Duskwood, Feralas, and the Hinterlands are connected to the Emerald Dream. Ysera or the Dreamer is one of the five Dragon Aspects that watch over the world of Azeroth. The green dragon and younger sister to Alexstrasza, she was empowered by the titan Eonar to be bound to the Emerald Dream in an eternal trance to forever watch over the wilds and the druids in the Emerald Dream. It is also thought that the Essence of Eranikus trinket quest will be continued and will include Emerald Dream content. The current quest chain ends when you talk to Umbranse the Spiritspeaker. He says that Eranikus is not dead and he can contact him, but he needs a powerful augur device that was stolen from him. It is unknown where this device is, how to acquire it, or whether its currently in the game right now at all. The World of Warcraft patch 1.8 introduces Emeriss, Taerar, Ysondre, and Lethon, four outdoor raid encounter dragons that protect the four portals to the Emerald Dream, and hints at further development of this storyline.

The 3rd major continent, Northrend, which was featured in Warcraft III and The Frozen Throne expansion, does not appear in the World of Warcraft at all. Given that every game like World of Warcraft has had new content sold as a new game expansion, this might be added in the confirmed expansion for this game.

World of Warcraft Instances
World of Warcraft also features instances. Instances, or "Instanced Dungeons", are dungeons that have been designed and tailored specifically for certain sizes of groups and are duplicated for each group that enters it. This way a party can experience a dungeon without interference from other World of Warcraft players, and cannot zerg it by bringing in outside help to overwhelm the opposition. Instances will allow only a certain maximum group size to enter, ranging from 5-man groups in some small instances, to 40. As of mid-2005 there are three instances which allow for a maximum of 40 people: Onyxia's Lair, The Molten Core, and Blackwing Lair. These are the toughest areas in the game and success in these three instances is hardly possible without great organization and good equipment. The recently added World of Warcraft Zul'Gurub instance allows for a maximum of 20 people and offers a more casual gameplay experience.

Typically, World of Warcraft instanced dungeons are more elaborate and require more steps to be taken in a particular order for successful completion than are necessary in the main world. For example, requiring that a large group of enemies be defeated so that one can pull a lever to rotate a bridge in order to access a new section of the map makes sense when one group is traversing the dungeon linearly; it makes far less sense in public areas where hundreds of other World of Warcraft players might be in the same area. Therefore, instanced dungeons tend to be much more interesting than normal areas, in which quest requirements are very simple (e.g. kill a certain number of enemies, or collect a certain number of objects).

On January 16 & 17, 2007 World of Warcraft The Burning Crusade was released. Blizzard also announced the subscription base has reached 8 million.


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