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 III: Reign of Chaos
After the success of "" (1995) and "" (1996), Blizzard originally planned to continue the story with an point-and-click adventure game called "". This game was supposed to tell the story of Thrall from being raised in captivity to becoming the leader of his clan. However, in 1998, Blizzard canceled "Lord of the Clans" for not meeting the company's quality standards. Thrall's story was instead worked into "Warcraft III", whose development began in early 1998. The game was announced as a role-playing strategy game (RPS) on September 5, 1999, at a press conference by the game's lead designer Rob Pardo inside the Henley-Suite at the European Computer Trade Show 1999.