Joe Simmons, a World of Warcraft player and editor here at The Orange County Register, reflects on the massively multi-player game from Irvine’s Blizzard Entertainment from a player’s perspective. Simmons previously wrote on the Register’s Blizzard Blog.
“World of Warcraft” turns 5 today. On Nov. 23, 2004, game-maker Blizzard’s servers were turned on and players began romping through the lands of Azeroth. In those five years, we’ve seen the scope of the game expand to include another continent, another world and a host of fan-favorite characters.
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But in one sense, the age of “World of Warcraft” is entirely meaningless. Its designers have truly embraced the Internet age’s mantra of constant change; the Warcraft we play today isn’t the same one introduced in 2004.
We could just as easily be talking about the first birthday of the “Wrath of the Lich King” expansion, released about this time last year. There’s more innovation, updates and streamlining in this game’s add-on content than many other franchises see between sequels.
When the game was first released, reviews breathlessly trumpeted the seamless transition from area to area (previous massively multiplayer games, such as “EverQuest,” had lengthy loading screens); the clean, intuitive user interface; the simple, flexible power of the game’s character customization options. Read the rest of this entry »
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