World of Warcraft
WoW box art
Developer(s)	Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher(s)	Vivendi Universal
Release date(s)	NA - 23 November 2004 EU - 11 February 2005
Version	Patch 1.1.0 - Patch 1.12.2
Expansions	The Burning Crusade Wrath of the Lich King Cataclysm Mists of Pandaria (announced)
Platforms	Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, (Linux via Wine or Cedega)
Genre(s)	MMORPG

World of Warcraft, often referred to as WoW, is a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) set in the Warcraft universe. It is developed by Blizzard Entertainment and contains 3 expansion packs: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, and World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria. The initial release is now sometimes know as "vanilla WoW" or "classic WoW".

As of 2010, World of Warcraft has more than 12 million monthly subscribers,^{[1][citation needed]} and currently holds the Guinness World Record for the world's largest and most popular MMORPG.^[2] It also continues its further story development throughout its franchising, other than online media, such as Warcraft novels, comics, manga, RPG books, TCG, and board games.

Features Edit

Note the following are the pre-expansion details:

• Uses and expands the storyline from the Warcraft series of games.
• Customizable characters:
  • 2 factions: Horde and Alliance.
  • 8 initial races: Human, Dwarf, Gnome, Night Elf, Orc, Troll, Undead, Tauren; added Blood Elf / Draenei and Goblin / Worgen.
  • 9 initial classes: Mage, Warlock, Priest, Rogue, Druid, Hunter, Shaman, Warrior, Paladin; added Death Knight (Hero Class).
  • 9 initial professions, enabling resource gathering and item crafting; added Jewelcrafting and Inscription.
    • 4 initial secondary professions: Cooking, Fishing, First Aid, Riding; added Archaeology.
    • 2 initial class-based professions (Rogue): Lockpicking, Poisons (removed with patch 3.0.2); added Runeforging.
  • The Talents and Glyphs system allows further customization of the character's skills and stats.

Gameplay System Edit

General System

• A casual-friendly character progression system up to a point.
  • Quests occur frequently, and being offline (resting) increases your experience points gain.
• In-game trading, mail service and auction system.
• Four server types: Normal (PvE), RP, PvP, and RPPvP.

Quest and Honor Systems

• A PvP Honor system, 3 initial Battlegrounds; added 1 , 2 and 2
  • Alterac Valley, Arathi Basin, Warsong Gulch; added Eye of the Storm, Strand of the Ancients / Isle of Conquest, and Battle for Gilneas / Twin Peaks.

Events

• A variety of World Events including:
  • Darkmoon Faire, Children's Week, Scourge Invasion, Midsummer Fire Festival, Hallow's End, and Feast of Winter Veil.
• Dozens of Instanced Dungeons, ranging from Blackfathom Deeps to Zul'Farrak with dozens more added in content patches and expansions.

User Interface and Customer Support

• Customize AddOn and Interface with some game commands support.
• Client seamlessly supports both Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems. Linux users can play via Wine (MS Windows emulation), however this is not supported and can be buggy at times.

Availability Edit

• Oceania (English - Australia, Hawaii, New Zealand)
• North America (English - US & Canada)
• Europe (English-UK, French, German, Spanish, Russian)
• South Korea
• China (Simplified and Traditional Chinese; including Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau)
• Latin America^[3] (Spanish, English?)

Video Edit

Trivia Edit

The original WoW is sometimes referred to as "vanilla World of Warcraft," "pre Burning Crusade (Pre BC)," or "classic World of Warcraft".

References Edit

See also Edit

• Loading screen
• A listing of World of Warcraft-related sites.
• Timeline (World of Warcraft) for a timeline of game milestones since its announcement.
• World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria (NYI)
• World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
• World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
• World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
• World of Warcraft Battle Chest
• World of Warcraft Mac OS X Icons

External links Edit

World of Warcraft US Community Site Official Battle.net World of Warcraft website

World of Warcraft EU Community Site Official Battle.net World of Warcraft European website (en)

Related info

Wikipedia World of Warcraft

WowInsider WoW Archivist: Recapping classic World of Warcraft by Alex Ziebart Sep 27th 2011 at 1:00PM

WineHQ.com The Official WineHQ website with info about World of Warcraft with Wine.

MMO-Champion General Discussion forum Some things you didn't know about WoW... by Palidan 2010-06-17 03:41 PM

WowInsider Robert's not-so-original WoW miscellany by Allison Robert Jan 24th 2012 at 6:00PM

News

WowInsider World of Warcraft subscriber numbers dip 100,000 to 10.2 million by Adam Holisky Feb 9th 2012 at 4:33PM

Wowhead News WoW Loses 100k More Subscribers, Subscriber Decline Finally Slows by Ashelia 2012/02/09 3:31 PM

World of Warcraft EU Community Site Aggra is Waiting For You: Are You Prepared? by Blizzard Entertainment, 23 Dec 2011 13:00 UTC

1up.com World of Warcraft Subscriptions Continue to Fall By Chris Pereira, 11/09/2011

