World of WarCraft

aka: WoW
Moby ID: 15620
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

World of Warcraft is a MMORPG based in the Warcraft universe. The player creates a character choosing from 8 races and 9 classes. Most races start in their own part of the vast world. As the races move out from their starting locations, they can meet the other races if they choose to move out through the world. Both races and classes have unique abilities, skills, and spells to help them survive in the world.

The game offers professions for players to learn, if they want. You have the choice of 2 major professions, such as Alchemy, Herbalism, Skinning, and Tailoring, as well as the ability to have unlimited minor professions, such as Fishing and Cooking. Progressing in these skills allows you to make more things or have better results from the skills.

The gameplay is similar to most other MMORPG games, where you must go out into the world, complete quests, kill monsters, and level up your character. And, as often is the case, you also will want to find, make, or buy better equipment as you go along. There are multiple levels of equipment from normal to artifact based on rarity. The player can also join various guilds and parties.

You also can move quickly between areas by learning to ride a mount when your level is high enough, or taking another form of transport that you can't control movement for, such as train, griffon, and more.

Spellings

  • 魔兽世界 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

790 People (566 developers, 224 thanks) · View all

Game Design
  • Blizzard Entertainment
Executive Producer
Team Lead
Art Director
Creative Director
Lead Animator
Lead Artist
Lead Character Artist
Lead Designers
Lead Programmer
Lead Technical Artist
Producers
Additional Production
Programming
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 92% (based on 61 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 163 ratings with 10 reviews)

WoWtastic, at least for a while

The Good
It would be pointless to list all the cool stuff you can find in WoW in this review. Needless to say, there's plenty. There are things that you will remember for a very long time. The first time I rented a flying "taxi" and whooshed through the countryside is something I will remember for a long while. As do I remember many magnificient locations that I had to stare in awe for a long time. Or some of quests and people I met and had a good time.

But after a while WoW hits a snag. Suddenly you realise that mostly you just do the same things over and over again. I hit this snag after my second character got somewhere around level 25 (first one I got to level 17). There are lots of missions, but they tend to be the same thing every time and involve lots of killing and/or taking something to someone. You also tend to grind a lot just to get to next level and improving your trading (blacksmith, mining, alchemy etc) skills is about as much fun as your day job (at least you get paid for that). And the trouble is it's usually not worth the bother because you usually can't get them to a level allowing you to do anything useful until you already have better equipment, so the whole thing is just about making money. But if you are after maximising profits, the best tactic is to go for gatherer professions. So the whole profession thing tends to get boring quite quickly when you realise you can't quite make it worthwhile, even if it looks that way. The worthwhileness always seems to be just out of your reach.

The best and worst part about WoW are the instants which are tough multi-player levels. The idea is to gather a merry band of adventurers and beat the instant for some very nice rewards. This can be a real blast with a good group. Unfortunately in my experience, unless you play with people you know already, more often than not the group has at least one player who hasn't understood the concept of team work. They just go to the instants to maximise their own loot and in worst case leave the rest of the group in trouble. Not very nice if your healer leaves the party meaning you can't finish the instant after several hours of intense playing. The problem with playing with people you know is that you have to spend roughly as much time in WoW as them, otherwise you will be at such a different level to them that it's not worth being in the same party (because of the way the game distributes experience). The other choice is to get close to the level cap (level 60) as there the characters are roughly as powerful, but that takes months of very intense playing.

Ultimately WoW is just another ego trip. People spend weeks getting that one ultra-powerful item just so they can show everyone they have it. Gaining levels is gaining prestige among other players. As is the whole player-vs-player system. This is the main attraction of the game in the long run, once you have seen all the cool stuff and tried most things. There might be something wrong with me, but ultimately I don't see the point in that. If I want prestige, I get a better return for my time by doing something in the real life. Most people could get quite proficient in some skill, say playing the guitar, if they spent as much time practising it as they do playing WoW. But then again, it's harder to show your guitar playing skills to hundreds or thousands of people.

