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World of Warcraft

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World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft box art
Developer(s)Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher(s)Vivendi Universal
Designer(s)Rob Pardo
Platform(s)Windows, Mac OS X
ReleaseNovember 12, 2004 (KR)
November 23, 2004 (US), (CA), (AU), (NZ)
February 11, 2005 (EU)
June 6, 2005 (CN)
July 21, 2005 (SG)
November 8, 2005 (TW), (HK), (MO)
Genre(s)Fantasy MMORPG
Mode(s)Multiplayer

World of Warcraft (commonly abbreviated as WoW) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the 4th game in the Warcraft series, excluding expansion packs and the cancelled Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans. The Warcraft games are set in the aptly named Warcraft Universe, a fantasy setting introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994. World of Warcraft is currenly set on the world of Azeroth, four years after the events at the conclusion of Blizzard's previous release, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne,. In the upcoming expansion, The Outland will be available for players to explore. World of Warcraft celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise.

World of Warcraft is a radical departure from the standard real time simulation play-style of other Warcraft themed games. Featuring a low learning curve, easy level advancement with minimal experience grinding and low down-time, World of Warcraft has become one of the most popular MMORPGs in the world, with more than 6 million[1] active subscriptions. The game is highly regarded as a success, although its release was hampered with server stability and performance issues which continue intermittently.[2]

Launch and sales

File:Wowcollectors.jpg
Box shot of the World of Warcraft Collector's Edition

The game was officially released in Korea on November 12, 2004. Although the game was available online, the client CD was also distributed free for the first 150,000 people who had signed up. The game was free to play for about two months, but it officially became Pay to Play in South Korea on December 27, 2005. The game was simultaneously released on both Windows and Macintosh computer systems in North America, Australia and New Zealand on November 23, 2004. Blizzard released two versions of the game upon its launch. One was the regular CD edition, and the other was the limited Collector's Edition. The collector's box contained the following items:

  • The entire game on both one DVD and five CDs.
  • A one-month subscription to the game.
  • A guest pass to the game, providing a player's friend with 10-day access.
  • A Behind the Scenes DVD.
  • A Collector's Edition Soundtrack.
  • A Collector's Edition manual.
  • The Art of World of Warcraft (Hardcover book).
  • A cloth map of Azeroth.
  • An exclusive in-game pet for every character. The player can choose a Zergling, a Panda, or a Mini Diablo.

The game sold more than 240,000 copies in its first 24 hours on the market, more than any other PC game in history. 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 WoW beta test within the first hour. The game was released in China on June 6, 2005. The game got 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 language or terminology.

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 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 (such as Ironforge and Orgrimmar), players continue to experience decreased game performance.

File:Zergling Panda Diablo.jpg
The three exclusive in-game pets as seen in the Collector's Edition. A Panda, Mini Diablo and Zergling.

As of March 2006, World of Warcraft has more than 6,000,000 players worldwide. Over 1 million of these players live in the US, making it the most popular MMORPG in the US. 1.5 million of the players are from the 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 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.[3]

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

World of Warcraft won critical acclaim in 2004 and achieved many awards as a result of this, some which can be found at the official World of Warcraft list of awards.

On February 2, 2006, the game won the "Grand Prix" award at the 2006 Imagina Games Awards. [2]

On June 1, 2006 industry website MMOGchart.com reported that World of Warcraft had passed the 50 percent market share for MMOG games. The report was also reprinted in other technology-oriented websites, such as Arstechnica. [4]

System requirements

World of Warcraft runs natively on both Macintosh and Windows platforms. Boxed copies of the game use a hybrid CD to install the game, eliminating the need for separate Mac and Windows retail products.

The following system requirements were taken from the official World of Warcraft website:

Minimum system requirements
  • Mac® OS X 10.3.9:
    • 933 MHz or higher G4, or G5, or Intel processor
    • 512 MB RAM or higher; DDR RAM recommended
    • ATI Technologies or NVIDIA® video hardware with 32 MB VRAM or more
    • 6.0 GB available HD space
    • 4x CD-Rom drive
    • 56k or better Internet connection
Recommended system requirements
  • Windows® System 2000/XP OS:
    • Intel Pentium® IV 1.5 GHz or AMD XP 1500+ MHz
    • 1024 MB RAM
    • 64 MB 3D graphics card with Hardware Transform and Lighting, such as NVIDIA® GeForce™ FX 5700 class card or above
    • Broadband Internet connection
    • Two-button scroll-wheel mouse
  • Mac® OS X 10.3.9 or newer:
    • 1024 MB RAM or higher; DDR RAM recommended
    • ATI or NVIDIA® video hardware with 64 MB VRAM or more
    • Broadband Internet connection

World of Warcraft allows all users to play together, regardless of their operating system.

