World of Warcraft Visual History

[Shydun Afaya]

It's funny how EVE Online is now the second largest MMO out there, yet it's not even mentioned.

I think they were trying to keep in it a near-genre comparison. No space flight/dog battles in Wow...yet.

 

[Scrythe]

This timellines feels very... empty. It's a brief summary of a very small number of important blips, but this is in no way a definite timeline of the game.

It was still an interesting read, although I question why certain facts were picked up on over others - for example: Why mention the Leeroy Jenkins question on Jeopardy and not the actual LJ phenominon? Why no mention of the Corrupted Blood Plague, the "death" of Barrens chat, or any major world events?

Maybe someone will make a much more in-depth timeline that can include worlds events and major storyline points - and yes, non-WoW players, this game actually has storylines. It isn't a neverending grindfest.

 

[John Funk]

This timellines feels very... empty. It's a brief summary of a very small number of important blips, but this is in no way a definite timeline of the game.

It was still an interesting read, although I question why certain facts were picked up on over others - for example: Why mention the Leeroy Jenkins question on Jeopardy and not the actual LJ phenominon? Why no mention of the Corrupted Blood Plague, the "death" of Barrens chat, or any major world events?

Maybe someone will make a much more in-depth timeline that can include worlds events and major storyline points - and yes, non-WoW players, this game actually has storylines. It isn't a neverending grindfest.

Oh, stick around. This isn't the in-depth one.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

I did a free trial for WoW a couple weeks ago. I liked that the level cap for it was 20, it was just high enough that I reached it at around 2 days before the trial was up. I really like it, but when I did come into some money, I decided to revive my LotRO account instead, mainly because Turbine is having a buy two months and get one free special, so for $29.95 I got three months.

I have to say that there are things that WoW does better, but for me, LotRO does several things better. They aren't major things but they are the simple aesthetic things that make me feel more immersed into the world. For example, when I crafted in the WoW trial, I noticed that the character did the same wiggling fingers together action for every crafting action, but in LotRO, when my character is in a crafting area, if I am doing tailor work, I have a sewing table out with 'mats' on it that I am sewing. If I am making weapons, turning ore, or some other metal work, I have my anvil out and I am pounding the hammer like a real smith. Cooking--mixing bowl, jeweler--jeweler's table, there is more but I won't go on.
Another aspect I love is the outfit and dyeing system. At level 20, you unlock the outfit system so that your character can have two separate choices. You may be wearing a mish-mash of dysfunctional looking armor, but you can cover that up with a color coordinated well put together outfit, you still get the boosts of the mish-mash, but look cool. That awesome looking elf helmet you got in a drop that was crap for armor value with no perks, now you can wear it without losing the great perks of the crap looking leather helmet you got. The good thing is that when you unlock it at level 20 with your first character, it is unlocked for all your characters after that at any level.

There are other reasons I like LotRO better than WoW, but I don't feel like writing it. If I earn some more money soon, then I will pick up the WoW Battle Chest and play it as well. I have such an awesome schedule for my final semester at college this fall, that I can withstand playing two MMOs. My last class of the week ends at 4:15pm on Thursdays and my first class of the week doesn't start until 4:30pm on Mondays. Add the time together and I almost have 4 day weekends every week. So I would have time to play LotRO one day and WoW the next, and still have a day and a half to any homework, which is a lot of time considering that most regular papers that I have to write only have to be three or four pages. I knock those out usually in two hours or less, from scratch without planning.

WoW is a unique experience though, and is awesome. Fight with your fishing pole.

 

[Whytewulf]

Bah, when the added bruisers to Gadgetzan and took away leet speak between factions I lost interest..

 

[Zing]

Nice timeline...I really miss old WoW, I have so many great memories from 2005-2008. But honestly this is kind of depressing. You can see all the money-grubbing Activision pressured Blizzard to do, not only in-game by catering to casual players, essentially ruining the game for everyone else, but just a few months after their merger the paid(and overly expensive) faction change service is released, and a few months after that micro-transactions are implemented.

I'd really love to see current subscription fees for WOW, we already know it has plateaued, but I think it's started to lose subscribers.

