World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft, often abbreviated as WoW (or, when referring to the original game, vanilla, classic, or pre-BC), is a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) developed by Blizzard Entertainment and released on November 23, 2004, on the 10th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise, three years after its announcement on September 2, 2001. It is the fourth released game set in the Warcraft universe, and takes place four years after the events of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne.

Selected World of Warcraft articles

 * Character &raquo;
 * Classes
 * Races
 * Factions
 * Reputation
 * Professions
 * Equipment


 * Gameplay &raquo;
 * Combat
 * PvP
 * Quests
 * Raids
 * Events


 * Guides Portal &raquo;
 * Instances by continent
 * Instance grouping guide
 * Newbie guide
 * Choosing a class
 * Travel guide
 * Talent builds
 * For many more, visit guides


 * Interface customization project &raquo;


 * Blizzard category &raquo;
 * Battle for Azeroth
 * Blizzard videos
 * Warcraft movie


 * Warcraft universe &raquo;
 * Books
 * Games
 * Lore
 * Planets
 * Zones (locations)
 * Creatures


 * Popular categories &raquo;
 * Game terms
 * Formulas &amp; game mechanics
 * WoW items
 * WoW NPCs
 * WoW quests


 * Community info &raquo;
 * Patches
 * Fansites
 * Wikis
 * Forum trackers
 * Guilds
 * Realms (servers)


 * Official sites &raquo;
 * WoW US / forums
 * WoW EU / forums
 * Blizzard Entertainment

Plot
Four years after the Battle of Mount Hyjal, tensions between the Alliance and the Horde begin to arise once again. Intent on settling the arid region of Durotar, Thrall's new Horde expanded its ranks, inviting the undead Forsaken to join orcs, tauren, and trolls. Meanwhile, dwarves, gnomes and the ancient night elves pledged their loyalties to a reinvigorated Alliance, guided by the human kingdom of Stormwind. After Stormwind's king Varian Wrynn mysteriously disappeared, Highlord Bolvar Fordragon served as Regent, but his service was marred by the manipulations and mind control of the black dragon Onyxia, who ruled in disguise as a human noblewoman. As heroes investigated Onyxia's manipulations, ancient foes surfaced in lands throughout the world to menace Horde and Alliance alike.

Updates
There have been eight expansions to World of Warcraft:
 * The Burning Crusade was released on January 16, 2007.
 * Wrath of the Lich King was released on November 13, 2008.
 * Cataclysm was released on December 7, 2010.
 * Mists of Pandaria was released on September 25, 2012,
 * Warlords of Draenor was released on November 13, 2014.
 * Legion was released on August 30, 2016.
 * Battle for Azeroth was released on August 13/14, 2018.
 * Shadowlands was released on November 23/24, 2020.

Additionally, World of Warcraft: Classic, released on August 26/27, 2019,, provides a way to experience the game as it was before any expansions, and World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Classic released on June 1/2, 2021, provides a way to experience the game as it was during its first expansion.

Over time, the game's expansions have been integrated into the base game. With the release of patch 9.0.1 released on October 13, 2020, all World of Warcraft subscribers (or those with game time) automatically have access to all of the content and features of all the expansions up to Battle for Azeroth at no additional cost.

Further story development is also made throughout its franchising, via online media, novels, comics, manga, RPG books, Trading Card Game, and board games.

Account levels

 * World of Warcraft: Free Trial - Try World of Warcraft for Free - level to 20.
 * Subscription / Game time (monthly payment) - level to 50. Also get access to WoW Classic and BC Classic.
 * World of Warcraft: Shadowlands - level to 60 in the new expansion - requires subscription.

Player Customization

 * 2 factions: Horde and  Alliance.
 * 23 playable races:
 * 13 core races: Human, Dwarf, Gnome, Night Elf, Orc, Troll, Undead, Tauren, Blood Elf,  Draenei,  Goblin  Worgen,  Pandaren.
 * 10 allied races: Void elf, Lightforged draenei, Nightborne, Highmountain tauren, Dark Iron dwarf, Mag'har orc, Kul Tiran, Zandalari troll, Mechagnome, and Vulpera
 * 12 classes: Mage, Warlock, Priest, Rogue, Druid, Hunter, Shaman, Warrior, Paladin, Death Knight,  Monk,  Demon Hunter.
 * 14 professions, enabling resource gathering and item crafting:
 * 11 primary professions: Herbalism, Mining, Skinning, Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Enchanting, Engineering, Leatherworking, Tailoring, Jewelcrafting,  Inscription.
 * 3 secondary professions: Cooking, Fishing, Archaeology.
 * (First Aid, a secondary profession was removed with Battle for Azeroth)
 * Different specializations for each class that define the player's abilities, strengths and role in the game.
 * The talent system allows customization of the character's passive and active abilities.
 * Glyphs are additionally used to customize the character's abilities.

