World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft (also commonly abbreviated as WoW) is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) that was released in North America in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth full game released by Blizzard Entertainment in the Warcraft series. WoW has seen paramount success, having sold over 11 million copies, and has been a great credit to MMORPG video games, introducing thousands of people to the genre. The game is available to play in several countries, including North America, Europe, China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, and is available in five languages (English, Spanish, French, German, and Russian). World of Warcraft currently holds the Guinness World Record for Most Popular MMORPG

Blizzard has released two expansion packs to the game, each introducing additional content. The Burning Crusade (BC or TBC), released in 2007, and The Wrath of the Lich King (Wrath or WotLK), released in 2008. In August of 2009, Blizzard announced a third expansion, titled, Cataclysm (Cata).

Characters

© Image: Blizzard Entertainment
Character Creation Screen showing a Gnome Rogue

After setting up a World of Warcraft account, players must create a character to use in the game world. This avatar represents the player, a standard in most RPGs. Each character has its own set of traits, and in World of Warcraft most of this character data is stored server-side to avoid hacking attempts on the client side. Each character in World of Warcraft has a race, class, and gender. Other aesthetic changes can be made to the character before creation, such as hair color and style, facial hair, and accessories. In WoW, male and female characters are considered equal, so the gender you choose for your character will only have cosmetic effects, and no effects on their abilities.

Once created, most of these traits are fixed and cannot be changed. With the introduction of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, a barbershop system was introduced to the game allowing players to change their characters hair color and style, facial hair, and other facial features such as piercings, night elf tattoos, tusks, horns and tendrils. These changes cost the player a small amount of the in-game currency known as gold. Microtransactions have also been added to the game to allow players to recustomize their character in other ways, such as changing gender, name, species, realm and even faction.

Races

More information on the races can be found here.

The races in World of Warcraft are split into two opposing factions (or forces), the Alliance and the Horde. Each faction has five races available to it, with a sixth being added in the upcoming Cataclysm expansion. There are benefits to choosing a particular race over another, as there are unique racial traits available to each race.

Classes

A list of classes can be found here.

There are ten classes available in World of Warcraft. All, except one of them, are available from the start, without any expansions. Not all classes are available to all races.

Although each class is unique and has many different abilities and advantages, each class (and player) is expected to fulfill at least one of WoW's three main character roles:

• Tanking - Which means being able to survive massive amounts of damage during enemy attacks. "Tanks" are great at drawing attention of monsters in the game, getting them to focus their attacks on the tank, thereby reducing damage done to other players and keeping the group alive.
• Damage Dealing - Often referred to as "DPS", which stands for Damage Per Second. These are characters who dish out massive amounts of damage on enemy forces.
• Healing - Players who are able to heal damage their allies have taken in battle.

Setting

For more information see Citizendium's article on Azeroth

Gameplay takes place in the world of Azeroth, a typical fantasy universe, rife with war and conflict from the races and civilizations that inhabit it. When World of Warcraft was launched, the playable area consisted of two zones known as the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. The Wrath of the Lich King introduced a third zone to the north of the original two known as Northrend. These three landmasses are separated by the Great Sea which contains a huge whirlpool known as the Maelstrom. According to lore, the three zones were once one single continent until the First Well of Eternity was destroyed during the War of the Ancients. This created the Maelstrom, destroying 80% of the worlds landmass and creating the three areas that remain today.

Starting areas

New characters will begin in their chosen race's starting area, typically a small village. Once the character has been created and named, a narrated introductory movie explains some of the background to the game world, as well as your character's Race, and ends with giving you control of your character. New characters will be quite weak and have few skills or resources. By accepting and completing missions (or quests, as they are called in the game), as well as killing enemies, characters will earn experience points, allowing them to go up in level and power, as well as earning them money, equipment, and increased reputation with their respective faction. Originally, characters could advance from level 1 to level 60. Characters can progress to a maximum level of 70 if they have purchased the Burning Crusade expansion, and to a maximum level of 80 if they have purchased the Wrath of the Lich Kingexpansion as well. Players who also install the upcoming expansion Cataclysm will be able to progress to a maximum level of 85.

Questgiver characters are "non-player characters" (or NPCs) controlled by the game server. Eventually, the questgivers in the starting area will direct players to bring their characters to other more challenging areas, with greater risk and greater reward.

Professions

More information on professions may be found here.

