101 Classics: World of Warcraft

High and mighty: Onyxia kept us coming back for more…that bitch

World of Warcraft set the benchmark not for MMORPGs but all games. The glorious landscape of Azeroth, with humid wetlands, dusty plains and enough jungle fever to shake a voodoo priest’s stick at, was opened up to the European public on Friday 11 February, 2005. That weekend was the first of many to come which would be spent gathering loot, exploring dungeons, and tracking down every humanoid possible for their cloth drops. The gaming world was ablaze with WoWfire.

WoW opened up online gaming to the population at large. Those that had never bought such a game before were doing so in droves, eager to see what the fuss was all about. Critical acclaim continued to pour in from every angle and Blizzard deserved every bit of it. They had made a fun, cartoony game that appealed to our inner child whilst giving never-before-seen depth and pathos to even the smallest of quests.

Those that stayed around long enough realised the importance of guilds for end-game progression and, though our sense of joy waned as we were forced to listen to 12-year-olds ranting about their minus-DKP over Ventrilo, we strode into the fiery hellholes of Molten Core and Onyxia’s Lair eagerly each week, for WoW was as much about loot as it was about fun. Better gear was always being added and, therefore, so too were our subscriber months.

The game made us forge online connections with others like never before. Most chatted late into the night, some met up in real life and fewer still even married. Though everyone purchased the game as a pastime, we ended up staying for the people. Truly, World of Warcraft had the ties that bind.

Future developments: Blizzard announced the third expansion pack, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, on August 21 2009 at their annual BlizzCon convention. It will focus around the malevolent dragon Deathwing, who causes a catastrophe that reshapes most of Azeroth. Yep, you heard it right, no new, bland continent in this one, as the focus returns to the lands where it all began.

Next: 101 Classics: Number 4

Previous: 101 Classics: Number 2