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World of Warcraft (commonly abbreviated as 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 series, excluding 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 . As of November 2005 , World of Warcraft is the most popular MMORPG in the world, with more than 4.5 million active subscriptions.
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 race s and nine different character class es. The races are split into two equally sized factions, the Alliance and the Horde :
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. There are 20 possible combinations of race and class for each faction, for a total of 40 combinations across both factions. Blood Elves can be Priest, Mage, Warlock, and Warrior. Blizzard has stated that the Blood Elves will also be given either Hunters or Rogues, but they have yet to decide which one will be made available.
In addition to the character classes, 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. The most commonly paired skills are as follows: Mining and Blacksmithing or 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. This type of player will typically offer gathered items for sale on the game's auction houses.
Attributes are referred to as "stats" within the game.
Strength (STR), Intellect (INT), Spirit (SPI), Agility (AGIL/AGI) and Stamina (STA/STAM) are the attributes of World of Warcraft. These attributes hold a key role in determining a character's health (hit points), mana (mana is what is used up by casting spells) attack power (each point of attack power increases a character's d amage p er s econd by 1/14), armor (reduces the amount of damage you take), dodge, parry, and critical strike chances (a default of double damage with ranged and melee weapons) health regeneration, mana regeneration, and critical strike chance with spells (a default of one and a half damage with spells).
Agility increases attack power by 1 point, armor by 2 points, and ranged attack power by 2 points for each level of agility a character has. Agility is also linked to a character's chance to dodge, parry and critical strike with a weapon (although the degree of effect varies for each class). Hunters and Rogues generally need as much agility as possible from gear (in game equipment).
Strength increases attack power by 2 points and is linked to the amount of damage done when blocking with a shield. This attribute is generally important for all melee classes ( Warriors , Shamans , and Paladins ,) although Rogues and Hunters also benefit from strength, but their attack power only increases by 1 point for each Strength point they gain. Druids gain 2.4 attack power for every Strength point they get.
Intellect increases the maximum amount of mana a character can attain by 15 points per intellect level. It is also linked to the chance to critical strike with spells (roughly 100 points of intellect equals a 1% chance to critical strike with spells). This attribute is very important for casting classes ( Mages , Warlocks , Priests , Druids , Shamans ), and is also used by Paladins and Hunters , although it is not of the highest priority. Intellect is also used to determine the rate at which weapon skill increases.
Stamina increases the amount of hit points a character has by 10 per point of stamina. Stamina is important for all classes but especially important for Warriors , Warlocks , Shamans , and Paladins .
Spirit increases the rate at which you recover (regenerate) health and mana. A point of spirit increases the amount of mana regenerated by 1/5 and health by 1/9 per tick (every 2 seconds). Spirit does not regenerate health while in combat; it only regenerates mana. Trolls have an inherent passive racial ability that keeps 10% of their health regeneration active during combat. Additonally the forumla to calculate the amount of mana regenerated per second varies depending on the class.
World of Warcraft
World Map
The current 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 the game that were featured in previous Warcraft games, namely Warcraft III , are:
It is possible to enter these zones, either accidentally or intentionally. It is however not advised as it is a bannable offense.
An example of a portal from
World of Warcraft
.
The Dark Portal will lead to the Outlands. It is possible that this portal will be opened when a 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.) Information released regarding the upcoming world of warcraft expansion pack indicate that the dark portal will provide access to the new Outlands area.
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 recently released 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 a future expansion for this game.
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).
Resting
World of Warcraft
party
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 , comic strip style storytelling or even recording songs devoted to deleted NPCs such as Captain Placeholder .
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 is even present in other games, such as Guild Wars , where an NPC named Kilroy Stonekin rushes into battle while yelling his name in a direct reference, and in Adventure Quest, where a direct tribute to Leeroy Jenkins is replayed by players in the Vamprook Spyre. In an amazing sign of the prevalence of the Jenkins joke, he was even part of a clue on the November 16th, 2005 episode of the TV game show College Jeopardy! .
On some servers and to a lesser extent, YTMND , this has become a popular meme . There are various other memes , including "Face Melting" , a reference to a distinctive magic attack often used by the Priest player class when engaged in player versus player combat. These memes gain notoriety through postings on the World of Warcraft Forums .
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 their leveling capability until they leave 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.
Box shot of the
World of Warcraft Collector's Edition
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 WoW 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 .
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 world s, or realm s, 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 (like Ironforge or Orgrimmar ), players continue to experience game performance delays.
The three exclusive in-game pets as seen in the Collector's Edition. A
Panda
,
Mini Diablo
and
Zergling
.
As of November 2005 , World of Warcraft has more than 4,500,000 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 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.
On August 3 , 2005 , China implemented legislation which forbids minors from playing games in which players 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 .
The following requirements are as stated on the official World of Warcraft website, but generally players believe that these specifications are too low for the game to be played enjoyably.
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.
Note: In the patch notes for version 1.9.0, Blizzard announced that the operating system requirement for Mac OS X will increase from 10.3.5 to 10.3.9 in a future (beyond 1.9.0) patch or expansion. This is being done to help support upcoming x86-based Macs . The upgrade from 10.3.5 to 10.3.9 is a free download from Apple .
On the left is the original user interface, on the right is a highly customized one.
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 control Winamp in-game, to adding extra rows of button bars for spells, skills and more. There are also various cosmetic mods, including one that reproduces the infamous 'Leeroy Jenkins' sound .
All addons are created using the Lua programming language and XML , and images used for any modification are created using the .TGA (Targa) and .BLP image formats. Blizzard has released a User Interface Customization tool which they call "Cui" .
Some programs that operate stand-alone, 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, so 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.
As with all massive multiplayer online games , World of Warcraft has had its share of players who exploit the world of Azeroth . Such abuse ranges from gold farming to selling accounts on eBay . One common exploit was the use of leet (examples are |-| () \/\/ |2 U? (how are you?) to communicate between the Horde and the Alliance, since symbols and numbers were left unmodified in otherwise scrambled communications. This has since been stopped by modifying the linguistics engine to remove punctuation and numbers from the text.
The World of Warcraft End User License Agreement specifically forbids this kind of activity. Blizzard takes action against anyone who exploits the game by temporarily and permanently suspending accounts. So far, Blizzard has banned well over 10,000 players from the game. Blizzard makes heavy use of a system known as The Warden on the Windows version of the game in order to detect third-party programs, such as botting software. There has been some controversy as to the legality of The Warden, since it allegedly uses techniques similar to spyware in order to analyse other running software on the players' PCs, as well as the file system . However, software such as anti-virus software loosely falls into this definition as well. Debates regarding the game's EULA as well as the rights of the players continue.
Although Blizzard continues to ban players when they are detected as cheating, many players have found ways to escape detection. In particular, Blizzard relies heavily on a technology known as Warden which can detect some botting and cheating programs. However, such anti-cheat software can only follow a set of rules, so there follows a cat and mouse game as the game developers and cheat programmers attempt to circumvent each other. In November 2005 , it was proven that the XCP rootkit secretly included with Sony music CD s in the US for the purposes of copy prevention could be used to disguise cheat programs from The Warden.
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, and two new races, one of which being the Blood Elves (remnants of the High Elves) for the Horde. The expansion will also feature Outland as a new playable zone, as well as a new flying mount, usable only in Outland, for high-level players. Some of the expansion's features will be available to all players, though the most significant additions - visiting Outland, creating characters of the two new races and so on - will require the Burning Crusade to be installed.