World of Warcraft

• 1. Introduction

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  Vice summed up World of Warcraft in 2019 with a single sentence. "Most people," it wrote, "know someone who's said they were 'addicted' to World of Warcraft."

  The game came from Blizzard Entertainment, which released it for Windows and macOS on the 23rd of November 2004, timed to the tenth anniversary of the Warcraft franchise. More than twenty years later, it still receives developer support and new expansion packs.

  For some players the pull grew strong enough that a community called Wowaholics Anonymous appeared for people trying to quit. How did a studio fresh from another hit end up building a world that gripped people so hard? What did players actually do there day after day? And why did scientists end up studying a disease that existed only on a game server?

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• 2. Nomad Becomes Warcraft

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  After StarCraft arrived in 1998, Blizzard began work on a follow-up called Nomad. It drew on the tabletop game Necromunda and was set in a post-apocalyptic world. A year in, the project still lacked a clear direction.

  EverQuest, released in 1999 by Verant Interactive, had meanwhile won over many Blizzard developers. Talk turned to building an online role-playing game of their own, set in the Warcraft universe and fixing what the team felt EverQuest did poorly. A management vote settled the matter. Everyone except Duane Stinnett, the project lead on Nomad, backed the switch, and work on Nomad stopped by the end of 1999.

  Blizzard announced World of Warcraft at the ECTS trade show in September 2001. Development took roughly four to five years once extensive testing is counted. The 3D graphics reused elements of the proprietary engine originally built for Warcraft III.

  The designers wanted an open environment where players could do as they pleased. Quests were optional by design. They guided newcomers, let characters develop, and spread players across zones to avoid what the developers called player collision. The interface let players customize appearance and controls and install add-ons.

  Boxed copies used a hybrid CD, so one disc installed the game on both Mac and Windows. All players share the same world regardless of operating system. Wine and CrossOver also let people run the game on Linux and FreeBSD. In January 2011, IT journalist Michael Larabel suggested in a Phoronix article that an internal Linux client might exist. Blizzard has neither released nor announced a native one.

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• 3. Life In Azeroth

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  Before anything else, a new player picks a realm, the game's word for a server. Each realm holds its own copy of the world. Normal realms center on monsters and quests, while RP realms ask players to roleplay in character. Realms are also sorted by language.

  Then comes the choice between the Alliance and the Horde. Orcs and trolls fight for the Horde, while humans and dwarves fight for the Alliance. Pandaren, added in Mists of Pandaria, commit to a side only after finishing their starting zone. Mages, warriors, and priests are among the classes, and most classes are limited to particular races. As of patch 10.1, called Embers of Neltharion, characters can even join guilds of the opposing faction.

  Quest chains carry most of the story. Non-player characters hand out quests, and rewards combine experience points, items, and in-game money. Finishing one quest triggers the next, so a common theme links the whole chain. Typical tasks include killing a set number of creatures, hunting a hard-to-find object, or delivering an item across the map.

  A dead character becomes a ghost at a nearby graveyard, or a wisp if it is a Night Elf. Walking back to the corpse restores life without extra penalty. Past level ten, reviving at a graveyard degrades equipment. A spirit healer NPC adds further damage and a weakness called resurrection sickness that lasts up to ten minutes.

  War Mode arrived with the seventh expansion, Battle for Azeroth. It lets any player of level 20 or higher choose whether to take part in player versus player combat, replacing the old split between PvE and PvP servers. Battlegrounds set objectives such as capturing a flag or defeating an opposing general, and winners earn more honor and tokens than losers.

  Dungeons are called instances because each party gets its own separate copy, with its own enemies and treasure. A typical dungeon admits up to five characters. Raids, built for the hardest challenges, accept as many as forty players. Guilds then compete in an unofficial event called the Race to World First, trying to be first to defeat every boss in a new raid on Mythic difficulty. Esports organization Team Liquid sponsors a North American guild that has won multiple such races.

  Azeroth began with two continents, Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. Later expansions added Outland, Draenor, Northrend, and Pandaria. Players travel between them by flight masters, boats, zeppelins, and portals. Seasonal events such as Hallow's End, Winter Veil, and Noblegarden echo real-world holidays, and the weather ranges from rain to dust storms. In major cities, auction houses work much like eBay, and mailboxes appear in almost every town.