As of July 2005, Blizzard has no immediate plans to release a Linux version, but there is an online petition aimed at convincing Blizzard to release a true Linux port. However, support for World of Warcraft is present in Windows API implementations Wine and Cedega, allowing the game to be played on Linux. FreeBSD users have also been successful in using Wine to run the game.

As of Patch 1.9.3 the game added native support for the newer Intel-powered Macs, making World of Warcraft a Universal Application. As a result of this the minimum supported Mac OS X version has been changed to 10.3.9; World of Warcraft version 1.9.3 and later will not launch on older versions of Mac OS X.

Realms

World of Warcraft uses servers, known as 'realms', to allow players to choose their preferred gameplay type, and to allow the game to support as many subscribers as it does. Users may have up to ten characters per realm, and up to a maximum of fifty characters per account. There are four types of realms: Normal (also known as PvE or player versus environment), PvP (player versus player), RP (roleplaying) and RP-PvP (roleplaying with player versus player features).

Blizzard posts announcements on the login screen of World of Warcraft about realm status or issues. The status for each realm can also be viewed on their main website.[3]

Normal (PvE)

On the PvE realms, throughout most of the world, the PvP flag may only be enabled by actively turning it on using the command /pvp or by attacking a hostile player, entering a city of the opposing faction or casting a spell on a friendly PvP-flagged player. In battlegrounds and free-for-all arenas the PvP flag is also turned on. The PvP flag will be removed when the player has been out of PvP combat for 5 minutes. If the PvP flag was enabled using /pvp, the player will need to turn it off using the same command and then avoiding PvP combat for 5 minutes.

Player vs. player

PvP realms will flag the player for PvP as soon as he or she leaves a friendly zone (indicated by the green color of the zone name). Faction specific zones (Zones made for characters between levels 1–20 and the major cities) are friendly to the player. Other zones are contested (indicated by a yellow color). PvP-flagged players may attack any other PvP-flagged player of the opposing faction without any moderation from the gamemasters.

Roleplaying

The roleplaying realms use the same ruleset as PvE realms, with the exception that players must act and behave in character.

Roleplaying PvP

The roleplaying PvP realms are an extension to the roleplaying realms in that they use the PvP ruleset instead of the PvE ruleset.

Characters

Characters in World of Warcraft are tied to specific user accounts that can be used in all servers, or realms. However, characters created on one server are not usable on another, unless a server transfer is enabled. Users can create up to 10 characters per realm (with a maximum total of 50[5] ) which range from a diverse amount of races and classes. The two factions currently in the game are the Alliance and Horde, both consisting of four different races.

File:World of Warcraft screeenshot.jpg
A screenshot of the game

Races and classes

Players create characters which serve as their avatars in the online world of Azeroth. 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 diametrically opposed factions, the Alliance and the Horde.

See also: Races in the Warcraft universe.

The nine available classes are Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock and Warrior. Two of the classes are faction-specific: Paladin, the Alliance's exclusive class, represent that faction's proclivity towards law and the "Holy Light"; whereas the Horde's exclusive class, the Shaman, symbolize that faction's ties to the forces of nature and the five elements. Beyond this, classes are also limited by race. There are currently 20 possible combinations of race and class for each faction, for a total of 40 combinations across both factions; however, with the upcoming expansion The Burning Crusade, this will increase to 25 and 50, respectively. Template:World of Warcraft classes

Character types

There are two types of characters in the game: Player Characters (PC) and Non-Player Characters (NPCs), the latter having many different offshoots. Player Characters are people around the world actively playing the game. The color of a PC's name tag can vary from blue, green, yellow, or red depending on faction and Player vs. Player (PvP) status. NPCs are the characters that can only interact with player characters through scripted events or artificial intelligence (AI).

