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.
StarCraft
Blizzard Entertainment began planning "StarCraft" in 1995, with a development team led by Metzen and Phinney. The game debuted at E3 1996, and used a modified "" game engine. "StarCraft" also marked the creation of Blizzard Entertainment's film department; the game introduced high quality cinematics integral to the storyline of the series. Most of the original development team for "StarCraft" returned to work on the game's expansion pack, ""; the game's development began shortly after "StarCraft" was released. In 2001, "" began development under Nihilistic Software. Unlike the previous real-time strategy games in the series, "Ghost" was to be a stealth-action game. After three years of development, work on the game was postponed in 2004. Development of "" began in 2003; the game was announced in May 2007 and was released in July 2010. The "StarCraft II" franchise continued with the "" expansion, which was released in March 2013. The third "StarCraft II" installment, "", released in November 2015.