Around twelve years back, Blizzard Entertainment developed a game called Warcraft, a single/multiplayer adventure game, which went on to become so immensely popular that they added two more Warcraft games, and World of Warcraft is the fourth game in the series. As on May 2006, World of Warcraft had over 6.5 million active users who were paying around $ 17 a month each to play it. That works to over 110 million dollars a month in subscriptions!
How World Of Warcraft Works
The World of Warcraft game takes place in a virtual gameworld called World of Azeroth. The storyline is fantasy-driven and like fantasies go there are many colorful and freaky characters in the game.
To play the game you have to choose a character from a variety of races (human, night elf, orcs, dwarfs, trolls, and more), and having chosen your race you have to decide what profession to take (hunter, paladin, rogue, shaman, warrior, and more).
Once you get into the game you are Level 1, the objective being to reach Level 60 while having a lot of fun adventuring around and gathering the best possible armor and weapons in the process.
To add to the fun there are friendly and hostile non-playing characters and also player characters that assign you quests, and then, of course, there are the enemies you have to slay in order to level up.
World Of Warcraft Gameplay
World of Warcraft is not ranked the number one MMORPG game in the world for nothing. It features two main gameplay varieties, which are : (1) Player versus Environment: When a player adventures in order to level up, he comes across game-generated enemies as well as other players who are against his race. (2) Player Versus Player: This is played only in specific areas where players can fight against other players, and such areas are level-specific.
For example, there might be an area only for players at levels one to twenty; if you are at a higher level, you cannot enter.
Criticism
Some players try to misuse the game . In one case, a transgender player formed a transgender guild and Blizzard Entertainment banned this.
People for and against the action voiced their protest and the game got into a needless controversy. In another case, around June 2005, a child died because of WOW-addiction.
According to a leading psychologist, around 40% of WOW players are addicted to it. Well, whatever the criticism, World of Warcraft is growing stronger by the day.