Gameplay System

 * General System
 * A casual-friendly character progression system.
 * Being offline (resting) increases your experience points gain.
 * In-game trading, mail service, auction system, text and voice chat.
 * Two server types: Normal and RP.
 * (two server types PvP, and RPPvP were removed with Battle for Azeroth)


 * PvE and PvP Systems
 * PvE System:
 * Thousands of quests.
 * Repeatable quests and world quests.
 * Timewalking Campaigns.
 * Dungeons, Raids, and Scenarios.
 * Island expedition scenarios.
 * Invasion Point scenarios.
 * Warfront scenarios.
 * 1 to 5 player content: Horrific Visions and  Torghast, Tower of the Damned.
 * Solo only content: Brawler's Guild and  Mage Tower Challenges.
 * Garrisons, Class Order Halls and  Covenants.
 * PvP Honor system:
 * PVP talent system.
 * Turn on or off War Mode for PvP in the open world.
 * 13 Battlegrounds: Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, Alterac Valley,  Eye of the Storm,  Isle of Conquest,  Battle for Gilneas,  Twin Peaks,  Silvershard Mines,  Temple of Kotmogu,  Deepwind Gorge,  Seething Shore,  Battle for Wintergrasp,  Ashran.
 * PvP Brawls with only 1 accessible a week in weekly rotation.
 * ( Strand of the Ancients a battleground was removed with Battle for Azeroth)
 * Arena PVP System for 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5 intense, small area combat (12 different PVP arena locations).
 * PvP objective world quests.
 * Dueler's Guild.
 * PvP difficulty island expeditions.


 * Events
 * A variety of seasonal world events: Darkmoon Faire, Children's Week, Midsummer Fire Festival, Love is in the air, Feast of Winter Veil, and more.
 * More events were added in later expansions: Brewfest, Pirates' Day,  Day of the Dead, and  Pilgrim's Bounty.
 * Unique one-time events: Gates of Ahn'Qiraj, Scourge Invasion, Dark Portal opening event, World of Warcraft anniversaries, and others.
 * Micro-holidays (patch 7.1.5): including Call of the Scarab, Hatching of the Hippogryphs, Glowcap Festival, and others.


 * Lore
 * Continues and expands the lore from the Warcraft universe.
 * Streamlined questlines and NPC-voiced storytelling.


 * User Interface and Customer Support
 * Customize AddOn and Interface with some game commands support.
 * Client seamlessly supports both Mac and Windows operating systems. Linux users can play via Wine, however this is not supported and can be buggy at times.

Availability

 * North America (English-US - US & Canada).
 * Oceania (English-US - Australia, Hawaii, New Zealand).
 * Latin America (Spanish).
 * Brazil (Brazilian Portuguese, 2011).
 * Europe (English-UK, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese-Brazilian, Italian).
 * South Korea.
 * China (Simplified and Traditional Chinese; including Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau).

Subscriber numbers
World of Warcraft's subscriber numbers have fluctuated tremendously over the years. With a peak of 12 million monthly subscribers in October 2010, World of Warcraft remains among the most popular MMORPGs and holds the for the world's most popular subscription-based MMORPG. Though World of Warcraft had dropped to 7.4 million subscribers as of the release of patch 6.0.2, when the Warlords of Draenor expansion released a few weeks later it briefly jumped all the way back up to 10 million before settling back down to 7.1 million. In the final report in October 2015, there were 5.5 million subscribers.

In January 2014 it was announced that more than 100 million accounts and 500 million characters had been created over the game's lifetime, with players in 244 different countries.

In November 2015 Blizzard announced that they would no longer give regular updates of subscriber numbers, as they felt there were better performance metrics they could use. For a graphical representation of subscriber numbers up to November 2015, click here.

