The Complete History of World of Warcraft | MojoPlays
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VOICE OVER: Adrian Sousa
WRITTEN BY: Jarett Burke
With the Re-Release of Blizzard's legendary MMO arriving later this August in the form of “World of Warcraft: Classic,” there's no better time to take a look back at the history of this absolute beast of a game and start stoking excitement for a return to Azeroth. So, grab your time machines and let's head back to where it all began.
With the Re-Release of Blizzard’s legendary MMO arriving later this August in the form of “World of Warcraft: Classic,” there’s no better time to take a look back at the history of this absolute beast of a game and start stoking excitement for a return to Azeroth. So, grab your time machines and let’s head back to where it all began.
Despite being a major departure from the franchise’s real-time strategy roots, “World of Warcraft’s” MMO beginnings owe some influence to those early RTS games, specifically “Warcraft 3.” For instance, “World of Warcraft’s” story was born from “Warcraft 3’s” plot and characters – namely the adventures of the Orc leader Thrall – and key devs who worked on the third game also labored on the MMO as well, including the lead designer of both projects Rob Pardo. These two games also shared some development time together back at Blizzard HQ, with “Warcraft 3” in production from 1999 - 2002, and “World of Warcraft” in production from 2001 - 2004.
The similarities mostly end there, however, as “World of Warcraft” was designed to be a much different experience than its predecessors, owing a lot to MMOs of the time like 1997’s “Ultima Online” and 1999’s “Everquest.” In the Early 2000s, members of Blizzard’s development team were already huge fans of these and other MMOs, playing and taking inspiration from them while working on “Warcraft 3” and what would eventually become “World of Warcraft.” One of the company’s original founders, in Allen Adham, was such a fan of games like “Everquest” that he championed for the next Warcraft game to be an MMO, and thus he was (temporarily) given the role of lead designer on the project while Pardo finished up “Warcraft 3” in the lead designer’s chair.
While the franchise made the jump to 3D in “Warcraft 3,” the graphics in “World of Warcraft” took this early technology and greatly expanded upon it. With this leap in tech, the world of Azeroth grew in leaps and bounds compared to previous games. The now (largely) open world emphasized discovery, giving players the freedom to create their own narrative by doing what they pleased, while innovatively employing quests to help move the main story along.
Speaking of quests, they were a crucial addition to “World of Warcraft” and the MMO landscape at the time, as they helped further unite a global community of gamers through the mechanic of sharing a common goal, creating more in-game cohesion and camaraderie than in open-ended titles like “Everquest” and “Ultima Online.” Being an MMO, however, the number of quests that were needed to sustain a huge online community of players had to be massive, as Blizzard came to realize during development, and thus the company was forced to expand its dev team just to increase the quest missions alone – a decision that (while costing more) paid off long term.
Another decision that was praised by critics and fans alike was reducing the penalty upon death and the wait time after dying, meaning gamers could re-collect their gear faster and get back to the adventure quicker. Other key additions included the increased number of playable races for each faction (eight total in the base game) along with an increased number of abilities for each class.
In terms of visuals, Blizzard sought to create a fantasy-based world full of bright colors and exaggerated shapes to counter the trend of MMOs using a more realistic, medieval style (ala “Ultima Online”). The artists even went so far as to employ hand painted textures to give the game a more personalized feel compared to other MMOs that exclusively used computer generated graphics. The visual style was meant to appeal to a broader audience, both young and old alike, and thus increase the game’s player base above that of competing MMOs.
As the game started coming together, it began generating a lot of excitement within Blizzard’s offices, but the creative process wasn’t always a smooth progression from beginning to end during the game’s roughly four-to-five-year development period. For example, then lead designer for “WOW” Allen Adham left Blizzard before the game’s release, citing burnout from working nonstop, throwing a wrench into the game’s development schedule. Luckily, however, with “Warcraft 3” having been released by then, Rob Pardo was able to take over the lead design position and deliver the MMO project on time. With the loss of Adham no doubt leaving a gap in the game’s development, fortunately a key acquisition – in the form of concept artist Jimmy Lo – would miraculously land at Blizzard during this time and eventually become a well known face behind the “World of Warcraft” brand, greatly influencing the look and feel of the game and its expansion packs moving forward.
When the game finally released in November of 2004, not only was the art style praised, but pretty much everything else was too. Critics and fans alike loved the addition of quests; the reduced need to grind; the lack of wait times between encounters and after death; the distinct look and feel of races and classes; the choices in character progression; and, the ability to run the map without load screens. On the downside, character customization was deemed low, but overall critics felt it was a great experience for seasoned RPG fans as well as new, casual gamers.
