---
title: 'The History of World of Warcraft 1999-2018'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=Hzl1_BMR_p4'
video_id: 'Hzl1_BMR_p4'
date: 2026-07-28
duration_sec: 2576
---

# The History of World of Warcraft 1999-2018

> Source: [The History of World of Warcraft 1999-2018](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Hzl1_BMR_p4)

## Summary

This video chronicles the history of World of Warcraft from its announcement in 2001 through 2018, covering its development, cultural impact, subscriber growth, and each expansion. It explores how Blizzard's focus on accessibility and a rich Warcraft universe created a phenomenon that dominated the MMORPG genre.

### Key Points

- **Origins and Inspiration** [02:25] — World of Warcraft was inspired by EverQuest, the first commercially successful 3D MMORPG. Blizzard aimed to create a more accessible, casual-friendly MMO in the Warcraft universe.
- **Announcement and Initial Reaction** [05:36] — Announced in 2001 at ECTS, the game faced unease from fans due to the required internet connection and monthly subscription fee, which were novel at the time.
- **Beta Launch and Release** [10:09] — The first beta launched in February 2004, leading to the official release on November 23, 2004, with 60 levels, two continents, eight races, nine classes, and 88 servers.
- **Early Success and Competition** [12:53] — By February 2005, subscribers reached 1 million, surpassing EverQuest's estimated 400,000. The game's casual-friendly design attracted 250,000 new MMO players at launch.
- **Cultural Phenomena: Leeroy Jenkins and Corrupted Blood** [16:45] — In May 2005, the Leeroy Jenkins video went viral, and in September 2005, the Corrupted Blood plague became a real-world study in epidemiology.
- **The Burning Crusade Expansion** [21:42] — Released January 16, 2007, it sold 2.4 million copies in 24 hours, the fastest-selling PC game at the time. Subscribers continued to grow, reaching 10 million by January 2008.
- **Wrath of the Lich King and Peak Subscribers** [26:12] — Released November 13, 2008, it sold 2.8 million copies in 24 hours. The game peaked at 12 million subscribers in October 2010, with the dungeon finder making content more accessible.
- **Cataclysm and First Subscriber Loss** [29:56] — Released December 7, 2010, it sold 3.3 million copies but received mixed reception. In March 2011, WoW saw its first subscriber loss, dropping to 9 million by July 2012.
- **Mists of Pandaria and Decline** [32:56] — Released September 25, 2012, it briefly boosted subscribers but dropped to 6.8 million by June 2014, the lowest since 2006.
- **Warlords of Draenor and Sharp Decline** [33:43] — Released November 13, 2014, it sold 3.3 million copies and spiked to 10 million subscribers, but dropped to 5.6 million by June 2015 due to content droughts and criticism of garrisons.
- **Legion and Recovery** [38:08] — Released August 30, 2016, it sold 3.3 million copies on release day. Faster patch cycles and removal of garrisons helped recover the game's reputation.
- **Battle for Azeroth and Conclusion** [39:32] — The next expansion, Battle for Azeroth, was set to launch August 14, 2018. The video concludes that WoW's success stemmed from its accessibility and the unique experience of a persistent, evolving world.

### Conclusion

World of Warcraft's success came from its accessible design and the immersive, social experience of a persistent world. Despite ups and downs, it remains a landmark in gaming history.