Upon reaching Level 5, a character may learn professions. The primary professions can be divided into three types, gathering,crafting, and service. Each character may have only two primary professions, although they can choose to change these. Every profession has 6 proficiency levels with all expansions, as both Burning Crucade and Wrath add one additional proficiency level to every profession.

One gathering skill, for example, is "Herbalism", which allows a character to acquire raw herbal materials, which can be either sold to NPC vendors or, more profitably, to other players via the in-game Auction House system.
However, if a herbalist also has the 'Alchemy' crafting skill, the herbs can be turned into a potion, which can be used by themselves or other characters to provide a health boost, or some other type of "buff". However, you are not required to pick these types of combinations. An example of a service profession is "Enchanting," which allows a character to give either another character or themselves a permanent buff to a weapon, or armor. One tactic is to ignore crafting altogether and choose two gathering professions (Mining/Skinning, for example). Then you can simply sell the items gathered to crafters and earn gold without worrying about crafting.

There are also three "secondary professions" in the game - fishing, cooking and first aid. A character may learn all of the secondary professions, but is limited to a maximum of two primary professions. A fourth secondary profession, Archaeology, is being implemented in the upcoming Cataclysm expansion.

Instances

While gameplay generally takes place 'outdoors', WoW also features many dungeons, temples, castles, ruins and so on, that can only be played as an 'instance'. This means that when a character enters such an area, the server creates a unique version of that particular instance for the player and his companions.

Such areas are harder than corresponding outside areas, featuring much stronger monsters and accompanying bosses. Of course, the rewards are also better. Such is the difficulty of instances that a character venturing into one of the appropriate level will only succeed if grouped into a 'party' with some other players.

Most instances require a party of five people appropriate to the level of the instance to stand a good chance of success. Usually, these would represent a balance of classes, including a tank, a healer, and three others either "DPSing" or performing a hybrid role of dealing and healing damage.

Some instances are "raid" instances. A raid instance will be more difficult than a normal instance of the same level, and will require more people to complete it. Raids allowing a maximum of ten, 25 or even 40 characters are possible. Running successful raids requires a high degree of cooperation and organisation between players outside of the game proper.

Player Vs. Player

Some players elect to engage in Player vs. Player or PvP combat. There are two main branches of PvP, battlegrounds and arena.

There are six battlegrounds that are available. These are: Arathi Basin, Warsong Gulch, Alterac Valley, Eye of the Storm, Isle of Conquest and Strand of the Ancients. A seventh, Battle for Gilneas, is due to be added in the upcoming expansion Cataclysm. Each of these battlegrounds has their own back story and motivation for the opposing factions to fight, as well as different gameplay. For example, Arathi Basin is located in the Arathi Highlands, and is rich in resources, so both factions want to occupy it. The gameplay for Arathi Basin is to capture the 5 nodes, and while holding these nodes, points are accumulated, and when either faction reaches 2000 points, the battle ground is over.

In addition to these battlegrounds the Wrath of the Lich King expansion introduced the first non-battleground zone fully dedicated to PvP. This area, known as Wintergrasp, revolves around the keep at the north end of the zone. At any point, the keep is controlled by either the Alliance or the Horde. After being controlled for two and a half hours, a battle begins for control of the keep. If the controlling faction manage to defend the keep for thirty minutes then they have successfully defended it and control is retained by them. However, if the opposing faction manage to breach the keep, they take control of the fortress for the next period. Controlling Wintergrasp brings various benefits, including access to a raid and to easier farming for crafting materials.

A new zone known as Tol Barad will be introduced in the upcoming expansion Cataclysm. This will be another outdoor PvP zone similar to Cataclysm.

Servers

There are four types of servers on World of Warcraft: PvE (Player versus Environment), PvP (Player versus Player), RP (Role-playing), and RPPvP (Role-Playing PvP). PvE and RP servers share the same core functionality, as do PvP and RPPvP. In the first set, PvE and RP, players can only attack one another when "flagged" for doing something against the opposing force. The areas of the map share the same rules. On PvP and RPPvP servers, players are allowed to attack each other more often. The standard flagging rules apply, however there are three types of "zones" a player can be in. When starting out, a player is put into a zone controlled by his or her faction, either "Horde" or "Alliance". As levelling progresses (Somewhere usually around level 10), characters move into "Neutral Zones". While in a zone belonging to your faction, you must flag yourself to be attacked by the opposing faction. While in a neutral zone, everyone is flagged until they leave the zone. Lastly, when you're in an Enemy's zone, you are always flagged, but the opposing force is not unless they flag themselves for PvP.