As public anticipation for Blizzard’s new game had been brewing ever since the game’s announcement in 2001 – and especially since its first detailed reveal in issue 208 of “Computer Gaming World” that same year – there was little surprise that it sold like hot cakes upon release, but even Blizzard employees were shocked by the astounding sales numbers; it was the highest selling PC game in both 2005 and 2006 and its current total revenue exceeds nine billion dollars. In terms of subscriptions, numbers peaked in 2010 as high as 12 million users at a given time, and as of 2014 it had amassed over one hundred million total accounts.
As mentioned, not even Blizzard could have foretold just how popular this game would be, and thus – even while aiming high – their initial figures of how many would be playing upon release were too low. Therefore, lots of post-release development was necessary to keep up with the growing number of players. As a result, Blizzard enabled cross-server and cross OS play to keep PvP interaction high and the game balanced for players no matter what server or OS was used; and, they added more content in the form of post-launch raids to give gamers more to do because they were maxing out their characters at an alarming rate. Further, “World of Warcraft” would see seven expansion packs running from 2007-2018 that greatly changed the base game over time, a fact that enthused some gamers and frustrated others.
In terms of sales, the first three expansions – in 2007’s “The Burning Crusade,” 2008’s “Wrath of the Lich King,” and 2010’s “Cataclysm” – each managed to one-up each other, with “Cataclysm” selling 3.3 million units in 24 hours on route to becoming the fastest selling PC game ever at that point (until “Diablo 3” took the crown in 2012). These expansions were also held in high critical regard, and each drew praise from gamers for what they added to the base game.
“The Burning Crusade,” beefed up the endgame, added two new races in the Blood Elves and Draenei, increased the number of raids and dungeons, and provided a quick search option for gamers looking to join groups. But, by far the most popular addition was the newfound flying mounts that resulted in aerial travel being added to the game. “Wrath of the Lich King,” despite showing its age notwithstanding graphical upgrades, added dual talent specializations, ground vehicles, the first hero class in the Death Knight, and revamped the search tool into the Dungeon Finder. In terms of quality, critics and fans often cite “Wrath” as the best expansion. 2010’s “Cataclysm” provided a massive upgrade of the game as a whole, with some areas of the map receiving graphical updates, while other areas were rebuilt from the ground up. Also, new zones were added – along with two new races in the Worgen and the Goblins – and some races were moved to different locations than in the original build. Most importantly, however, this expansion added almost 3500 new quests. With all the updates, playing the game in 2010 almost felt like a totally new experience.
The next two expansions, however – in 2012’s “Mists of Pandaria” and 2014’s “Warlords of Draenor” – were largely seen as inferior to the first three, especially “Mists of Pandaria.” In fact, some fans were so upset at “Mists” major changes to the game’s talent system and the addition of the cutesy, cartoon-like Pandarian race that they abandoned the game entirely. Thus, subscription numbers started to fall, as did sales and critical praise. Two years later, however, “Warlords of Draenor” managed to restore the game’s dark tone and feel and provided a much-needed graphical upgrade while introducing customizable garrisons to the gameplay. Fans ate it up, resulting in sales once again hitting 3.3 million in 24 hours, but critics were less kind and felt that “Warlords” didn’t provide enough content compared to other expansions, nor did it hit the heights of “Burning Crusade,” “Wrath of the Lich King” or “Cataclysm.” Subscriptions continued to fall.
“Legion,” released in 2016, would eventually restore critical acclaim to the game by offering more content than “Warlords of Draenor” and providing a darker tone than “Mists of Pandaria.” Also, it saw the biggest map expansion yet with the additions of the massive city of Suramar as well as The Broken Isles. Another hero class was added in the Demon Hunters and artifact weapons replaced basic and legendary ones.
As a result, “Legion” was viewed as a better overall package than the last two expansions, once again selling 3.3 million copies in a single day. Meanwhile, the most recent expansion in 2018’s “Battle of Azeroth” saw the best launch day sales yet at 3.4 million copies, but it didn’t live up to the hype with critics, as it was deemed to be lacking content and not as complete a package as the “Legion” release. It did, however, bring the focus back to the Horde vs. The Alliance – signaling the desire for a return to the classic “vanilla” version of the game players loved in 2004 – while adding new continents, races, dungeons and raids.
