As of the beginning of 2008, World of Warcraft has over nine million online players who subscribe to the game. With those numbers it is no surprise that World of Warcraft is on a straight path of becoming the defining game of this decade. It all began in 2004 after Blizzard decided that after Warcraft III and the expansion pack "The Frozen Throne" an online version should be the next step. Since then millions of people have had fun playing the game online getting to know the story, roaming the lands and meeting the people in World of Warcraft.



Be who you want to be

Until now gamers never had so much choice in how they would like to play their game. Maybe that is the main reason World of Warcraft is so popular, it doesn't matter what kind of player you are, slow, serious, casual or fast, everyone can play the game in their own pace. The first MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) games had a big problem, gamers in those days were reluctant to pay a monthly fee for playing a game online. Before a gamer bought a game and paid for it once and he or she could play the game over and over again without ever having to pay again. On the other hand an MMO game needs dedicated hardware, internet bandwidth and of course a (tech) staff to maintain it all just to keep the hundreds to thousands (or even millions) of players playing. World of Warcraft helped the MMO game development community a lot by open people up to the idea of having a subscription model for online game playing. There should be good support en updates or else the gamers will again turn their back on this model of game playing.

While in the original release of World of Warcraft Online a player could choose between the Alliance or Horde factions, with the expansion "The Burning Crusade" an additional two factions were added. There are nine player classes complemented by races like gnome and high elf, players have total control on how they want to customize their character, they can choose how they are dressed, the weapons they want to use, how their faces look and the skills they have.

In the end, World of Warcraft gives the player unbelievable ways of customizing and accessing the game types. And it doesn't matter what type of online player you are, you will have a great time playing World of Warcraft online, just like the other nine million online gamers around the world. Chances even are that you'll be making friends while playing the game. Make sure that your computer is capable of running the game, go for the recommended hardware and not the minimum for the best game experience. Make sure that you have permission from who ever pays the bill at your home. Once you start playing World of Warcraft you will be entertained for hours after hours.

After all those nine million fans can't be wrong.