Category Archives: World of Warcraft
The REAL Reason Why World of Warcraft is the Best MMORPG
Numbers don’t lie: more than 10 million people play World of Warcraft, the massive multiplayer online role-playing game. Not only is it the gold standard against which all MMORPGs are viewed, but it holds the Guiness Book record for most popular, based on subscribers. WoW is a gaming phenomenon that is still going strong to this day, seven years after it launched on the PC. It changed the industry, bringing forth wave after wave of copy-cat MMORPGs who muck out their lives in niche genres like superheroes or Star Wars. I don’t have to tell you people that World of Warcraft is a fun and popular game to play.
But I am going to tell you why I think it’s the most popular. And it isn’t because WoW has timelessly cartoony graphics in a huge gameworld, a robust character-creation system with a wide variety of races and classes, or 100s of hours of exciting quests and activities. Nor is it because the Horde rules.
World of Warcraft is the best MMORPG because when you play, you actually become a part of the world of Warcraft.
And what a delightfully diverse world
Did I just blow your mind? Probably not yet, at least. Allow me to explain. For the most part, there are two types of MMORPGs: games based on an existing property from movies, comic books or elsewhere, like Star Wars: The Old Republic or DC Universe Online; and games that are created from scratch, with characters and worlds that only exist in this one MMORPG, like City of Heroes or Guild Wars.
World of Warcraft is unique in that it is based on a series of PC games dating back to 1994, telling a progressive story starring familiar characters and locations. Game developer Blizzard has gone to great lengths to maintain the look and feel of the Warcraft games, creating a rich consistency in their fictional world that has lasted for nearly two decades, through several different games.
Their big idea for the sequel? Pirates!
It’s that consistency that makes World of Warcraft the best and most exciting MMORPG. It’s all about immersion in the story and in the game world. When you join World of Warcraft, it’s like you’re going home again, able to actually meet characters and visit locations that have been around in gaming since the early 90s. And since the story of Warcraft has really only been told through PC games, the game world of WoW feels more ‘real’ and authentic than other MMORPGs when played on the PC.
The style of gameplay, and the fully-realized nature of the game world are part of this consistency. Allow me to explain, after the jump.
The Legends are True: Pandaria is Real
Holy orc on a stick, the pandas are coming to World of Warcraft!
Officially announced at Friday’s BlizzCon, the next WoW expansion will feature the Pandaren race and their home world of Pandaria. These are panda warriors who study martial arts and live in a thoroughly Asian paradise. And apparently live on the back of a giant turtle. I have no words for how awesome this is…but I do have pictures.
I want to be a panda
I Want to Be a Panda
Or more specifically, a Pandaren.
Blizzard, the company that makes World of Warcraft, has registered the trademark for the name ‘Mists of Pandaria’. Thank you, MMO Champion, for this bit of exciting, squee-worthy news.
I’m not going to get into all the glorious details of World of Warcraft. Hopefully most of you readers already know what the game is. I’ve had two periods in my life where I played, both for a few months at a time. And both times I stopped playing because nobody was around to play with, and because the more complicated, time-consuming quests were stacking up. I haven’t played for probably two years now, unless you count that brief week in early 2010 when I got a free week of playtime.
Basically, I love World of Warcraft. It is everything I could ever want in a video game. Maybe I’ll explain why in a post someday. But as of right now, I’m a recovering addict. I don’t want to pay the $15 a month to play, and I know if I did start playing again, it would consume all of my free time. I’ve avoided the siren call of all the new expansions and playable races (goblins!). It’s just not for me right now.
But I will rejoin World of Warcraft in a heartbeat if they expand into the world of Pandarens.
Artist's Rendering
The primary ‘war’ in World of Warcraft is between humans and orcs, but there are dozens of mythical races in the game like elves, zombies, dwarves, gnomes, centaurs, dragons, etc. A lot of these races are just anthropomorphic animals, like the bovine Tauren, the walrus-people and the werewolves. Tops among these are the Pandarens, essentially sentient, walking, talking pandas who love alcohol. They are utterly brilliant! Not only do they look adorable, but they’re lovable, drunken samurai warriors! That could have been a cartoon show in the 80s! They just look like so much fun, especially in the larger World of Warcraft. But for the longest time they have only ever been something of an urban legend.
Pandarens first appeared in the expansion pack to Warcraft III. You could hire a Pandaren mercenary during the Versus games, and the Pandaren Brewmaster Chen Stormstout would join your group of adventurers if you played the orc campaign. He was a blast. I even own the Chen Stormstout action figure!
In-game rendering of Chen Stormstout
But then when World of Warcraft came out, there were no signs of the Pandarens in the entire game world. Chen got mentioned a tiny little bit, but no Pandarens to talk to, to get quests from and certainly not to play. They were utterly absent. There were rumors flying around that since the Pandarens combined Japanese samurai with Chinese panda bears, that the Asian countries were upset. And they’re a huge market for World of Warcraft. Maybe it’s true, but who knows for sure.
World of Warcraft has had several expansions since it first came out. They’ve added at least two new playable races to reach side, as well as three whole new islands/continents.
If the next expansion brings about Pandaria, their home island, or playable Pandarens, I will gladly fall off the World of Warcraft wagon.
Also, here’s everything you could ever want to know about Pandarens.
Henchman-4-Hire 