Of all the MMORPG’s (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) in this world, none have captured the imagination of the largest player base to date than Blizzard’s World of Warcraft.

Set in the world of Azeroth this game continues the saga 4 years after Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne had ended, since the original game was released on the 23rd November 2004, Blizzard have released one official expansion which they called The Burning Crusade and are currently developing the greatly anticipated Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

The original game took you from your lowly level 1 character which you could create up to a cap of level 60, The Burning Crusade saw that level cap raised to level 70 and the next expansion will bring another rise in that level cap, what that will be however is being hotly debated on the game forums and Blizzard have only hinted that it may be level 80.

What is this game all about? Why are there over 10 Million subscribers worldwide playing this game? Why is it so popular? In this article I will try to answer some of these questions but outside of the basic idea of what World of Warcraft is and what it has become, there are far deeper roots to this game than you could imagine.

Blizzard’s success in this game genre was born out of some very successful earlier game offerings such as the original Warcraft series and others such as Diablo, Diablo II and Starcraft, Blizzard by their own admission never thought that World of Warcraft would be as popular and successful as it is compared to other games of the same type.

For my part in this epic saga of success for a game development company, I was living in the USA when the first game beta was unleashed on an unsuspecting gaming community, I took part in the beta testing and from the start was not only hooked on the game itself but also its look, what it offered, how you went about achieving your goals in game and more, if you play World of Warcraft then you will understand what I mean, but for those of you that have yet to dip your toe into the virtual waters of Azeroth, you are in for a ride of your life, for my part I still play the game now 4 years after its release, the game is that good!

What can you do?

Once you have bought, installed and set up your game account you have the ability to choose between two warring factions, the Alliance and the Horde, depending the faction you wish to choose will impact what race you get to play, a word of advice here, you are not able to create an Alliance character on the same server that you have a Horde character, you also need to choose what type of server you want to play on, if you don’t like the idea of a Player vs. Player server then opt for one of the PVE realms, there are also Role Playing servers where the game rules ask you to stick to strict role playing when you are in the game, many guilds and players stick to these rules and it makes for some interesting conversations and characters.

Once you have chosen your faction and race you then need to choose a class, now not all races can play every class, for instance on the Horde side, an Undead character cannot play a Druid, but the Taurens can and only the Blood Elves can be Paladins.

Having chosen all of these things the game then puts you in the “starting zone” for that race and there your journey and adventures begin.

As you carry out quests and level your character you also make money, get better armour and weapons, treasure that you can use or sell in the Auction House, gain reputation with various groups which you will need later in the game to obtain various things, if you are playing on a PVP server then when you get to about level 20+ depending on the zone you are in, you will find yourself in contested territory, these are areas where both factions are questing and your character becomes a target for open attack from the other faction, this is where the real game begins and if you trawl the forums on the World of Warcraft web site you will see many posts about people complaining about being “Ganked” this is where a player who is of a superior level, say level 70 comes and kills you character that may only be level 30 and if the Ganker is really mean he will corpse camp you and wait for you to come back to life only to kill you again, there are many strategies to combat this but it is the biggest gripe from many players trying to level, some areas are more notorious than others for this, such as Tarren Mill and Stranglethorn Vale but remember that payback is a real bitch and at some time in the future you may find that Ganker in one of the PVP battlegrounds and you can go after him or her, remember that if you kill another player who is much lower in level than yourself you gain no Honour points and this can in fact have a negative affect on your character and Honour points grant you rank and abilities to get better equipment over time.

Blizzard initiated the Battle Grounds for the game a while back now and they have been very successful but at the cost of well organised raids against a factions capital city, I remember the game before battle grounds were initiated and the raids were something to behold, over 50 players coming together to go lay waste to the enemies city, truly an awesome sight indeed.

The World of Warcraft forums have individual forums for each class and players have posted some very excellent details of how best to play that class against other classes and how best to do PVP or get the best out of what you are playing, make sure that you take a look at these as they are the difference between you being good at who and what you are or just plain mediocre and that will also impact your play and other players you group with.

Ok enough already about the fighting, questing and stuff but what else can you do?

So you are questing, grinding mobs, doing instances (dungeon runs) in groups, raiding and maybe even a member of a guild and things are looking good for you at this point in time, but as you approach level 40 to buy your first mount (Skeletal Horse, Ram, Raptor or Kodo depending on race) you find that you need a lot of gold in your bank, you will certainly need it when you hit level 70 and you want to get your epic mount which includes flying mounts and machines.

So how do you make all this gold that you will need, well you are able to choose 2 professions, i.e. Alchemy and Herbalism to make potions such as healing or mana potions, Mining and Blacksmithing, you can sell the raw ore or smelt it down to make bars of various metals that you can sell in the Auction House, Enchanting, this is costly to level but the end gains far outweigh the initial costs, Tailoring and other all go to give you the chance to make great equipment as you grow in ability as well as sell to other players.

There are other secondary skills that you can learn and the game allows you to learn all of these, they consist of cooking, fishing and first aid, all may seem a little odd in the greater scheme of things but they all have their part to play, plus there are also fishing contests that are held in the game too!

So what else?

The game tries to cater to all players and this is reflected in the game play itself, the game does not limit you to what you can or cannot do and as with any game there are also downsides, you may for instance join a guild which is not a particularly good one, these are all to frequent but on the flip side of the coin, there are some great guilds to join too or alternatively you can create your own guild, you just need 9 other players to sign your guild charter and wham you have your very own guild.

Of course the game is not free of charge, there is a monthly fee, depending on what part of the world you live in will depend on the charge, in the UK the charge in pounds is £9 per month, if you pay every 6 months then that drops to £7.70.

There is so much to this game it is untrue and as you make your way through this game you will find a very large on-line community that are passionate about what they are and do.

Blizzard gave the community to also make changes to the game in the form of add-ons and interface enhancements, there are also macro’s that you can create in the game to help you better perform in combat or handle repetitive tasks, all in all the game is geared toward you the player and there is really no linear format to the game, you can play all races, classes and professions and the game although have the same quests you end up carrying these out in different ways plus Blizzard are adding content to the game continually, there are also pop culture related items, NPC’s and quests that you will find amusing and when you get to Outland which is a part of The Burning Crusade you can work your way to getting a flying mount of some kind, this is very cool indeed.

In the next expansion Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard will be introducing its first Hero Class called the Death Knight, check out Blizzards Wrath of the Lich King site for more details on this.

A word of warning!
As with all games, there are those out in the big wide world that just want to either scam you, spam you or ruin the game for others, these come in the form of bots, illegal gold sellers and more, there are players that buy gold and pay real world money to these people and Blizzard take a dim view of these folks overall and every now and again Blizzard will ban thousands of accounts which have breeched the terms and conditions of the game, so if you love the game and all it has to offer, don’t get caught up in these particular practices.

And Finally

All in all World of Warcraft is a great game, it looks great, it is fun to play and for the few faults and flaws that you can see and find it is overall worth the monthly fee, obviously there is much more to this game than I can squeeze into this post, but I hope that this article has given you a flavour of what World of Warcraft is all about.

I will put post more out here as time goes on but for now, until that next time