World of Warcraft Background

Just over 15 years ago, Blizzard Inc shook the gaming world with Warcraft: Orcs Vs Humans, a real-time strategy game that combined groundbreaking graphics, an in-depth story, the requirement to think more strategically than ever before, and multiplayer games. in one, a first in the gaming industry. You will be surprised to learn that the first version of Warcraft came before the popular Command & Conquer franchise.

With the success of the first Warcraft release, Blizzard left and a couple of years later released Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, which expanded the universe, introduced new characters and species, and made the game more complicated than ever. Central to the game was Blizzard’s belief that multiplayer games were the wave of the future. Never before has a game paid so much attention to the multiplayer aspect. You have to remember that this happened in the late 90s and even the concept of the internet was new to most people, so you can definitely say that Blizzard was ahead of the idea of ​​multiplayer games.

Warcraft is one of the few games in which developers have spent time building a universe in which the action takes place. By creating this universe, they have added a depth that is rarely seen in other games. At first glance, the story may seem pretty basic, just think of The Lord of the Rings with a mix of medieval technology and a good dose of fantasy. The result? Castles and wizards, swords and dwarves.

Unlike previous versions of Warcraft, the game has slightly changed from a God role to controlling a single character. To begin, you must select whether you are going to play as a member of the Alliance (humans and their allies) or the Horde (Orcs and their species). Each species has its own strengths and weaknesses, so it’s up to you which one to choose with. The character you control is known as your Avatar, which is your representation in the virtual world. The objective is to develop the attributes (known as leveling) of your Avatar so that he becomes bigger, stronger and has more abilities to undertake increasingly difficult missions.

You should be aware that World of Warcraft is completely different from other games that you may have bought in the past because instead of playing against the computer, you are entering an online world (you cannot play it offline) where there are other real people to play with. play. for and against. The game also differs slightly in that it operates a kind of “ pay as you play ” scheme, so you have to pay a monthly subscription to keep logging in or buy prepaid game time; From a business standpoint, Blizzard really made an impact. home run on this!

Innovations in World of Warcraft

As I mentioned earlier, Blizzard has been committed to creating quality multiplayer games since 1994 with the original release of Warcraft: Orcs Vs Humans. They made the multiplayer aspect such an integral part of the games that this experience was not wasted when they created World of Warcraft because it is now officially recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the most popular MMORPG ever created and an estimate from mmogchart. .com places its market share at 62% of the entire MMORPG industry.

When you first play WoW, you can see why Blizzard took almost 5 years to develop. There are a wide variety of innovations and features that could not be found in other MMORPGs at the time of its launch. Even something as simple as the reincarnation of Avatar was revolutionized by Blizzard. In other games, when an Avatar died, it took them a while to go back and be at the same level they were before they died. Blizzard removed this and made reincarnation quicker and easier for players to get back to the center of the action. The same concept applies to the damage an Avatar takes in battle, recovery is faster to help casual players compete almost on an equal footing with expert players.

Just like in the original Warcraft games, there is still a feeling of harvesting, building, and growing. In this case, your Avatar needs to earn gold to buy weapons, eat, sleep, and generally survive in the virtual world. This is made easier by completing ‘missions’ which once completed give you gold or weapons. WoW has been praised for the amount of variety in missions, ensuring that players never get bored doing the same repetitive things over and over again.

You’ve probably played strategy games in the past and found that once you “got” the system, it was pretty easy to beat the computer no matter what. Well believe me everything changes in WoW because you are playing against the most ruthless opponents … other humans. You will discover that WoW is literally a virtual community that reflects much of the real world. You need to earn gold to survive, you need to buy weapons and items with the gold, and you need to interact with others to be more successful.

The social aspect in particular reflects the offline world because you can join different guilds that are set up to help gather resources and provide a level of protection from other players. Guilds tend to stick to geographical boundaries and you are unlikely to find a British player in a predominantly German guild.

WoW in the real world

As in the real world, there is a thriving microeconomy both in and out of the game. Within the game you can collect resources such as copper and sell them at auction for gold. You can then use the gold to buy new weapons and allow Avatar to survive in the virtual world. Just like eBay for WoW, you can put any item you own up for sale and have people bid on it and buy it from you.

In a somewhat surprising twist, virtual goods and virtual money have acquired physical value in the real world. There are hundreds of websites dedicated to allowing you to buy items and gold for real money. The exchange will be organized within the game, but the money changes hands in real life. Blizzard now strictly prohibits trading outside of the game, but that hasn’t stopped a lot of people from participating. To give you an idea of ​​how much money is changing hands, if you wanted to buy 140,000g of virtual gold, it would cost you $ 999.99!

Now, given the massive popularity of WoW and the legions of hardcore PAYING subscribers, it’s no wonder movie studios have sat up and taken notice, especially considering the commercial successes of movies like The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia, which share many of the same fantasies. elements. The Warcraft movie is still in the planning stages, and given the slow progress, many analysts say it probably won’t get off the ground. It was originally supposed to be ready for 2009, but don’t worry if you missed it because even now they don’t know who will star in it.

However, there are rumors that since Spider-man 4 has been shelved, director Sam Raimi has been hired to help spearhead the project. Any details at the moment are pure speculation and hyperbole, but it is said that the story will focus on the Alliance but it will not be as epic as The Lord of the Rings. However, there is still plenty of real-world material to satisfy the thirst of hardcore gamers. A whole series of fictional books has been written about the Warcraft universe, covering all points of its history and taking the point of view of both the Horde and the Alliance. New heroes and villains are introduced. If the books aren’t enough, there are even Marvel comics, quarterly magazines, and Warcraft-inspired artwork.