World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft (also commonly abbreviated as WoW) is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) that was released in North America in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth full game released by Blizzard Entertainment in the Warcraft series. WoW has seen paramount success, having sold over 11 million copies, and has been a great credit to MMORPG video games, introducing thousands of people to the genre. The first full expansion for the game, "The Burning Crusade", introduced an additional game world, called Outlands.

The game is available to play in North America, Europe, China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau and there are currently more than 11 million subscribers to the game.

Gameplay

Gameplay takes place in the world of Azeroth, a typical fantasy universe.

Characters

After setting up a World of Warcraft account, players must create a character to use in the game world. This avatar represents the player, a standard in most RPGs. Each character has its own set of traits, and in World of Warcraft most of this character data is stored server-side to avoid hacking attempts on the client side. Each character in World of Warcraft has a race, class, and gender. Other aesthetic changes can be made to the character before creation, such as hair color and style, facial hair, and accessories. As of now, once the character has been created these attributes may not be changed. In WoW, Males and Females are considered equal, so the gender you choose your character to be will only effect your character cosmetically, and will have no effect on their abilities.

Races

The races in World of Warcraft are split into two opposing factions (or forces), the Alliance and the Horde. Each faction has five races available to it. They are split up as follows:

Alliance	Horde
Human	Orc
Gnome	Undead (Forsaken)
Dwarf	Trolls
Night Elf	Tauren
Draenei (Expansion Only)	Blood Elf (Expansion Only)

Classes

There are nine classes available in World of Warcraft. Each race has a maximum of six different classes available to it. The nine classes currently available are: Warrior, Paladin, Warlock, Hunter, Druid, Priest, Shaman, Rogue, and Mage. Every class can be played without the expansion. However, without it, Shamans may only be played by Horde, and Paladins by Alliance.

Broadly speaking, each class can fulfill one of three main functions - 'tanking', damage-dealing (commonly referred to in the game as 'DPS', for the game mechanic 'Damage Per Second'), or healing. Some classes can fulfill multiple functions, depending on how the player specialises the character, through the selection of talents and equipment. For example, a Warrior may become specialised in the ability known as 'tanking'. This means that the character is very good at attracting the attention of monsters in the game world, getting them to focus their attacks on him while other characters deal the damage necessary to kill the monster and/or heal the tank to keep him alive. Another player, also playing a Warrior, might choose to specialise as a DPS character.

Professions

Upon reaching Level 5, a character may learn professions. There are three "secondary professions" in the game - fishing, cooking and first aid. A character may learn all of the secondary professions, but is limited to a maximum of two primary professions. The primary professions can be divided into two types, gathering and crafting. The gathering skill 'Herbalism', for example, allows a character to acquire raw materials, which can be either sold to NPC vendors or, more profitably, to other players via the in-game Auction House system. If a herbalist also has the 'Alchemy' skill, however, the herbs can be turned into a potion, which, when drunk by a character, will be used up but will provide a temporary benefit (or 'buff') to the character.

Starting areas

New characters will begin in their chosen race's starting area, typically a small village. Once the character has been created and named, a narrated introductory movie relates some of the background to the game world, all the while zooming in closer to the character. New characters will be quite weak and have few skills or resources. By accepting and completing missions (or quests, as they are called in the game), characters will earn experience points, allowing them to go up in level and power, as well as earning them money, equipment, and increased reputation with their respective faction. With the original game, characters could advance from level 1 to level 60. The expansion allows levelling to continue to 70.

Questgiver characters are "non-player characters" (or NPCs) controlled by the game server. Eventually, the questgivers in the starting area will direct players to bring their characters to other more challenging areas, with greater risk and greater reward.

Instances

While gameplay generally takes place 'outdoors', WoW also features many dungeons, temples, castles, ruins and so on, that can only be played as an 'instance'. This means that when a character enters such an area, the server creates a unique version of that particular instance for the player and his companions.

Such areas are harder than corresponding outside areas, featuring much stronger monsters and accompanying bosses. Of course, the rewards are also better. Such is the difficulty of instances that a character venturing into one of the appropriate level will only succeed if grouped into a 'party' with some other players.

Most instances require a party of five people appropriate to the level of the instance to stand a good chance of success. Usually, these would represent a balance of classes, including a tank, a healer, and three others either "DPSing" or performing a hybrid role of dealing and healing damage.

Some instances are "raid" instances. A raid instance will be more difficult than a normal instance of the same level, and will require more people to complete it. Raids allowing a maximum of ten, 25 or even 40 characters are possible. Running successful raids requires a high degree of cooperation and organisation between players outside of the game proper.

Servers

There are four types of servers on World of Warcraft: PvE (Player versus Environment), PvP (Player versus Player), RP (Role-playing), and RPPvP (Role-Playing PvP). PvE and RP servers share the same core functionality, as do PvP and RPPvP. In the first set, PvE and RP, players can only attack one another when "flagged" for doing something against the opposing force. The areas of the map share the same rules. On PvP and RPPvP servers, players are allowed to attack each other more often. The standard flagging rules apply, however there are three types of "zones" a player can be in. When starting out, a player is put into a zone controlled by his or her faction, either "Horde" or "Alliance". As levelling progresses (Somewhere usually around level 10), characters move into "Neutral Zones". While in a zone belonging to your faction, you must flag yourself to be attacked by the opposing faction. While in a neutral zone, everyone is flagged until they leave the zone. Lastly, when you're in an Enemy's zone, you are always flagged, but the opposing force is not unless they flag themselves for PvP.

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