[About...] World of Warcraft

[IRiS]

All you need to know about World of Warcraft [WoW]



World of Warcraft, often referred to as WoW, is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) 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. World of Warcraft takes place within the Warcraft world of Azeroth, four years after the events at the conclusion of Blizzard's previous Warcraft release, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Blizzard Entertainment announced World of Warcraft on September 2, 2001. The game was released on November 23, 2004, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise.

The first expansion set of the game, The Burning Crusade, was released on January 16, 2007. The second expansion set, Wrath of the Lich King, was released on November 13, 2008.

With more than 11.5 million monthly subscribers, World of Warcraft is currently the world's largest MMORPG in those terms, and holds the Guinness World Record for the most popular MMORPG. In April 2008, World of Warcraft was estimated to hold 62% of the massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) market.

Game Play Actions

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Creating a Character or Play Session

As with other MMORPGs, players control a character avatar within a game world in third person view (with the option of playing in first person), exploring the landscape, fighting various monsters, completing quests, and interacting with NPCs or other players. In common with many other MMORPGs, World of Warcraft requires the player to pay for a subscription, either by buying game cards for a pre-selected amount of playing time, or by using a credit or debit card to pay on a regular basis.

To enter the game, the player must select a realm (or server). Each realm acts as an individual copy of the game world, and falls into one of four rule-set categories. Realms are either Player versus player (PvP), where open combat among players is more common, or Player versus environment (PvE), where the focus is more focused on defeating monsters and completing quests; roleplay (RP) variants of both realm types are also available. On a PvP or RP-PvP server a player may create characters belonging to either the Horde or the Alliance factions, but not both. Realms are also categorized by language, with in-game support in the language available. Players can move established characters between realms for a fee. Then the player may either select one of their previously made characters or create a new one.

To create a new character, in keeping with the storyline in the previous games in the Warcraft series, players must choose between the opposing factions of Alliance or Horde. Characters from the opposing factions can perform rudimentary communication and trade, but only members of the same faction can speak, email, group, and share guilds. The player selects the new character's race (species), such as Orcs or Trolls for the Horde or Humans or Dwarves for the Alliance. Players must also select the class for the character, with choices such as mages, warriors and priests available. All classes, except the Death Knight hero class, are limited to particular races. These restrictions vary from all but a single race being available to play as a warrior, to only two races being able to play as a druid.

Going Game Play

As characters become more developed, they gain various talents and skills, requiring the player to further define the abilities of that character. Professions such as tailoring, blacksmithing, mining, cooking and first-aid can also be learned by characters. Characters may also form or join guilds, allowing characters in the same guild unified communications, a shared guild name, and possibly identity, guild bank and dues.

Much of World of Warcraft play involves "questing". These quests, also called "tasks" or "missions", are usually available from non-player characters (NPCs). Quests usually reward the player with experience points, items, and/or in-game money. It is also through quests that much of the game's story is told, both through the quest text and through scripted NPC actions. Quests are linked by a common theme, with the next quest triggered by the completion of the previous, forming a quest chain. Quests commonly involve killing a number of creatures, gathering a certain number of resources, finding a difficult to locate object, speaking to various NPCs, visiting specific locations, interacting with objects in the world, or delivering an item from one place to another.

While a character can be played on its own, players can also group up with others in order to tackle more challenging content. In this way, character classes are used in specific roles within a group. World of Warcraft uses a "rested bonus" system, increasing the rate that a character can gain experience points after the player has spent time away from the game. When a character dies, it become a ghost (or wisp for elf character) at a nearby graveyard. Characters can be resurrected by other characters that have the ability, or can self-resurrect by moving from the graveyard to the place where they died. If this location is unreachable, they can use a special NPC known as a spirit healer to resurrect at the graveyard. When a character dies the items being carried degrade, requiring in-game money and a specialist NPC to repair them. Items that degrade heavily can become unusable until they are repaired.

World of Warcraft contains a variety of mechanisms for player-versus-player (PvP) play. Some realms allow player-versus-player combat almost anywhere in the game world. In these environments, members of opposing factions can attack each other at almost any time or location. Player-versus-environment (PvE) servers, by contrast, allows a player to choose whether or not to engage in combat against other players. On both server types, there are special areas of the world where free-for-all combat is permitted. Battlegrounds, for example, are similar to dungeons: only a set number of characters can enter a single battleground, but additional copies of the battleground can be made to accommodate additional players. Each battleground has a set objective, such as capturing a flag or defeating an opposing general, that must be completed in order to win the battleground. Competing in battlegrounds rewards the character with tokens and honor points that can be used to buy armour and weapons.