## Transcript

[Music]
[Music]
released in 2004 the world of warcraft
has left quite the impact in the MMO
genre and PC gaming as a whole when
someone says videogame the first thing
that most people think of is mario zelda
danky kang and world of warcraft
jokingly referred to as world of
warcraft due to its addicting nature it
took the MMORPG world by storm and
reached tens of millions of subscribers
it's been parodied to death emulated and
due to its success even a movie was
created about the Warcraft universe
everyone is plated or at least know
someone who's played it at some point
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
but the question is why what secret does
this game hold and how did it capture
such a broad audience in this video
we'll cover its creation and go over all
of the major events in the games near
14-year timeline as of 2018 that made it
what it is today
so it all began in 1999 George Lucas's
Star Wars the episode 1 The Phantom
Menace was just released Pokemon had the
entire US population firmly in its grasp
the world was getting ready for the y2k
Armageddon and more importantly the game
every quest was launched this was a
massively multiplayer online
role-playing game or MMORPG for short
and it was the first commercially
successful one to use a 3d game engine
it really brought the genre to the
forefront and showed just how much
potential it had straying away from the
established linear style RPG at the time
rather going for more of an open-world
sandbox and focusing on that massively
multiplayer aspect behind the scenes of
all of this the first pulse of the world
of warcraft was recorded blizzards
Warcraft franchise was rolling strong at
this point with the first Warcraft orcs
and humans being released in 1994 and
following shortly after its sequel
Warcraft 2 the tides of darkness in 1995
these were fun little strategy games
received quite well with the sequel
selling over 2 million copies and even
getting an expansion called beyond the
dark portal
enter the world of Azeroth humans elves
works trolls
it's the bread and butter fantasy
setting with spells dragons and most
importantly a lot of potential too much
to fit into a simple RTS game as most of
the lore was packed into the manuals
that came with the game but with this
Blizzard had three great franchises
under their belts Starcraft Diablo and
their flagship Warcraft Diablo would see
how widely acclaimed sequel in year 2000
and Starcraft in 2010 over a decade
after the first and in 2002 Warcraft saw
a third installment in the series with
reign of chaos and the Frozen Throne an
expansion pack one year later in 2003
once again great little RTS games that
improved on the previous games in almost
every way but still too small a vessel
for what Blizzard imagined the franchise
to be lurking in the background they had
something else in mind
during these early 2000s these MMORPGs
were growing in popularity with games
like EverQuest as mentioned earlier
Ultima Online runescape Star Wars
Galaxies and so on it was something
totally different a huge virtual sandbox
world for you to explore with people
from all over at the real world the goal
wasn't to finish a storyline or see a
credits screen it was what you made of
it you built your own story and with
thousands of others you built your own
communities and virtual world the
potential was there and it was just a
matter of time before one game in
particular caught fire
beyond the gates of mighty kingdoms lies
a vast unexplored
best board the 2001 world of warcraft
was first announced at the European
computer tradeshow making its debut with
the cinematic it promised a world of
mystery adventure and danger not just a
single-player realtime strategy game
with the campaign bed you could beat in
a day like the previous games of the
franchise but rather well a whole world
a full 3d environment a personalised
avatar that you created multiple
continent zones races classes all of the
bells and whistles of the MMORPG genre
at the time it was clear that every
quest was an inspiration in its design
but a simple clone won't cut it they had
to do something different so was their
hook well basically it was that it would
be more accessible to the everyday
player at this point things such as XP
or gear laughs upon death or even
permanent character death were a
commonplace in the MMO scene as well as
picking your stats and putting in points
during the character creation before you
even knew what you were doing it was
pretty hardcore so the world of warcraft
wanted to give a more laid-back and
casual experience that didn't punish the
player for dying or require extreme
knowledge of RPGs in general to play in
a genre that was growing rapidly in
popularity they tried to appeal to this
untapped market all the while
maintaining that while it'll be easy to
learn it'll still be just as hard as the
others to master
[Music]
as more and more details at the game
were unveiled the initial reaction was
actually uneasiness from the fans of the
series the previous games are simple
single-player experiences you buy a game
you pop it into your system and you
start playing that's all you need
but MMORPGs broke these rules you need
an active internet connection to even
play it and not only that in addition to