There are many types of NPCs. First are the friendly NPCs, whose names are displayed in green. Second come the many hostile NPCs; mainly the NPCs of the opposing faction and mobs (enemies controlled by AI). Any character whose name is displayed in red is hostile and should either be avoided or dealt with accordingly. Finally, some NPCs are neutral and will only attack if provoked; their names are displayed in yellow.

NPCs in major and minor cities can sell merchandise, train crafting skills, bestow spells, sell, give quests, and provide all services that are needed in the game. Some will merely offer advice or further the story, while others patrol around set paths to keep cities defended against attacking players.

Professions

Template:World of Warcraft professions

Main article: Professions (World of Warcraft)

In addition to the character classes, a player may choose two primary professions and all three secondary professions that the game offers, if they so choose. Essentially, there are two types of professions: gathering and item creation. Many players choose to pair two related professions, thus allowing the character to gather the required materials for the crafting skill. The most commonly paired skills are as follows: Mining and Blacksmithing, Mining and Engineering, Skinning and Leatherworking, Herbalism and Alchemy, and to a lesser extent, Tailoring and Enchanting. Some players choose to select only "gathering" professions, opting to simply supply resources to players with item creation skills. These types of players will typically offer gathered items for sale in the game's auction houses. In the upcoming expansion, the Jewelcrafting profession will be introduced.

Attributes

Attributes are used by the game to calculate strengths and weaknesses for each character. The attributes that are used in World of Warcraft are as follows:

  • Agility (AGI)
  • Strength (STR)
  • Intellect (INT)
  • Stamina (STA)
  • Spirit (SPI)

The starting attributes are determined by your race and class. These attributes increase when the characters gain levels and can be boosted by various items.

These attributes hold a key role in determining a character's health (hit points), mana (used for casting spells), attack power (how strong your character's attacks are), armor (reduces the amount of damage you take), dodge chance, critical strike chances (a default of double damage with ranged and melee weapons, a default of 1.5 times with spells), health regeneration, and mana regeneration. For each class, different attributes are more important. For classes that rely on melee combat, strength is more important than spirit, while spell casters will benefit more from a spirit and intelligence boost than from a boost in strength.

Items and equipment

Main article: World of Warcraft items and equipment

Player characters can acquire various items in the game. Items can vary from resources such as herbs or raw ores to items to be retrieved for quests. Player characters can also equip different weapons and armour, either to customise their character or improve abilities such as better attacks or defense skills. Players of higher levels can obtain mounts, such as horses or mechanostriders, that temporarily increase their movement speed when used. It is also wise to remember that some classes, as mentioned above, are more gear dependent than others. That is to say, on context of playing their class correctly, equipment plays an important role in the successful avenue that character take. `

PvP rankings

Players are ranked in the "PvP Honor System", earning points for killing player of the opposing faction, and winning victories in the battleground instances. There are fourteen ranks, ranging from Private to Grand Marshal for Alliance players, and from Scout to High Warlord for the Horde. As players achieve higher ranks, they are able to buy items including a special PvP mount and rare and epic quality weapons and armor from military quartermasters. For more information on PvP in World of Warcraft, see Player versus Player.

The world

Geography

File:World of Warcraft World Map.jpg
World of Warcraft World Map

The current virtual world is built around two main continents: The Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. While not all of the history of the four years between the end of The Frozen Throne and the start of World of Warcraft has been revealed, it is known that the conflict between the Horde's forces and the marines of the Theramore Isles at the end of the Orc mini-campaign were the kindling for the current conflict. This forced the Horde to mainly reside in Kalimdor, and the Alliance to settle predominantly in the Eastern Kingdoms.

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

As of early 2006 a number of regions in the virtual world have yet to be implemented. Some examples of this are:

Some of these areas are accessible, but is not recommended, as it could get a player banned.

  • One portal, the Dark Portal, is present but currently serves no purpose. There are four other portals, located in Duskwood, Ashenvale Forest, Feralas, and The Hinterlands that are the sites of four extremely powerful green dragons.

Come the expansion, the Dark Portal will lead to the Outlands. According to a Blizzard game designer, the Dark Portal will be opened when the expansion set is released. Further, opening the Dark Portal will not require the defeat of Kel'Thuzad in Naxxramas Necropolis (Jeff Kaplan, as quoted in the New York Times, May 11, 2006). The Naxxramas Necropolis was added to the game in the 1.11 patch.