WoW is succesful because it's simple to play, gorgeously looking and full of that WOW! (pun intented) feeling. It also means it has lots of not-so-serious gamers, people who don't have the experience and so don't understand (or don't care) that they could be destroying someone elses enjoyment through their actions. This is something that exists in most multi-player games (heck, go to any chess server and you see people logging off when they are loosing just to avoid loosing points!) but WoW with it's massive following and easy appeal seems to have more than it's fair share. Mostly you can avoid this, and if you have friends to play with you can mostly disregard this problem. It's also a good idea not to get provoked when some higher level character tries to pick a fight (this happened to me numerous times - the trying to pick a fight part).

The Bad
At least half of your time is spent doing some mundane tasks. It's also hard to find a good group to play with, and the game looses a lot of it's appeal if you always play it solo.

The Bottom Line
WoW is definitely worth trying. It's well worth the money, much better so than most stand-alone games sold at 50 euros or thereabout. So what if you get bored in it after a few months? You still got tens or even hundreds of hours of fun. I still sometimes miss WoW but I just can't justify paying the monthly fee because I know I wouldn't play it enough until I had to have another break.

Windows · by Marko Poutiainen (1151) · 2006

One of the best games of the past 10 years, just not great....

The Good
It was a very well put together rail game. It was smooth and beautiful. Very few bugs and issues. Blizzard really did a good job with quality.

The Bad
It's not an MMO. WOW is a rail game, plain and simple. To put it another way its "The Legend of Zelda", in 3d, with Warcraft characters. With few exceptions you can play this game completely by yourself, without any other players. The online element was completely wasted. Then after dozens (or hundreds) of hours in game you suddenly are required to join up with other players for "optional" quests. Why even bother?

For many gamers there was nothing to this game but hours upon hours of attack keys and grabbing pointless loot. Some people love that, many of us hate it!

The Bottom Line
If you haven't played an action game where you gain levels before, this game will be a very good start. But if you have spent anytime in level gaining games, monster stomping + loot grabbing, or anytime online in a MMO over the past 20 years, then this game will a complete repeat of previous games. Except for very few instances, you do not even need to speak or deal with other players. WOW could and should be a single player game. The online element is a huge waste of resources for both the development and the player.

Macintosh · by Sean Johanson (13) · 2009

You'll turn that MOM tattoo to a WOW tattoo...

The Good
I loved absolutely everything. The environments were wonderfully rendered and the combat system,purely and simply fun. You will literally say good-bye to everyone you love and go play this game. The massive amounts of campaigns and side quests are just mind blowing. Blizzard has succeeded with all of the Warcraft series. This is a must have for any lover of MMOs and any hater if them, because after you've tried it, you just can't stop. And also I love the fact that after you die you can run around the spirit world and find you're body. But I messed around for a while and found some really cool things. Don't pass that up. And the skills and abilities you can learn just make the game all the more sweeter. I've always dreamed of an MMO where you could craft armor and World Of Warcraft has pleased me most. The monsters are one of the best things about this game. Blizzard will often put you up against an unstoppable foe and see what you can do.

The Bad
The only thing I didn't like is....wait. I loved it all. There is nothing bad about this game.

The Bottom Line
A masterpiece composed by the geniuses at Blizzard. WARNING:If you play this game even once, you will be addicted.

Windows · by Lord Dayin (9) · 2007

[ View all 10 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
World of Warcraft Classic Cantillon (76856) May 5, 2021

Trivia

1001 Video Games

World of Warcraft appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Board game

This game has been adapted into a (less massively-multiplayer -- 2-6 players instead) 2005 boardgame.

Christmas events

  • For the 2004 Christmas season, Blizzard added easter eggs throughout the game in a patch, which enabled players to find egg nog recipes, snowballs and various other references to Christmas.
  • In the 2005 Christmas event, several new NPCs and quests were added for a short period of time. One of the quests requested that you rescued Metzen the Reindeer - try searching for Chris Metzen on Mobygames and you'll see that he is from the Blizzard staff.

Development (post-release)

Blizzard developed a program called The Warden to fight off cheaters. It's a highly-intrusive watchdog program, some even call it spyware, that scans for active processes while playing World of Warcraft. By accident, a DRM protection from the Sony record company helped crackers to avoid detection by The Warden.

Sony's DRM, shipped with tens of thousands of audio CD's, installs a virus-like rootkit that causes processes starting with $sys$ to stay undetected at all times. Malicious users with the DRM installed then simply wrote software with a $sys$ process to cheat in-game. With a booming economy and a gold price on eBay that easily matches the currency of some foreign countries, certain players will be rich soon.