the game he also needed to pay an extra
monthly subscription fee today this is
common but back in 2001 even computers
were still pretty new to a lot of us
what if we got a phone call while we
were playing what happens then you had
better hoped that you weren't in combat
that's for sure I can hear those AOL
logging sounds now and as for the
subscription fee is this a game or a
magazine it was much more foreign to the
average gamer and left many unsure of
the direction of the series
regardless development continued
throughout the years as more and more of
the finer details of how the game was
going to work were released via the
computer gaming world magazine issued
208 released in November 2001 initially
there are just three races humans orcs
and torrents and you would have vast
character customization options a huge
selection of different armor and weapons
to obtain you'll be able to visit an old
areas in past Warcraft games and of
course new ones as well fans odd and odd
had the preview screenshots and slowly
but surely started to get an idea of the
world that Blizzard was creating and the
anticipation of the end product grew and
grew
to tide them over the third installment
of the Warcraft franchise was released
in July of 2002 as mentioned earlier the
big project though was World of Warcraft
at this point around 50 people were all
working together around the clock on the
game adding more and more of their
planned features giving previews
building the world and trying to create
something playable for the eager fans to
test they were stepping into unfamiliar
territory for sure but the passion for
what they were creating carried them
through it
this development continued until
February 2004 when the first beta test
launched finally the game was opened up
to the general public three years after
the initial announcement and looking at
screenshots reading articles and
watching gameplay trailers players at
last got to enter the world of warcraft
they were finally able to create their
own avatar and start their own adventure
at this point players found something
that more resembled the actual November
2004 release of the game many more races
were playable several different classes
a working questing system and so on it
was an MMO in the Warcraft universe and
after several months of testing its
official release in North America
Australia and New Zealand on November
23rd 2004
just as they had promised the game
offered a far more casual experience
with low penalty to dying easy to jump
in an easier learning curve with the
combat questing and character building
systems
it was the casual players MMORPG and at
the time very polished all in all it
launched with 60 levels of character
progression to continents with 41 zones
to factions the whoredom alliance with
eight playable races nine different
character classes hundreds and hundreds
of quests dozens of dungeons to crawl
through and to rates to complete and to
support the eager fanbase eighty-eight
servers critics found few negative
aspects to bring up and it received
numerous awards upon launch with many
more in the months to come the world was
entirely new and for a lot of players so
too was the genre there were refugees
from other big animals like EverQuest or
Star Wars Galaxies but due to its casual
nature the world of warcraft was the
first MMO for a lot of people about
250,000 in fact judging by the archived
subscriber numbers which was very good
at the time remember MMOs are still
growing in popularity and unlike the RTS
games which sold millions within the
first few months of release these
required an active internet connection
and a monthly subscription fee combine
that with the stellar graphics at the
time and thus a good computer recorded
to run it properly to reach 250,000
sales and subscriptions through all of
these hurdles was impressive to say the
least
and as word spread this would be just a
fraction of the games peak
it's major competitor was EverQuest and
although their subscription numbers were
never public based off of press sources
they were estimated to have around
400,000 ish around the time World of
Warcraft released and this would
decrease in the months to come
as Warcraft gained popularity whether it
was dungeon crawling with a group of
four friends facing off against enemy
players of the opposing faction or going
through a raid with 39 other members of
your guild players found themselves
gripped by the new MMO and found it hard
to put it down it was everything they
wanted and more remember that term world
of warcraft
even reaching the maximum level was very
time consuming and addiction started
becoming a common thing people got fired
from their jobs or they just flat-out
quit to play more
and sadly friendships and even lives
were claimed with the most extreme cases
it was almost frightening how addicted
people would get it's a trait with
MMORPGs in general but it said a lot
about the quality of World of Warcraft
in particular with how wide it spread as
the subscriber numbers grew into grew
and it was becoming clear that this was
the new MMO to play Blizzard expanded
into other regions with releases to
South Korea in January of 2005 Europe
one month later in February and China in
June of the same year the race was on