  Raids come with their own stories. Onyxia, a black dragon, ruled in disguise as a human noblewoman and bent the mind of Highlord Bolvar Fordragon, regent of Stormwind. In Blackrock Mountain, the black dragon Nefarian experimented with the blood of other dragonflights, hoping to continue the legacy of his father, Deathwing the Destroyer. In Zul'Gurub, the Blood God Hakkar took control of the Gurubashi tribe. At Ahn'Qiraj, a mixed force called the Might of Kalimdor, led by the orc Varok Saurfang, opened the gates and vanquished the Old God C'Thun. In the flying citadel of Naxxramas, the lich Kel'Thuzad fell, but a traitor in the Argent Dawn fled to Northrend with his cursed remains so the lich could be reanimated.

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• 4. Paying To Play

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  A WoW Token costs $20 in North America, and it changed how some players pay. Introduced in April 2015, the token is sold on the auction house for gold. It could initially be used only to add 30 days of playtime. At launch a token sold for 30,000 gold, and 24 hours later it sold for 20,000. As of February 2017, a token can also be exchanged for $15 in Battle.net balance, usable in most Blizzard games and in Destiny 2.

  The usual route is a subscription paid by credit or debit card, a prepaid Blizzard game card, or a token. Payment comes in one-month, three-month, or six-month blocks. A trial account lets a character reach level 20 with many features locked. The free Starter Edition has no time limit but stops experience gain at level 20. It also blocks trading, mail, the auction house, public chat channels, guilds, and holding more than ten gold.

  In January 2015, accounts with lapsed subscriptions began to work like restricted Starter Edition accounts instead of being locked out of login. Blizzard also offers parental controls. Parents can set a daily limit, a weekly limit, or an allowed playing schedule, using different credentials from those used to enter the game. Some adults apply the controls to themselves.

  Regions handled payment differently. In South Korea there is no software package or CD key. Players buy time credits online, either by the minute or by the day, so expansion packs reach everyone on launch day. In Brazil, the game was released on the 6th of December 2011 through BattleNet, with the first three expansions fully translated, including voice acting, into Brazilian Portuguese.

  China's first release sold hourly and daily tokens that players often used at Internet cafes. It was immensely popular, partly because many Chinese players had already tried the game on North American and European servers. The licensee The9 altered the game, covering bare skeletons with flesh and turning dead characters' corpses into tidy graves. The stated aim was to "promote a healthy and harmonious online game environment". NetEase took over the license in June 2009. Less than two months after it began operating the game on the 19th of September 2009, it was ordered to stop charging players and accepting registrations.

  A press estimate at the time said a shutdown in China would drop Activision Blizzard's earnings from 65 cents per share to 60 cents. NetEase did secure a launch for Wrath of the Lich King on the 31st of August 2010, nearly two years after its Western release. Because of a contract dispute, those servers shut down on the 23rd of January 2023. In April 2024, NetEase announced the game's return for the summer, and a livestream on the 27th of June 2024 outlined Wrath of the Lich King for Classic and The War Within for Chinese players.

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• 5. Expansions And Classic

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  The Burning Crusade, released in January 2007, was the first of eleven expansions. Wrath of the Lich King followed in November 2008, then Cataclysm in December 2010, Mists of Pandaria in September 2012, and Warlords of Draenor in November 2014. Legion arrived in August 2016, Battle for Azeroth in August 2018, Shadowlands in November 2020, Dragonflight in November 2022, The War Within in August 2024, and Midnight in March 2026. Players need not buy any of them to keep playing, but higher level caps and new areas stay locked without them.

  Level caps tell their own story. The Burning Crusade set the cap at 70, and it climbed in steps until it reached 120 with Battle for Azeroth. Shadowlands then reset it to 60. Dragonflight, The War Within, and Midnight raised it to 70, 80, and 90.