The other four portals, in Ashenvale, Duskwood, Feralas, and the Hinterlands are connected to the Emerald Dream. Each one of these portals is guarded by a corrupted green dragon, the Dream itself is not yet accessible.

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. This might be added in a future expansion for this game.

Instances

Main article: Instance (World of Warcraft)

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 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-man raids. As of summer 2006 there are four instances which allow for a maximum of 40 people: Onyxia's Lair, Molten Core, Blackwing Lair and the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj. These are the toughest areas in the game and success in these four instances is virtually impossible without great organization and good equipment. The recently added Zul'Gurub and Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj instances allow for a maximum of 20 people and offer a more casual gameplay experience.

Typically, 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 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).

Instances in World of Warcraft also feature many more rare item drops than just the world itself. Some rare items such as armor sets, epic weapons, rare mounts, etc. can only be found within instances.

Template:World of Warcraft instances

Virtual community

In addition to playing the game itself and conversing on discussion forums provided by Blizzard, World of Warcraft players often participate in the World of Warcraft virtual community in creative ways, including fan artwork and comic strip style storytelling. Blizzard furthers this community by offering in game, and out of game prizes as well as highlighting community events and occurrences. Blizzard also provided incentives for introducing new members to World of Warcraft. In late October 2005 each subscribed player received a 10-day free pass[6] which they were suggested to use as seasonal gifts that could either be used or given to a friend. These passes would generate a free month's usage if the guest player purchased a full account.

Another popular phenomenon in the community is a video starring a player named Leeroy Jenkins, intended to provide publicity for Leeroy's guild. Leeroy's popularity inspired tributes in other games, and he was even part of a clue on the November 16th, 2005 episode of the TV game show College Jeopardy!.

There are various other memes, including "Face Melting", a reference to a very long thread on the priest forums on the World of Warcraft website which consisted of players saying "You will melt faces as a Shadow Priest in PvP" in different ways. These memes gain notoriety through postings on the World of Warcraft Forums.

As of August 2005, the Dark Iron server has been home to the guilds of web-comic creators Scott Kurtz (PvPonline), Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins (Penny Arcade). Kurtz created Panda Attack and Djörk on the Horde side, while Holkins and Krahulik initiated a series of guilds that is now known as the Penny Arcade Alliance. This event became referred to as the Comic Guild Wars, and has created healthy competition between the authors, to the extent of dedicating some of their strips to the subject.

Deviance from the MMORPG archetype

Blizzard has used World of Warcraft to make some changes to the typical MMORPG in response to the common complaints received from players about other games in this genre. In particular the game play has been changed to make it more even and fair for both hardcore and casual players. For example, players gain similar experience overall from completing quests as by only killing monsters ('grinding'). Many players find grinding uninteresting and opt instead to continue to do quests.

The other system used by Blizzard to help the casual player is the "rested state". While in rested state, a character will earn twice as much experience as would normally be gained from killing monsters, but will gain the standard amount of experience from completing quests and exploring. This feature allows someone who has been away from the game for a period of time to double his leveling capability until he leaves the rested state, providing a "catch up" incentive upon returning to the game. However, in order to prevent players exploiting this by leaving one character logged off in an inn while playing another, the maximum amount of rest a character can accumulate is capped at 1.5 levels' worth; the quantity of experience this represents varies depending on the character's level. Players can increase the rate at which their characters gain rest by a factor of four by returning to an inn or capital city to log off. Rest increases whether or not a character is logged in, but slowly enough (10 days to reach a fully-rested state in an inn) that it is most easily noticed when a character is first logged in after not having been played for several hours or days.

However, gameplay changes drastically at level 60. In order to get access to the best gear, players must either invest in an 'honor grind' in battlegrounds, or spend copious amounts of time raiding in end-game instances. Furthermore, progression in these end-game instances may require additional grinding for 'resist' gear (fire, nature, and ice predominantly), reputation for factions associated with the instance, money for repair bills, and consumables for use within the instance. The newest 40 man instance, Naxxaramas, requires considerable reputation grinding to even be allowed to enter the instance without expensive material costs. The gear obtained from high end instances is in most cases considerably superior to that available elsewhere, and can result in a pronounced disparity that is readily apparent in Player vs Player combat. While many agree that gear obtained from raiding is the result of large amounts of time and effort put into the game, endgame in World of Warcraft has reverted to the paradigm set by previous games such as EverQuest.