And that’s where things stand at the moment… After such a long, memorable journey taking place over nearly two decades, it’s entirely fitting that the next expansion is going back to “World of Warcraft’s” roots. “WOW: Classic” will bring Blizzard’s legendary MMO full circle and will be one hell of a nostalgia fix for older fans who remember its build up and explosion onto the scene back in 2004.
Despite being a major departure from the franchise’s real-time strategy roots, “World of Warcraft’s” MMO beginnings owe some influence to those early RTS games, specifically “Warcraft 3.” For instance, “World of Warcraft’s” story was born from “Warcraft 3’s” plot and characters – namely the adventures of the Orc leader Thrall – and key devs who worked on the third game also labored on the MMO as well, including the lead designer of both projects Rob Pardo. These two games also shared some development time together back at Blizzard HQ, with “Warcraft 3” in production from 1999 - 2002, and “World of Warcraft” in production from 2001 - 2004.
The similarities mostly end there, however, as “World of Warcraft” was designed to be a much different experience than its predecessors, owing a lot to MMOs of the time like 1997’s “Ultima Online” and 1999’s “Everquest.” In the Early 2000s, members of Blizzard’s development team were already huge fans of these and other MMOs, playing and taking inspiration from them while working on “Warcraft 3” and what would eventually become “World of Warcraft.” One of the company’s original founders, in Allen Adham, was such a fan of games like “Everquest” that he championed for the next Warcraft game to be an MMO, and thus he was (temporarily) given the role of lead designer on the project while Pardo finished up “Warcraft 3” in the lead designer’s chair.
While the franchise made the jump to 3D in “Warcraft 3,” the graphics in “World of Warcraft” took this early technology and greatly expanded upon it. With this leap in tech, the world of Azeroth grew in leaps and bounds compared to previous games. The now (largely) open world emphasized discovery, giving players the freedom to create their own narrative by doing what they pleased, while innovatively employing quests to help move the main story along.
Speaking of quests, they were a crucial addition to “World of Warcraft” and the MMO landscape at the time, as they helped further unite a global community of gamers through the mechanic of sharing a common goal, creating more in-game cohesion and camaraderie than in open-ended titles like “Everquest” and “Ultima Online.” Being an MMO, however, the number of quests that were needed to sustain a huge online community of players had to be massive, as Blizzard came to realize during development, and thus the company was forced to expand its dev team just to increase the quest missions alone – a decision that (while costing more) paid off long term.
Another decision that was praised by critics and fans alike was reducing the penalty upon death and the wait time after dying, meaning gamers could re-collect their gear faster and get back to the adventure quicker. Other key additions included the increased number of playable races for each faction (eight total in the base game) along with an increased number of abilities for each class.
In terms of visuals, Blizzard sought to create a fantasy-based world full of bright colors and exaggerated shapes to counter the trend of MMOs using a more realistic, medieval style (ala “Ultima Online”). The artists even went so far as to employ hand painted textures to give the game a more personalized feel compared to other MMOs that exclusively used computer generated graphics. The visual style was meant to appeal to a broader audience, both young and old alike, and thus increase the game’s player base above that of competing MMOs.
As the game started coming together, it began generating a lot of excitement within Blizzard’s offices, but the creative process wasn’t always a smooth progression from beginning to end during the game’s roughly four-to-five-year development period. For example, then lead designer for “WOW” Allen Adham left Blizzard before the game’s release, citing burnout from working nonstop, throwing a wrench into the game’s development schedule. Luckily, however, with “Warcraft 3” having been released by then, Rob Pardo was able to take over the lead design position and deliver the MMO project on time. With the loss of Adham no doubt leaving a gap in the game’s development, fortunately a key acquisition – in the form of concept artist Jimmy Lo – would miraculously land at Blizzard during this time and eventually become a well known face behind the “World of Warcraft” brand, greatly influencing the look and feel of the game and its expansion packs moving forward.
When the game finally released in November of 2004, not only was the art style praised, but pretty much everything else was too. Critics and fans alike loved the addition of quests; the reduced need to grind; the lack of wait times between encounters and after death; the distinct look and feel of races and classes; the choices in character progression; and, the ability to run the map without load screens. On the downside, character customization was deemed low, but overall critics felt it was a great experience for seasoned RPG fans as well as new, casual gamers.