  Warlords of Draenor was announced at BlizzCon 2013 on the 8th of November 2013, entered beta on the 27th of June 2014, and shipped on the 13th of November 2014. Legion was announced at Gamescom on the 6th of August 2015, began alpha testing that November, entered beta in April 2016, and was released on the 30th of August 2016. Battle for Azeroth launched worldwide on the 13th and the 14th of August 2018, depending on location. Shadowlands was announced on the 1st of November 2019 and released on the 23rd of November 2020. Dragonflight was announced on the 19th of April 2022 and released on the 28th of November 2022.

  On the 28th of June 2011, Blizzard applied The Burning Crusade to every existing Warcraft account at no cost. Wrath of the Lich King got the same treatment on the 19th of September 2012, and Cataclysm on the 15th of October 2013. Mists of Pandaria followed on the 15th of October 2014. On the 17th of May 2016, Warlords of Draenor was applied to all accounts to coincide with the Warcraft movie, which carried a 30-day trial of the game. With The War Within in 2024, every expansion through Dragonflight became part of the base game.

  In 2019, World of Warcraft Classic let players experience the base game as it stood before any expansion launched. Blizzard later released versions of some expansions for Classic as well.

  The technology under the game changed along the way. Patch 1.9.3 added native support for Intel-powered Macs, and PowerPC Macs lost support with version 4.0.1. Since patch 5.0, the 64-bit client installs automatically. Official support for Windows XP and Vista ended in October 2017, along with all 32-bit support.

  At BlizzCon 2023, Blizzard announced the Worldsoul Saga, a story arc spanning three expansions: The War Within, Midnight, and The Last Titan. The Last Titan is still upcoming.

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• 6. Critics And Crowds

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  Reviewers in 2004 kept praising the same thing: the game wasted little of the player's time. A death cost far less than in some earlier online role-playing games, and every character type could recover from damage quickly. Critics thought that pacing would draw casual players while keeping gameplay deep enough for the dedicated. They also welcomed the rested bonus, which raises experience gain after time away and helps players catch up with friends.

  The world drew some of the strongest praise. A player could run from one end of a continent to the other without meeting a loading screen. One reviewer called flying over long stretches of scenery "very atmospheric", and critics described the look as a careful blend of cartoon, fantasy art, and realism. Music assigned to different regions added to immersion.

  Complaints were specific. Quests that required collecting items from corpses felt repetitive because of low drop rates. Crowds of new players sometimes left an area with no creatures to kill. Some critics felt the lack of group quests made the game seem designed for solo play. A small number of quests also shipped with bugs that made them impossible to finish.

  Computer Games Magazine named World of Warcraft the best computer game of 2004. Its writer Steve Bauman described a "feeling that Blizzard has analyzed every element of every existing game, pulled out the best ones, and then lovingly lavished an absurd amount of attention to their implementation". The game won Best PC Game, Best Multiplayer Game, Best RPG, and Most Addictive Game at the 2005 Spike TV Video Game Awards. In 2008, it shared a Technology and Engineering Emmy with Neverwinter Nights and EverQuest for advancing the art form. In 2015, The Strong National Museum of Play inducted it into the World Video Game Hall of Fame.

  The sales were just as strong. It was the best-selling PC game of 2005 and 2006. In the United States alone, it sold 1.4 million copies, worth $68.1 million, by August 2006. On the 22nd of January 2008, it passed 10 million subscribers worldwide, with more than 2 million in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America, and about 5.5 million in Asia. By April 2008, it was estimated to hold 62 percent of the MMORPG subscription market.

  Subscriptions peaked at 12 million in October 2010. Blizzard announced on the 28th of January 2014 that 100 million accounts had been created. From May 2011, the player count fell by 10 percent, from 11.4 million to 10.3 million. Blizzard chief executive Mike Morhaime pointed to a probable drop-off in Eastern markets, while senior producer John Lagrave told Eurogamer that Star Wars: The Old Republic may also have played a part. By the end of September 2015, subscribers stood at 5.5 million, after a dip to 5.6 million at the end of June that was the lowest since 2005.

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• 7. Plague, Gold, And Warden

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  Patch 1.7 opened Zul'Gurub, the game's first 20-player raid dungeon, and with it came Corrupted Blood. The final boss afflicted players with a debuff that periodically sapped their life. The disease spread to anyone standing near an infected player. It was meant to stay inside the dungeon, but hunter pets and warlock minions carried it into the outside world.