Receptions

Reception of WoW

World of Warcraft was almost universally praised by critics upon release, following a period of high anticipation before launch. Although the game follows a similar model to others in the genre and was noted for having many familiar concepts from roleplaying games, the new approaches to reduce pauses between game encounters was well liked. A common example was the new approach to character death; in previous MMORPGs a player would suffer a high penalty for character death, while in WoW a player would be able to recover and start playing quickly. Combat was another area where "downtime" or pauses between play were reduced. By allowing all character types to recover from damage taken, players could return to combat quickly. It was felt that these changes in pacing would make the genre more accessible to casual players, who would be able to play for short periods and still achieve something, while still having a depth of game that would attract players at all levels of interest in the genre. The concept of a "rested bonus", or increasing the rate at which a player's character gains experience was also welcomed as a way for players to quickly catch up with their friends

Questing was described as an integral part, often being used to continue a storyline or lead the player through the game. The high number of quests in each location was popular, as well as the rewards for completing them. It was felt that the range of quests removed the need for a player to "grind" or carry out repetitive tasks in order to advance their character. Quests also seemed to require players to explore every section of the game world, potentially causing problems for social gamers or roleplayers seeking somewhere quiet. Quests that required the player to collect items from the corpses of creatures they had killed were also unpopular, with a low "drop rate" or chance of finding the items required making them feel repetitive as a high number of creatures would need to be killed in order to complete the quest. Some critics mentioned a lack of quests that required players to group up made the game feel as if it was designed for solo play, while others complained that some dungeon or instance-based group quests were not friendly to new players and could take several hours to complete. Upon release, a small number of quests had errors or bugs that would make them impossible to complete, while the large number of new players in a particular area meant that there were often no creatures to kill, or that players would have to wait and take turns to kill a particular creature in order to complete a quest.

Characters were felt to be implemented well, with each class option appearing "viable and interesting" while still having unique and different mechanisms, and each of the races having a distinct look and feel. Character development was also liked, with the talent mechanism offering choice to players and profession options being praised. Character customization options were felt to be low, but the detail of character models was praised.

The appearance of the game world was praised by critics. Most popular was the feature that a player could run from one end of the continent to the other without having to pause at a "loading screen" while part of the game is retrieved from storage. The environment was described as "breathtaking", with players finding it difficult to become lost and each area in the game world having a distinct look that blends from one to the next. Critics described the environment as "a careful blend of cartoon, fantasy art, and realism". The game was found to run smoothly on a range of systems, although some described it as basic and mentioned that the bloom graphics effect can blur things. Having said that, one reviewer described being able to fly over long stretches of scenery as "very atmospheric". The user interface was liked, being described as "simple", with tooltips helping to get the player started.

The audio was well received, particularly the background music. By assigning music to different areas of the game world, reviewers felt that the fantasy style added to immersion and that the replay value was increased. The sounds and voices used by characters and NPCs, as well as the overall sound effects were felt to add a "personality" to the game.

World of Warcraft won several awards from critics upon release, including Editor's Choice awards. In addition, it won several annual awards from the media, being described as the best game in the RPG and MMORPG class. The graphics and audio were also praised in the annual awards, with the cartoonish style and overall sound makeup being noted. The game was also awarded Best Mac OS X Entertainment Product at the 2005 Apple Design Awards. Finally, World of Warcraft was recognised at the 2005 Spike TV Video Game Awards, where it won Best PC Game, Best Multiplayer Game, Best RPG and Most Addictive Game. In 2008, World of Warcraft was honoured (along with Neverwinter Nights and EverQuest) at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for advancing the art form of MMORPG games.

World of Warcraft was the best-selling PC game of 2005 and 2006. As of January 22, 2008, World of Warcraft has surpassed 10 million subscribers worldwide, with more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America, and about 5.5 million in Asia.


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That's all you pretty much need to know! Just post on this thread if you have any questions.

Good Luck!!![/center][/b]

--IRiS


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