between regions and guilds two level to
the max and to be the first to claim a
raid boss kill and finally after two
months the raid boss Onyxia fell at the
hands of the guild ruined from the US on
January 30th 2005
as the players were progressing through
these dungeons and raids the subscribers
grew and grew and thus too did the
investment of time and money into the
game over time it's on provements in
every aspect Warcraft as a series was no
longer blizzards flagship it was World
of Warcraft itself more dungeons and
raids would be added the PvP would be
improved and so on to retain the player
base the subscriptions rose reaching a
staggering 1 million in February 2005
just four months after the launch and
more than double than ever quests
projected peak just a few months later
in June of the same year this number had
tripled to an astonishing 3 million the
gaming world had World of Warcraft fever
[Music]
lizard projected 1 million subscribers
in one year so to triple that and just
half a year after lunch
was astounding they weren't prepared
hardware wise and struggled to keep up
with the growing player base server
downtime that became commonplace as they
struggled to keep up kind of a good
problem to have but the frustration
still arose as you would imagine being
that it was a monthly subscription based
game it was during this boom then it
started spilling out into the real world
the first viral video showcased a player
named Leroy Jenkins half-assedly
charging into a dungeon room while his
comrades came up with a plan for attack
resulting in their deaths the video
caught on and was shared all over the
place in various gaming forums news
websites and even created a new term
within the genre called Leroy Inge where
a player foolishly charges into the fray
with no regard to his own safety or that
of his party members in November of the
same year it became a piece of trivia in
the popular game show Jeopardy although
all three contestants didn't know the
answer and that would be the world of
warcraft all right we have Leroy you
were just stupid as hell
[Music]
interestingly enough going back to our
subscriber chart here the video released
in May and just one month later the game
saw one of its biggest spikes and
subscriber numbers you can't officially
confirm any correlation here but it's
funny to think that one video may have
actually had such a substantial impact
in the popularity and spread of the game
in September of the same year the world
of warcraft became a subject of study in
epidemic and terrorism research when a
virtual pandemic broke out within the
world of Azeroth players could be
afflicted with the spell called
corrupted blood which would damage them
and also spread to nearby party members
this was intended to remain within the
confines of a great instance but players
found out how to bring it into the major
cities with dense populations and
maliciously spread it to other annoying
players and non player characters within
hours these major hubs became
uninhabitable as the disease spread
between its dense population until
finally days later Blizzard was able to
remedy the situation by introducing a
patch and restarting every server this
event would later be compared to the
swine flu pandemic and is still used
today in research in the spread of
diseases the world of warcraft continued
to grow either through word of mouth or
commercial advertisements and nearly a
year later after the Leroy Jenkins video
released another video related to world
of warcraft went viral in April of 2006
[Music]
that means five
titled the Onyxia wipe animation this
didn't show the light-hearted mishaps of
an overzealous adventurer but rather
than of a raid leader who is less than
impressed at the performance of his
comrades and their attempt to kill
Onyxia a raid boss this instead
displayed a darker side of the game of
how much it gripped people and the
consequences of addiction
months later in October more light was
shed on the game via the cartoon series
South Park with her Warcraft theme make
love not war craft episode the plot
centered around four friends who cast
away their social lives and health in
exchange for becoming more powerful in
the game to defeat an unnamed player who
continuously kills lower level players
for his amusement this episode was
watched by 3.4 million viewers making it
the highest rated midseason premiere on
the Comedy Central Network since the
year 2000 and receiving the Primetime
Emmy Award for outstanding animated
programs in 2007 over a decade later it
still ranks upon the series most popular
episodes with all of this surrounding
the world of warcraft the game grew and
so too did its subscriber count and by
the end of the lifespan of the base game
eight million players worldwide found
themselves lost in the world of Azeroth
[Music]
On January 16 2007 the first expansion
set for World of Warcraft launched named
the Burning Crusade this expansion
focused on calling the invasion of a
demon army upon Azeroth going through a
portal into their realm and taking out
their commanders including returning
protagonists and antagonists from the
Warcraft franchise such as Illidan
Stormrage and Kael'thas Sunstrider it
sold nearly 2.4 million copies within 24
hours of launch making it the fastest
