WORLD
OF WARCRAFT
World of Warcraft (commonly abbreviated as WoW) is a massive multiplayer online
role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Blizzard Entertainment and is the fourth
game in the Warcraft series. World of Warcraft is a subscription-based MMORPG
that lacks an offline mode. The Warcraft series of games are set in the Warcraft
Universe, a fantasy setting introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994. World
of Warcraft itself takes place within the world of Azeroth, four years after the
events at the conclusion of Blizzard's previous release, Warcraft III: The
Frozen Throne. World of Warcraft's release celebrated the 10th anniversary of
the Warcraft franchise.
Although its initial release was hampered by server stability and performance
issues,[4] the game became popular[5][6] and a financial success, becoming the
world's leading subscription-based MMORPG. On March 7, 2007, Blizzard announced
that the subscriber base for World of Warcraft had reached a new milestone, with
8.5 million players worldwide;[7] there are more than 2 million players in North
America, 1.5 million players in Europe, and 3.5 million players in China.[8] The
game has won numerous awards and recognitions, including Gamespot's Game of the
Year Award for 2004. The first official World of Warcraft expansion pack, known
as The Burning Crusade, was released on January 16, 2007.
With the recent release of the expansion, Blizzard has attempted to make endgame
content more accessible to casual players by reducing the amount of required
preparation to do these. The original (level 60) endgame dungeons involved
gathering rather large amounts of supplies before the dungeon attempt, such as
doing long "attunement" quests, which is a requirement for almost all raiding
guilds in the game. The attunement quest enables the player to easily enter a
specific raid dungeon, and for some dungeons, players cannot enter without
completing this quest. Blizzard claims to have made these quests shorter in the
expansion, but since not enough people have reached endgame level, this is
unproven.
Version history
World of Warcraft runs natively on both Macintosh and Windows platforms. Boxed
copies of the game use a hybrid CD to install the game, eliminating the need for
separate Mac and Windows retail products. The game allows all users to play
together, regardless of their operating system.
As of February 2007, Blizzard has not released a Linux version of the game.[9]
However, support for World of Warcraft is present in Windows API implementations
Wine and Cedega, allowing the game to be played on Linux.[10] FreeBSD users have
also been successful in using Wine to run the game.
As of Patch 1.9.3 the game added native support for the newer Intel-powered
Macs, making World of Warcraft a Universal application (as defined by Apple). As
a result of this, the minimum supported Mac OS X version has been changed to
10.3.9; World of Warcraft version 1.9.3 and later will not launch on older
versions of Mac OS X.
Due to the fact that new content is constantly being added to the game, official
system requirements frequently change. As of version 1.12.0, the requirements
for Windows have increased from requiring 256 MB to 512 MB of RAM and from
Windows 98 to Windows 2000.
Pricing
World of Warcraft is priced differently in different regions of the world.
Usually, the pricing model is similar to that of MMORPGs previously released in
the market.
In the United States and Canada, Blizzard distributes World of Warcraft via
retail software packages that originally had a suggested retail price of US$50
at the time of release, but have since dropped to around $19.99. The software
package includes one month of gameplay for no additional cost. After a month, a
player must purchase additional service using a credit card or prepaid game
card. The minimum gameplay duration that a player can purchase via credit card
is one month. A player also has the option of purchasing three or six months of
gameplay at once for a slight discount. Prepaid game cards are sold for US$30
and provide 60 days of gameplay.[14] Either way, a player pays about US$0.50 for
one day of gameplay.
In South Korea, there is no software package or CD key requirement to activate
the account. In order to play the game, however, players need to purchase time
credits online via credit card or the ARS billing system. The minimum gameplay
duration that a player can purchase via credit card is five hours. A player may
also purchase game time by thirty hours or by increments of one week. A player
also has the option of purchasing game time by one, three or six months of
gameplay at once for a slight discount.[15] As of December 17, 2006, 30 days of
gameplay costs ₩19,800 (US$21.46).
In China, because a large number of the players do not own the computer they use
to play games (e.g. Internet cafes), the CD keys can be purchased independently
of the software package. The CD key, which is required to activate an account,
is sold for ¥30 (US$3.75) each. The software packages vary in price depending on
the items they contain. In order to play the game, the player would need to
purchase prepaid game cards in denominations of ¥30 each that can be played for
66 hours and 40 minutes. This equates to exactly ¥0.45 (US$0.06) for one hour of
gameplay. A monthly fee model is not available to players of this region.
In Australia, the United States, and many European countries, video game stores
commonly stock the trial version of World of Warcraft in DVD form priced at A$2
or €2 including VAT, which include the game and 14 days of gameplay, after which
the player would have to purchase the full version of the game priced at
recommended retail price similar to those sold in United States. As of November
2006, the RRP is A$29.95