Nomad
The history of World of Warcraft has its origins in Project Nomad. Accounts differ as to the timing of this project, some stating that work began on it after the release of StarCraft, others that development on the game had begun prior to the "crunch period" of StarCraft's development, and as a result, developers were transferred to work on the RTS game. Nomad itself was to be a sci-fi squad-based shooter, some of its developers taking inspiration from Necromunda, others from Final Fantasy. Those in the former camp conceptualized a squad-based game where players would build up squads of soldiers, upgrade their abilities, find new guns, and go online to challenge other players' armies. Those in the latter camp wanted an adventure/RPG game.

The lack of direction didn't help and the game was scrapped in favor of World of Warcraft. During development, Kevin Beardslee and Bill Petras wanted to make something else entirely different from what Nomad was, specifically a more accessible version of EverQuest. Nomad was scrapped and development on World of Warcraft began two days later.

Pre-release
Development of World of Warcraft was first announced in September 2001 at the ECTS tradeshow. There was little fanfare in the original announcement, and the original development team consisted of around fifty individuals. Inspiration was taken from other MMOs such as ' and ', using the lore and characters of Warcraft as the basis for the setting. It would be a risky venture, as the company had grown used to games passing the 1 million sales mark, whereas EverQuest had peaked at the 500,000 subscriber mark. While a subscription fee would help recoup costs, there was unease as to whether the game's reception would be as positive as Blizzard's previous games, and it was thought that the game would only appeal to pre-existing Warcraft fans. Furthermore, few members of Blizzard had experience in developing MMOs, and while they enjoyed playing them, there was fears that the game would be overshadowed by Star Wars Galaxies and EverQuest 2. When the game was first announced, members of the press often asked Blizzard as such, seeing them as "the RTS company." By 2002, the game's visual design was being worked on. There was initial pushback in Blizzard as to the Alliance/Horde faction divide, as some feared that some players wouldn't like it because they couldn't play with friends (if they chose different factions).

The game originally had a true to life day-night cycle, which dictated when events and spawns would happen. This idea was scrapped so that players wouldn't have to disrupt their real lives to do these time-specific activities.

The game had a significant "crunch period" of development.

Post-release
The game released in late 2004. Surpassing expectations, the game had reached 5 million subscribers by the end of 2005. Blizzard had to develop tech and customer support on the fly in order to keep up with the demand. Not only was it well received by the critics, but it also became the best selling PC Game of 2005 and 2006. It was recognized at the 2005 Spike TV Video Game Awards where it won Best PC Game, Best Multiplayer Game, Best RPG, and Most Addictive Game.

In 2007, Blizzard predicted that the game would last for five more years, which spurred them to develop Titan as their successive MMO.

As of 2014, Blizzard's intended development pattern is to keep content at a relatively steady pace&mdash;still producing expansions, but with shorter gaps between content implementation. The game has been likened to a sandbox with content being added over time. Expansions are planned out in advance, with narrative threads in one expansion leading to events in the next.

On October 30, 2014, lead designer Ion Hazzikostas stated that World of Warcraft will still be around at its 20th anniversary, in 2024.

As of June 2016, the World of Warcraft team comprises around 235 people.

System requirements
''The system requirements for the game evolved a lot from it's original version. Details of this evolution, and the current requirements, can be checked on this article.''

Creatures
World of Warcraft is inhabited by a large number of creatures. The following creatures were added in Vanilla World of Warcraft before the release of expansions:

And many creatures are added in each World of Warcraft expansion:

Trivia

 * The introduction of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans already greeted the player by welcoming him into the "World of Warcraft". Before its cancellation, the tagline of Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans was also supposed to be "An Adventure Game in the World of WarCraft".
 * Blizzard has considered making a "World of Warcraft 2" since 2004. J. Allen Brack has expressed doubts about the possibility of a sequel, stating that "there’s not really a great model for a successful sequel MMO."
 * In China, many models had to be edited due to not being allowed to show bones. For some examples, see the trivia sections of Lord Marrowgar, Sindragosa, Winged Steed of the Ebon Blade and Forsaken. Bones and skulls are usually replaced by loaves of bread.
 * Carbot Animations made cartoon-styled parodies of World of Warcraft called WowCraft.
 * World of Warcraft appears in the book, "".
 * In 2018, World of Warcraft was #41 on IGN's Top 100 Video Games of All Time.
 * World of Warcraft is featured at the Computer History Museum's Make Software: Change the World! exhibit since they opened in January 2017.
 * On page 204 of the World of Warcraft instruction manual, the "Additional Thanks" section includes "Happy 30th to RUSH".