In November 2005, Blizzard opened six new realms for the game in North America to give first time players the opportunity to adventure on equal footing with other players.

Gnomeregan

In every punch card you get in Gnomeregan, there is a hidden binary message:

White Punch Card:
Thrall and Jaina sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G

Yellow Punch Card:
If you can read this, you're standing too close

Blue Punch Card:
The gnome king wears night elf underwear

Red Punch Card:
Help! I'm trapped in a binary punch card factory!

Prismatic Punch Card:
Message to Castpipe: your laundry's ready for pickup.

Great Azeroth Plague, The

In September 2005, Blizzard added a seemingly innocent instance with unexpected consequences of epic proportions. To a certain extent, it even became one of the most realistic events in a MMORPG to mimic the world and history itself.

The new instance, Zul'Gurub, features the god of blood: Hakkar. When you fight him, he has a debuff called Corrupted Blood, a disease that deals 250-350 damage every two seconds and affects nearby players. Unexpectedly, some players managed to carry the disease, soon dubbed wow aids, hakkar sars and The Great Azeroth Plague, outside the instance and brought it to the towns. It soon became a real plague, affecting thousands of players, of which many did not have the class to constantly protect themselves. Even npcs and pets became affected and low-level players were killed over and over again, as, after respawning, they were immediately struck once more.

The plague became so powerful that major cities became places to avoid. The GMs first tried to quarantine the players, but some kept escaping until it could no longer be controlled. From a small annoyance, it soon became a survival of the fittest where certain players found themselves unable to continue playing under normal circumstances. Ultimately, the plague lasted two days until a rolling restart of all servers.

This was not the first time something unexpected was taken outside an instance, though.

What is not commonly known is that the CDC (Center for Disease Control) in Atlanta contacted Blizzard about the plague in the game. The CDC had read that Blizzard had simulated a plague spreading through the world, and was interested in how they simulated it. They were disappointed when they found out it was a bug.

Leeroy Jenkins

A World of Warcraft gameplay video by the clan PALS FOR LIFE has spawned the internet phenomenon Leeroy Jenkins. You can read all about it in the Wikipedia article in the related links section.

Money

214,748 gold, 36 silver, 48 copper seems to be the maximum amount of money you can collect per character in WOW. As they informed in wowinsider, at least two different players, Dorgabas and meth would have reached this limit on January 16th, 2008, a limit theorized before. After reaching this limit, your character can no longer receive money from any source in the game.

Novel

A World of Warcraft novel was published by Pocket Books in 2006: Cycle of Hatred by Keith R. A. DeCandido. It takes place in the period between between Warcraft III - the Frozen Throne and World of Warcraft, filling in blanks and establishing greater continuity.

As of 2012, there are eight novels based on World of Warcraft (plus four based on the expansion World of Warcraft: Cataclysm).

References

  • If you look carefully while playing the game, you may find developers or their families among the NPCs, such as Robert Bridenbecker's family in Goldshire, just outside of Stormwind.
  • In Uldaman there are 3 lost dwarves: Olaf, Eric and Baelog. Those 3 dwarves are all from the game The Lost Vikings. And on top of that, The "Staff of Tsol" and the "Medallion of Gni'kiv" (which are both used on another quest in the same dungeon) spelled backwards "Tsol" and "Gni'kiv" are "Lost" and "Viking".
  • When playing a Horde character at level 40+ with 225/225 in your First Aid skill, travel to Hammerfall. Go to the Trauma Surgeon in the building to the left of the entrance. He will give you a quest in which you can gain Artisan First Aid. In this quest, you must run around and bandage dying patients. When dying, one of the patients says: "Goodbye cruel world.. I'm leaving you today. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye". Those are the exact lyrics of the song "Goodbye Cruel World" of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" album.
  • One of the named opponents for Alliance characters in Westfall is a bandit belonging to the Defias Brotherhood, named Benny Blaanco. His name refers to a gang leader in the well known movie Carlito's Way.
  • In Elwynn Forest there is an NPC named Terry Palin. He is a lumberjack and he's OK. His name is a reference to Monty Python comedians Terry Jones and Michael Palin who were responsible for the famous Lumberjack Song.
  • One of the quests in Netherstorm, Outland, is called Needs More Cowbell where the player needs to find the cow Bessy using a bell. The quest's title is a reference to the pop culture catchphrase More cowbell, which was launched in a Saturday Night Live comedy sketch on 8th April 2000, about the recording of the song (Don't Fear) The Reaper by Blue Öyster Cult, where a cowbell is featured.