  Within hours, major cities were completely infected because so many players gathered there. Low-level characters died in seconds. Blizzard eventually fixed the problem so the plague could not exist outside Zul'Gurub. Scientists noticed that player reactions closely resembled real outbreaks, and they began looking at how online worlds might model human behavior during epidemics.

  Around the 2004 release, U.S. players found themselves competing with Chinese-based players who were hired to generate in-game resources for sale on trading sites. With no translation feature in chat, the two groups barely communicated. Media scholar Lisa Nakamura argued that gold farming had become racialized as Chinese, producing new forms of networked racism. Patch 2.1 added whisper throttling and a report spam function to fight the bots. Blizzard sued in Game Dollar LLC in May 2007 and reached a consent decree in February 2008. In June 2007, player Antonio Hernandez filed a class action lawsuit against IGE.

  Bound rewards created a market for whole accounts. The highest noted sale was for £5000 in early September 2007, for a character holding items owned by only a handful of players. Blizzard banned the account five days after the purchase. On the 21st of February 2008, Blizzard said an "alarmingly high" proportion of bought gold came from hacked accounts. Customers who had paid for leveling services sometimes found their accounts stripped months later.

  Security threats grew too. In September 2006, spoof advice sites spread malware that sent account information back to attackers. Symantec reported in March 2007 that a compromised account was worth US$10 on the black market, against US$6 to US$12 for a compromised computer. In June 2008, Blizzard introduced the Blizzard Authenticator, a hardware token or mobile application that supplies a one-time password valid for a couple of minutes.

  On Windows, Blizzard also runs a system called Warden to detect third-party programs such as botting software. Warden works like anti-virus software but sends some information back to Blizzard, including the title of every open window. Privacy advocates called it spyware, while many gamers backed it if it meant less cheating. Its existence was acknowledged in March 2008, during legal proceedings against MDY Industries and Michael Donnelly, creator of the automatic-play software MMO Glider. Donnelly claimed to have sold 100,000 copies at $25 each.

  On the 6th of July 2010, Blizzard announced that forum accounts would display real names under a feature called Real ID, following an agreement with Facebook. Fans objected. On the 9th of July 2010, Blizzard canceled the forum integration.

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• 8. Beyond The Screen

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  Bonnie Nardi's My Life as a Night Elf Priest became one of the best-known ethnographies of the game. Early academic study focused on player collaboration, especially in guilds, and drew on game studies, anthropology, psychology, and communications. Later researchers came from economics, design, and philosophy.

  In January 2006, Blizzard drew criticism for banning guilds from advertising sexual orientation preferences. Several players had been cited for harassment after promoting a gay-straight alliance group. Blizzard later reversed the decision to issue warnings to players promoting LGBT-friendly guilds.

  In December 2015, Blizzard sold a battle pet named Brightpaw for $10, with all proceeds going to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. It raised over $1.7 million, a Blizzard record. A battle pet named Mischief, sold the next December, raised more than $2.5 million. In September 2017, a fox named Shadow raised money for Red Cross disaster relief.

  The game's design shaped other games. Its model resembled a theme park more than a simulation, with quest completion driving progress and instanced dungeons letting groups advance without crowding each other. Its talent system, which lets players distribute points among upgrades, was adopted by others, including Star Wars: The Old Republic.

  Vitalik Buterin, later a co-founder of the cryptocurrency Ethereum, was driven toward decentralized technologies after a 2010 patch changed his avatar's preferred spell. Requests from World of Warcraft players also led Microsoft to alter how hotkeys work in Windows.

  The first World of Warcraft-themed restaurant opened in Beijing in 2008. A World of Warcraft-inspired amusement park, World Joyland Play Valley, opened in China in 2011. The South Park episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft" won an Emmy. Television commercials featured Mr. T, William Shatner, Verne Troyer, Ozzy Osbourne, Steve Van Zandt, and Chuck Norris. Spin-offs include three board games, a trading card game, a comic from DC Comics' WildStorm imprint in November 2007, and the digital card game Hearthstone, released in March 2014.

  For the game's 20th anniversary in 2024, Blizzard partnered with the University of Washington. The university temporarily renamed its college football team the University of Warcraft.

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