World Of Warcraft: Five Years In

15 Feb 2010 at 00:00:00 by Bill Vaughan

Five years ago, Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft was unleashed upon Europe. It followed in the footsteps of similar games such as EverQuest and Ultima Online, but it was to become the biggest thing in the massively multiplayer online gaming genre that gamers have ever seen.

WoW comes from a humble RTS background, but the huge success of Warcraft I, II and III allowed Blizzard to translate the popular strategy series into the online world we know today, where the heroes from the first games live as 3D characters that players can interact with. RTS and MMO fans flocked to WoW when it was released, and the latest figures from Blizzard show that over eleven million players worldwide have active accounts, earning Blizzard hundreds of millions of dollars per month in subscription fees alone; No other western MMO has managed to attract even half that number of regular players.

But although WoW did well from the start, receiving outstanding reviews from critics and fans alike, Blizzard's constant tweaks and additions to the gameplay have made it the behemoth it is today.

When starting out in Azeroth before either of the game's two massive expansions, new players faced a different set of goals than beginners in WoW today. Reaching the original level cap of 60 was by no means an easy task, but it was not something that players necessarily felt the need to rush towards. The world was full of varied and interesting quests, and each zone had a unique feeling to it, meaning exploration and discovery was as exciting as any end game content might be.

Dungeons were fresh and exciting, and players needed to work together to succeed in clearing them of their widely varied denizens, sometimes taking several hours to complete even the low level encounters. Mounts were also something that players had to work hard towards, often saving up gold for weeks to be able to afford the luxury, once they hit level 40.

Those dedicated enough to eventually attain level 60 were able to embark on raids, large groups of 40 players who could tackle enormously challenging dungeons with creatures that dropped the best equipment in the game. Raiders were seen as the elite, the top of their game, and displaying their looted raid goods in towns and cities earned the owners endless respect from those still climbing the ladder. It also served to show fledgling players what they could achieve given enough time and effort, the proverbial carrot on the stick; Epics.

As more and more players did eventually reached end game, Blizzard introduced harder raids with even better gear for players to aim towards. This kept end game players busy, while retaining the interest of those with low level characters, a magical recipe that is no doubt one of the many reasons behind WoW's popularity.

Other player-friendly factors that hadn't always been present in MMOs, including short rest periods between combat and a low death penalty, also boosted WoW's user base. The ability to play alongside people that you know is another major attraction to MMOs; it keeps people playing when they may have moved to another game otherwise. So as more players joined WoW and made friends with others, less wanted to leave.

The rising number of subscribers caught the attention of the media, as did the infamous corrupted blood incident, which is still referred to today by scientists when studying human behaviour in times of pandemic. This all served to give the game more publicity, and numbers continued to rise.

Shortly before WoW's first expansion The Burning Crusade was released, Blizzard introduced the final level 60 raid, Naxxramas. Only the very best players managed to see the inside of this dread citadel, and even the top raiding guild in the world took almost three months to clear it. It was estimated that only around 5% of WoW players ever got to see the final boss in Naxxramas perish, prompting Blizzard to re-think end-game content.

The size of TBC's raids were reduced from 40 players down to 25, enabling smaller guilds to tackle the content. Heroic instances, hard versions of level 70 dungeons, were also introduced which provided a better standard of equipment for gamers gearing up to attend raids.

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