 

[theultimateend]

Nice timeline...I really miss old WoW, I have so many great memories from 2005-2008. But honestly this is kind of depressing. You can see all the money-grubbing Activision pressured Blizzard to do, not only in-game by catering to casual players, essentially ruining the game for everyone else, but just a few months after their merger the paid(and overly expensive) faction change service is released, and a few months after that micro-transactions are implemented.

I'd really love to see current subscription fees for WOW, we already know it has plateaued, but I think it's started to lose subscribers.

Man when did I become a casual player?

Because the game has gotten better and better the longer I've played it :/

About the only complaint I've had is they've tried to shove PVP in my ass anytime I want to get a holiday achievement tree done.

I get it...you are proud of your PVP setup...please god stop adding one PVP achievement to every holiday list .

As for the micro transactions, I can't really complain, I work for a F2P game company and that has caused me to kinda see the point. Though seeing it in a game you already pay for is much more difficult I admit .

 

[Zing]

Nice timeline...I really miss old WoW, I have so many great memories from 2005-2008. But honestly this is kind of depressing. You can see all the money-grubbing Activision pressured Blizzard to do, not only in-game by catering to casual players, essentially ruining the game for everyone else, but just a few months after their merger the paid(and overly expensive) faction change service is released, and a few months after that micro-transactions are implemented.

I'd really love to see current subscription fees for WOW, we already know it has plateaued, but I think it's started to lose subscribers.

Man when did I become a casual player?

Because the game has gotten better and better the longer I've played it :/

About the only complaint I've had is they've tried to shove PVP in my ass anytime I want to get a holiday achievement tree done.

I get it...you are proud of your PVP setup...please god stop adding one PVP achievement to every holiday list .

As for the micro transactions, I can't really complain, I work for a F2P game company and that has caused me to kinda see the point. Though seeing it in a game you already pay for is much more difficult I admit .

Well, "better" is kind of subjective here. Some, or possibly many, would say that casual was better. In some ways it was, but in some ways it's ruined many aspects of the game. I don't know how long you've played WoW, but if you played at the beginning like me and participated in PvP you'd know, cross-server battlegrounds ruined the server rivalries and fun that came with fighting people on your server. You knew who you were fighting and you cared, it wasn't about the gear ever, you just wanted to destroy the enemy.

http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/World-of-Ming/Fix-WoW-by-Talking-Shit

This blog here perfectly resonates my thoughts, better than I could have said it.

 

[theultimateend]

Nice timeline...I really miss old WoW, I have so many great memories from 2005-2008. But honestly this is kind of depressing. You can see all the money-grubbing Activision pressured Blizzard to do, not only in-game by catering to casual players, essentially ruining the game for everyone else, but just a few months after their merger the paid(and overly expensive) faction change service is released, and a few months after that micro-transactions are implemented.

I'd really love to see current subscription fees for WOW, we already know it has plateaued, but I think it's started to lose subscribers.

Man when did I become a casual player?

Because the game has gotten better and better the longer I've played it :/

About the only complaint I've had is they've tried to shove PVP in my ass anytime I want to get a holiday achievement tree done.

I get it...you are proud of your PVP setup...please god stop adding one PVP achievement to every holiday list .

As for the micro transactions, I can't really complain, I work for a F2P game company and that has caused me to kinda see the point. Though seeing it in a game you already pay for is much more difficult I admit .

Well, "better" is kind of subjective here. Some, or possibly many, would say that casual was better. In some ways it was, but in some ways it's ruined many aspects of the game. I don't know how long you've played WoW, but if you played at the beginning like me and participated in PvP you'd know, cross-server battlegrounds ruined the server rivalries and fun that came with fighting people on your server. You knew who you were fighting and you cared, it wasn't about the gear ever, you just wanted to destroy the enemy.

http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/World-of-Ming/Fix-WoW-by-Talking-Shit

This blog here perfectly resonates my thoughts, better than I could have said it.

Well the first time I played the game was during Beta at a friends house from basically the moment it started till 24 hours later. I played off and on since then.