selling PC game ever made at that point
the world was built in the base game so
now is the time to start adding more and
more story every gameplay system was
updated and improved classes were
balanced further new dungeons and raids
were added it was an expansion set a
good one too as the subscriptions
continued to increase
astonishingly enough throughout the
course of the base game and this
expansion there hadn't been a single
month in which the world of warcraft had
lost subscribers not only was Blizzard
drying in new fans but they were also
retaining the current ones and it was
also during this time when Blizzard
launched their unique ad campaign where
celebrities would talk about their
experiences in the world of warcraft
such as Verne Troyer mr. t and William
Shatner
although Verne was the only one
confirmed to have actually played the
game
[Music]
the Warcraft the number one online game
try it for free at Warcraft calm
[Music]
the game progressed is normal receiving
more and more updates and in January
2008 it broke the 10 million subscriber
milestone and even still this would not
be the peak it was still the top MMO in
the entire genre by a longshot
dwarf in all competition which struggled
to reach just 1 million subscribers the
competition did start to ramp up though
one of the first games not to be quote
the wild killer was the Age of Conan and
it's our release in May of 2008 the game
boasted a unique reactive combat system
stunning graphics and an adult theme it
won many awards for its showing at
various gaming conventions upon release
it received favorable review from
critics but poor reviews from the
players citing bugs missing zones and a
complete lack of endgame content 1
million copies were shipped upon launch
but the subscriber number quickly
declined as those flaws were uncovered
[Music]
Warhammer Online released in September
of the same year was also anticipated to
be the MMO to overtake World of Warcraft
similar in the fantasy setting with orcs
elves and magic it was the most
comparable MMO to world of warcraft yet
with the long-running franchise to back
it up the game saw little success
however peaking with the mere 800
thousand subscribers compared the World
of Warcraft's 10 million and dropping
further to 300,000 in the months to come
before going free-to-play and eventually
a total shutdown on December of 2013
five years later this was due to an
overall unpolished experience compared
to the world of warcraft a lacking
endgame and various technical problems
such as erroneously billing players for
multiple subscriptions in a single day
with the highest charges reported and
going into the thousands
through all of this the world of
warcraft sailed on with great success
and on November 13th 2008 it's not
second expansion the wrath of the lich
king
[Music]
following suit with the Burning Crusade
another antagonist was brought in from
the Warcraft franchise as Blizzard
sought to bring more story and lore into
the series this time it was Arthas
Menethil the Lich King and master of the
undead players launched a campaign in
the continent of north Rend to challenge
the Lich Lord at his own seat of power
and just as you'd expect more dungeons
raids and more gameplay systems were
added to satiate the now 10 million
strong player base 2.8 million copies in
total were sold breaking their own
record of the fastest selling PC game of
all time set by the Burning Crusade
expansion
[Music]
this expansion revisited their initial
design of the casual friendly and memo
RPG combined with easier access to
dungeons via a new system called the
dungeon finder this expansion was seen
as the end of the hardcore era of World
of Warcraft by many players and many
hold it in high regard as the peak of
the game
I thought supported by the ever-growing
subscriber numbers with the game
reaching its all-time peak of 12 million
in October of 2010 out of the released
numbers the game at this point had still
never had a month where the subscribers
dipped although reports came in less and
less starting with the Burning Crusade
there are a lot of skipped months where
we very well could have seen a small dip
in the same year China finally saw a
release of the Burning Crusade expansion
three years after its original release
this is due to the amount of censorship
needed to release the game bones and
gore weren't allowed to be shown in
excess so many of the in-game assets had
to be altered both in the base game and
all of its expansions thus slowing their
release they would only see a Wrath of
the Lich King release months later due
to the same reason the expansion overall
was a huge financial and critical
success however although it was received
well by players it wasn't without
problems outside of the game I'm July
6th towards the tail end of the
expansion Blizzard announced their plans
to introduce the Real ID system on their
official forums which would change the
author of all posts from the normally
used in game avatar to the real-life
named tied to the posters account this
was met with Swift and heavy backlash by
players and curious onlookers alike
spurring hundreds of third-party
articles being published about the
fiasco addressing concerns about the
privacy of the forum users the situation