References to the game

  • Coca Cola launched a commercial in China inspired by World of Warcraft. Three models stand up to their boss when he asks them "to show more". He transforms into an orc and after drinking a coke the girls fight him. The link to the video can be found in the related links section.
  • The porn film series Whorelore was originally to be called Whores of Whorecraft.
  • An entire episode of the animated TV series South Park was dedicated to World of Warcraft. The episode, titled Make Love, Not Warcraft, was aired on 4th October 2006 and it was the second half premiere of the tenth season.
  • The game makes an appearance in the 2008 movie The Day the Earth Stood Still. Early on, Jacob Benson (Jaden Smith), son of Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly), is shown playing the game on his laptop.
  • The game is referenced multiple times in Douglas Coupland's 2009 novel Generation A, where the character Julien is addicted to it.
  • World of Warcraft was parodied in an episode of "Die Redaktion" (The Editorial Team), a monthly comedy video produced by the German gaming magazine GameStar. It was published on the DVD of issue 06/2005.

Sales

World of Warcraft quickly became the fastest selling game ever, selling 240,000 copies in 24 hours.

VISA cards

In May 2007 Blizzard announced the availability of World of Warcraft VISA credit cards from the First National Bank of Omaha. There are 13 different types of cards like Alliance Draenei or Horde Blood Elf. Aside from the art work, there are other bonuses such as a free month of subscription time with first use and game time at the rate of 1% of every dollar in qualifying purchases.

Awards

  • 4Players
    • 2005 – Best Online Role-Playing Game of the Year
  • Apple Design Awards
    • 2005 - Best Mac OS X Entertainment Product
  • Computer Games Magazine
    • March 2005 - Game of the Year 2004
  • Computer Gaming World
    • March 2005 (Issue #249) – Game of the Year
    • March 2005 (Issue #249) – Special Achievement in Art Direction
  • Games for Windows Magazine
    • March 2007 - #10 Game of the Year 2006
  • GameSpy
    • 2004 – #5 Game of the Year
    • 2004 – #2 PC Game of the Year
    • 2004 – PC MMORPG of the Year
    • 2004 – PC RPG / MMORPG of the Year (Readers' Vote)
    • 2004 - Special Achievement in Art Direction (together with Myst IV: Revelation)
    • 2004 - Best Game Utility of the Year (PC) (for Cosmos)
    • 2006 – The Game That Wouldn't Die Award (PC)
    • 2011 – #1 Top PC Game of the 2000s
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • February 23, 2006 - Best PC Game in 2005 (Readers' Vote)
    • February 23, 2006 - Best PC RPG in 2005 (Readers' Vote)
  • Golden Joystick Awards
    • 2005 - Online Game of the Year
  • PC Powerplay (Germany)
    • Issue 02/2006 - #1 RPG/Adventure in 2005
    • Issue 04/2006 - #1 RPG/Adventure in 2005 (Readers' Vote)
    • Issue 02/2006 - #4 Best Game in 2005
    • Issue 02/2006 - Most Played Game in 2005
  • The Strong National Museum of Play
    • 2015 – Introduced into the World Video Game Hall of Fame

Information also contributed by Agent 5, Captain Canuck, h'mik, Itay Shahar, MichaelPalin, PCGamer77, piltdown_man, Pseudo_Intellectual, Sciere, Silverblade, WildKard and Zack Green

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Related Games

WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos
Released 2002 on Windows, Macintosh
WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne
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World of WarCraft: Cataclysm
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World of WarCraft: Shadowlands
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World of WarCraft: Legion
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World of WarCraft (Collector's Edition)
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Riamus.

Macintosh added by Terok Nor.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Apogee IV, Sciere, Andrew Shepard, Zeppin, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack, Frozenwaterfall, SoMuchChaotix.

Game added November 27, 2004. Last modified March 29, 2024.