As public anticipation for Blizzard’s new game had been brewing ever since the game’s announcement in 2001 – and especially since its first detailed reveal in issue 208 of “Computer Gaming World” that same year – there was little surprise that it sold like hot cakes upon release, but even Blizzard employees were shocked by the astounding sales numbers; it was the highest selling PC game in both 2005 and 2006 and its current total revenue exceeds nine billion dollars. In terms of subscriptions, numbers peaked in 2010 as high as 12 million users at a given time, and as of 2014 it had amassed over one hundred million total accounts.
As mentioned, not even Blizzard could have foretold just how popular this game would be, and thus – even while aiming high – their initial figures of how many would be playing upon release were too low. Therefore, lots of post-release development was necessary to keep up with the growing number of players. As a result, Blizzard enabled cross-server and cross OS play to keep PvP interaction high and the game balanced for players no matter what server or OS was used; and, they added more content in the form of post-launch raids to give gamers more to do because they were maxing out their characters at an alarming rate. Further, “World of Warcraft” would see seven expansion packs running from 2007-2018 that greatly changed the base game over time, a fact that enthused some gamers and frustrated others.
In terms of sales, the first three expansions – in 2007’s “The Burning Crusade,” 2008’s “Wrath of the Lich King,” and 2010’s “Cataclysm” – each managed to one-up each other, with “Cataclysm” selling 3.3 million units in 24 hours on route to becoming the fastest selling PC game ever at that point (until “Diablo 3” took the crown in 2012). These expansions were also held in high critical regard, and each drew praise from gamers for what they added to the base game.
“The Burning Crusade,” beefed up the endgame, added two new races in the Blood Elves and Draenei, increased the number of raids and dungeons, and provided a quick search option for gamers looking to join groups. But, by far the most popular addition was the newfound flying mounts that resulted in aerial travel being added to the game. “Wrath of the Lich King,” despite showing its age notwithstanding graphical upgrades, added dual talent specializations, ground vehicles, the first hero class in the Death Knight, and revamped the search tool into the Dungeon Finder. In terms of quality, critics and fans often cite “Wrath” as the best expansion. 2010’s “Cataclysm” provided a massive upgrade of the game as a whole, with some areas of the map receiving graphical updates, while other areas were rebuilt from the ground up. Also, new zones were added – along with two new races in the Worgen and the Goblins – and some races were moved to different locations than in the original build. Most importantly, however, this expansion added almost 3500 new quests. With all the updates, playing the game in 2010 almost felt like a totally new experience.
The next two expansions, however – in 2012’s “Mists of Pandaria” and 2014’s “Warlords of Draenor” – were largely seen as inferior to the first three, especially “Mists of Pandaria.” In fact, some fans were so upset at “Mists” major changes to the game’s talent system and the addition of the cutesy, cartoon-like Pandarian race that they abandoned the game entirely. Thus, subscription numbers started to fall, as did sales and critical praise. Two years later, however, “Warlords of Draenor” managed to restore the game’s dark tone and feel and provided a much-needed graphical upgrade while introducing customizable garrisons to the gameplay. Fans ate it up, resulting in sales once again hitting 3.3 million in 24 hours, but critics were less kind and felt that “Warlords” didn’t provide enough content compared to other expansions, nor did it hit the heights of “Burning Crusade,” “Wrath of the Lich King” or “Cataclysm.” Subscriptions continued to fall.
“Legion,” released in 2016, would eventually restore critical acclaim to the game by offering more content than “Warlords of Draenor” and providing a darker tone than “Mists of Pandaria.” Also, it saw the biggest map expansion yet with the additions of the massive city of Suramar as well as The Broken Isles. Another hero class was added in the Demon Hunters and artifact weapons replaced basic and legendary ones.
As a result, “Legion” was viewed as a better overall package than the last two expansions, once again selling 3.3 million copies in a single day. Meanwhile, the most recent expansion in 2018’s “Battle of Azeroth” saw the best launch day sales yet at 3.4 million copies, but it didn’t live up to the hype with critics, as it was deemed to be lacking content and not as complete a package as the “Legion” release. It did, however, bring the focus back to the Horde vs. The Alliance – signaling the desire for a return to the classic “vanilla” version of the game players loved in 2004 – while adding new continents, races, dungeons and raids.
And that’s where things stand at the moment… After such a long, memorable journey taking place over nearly two decades, it’s entirely fitting that the next expansion is going back to “World of Warcraft’s” roots. “WOW: Classic” will bring Blizzard’s legendary MMO full circle and will be one hell of a nostalgia fix for older fans who remember its build up and explosion onto the scene back in 2004.