quickly turned ugly as users started
posting personal information of
employees of blizzards such as phone
numbers
their personal facebook pages and even
their street addresses and that of their
friends and family three days later
after an overwhelming negative response
Blizzard rescinded their plans to make
the posters names visible although to
this day it still remains to be one of
their biggest controversies
[Music]
at the end of 2010 in November the world
Warcraft side's biggest change yet in
its current six-year run the original
launch continents the Eastern Kingdoms
and calendar had been completely changed
and reworked in preparation for the new
expansion Cataclysm feeling that the
world that they created in 2004 had
become outdated the land quests and
classes major reworks in the game's most
volatile expansion yet
more content was added just like the
previous expansion and the ease of
access design approach accelerated with
the introduction of the looking for raid
system termed LFR for short which made
the endgame activity rating much more
accessible to the everyday player more
dungeons raids and the normal expansion
updates came as you would expect the
hype was huge and players were eager for
a new adventure and in similar fashion
Blizzard once more broke the record of
the fastest selling PC game of all time
with 3.3 million copies sold on release
once the players dived into the game
however the reception was mixed for the
first time and in March of 2011 the
world of warcraft sats first public loss
of subscribers since its release in
november 2004 over six years ago the MMO
genre in general at this point also
declined in popularity the market had
become oversaturated with hundreds and
hundreds of free-to-play MMORPG G's and
what used to be a rising unique genre
became almost exhausting for gamers
because of this and the volatility of
the Cataclysm expansion itself the
subscriber numbers continued to wane for
Blizzard throughout the years of 2011
and 2012 dropping to its lowest to nine
million in July of 2012 just 75 percent
of its peak two years prior another
contributing factor to this decrease was
the slowdown of content the game is
updated through major content patches a
practice that's been maintained at a
steady pace up until the end of the
Wrath of the Lich King expansion inter
expansion updates at this point were
fairly reasonable the time between the
last patch for the base game and the
release of the Burning Crusade was just
under three months this increased to
just under 7 months between the end of
the Burning Crusade and the beginning of
the Wrath of the Lich King and even
further to 9 to 10 months between the
end of the Lich King 2 Cataclysm and
Cataclysm 2 Pandaria these content
droughts were seen as far too long by
players and slowly but surely the last
interest and found their gaming fix
elsewhere Blizzard finally saw their
first increase in subscribers two years
later with the release of the mists of
pandaria expansion where the war between
the horde and Alliance is reignited and
they fight over control of an unexplored
world this would be short-lived however
as the hype died down shortly after its
release and interest continued to wane
dropping as low as 6.8 million
subscribers in June of 2014 the lowest
it's been since its initial rise to
glory in 2006
the inter expansion patch gap grew to 13
months the longest yet
the new warlords of draenor expansion
was announced promising to go back to
the roots of World of Warcraft
and revisiting the same world as the
Burning Crusade expansion before it
became corrupted by the Burning Legion
we would go through the dark portal once
more seven years later and visit the
world of Draenor and once again stop an
invasion that threatens all life on
Azeroth this time the antagonist is
Grommash Hellscream an orc warlord and
the leader of the iron horde the hyper
reached critical mass and many
anticipated the grand return of the
World of Warcraft and relived their days
in the Outland the expansion saw release
on November 13 to 2014 and the game saw
an explosion of new and returning
players in just three months the game
saw 2.6 million subscriber increase
bringing it back to 10 million the
highest it's been since the launch of
the mists of pandaria expansion just in
time for its 10-year anniversary the
expansion itself sold 3.3 million copies
matching their sales of the Cataclysm
expansion four years ago for the first
time in a long time
players experienced queues to log into
the game due to the servers being at
full capacity a good problem to have you
would think but after three days of
queues and extreme leg from the bustling
launch the patience of the players was
tested while the release of Draenor was
a financial success
the expansion as a whole had little to
offer the raids added were far fewer
compared to previous expansions with
just three throughout the entirety event
a large amount of energy instead went
into the garrison system which served as
the base of operations for the player in
their campaign against the iron horde
something that was met with heavy
criticism by the game's player base
citing that these Garrison's had aspects
of mobile gaming such as daily missions
to launch to get rewards in both gear
and gold the garrisons themselves were