PCWorld.com World of Warcraft Loses 2 Million Subscribers in a Year By Matt Peckham Nov 9, 2011 7:30 AM

World of Warcraft EU Community Site World of Warcraft is Now Available in Portuguese (Brazilian) by Blizzard Entertainment, 30 Nov 2011 08:00 UTC

World of Warcraft US Community Site World of Warcraft’s Seventh Anniversary! by Blizzard Entertainment Nov 18, 2011 10:49 AM PST

World of Warcraft EU Community Site World of Warcraft’s Seventh Anniversary! by Blizzard Entertainment 18 Nov 2011 19:00 UTC

World of Warcraft EU Community Site Brazilian Portuguese Version of World of Warcraft is Coming to Europe by Blizzard Entertainment, 27 Sep 2011 09:25 UTC

World of Warcraft US Community Site World of Warcraft Coming to Brazil by Blizzard Entertainment, Jul 21, 2011 6:55 PM PDT

Blizzard (US) BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT’S WORLD OF WARCRAFT® COMING TO BRAZIL IN 2011 by Blizzard Entertainment, July 21, 2011

Official General forum (EU) Poll: (Locked) Six Years of WoW In Europe - What Do You Remember?  Vaneras, 11/02/2011 17:52

World of Warcraft US Community Site World of Warcraft’s 6th Anniversary! by Blizzard Entertainment, Nov 16, 2010 7:00 PM PST

Old news

Web.Archive.org Sci Fi Weekly article "Warcraft Conquers The World" article archive SEP. 11, 2006 (archived 25-Apr-2009)

Other

Facebook World of Warcraft in Facebook search

Groups.Yahoo.com World of Warcraft in the Yahoo groups directory

v • d • e World of Warcraft Patches Classic · The Burning Crusade · Wrath of the Lich King · Cataclysm 0.x – Pre-release 0.6 · 0.7 · 0.8 · 0.9 · 0.9.1 · 0.10 · 0.11 · 0.12 1.x – WoW Classic 1.1.0 · 1.1.1 · 1.1.2 –  1.2.0 · 1.2.1 · 1.2.2 · 1.2.3 · 1.2.4 –  1.3.0 · 1.3.1 · 1.3.2  –  1.4.0 · 1.4.1 · 1.4.2  –  1.5.0 · 1.5.1  –  1.6.0 · 1.6.1  –  1.7.0 · 1.7.1  –  1.8.0 · 1.8.1 · 1.8.2 · 1.8.3 · 1.8.4  –  1.9.0 · 1.9.1 · 1.9.2 · 1.9.3 · 1.9.4  –  1.10.0 · 1.10.1 · 1.10.2  –  1.11.0 · 1.11.1 · 1.11.2  –  1.12.0 · 1.12.1 · 1.12.2 2.x – Burning Crusade 2.0.1 · 2.0.3 · 2.0.4 · 2.0.5 · 2.0.6 · 2.0.7 · 2.0.8 · 2.0.9 · 2.0.10 · 2.0.11 · 2.0.12  –  2.1.0 · 2.1.1 · 2.1.2 · 2.1.3 · 2.1.4  –  2.2.0 · 2.2.2 · 2.2.3  –  2.3.0 · 2.3.2 · 2.3.3  –  2.4.0 · 2.4.1 · 2.4.2 · 2.4.3 3.x – Wrath of the Lich King 3.0.2 · 3.0.3 · 3.0.5 · 3.0.8 · 3.0.8a · 3.0.9  –  3.1.0 · 3.1.1 · 3.1.1a · 3.1.2 · 3.1.3  –  3.2.0 · 3.2.0a · 3.2.2 · 3.2.2a  –  3.3.0 · 3.3.0a · 3.3.2 · 3.3.3  · 3.3.3a  · 3.3.5  · 3.3.5a 4.x – Cataclysm 4.0.1  · 4.0.1a  · 4.0.3  · 4.0.3a  · 4.0.6  · 4.0.6a  –  4.1.0  –  4.1.0a  –  4.1.11  –  4.2.0  –  4.2.0a  –  4.2.2  –  4.3.0  –  4.3.0a  –  4.3.2  –  4.4.0 5.x – Mists of Pandaria 5.0.x Removed content 1.1.0 · 1.2.0 · 1.3.0 · 1.4.0 · 1.5.0 · 1.6.0 · 1.6.1 · 1.7.0 · 1.8.0 · 1.9.0 · 1.10.0 · 1.11.0 · 1.11.2 · 2.0.1 · 2.0.3 · 2.0.4 · 2.1.0 · 2.2.0 · 2.3.0 · 2.4.0 · 2.4.3 · 3.0.2 · 3.0.3 · 3.0.8 · 3.1.0 · 3.2.0 · 3.2.2 · 3.3.0 · 3.3.3 · 4.n.n · 4.0.1 · 4.0.3 · 4.0.3a · 4.1.0 · 4.2.0 Hotfixes 2006 · 2007 · 2008 · 2009 · 2010 · 2011 Client builds · Mirror · Coming soon · Interface · Bug · Hotfix · FAQ · Armory · Category