World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft
	;
Developer(s)	Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher(s)	Vivendi Universal
Platforms	Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, (Linux via Wine or Cedega)
Release	NA - 23 November 2004; EU - 11 February 2005
Latest release	NA - 1.12.2.6005 (13 October 2006)
Genre(s)	MMORPG

World of Warcraft, often referred to as WoW (or, to refer to the game without expansions: vanilla, classic, pre-tBC or pre-BC), is a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) set in the Warcraft universe. It is developed by Blizzard Entertainment and contains 4 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. A fifth expansion, World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor, is in development.

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. Over time, most of the game's expansions have been integrated into the basic package. As of October 16, 2013, all World of Warcraft subscribers automatically have access to all of the content and features of the The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and Cataclysm expansions at no additional cost.^[1]

World of Warcraft reached its peak in October, 2010 with 12 million monthly subscribers,^[2] and currently holds the Guinness World Record for the world's largest and most popular MMORPG.^[3] As of the Q2 2014 earnings call on August 5, 2014, World of Warcraft had 6.8 million subscribers.^[4]

In January 2014 it was announced that more than 100 million accounts and 500 million characters had been created over the game's lifetime, with players in 244 different countries.^[5]

Features

File:WoW Boxes.png

The official box art of World of Warcraft.

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 races: Human, Dwarf, Gnome, Night Elf, Orc, Troll, Undead, Tauren (expansions: Blood Elf and Draenei, Goblin and Worgen, Pandaren).
- 9 classes: Mage, Warlock, Priest, Rogue, Druid, Hunter, Shaman, Warrior, Paladin (expansions: Death Knight, Monk).
- 9 professions, enabling resource gathering and item crafting (expansions: Jewelcrafting, Inscription)
  - 4 secondary professions: Cooking, Fishing, First Aid, Riding (expansions: Archaeology)
- The Talent (and Glyph) system allows further customization of the character's skills and stats.

Gameplay System

General System

A casual-friendly character progression system.
- 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, 8 Battlegrounds
- Alterac Valley, Arathi Basin, Warsong Gulch (expansions: Eye of the Storm, Strand of the Ancients, Isle of Conquest, Twin Peaks, Battle for Gilneas)

Events

A variety of World Events including:
- (Darkmoon Faire, Children's Week, Scourge Invasion, and Midsummer Fire Festival)
111 Instanced Dungeons,^[6] ranging from low-level dungeons like The Deadmines to full 25- or 10-man raids such as Bastion of Twilight or Blackwing Descent.

User Interface and Customer Support

Customize AddOn and Interface with some game commands support.
Client seamlessly supports both Mac and Windows operating systems. Linux users can play via Wine, however this is not supported and can be buggy at times.

Availability

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

Video

Notes

The gameplay video displayed is the first, released on November 23, 2004. Other videos were also made before the European release.

Subscriber numbers

World of Warcraft's subscriber numbers have fluctuated tremendously over the years. For a graphical representation of subscriber numbers up to March 2014, click here.

Date	Subscribers
December 2004	400 thousand
March 2005	1.5 million
June 2005	3.25 million
September 2005	4.25 million
December 2005	5.6 million
March 2006	6.4 million
June 2006	6.6 million
September 2006	7 million
January 2007	8 million
March 2007	8.5 million
June 2007	8.8 million
December 2007	9.75 million
February 2008	10.2 million
October 2008	11 million
December 2008	11.5 million
March 2009	11.5 million
December 2009	11.5 million
October 2010	12 million
March 2011	11.4 million
June 2011	11.1 million
September 2011	10.3 million
December 2011	10.2 million
July 2012	9.1 million
September 2012	10 million
December 2012	9.6 million
March 2013	8.3 million
June 2013	7.7 million
September 2013	7.6 million
December 2013	7.8 million
March 2014	7.6 million
July 2014	6.8 million

System Requirements

This section is no longer a system requirement for the latest retail patch. This is simply for historical purposes.

Minimum System Requirements^[7]
	PC	Mac®
Operating System	Windows® 2000/XP/Windows Vista®	Mac® OS X 10.3.9 or newer
Processor	Intel Pentium®3 800MHz or AMD Duron 800MHz	933 MHz G4/G5 processor
Sound	DirectX®-compatible sound card
Modem	Broadband internet connection (You must have an active Internet connection to play World of Warcraft.)	Broadband internet connection (You must have an active Internet connection to play World of Warcraft.)
Memory	512MB RAM	512MB RAM
Install Size	10 GB of free Hard Disk space	10 GB of free Hard Disk space
Controls	A keyboard and mouse are required.	A keyboard and mouse are required.
Video	Graphics processor with 32MB VRAM	Graphics processor with 32MB VRAM

Recommended System Requirements^[7]
	PC & Mac®
Memory	1 GB RAM
Video	64MB VRAM

Trivia

The original WoW is sometimes referred to as "vanilla World of Warcraft," "pre Burning Crusade (Pre BC)," or "classic World of Warcraft". Some players make a distinction between vanilla and classic, where the later includes the heavily modified early level content revamped during Cataclysm.
Blizzard has considered making a "World of Warcraft 2" since 2014.^[8]