also seen to be too powerful
offering too much to the player in their
own separate instance thus leaving
little reason to ever leave them taking
away the biggest aspect of any MMO and
it made it seem like a single-player
game at times a problem that was
exacerbated with the extreme loss of
subscriptions that followed after the
initial height down the game sides
sharpest declined subscribers yet
quickly dropping from 10 million in
December of 2014 to 7.1 just three
months later in March of 2015 and
further to 5.6 million in June of the
same year its lowest since December of
2005 during its rise Blizzard chose to
withhold information of their amount of
subscribers from this point forward with
a little amount of content and had the
warlords of draenor trudged forward with
its final patch 6.2 just one of three
major patches and the expansion if you
count the pre patch the inter expansion
patch downtime was against staggering
clocking in at 13 months between six
point two on June 23rd 2015 and seven
point 0.3 on July 19 2016 through the
success of the cash shop and the ability
to buy level boosts and other cosmetic
items the warlords of draenor turned out
better than expected financially for
Blizzard
but the future of the game looked bleak
during this time Blizzard looked for
success outside of the game with their
feature film Warcraft directed by Duncan
Jones this movie brought the story of
the Warcraft universe to the big screen
and had been announced as early as 2006
it premiered in the United States on
June 10th 2016 and while it grossed over
400 million dollars worldwide it was met
with negative reviews and a
disappointing domestic box-office
performance
critics itíd that the plot was confusing
and hard to follow for those unfamiliar
with the franchise
the next expansion World of Warcraft
Legion released on August 30th 2016 this
expansion promised all of the normal
things that players have come to expect
out of an expansion at this point more
character levels new gameplay features
raids major updates to the core gameplay
of each class and most importantly a
faster patch cycle including pre-orders
they had sold 3.3 million copies by the
end of its release date the actual
expansion received a fair reception
without any public subscription numbers
only Blizzard knows but overall Legion
was a nice recovery from the warlords of
Draenor the more minor patches became
more major and their speed in general
was increased with around 11 weeks
between these patches giving players
something to work on and trying to avoid
those long droughts that became
commonplace at this point the problems
from Draenor were addressed and there
were no Garrison's instead being
replaced by the toned down order Hall
system and over the course of its
two-year run its add 5 raids a
respectable amount and many new features
added within the game making it
technically one of the biggest
expansions yet in terms of rock content
and new features
this brings us to the current day the
next expansion is the battle for Azeroth
which seemingly reignites the War
Between the Alliance and the Horde once
more it's set to launch on August 14
2018 this video was made during the
inter expansion downtime which will be
about six months not too bad and it's a
number that they haven't met since the
Burning Crusade - the wrath of the lich
king drive so that's the current near 14
year history of World of Warcraft what a
long strange trip it's been highs and
lows for sure some people believe that
the highs are all behind us and what's
made the game special has faded away
during its 14-year run and others still
have just as much fun as they did back
in November 2004 in the beginning of the
video I asked what made it special what
was it about this MMO that touched so
many for the past 14 years such that
there exists several emulated servers
for each expansion and even an upcoming
official release by Blizzard of the game
in its original vanilla state over a
decade ago I don't think it's one simple
answer but it's what I said earlier in
comparison to the other reigning and the
Mo's at the time it was designed to be
much easier to get into forgoing those
harsh penalties to dying and just having
an easier learning curve in general the
ease of access quickly caught on and it
was the first MMO for many people and
your first MMO is a pretty unique and
memorable experience being used to
linear single-player RPGs such as Final
Fantasy or Zelda and stepping into this
massive world for the first time and you
didn't go through it alone you made
friends joined guilds and went through
the toughest challenges together the
concept of a boss that took 40 people to
kill was foreign to a lot of players
you watched your character and the game
evolve before your very eyes over the
course of years not days nor weeks like
the classic RPGs it delivered a fresh
and unique product in a growing genre
and left a huge impact in the MMO scene
on the gaming industry as a whole and on
the people who've played it and it'll go
down as one of the greats in gaming
history it's a story that's had ups and
downs and continues to this day
for some it ended long ago but for
others the drums of war Thunder once
again
farewell for now mortals hope you
enjoyed today's the deal see you were
gay