World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft (WoW) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the "Warcraft" fantasy universe. "World of Warcraft" takes place within the "Warcraft" world of Azeroth, approximately four years after the events at the conclusion of Blizzard's previous "Warcraft" release, "." The game was announced in 2001, and was released for the 10th anniversary of the "Warcraft" franchise on November 23, 2004. Since launch, "World of Warcraft" has had seven major expansion packs released for it: "", "", "", "", "", "", and "".
Warcraft
The first three games in the "Warcraft" series, including their expansion packs, were all released on both the PC and Macintosh. All of these games were of the real-time strategy genre. Each game proceeded to carry on the storyline of the previous games, and each introduced new features and content to improve gameplay. "" was the first game in the series to feature play over the internet using Battle.net, although this was not included until a later release of the game. "Warcraft II" was also the first in the series to be re-released as a "Battle Chest", a bundled copy of the game containing both the original and expansion. "" was the first game in the series to feature a Collector's Edition, which all subsequent games have released as well. "Warcraft III" and "World of Warcraft" also have both had "Battle Chests" released for them subsequent to their initial release. The "Battle.net" edition of "Warcraft II" was also the first to introduce the use of CD keys to the series, requiring each user online to have their own copy of the game in order to be able to connect. However, a CD key is not yet required to play via a Local Area Network, although speculation is that future games in the series will do so, as another product in Blizzard Entertainment's portfolio, "", is doing so by removing the option for using LANs altogether, requiring the use of Battle.net.