The Professions

During the course of playing the game, players may choose to develop side skills for their character(s). These non-combat skills are called professions. Professions are divided into two separate categories, primary and secondary.

Primary professions are those skills related to the creation and enhancement of weapons and armor, and can be subdivided into gathering and crafting professions. The gathering professions in WoW are Herbalism, Mining, and Skinning. Crafting professions include Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, Tailoring, Alchemy, Engineering, Enchanting, Jewelcrafting (added in the Burning Crusade expansion).

Inscription (to be added in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion). Crafting professions also have specialization categories that when trained, allow for more diverse items to be created, depending on the character's direction in the game. There is also the Enchanting profession, which allows a character to enchant weapons and armor, and also disenchant magical items in his or her possession. A character is limited to two primary professions.

Secondary professions are skills that serve to enhance the player's experience. The Secondary professions are First Aid, Cooking and Fishing. Characters can learn all three Secondary professions. The Rogue class has two unique secondary professions: Poisons and Lock picking.

The Game Play

Unlike previous games in the Warcraft (WoW) series, World of Warcraft is not a real-time strategy game, but is a MMORPG. As with other MMORPGs, such as EverQuest, players control a character avatar within a persistent game world, exploring the landscape, fighting monsters, and performing quests on behalf of computer-controlled characters (also called NPCs—non-player characters).

The majority of the quests during the early and middle stages of gameplay can be completed without the help of other players, particularly if the player is at a higher level than that which the quest suggests. Other portions of the game such as dungeons (also called instances) are designed to require cooperation with other players for success. In WoW Dungeons are designed either for groups of two to five players, or for raid groups of up to 40 players for the larger and significantly more difficult dungeons.

At World of Warcraft's highest level, these complex dungeons (and some outdoor encounters) are designed to take raiding guilds a number of hours to complete, usually after many attempts over a period of a few weeks or months before success is achieved. Raid dungeon progress is saved on the server, to allow completion of the dungeon over a few days.

Worl of Warcraft game rewards success through money, items, and experience, which in turn allow players to improve in skill and power. Players level their avatar from level one up to level 60, level 70 if they have The Burning Crusade expansion (released on January 16, 2007), or level 80 if they have the Wrath of the Lich King expansion (yet to be released).

Furthermore, WoW players may opt to take part in battles against other players of an enemy faction, in PvP battlegrounds or in normal world zones subject to the rules in place on the particular server (see World of Warcraft Player versus Player). Duels can also be fought between members of the same or opposing factions, although these do not provide tangible rewards.

The Characters

Characters in World of Warcraft are tied to specific user accounts. User accounts can be used on all servers, or realms.

As of this time, one may move a character from a Player Versus Player (PvP) realm to another PvP realm, or a Player Versus Environment(PvE) realm, but one may not move a character from a PvE realm to a PvP realm. The two playable WoW factions currently in the game are the Alliance and Horde both consisting of five different races each. There are a total of 9 playable classes. The Burning Crusade expansion added one new race to each faction (the Blood Elves and the Draenei).

WoW Characters can be moved between servers in the same region (e.g., from one European server to another, but not from a European server to an American one) for a fee.

When did WoW start?

World of Warcraft (also known as WoW) is a pay-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing game. It is Blizzard Entertainment's fourth game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994.

World of Warcraft (WoW) takes place within the world of Azeroth, four years after the events at the conclusion of Blizzard's previous release, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Blizzard Entertainment announced World of Warcraft on September 2, 2001.The game was released on November 23, 2004, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise.

Although its initial release was hampered by overpopulated servers, the game became a financial success. The world's largest online game in terms of monthly subscribers.On July 24, 2007, Blizzard announced that the user base for World of Warcraft had reached a new milestone, with 9 million players worldwide. There are more than 2 million players in North America, 1.5 million players in Europe, and 3.5 million players in China as of January, 2007. The game has won numerous awards and recognitions, including GameSpot's Game of the Year Award for 2004.

The first official expansion pack of the WoW game, The Burning Crusade, was released on January 16, 2007. Blizzard announced a second expansion pack called Wrath of the Lich King on August 3, 2007.The release date of Wrath of the Lich King has not yet been announced.

There is also a board game (see World of Warcraft: The Board Game) published by Fantasy Flight Games and a collectable card game (see World of Warcraft Trading Card Game) published by Upper Deck Entertainment.