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.
Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
In the middle of January 2002, Blizzard shipped out 5000 beta versions of "Warcraft III" to randomly selected testers in order to help improve it before being released in stores. The beta release had all the game’s units and races, however, it was only playable over Battle.net; single player games and LAN play were not playable on the beta version of the game. "Warcraft III" was first released in the United States on July 3, 2002 and in Europe on July 5, 2002.