World of Warcraft
"World of Warcraft" was first announced by Blizzard at the ECTS trade show in September 2001. Released in 2004, development of the game took roughly 4–5 years, including extensive testing. The 3D graphics in "World of Warcraft" use elements of the proprietary graphics engine originally used in "Warcraft III". The game was designed to be an open environment where players are allowed to do what they please. Quests are optional and were designed to help guide players, allow character development, and to spread characters across different zones to try to avoid what developers called "player collision". The game interface allows players to customize appearance and controls, and to install add-ons and other modifications.
Gameplay of World of Warcraft
"World of Warcraft" takes place in a 3D-representation of the Warcraft universe that players can interact with through their characters. The game features five continents on the world of Azeroth, as well as the realm of Outland that was added in the expansion "The Burning Crusade". "Warlords Of Draenor" introduced the realm of Draenor, an altered past of Outland. The second expansion, "Wrath of the Lich King", added a third continent, Northrend . to Azeroth, and in "Mists of Pandaria" a fourth continent, Pandaria, was added. In , they introduce the Broken Isles. In this game world, players use their characters to explore locations, defeat creatures and complete quests. By doing this, characters gain experience points. After a set amount of experience points have been gained, a character gains a level, giving new skills or abilities and making it possible to explore new areas and attempt new quests. As a player explores new locations, a number of transport shortcuts become available. Players can discover 'flight masters' in newly discovered locations and then use those NPCs in order to fly to previously discovered locations in other parts of the world. Players can also use facilities such as boats and zeppelins in order to move from one of the continents on Azeroth to the other. Players can communicate with each other using text-based chat, separated into different channels for ease of use. When a player instructs their character to yell or say something, a chat bubble appears above their head containing the spoken words in a similar way to a comic book image.