Modifications

Modifying the user interface (UI) of a game is nothing new, but Blizzard has included exceptional support for modifications. At a simple level it allows full control over the content of toolbars and hot keys, as well as macros to automate sets of operations and the ability to script much more elaborate tools. The range of modifications that are available can be anything from ways to automatically advertise tradeskills, to adding extra rows of button bars for spells, skills and more. There are also various humorous mods, including one that reproduces the infamous Leeroy Jenkins sound [5].

Addons are created using one or both Lua and XML, and images used for modifications are created using the .TGA (Targa) and .BLP image formats. Blizzard has also released a Interface Customization tool to support and encourage to-be UI modders.

Common websites for obtaining various user-made interface modifications include:

More information on interface customization can be found at: WoWWiki and the official UI & Macros forum.

Some third-party programs that operate in a stand-alone mode, or independent of World of Warcraft may be considered exploits, especially if they automate operation beyond that made available using the built-in macro functionality, or pass information in or out of the game. Use of these is against the Terms of Service agreed to when playing the game, and as such, may lead to possible suspension or closure of accounts. Blizzard has stated on the official forums that any modification that uses the Lua programming language will not be considered an exploit, though Blizzard reserves the right to change information available via the Lua language if the modification changes the nature of encounters in the game.

More information on exploits can be found at: Criticism of World of Warcraft

Expansion pack

Main article: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade

On October 28, 2005 Blizzard revealed that the first expansion pack will be called World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. It will include an increased level cap of 70, a new crafting profession (Jewelcrafting), and two new races, one of which being the Blood Elves for the Horde, which will reside in the capital city of Quel'Thalas, and the other being the Draenei for Alliance. The expansion will also feature Outlands as a new playable zone, as well as a new flying mount,the netherdragon, usable only in Outlands, for high-level players. Some of the expansion's features will be available to all players, though the most significant additions – visiting Outlands, creating characters of the two new races, and so on – will require the Burning Crusade to be installed.

On May 10, 2006 at E3, the new Alliance race, the Draenei, was announced. This confirmed the deductions of many players who had spent significant amounts of time playing the guessing game of what the new race would be.

World of Warcraft movie

Just before E3 2006, an official press release from Blizzard announced that a live action motion picture based on the Warcraft world was being planned. Legendary Pictures has acquired the movie rights for the game universe, and both companies are now focused on translating the Warcraft experience to the big screen. No further details have been released.

Criticism

Main article: Criticism of World of Warcraft

Due to World of Warcraft's large player base, and international appeal, it has experienced numerous criticisms. One of the most recent of these controversies had to do with Blizzard's treatment of a lesbian player when she made a guild for other gay or gay-friendly players.[7] Other common criticisms or problems include lag related issues, hacking, exploits, and some design features. World Of Warcraft has also come under criticism for stories of addictions to the popular video game. In June of 2005 it was reported that a child had died due to neglect by the WOW addiction of her parents. [6] In August of that year, the government of the People's Republic of China decided to enforce control over how many hours the country's 20 million gamers can play. [7]


References

  1. ^ Blizzard Entertainment. Spanish version of World of Warcraft in development. February 28, 2006. Retrieved March, 23, 2006.
  2. ^ Massimilla, Bethany (2006). "Welcome to the World of Queuecraft". Gamespot. Retrieved 2006-04-16.
  3. ^ "Conqueror in a War of Virtual Worlds", The New York Times: September 6, 2005; by Seth Schiesel in "The Arts" section [1]
  4. ^ Reimer, Jeremy (2006-06-01). "World of Warcraft passes 50 percent market share". Arstechnica. Retrieved 2006-06-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ Blizzard Entertainment (2005). World of Warcraft Community Site - Support Retrieved Reb. 23, 2005.
  6. ^ Blizzard Entertainment (2005). World of Warcraft Community Site - Check your inbox for the Recruit-A-Friend e-mail! Retrieved Mar. 6, 2006.
  7. ^ Vargas, Jose (21 Mar 2006). "Gay online gamers spark debate over identities". The Washington Post. Retrieved 20 Apr 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)

Official websites

Useful resources


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