Basically I work very large hours every week of every month every year. So if a game requires that I invest 95 hours a week just to enjoy it properly (or to compete enough to enjoy it) I just can't put my time into that game.

Unfortunately I imagine most adults with disposable income are in that boat. Since that boat is what gets them that income. Blizzard likely wants to grow as a business so they can make all their creative ideals come true with sequels, new titles, and whatever else they do (bioengineer actual goblins?). This probably leads them to working on a dynamic game where you can get a sense of accomplishment and joy out of it no matter what time investment you put in.

To me that is good game design. If your game can make most folks feel good by playing it you've done something great. If your entire goal is to create a niche game that only satisfies the most intense individuals, that's perfectly fine and I respect that, but in general a good game design involves pleasing the largest amount of people.

That in no way is support for dumbing down games. I do not believe that to reach a larger audience one needs to "retard" everything. It's mostly a self fulfilling prophecy, if you coddle your player base constantly they'll expect to be coddled.

Sort of like game companies created the paradigm of people thinking graphics == quality. This put them in a self perpetuating spiral of high cost hell that wasn't necessary since...what SNES? That was really when graphics peaked to a point where you could decipher what thinks were and have unique character models. After that it was just circle jerking visuals.

Not that I don't love WoW's visuals, they have a nice artistic painted quality that makes me gaga. I'd take it over crysis "real world graphics" anyday. That, again, is 100% subjective personal opinion. I don't feel folks who really love the "realistic" stuff are wrong or have poor judgment. Just want to clarify to reduce the likelihood of angry quotes .

As an anecdotal story: When I played on a PVP server most of my days involved being stalked by bored level 60 then 70's (by 80 release I was 80) who would kill me (in one hit of course) and then hunt me down and repeatedly murder me, making sure to camp my corpse. Occasionally groups would even get together and just hunt low levels and make sure they didn't get anything done.

It certainly created an emotion in me. As I sat there wanting to play for that 2 hours I had of free time between college and a full time job. It created the emotion to cancel my subscription. Which I did . Once I came back to a nonpvp server where I could PVP when I felt like it, I could still be reminded I'm not good at PVP, but at least it was on my terms.

I liken it a bit to sex, it's something that can be really fun as long as you are open to it, but when it gets forced upon you it's completely terrible. At least for me. I say a BIT because yes Sex is far more fun and YES rape is WAY more terrible. It's just a really poor analogy .

 

[Zing]

-snip-

WoW never did take that much of a time investment unless you were a raider, I started playing while I was still in High School and still managed plenty of time around going to school and studying.

Blizzard never really appealed to a niche market, I mean they gained their 11 million subscribers before they made most of the changes to help casual players. Even with their subscription base rising maybe they felt they'd lose customers? Who knows, I just don't see why they'd change what worked. in my opinion you make a dynamic game with a sense of accomplishment by creating challenges that are worthwhile. I mean look at this timeline, I remember C'thun, top guilds were stuck on him for 6 months. Same with The Four Horsemen. Illidan was down in under a week.

 

[theultimateend]

-snip-

WoW never did take that much of a time investment unless you were a raider, I started playing while I was still in High School and still managed plenty of time around going to school and studying.

Blizzard never really appealed to a niche market, I mean they gained their 11 million subscribers before they made most of the changes to help casual players. Even with their subscription base rising maybe they felt they'd lose customers? Who knows, I just don't see why they'd change what worked. in my opinion you make a dynamic game with a sense of accomplishment by creating challenges that are worthwhile. I mean look at this timeline, I remember C'thun, top guilds were stuck on him for 6 months. Same with The Four Horsemen. Illidan was down in under a week.

I certainly agree that the raid bosses should be much harder . If nothing else I'd love for raids to scale with your competency.

You a badass raiding guild with all the world fearing you? Your monsters are harder and your end "rank" is much higher. They could have ranking for folks who can defeat monsters at certain tier levels.

I'm honestly not putting much time into this thought but I think you get the rough idea. I love hard raids, that has always intrigued me. Also I never thought Blizzard was a Niche company . I was just saying that some folks strive for that (I think EvE is a good example). But Blizzard seems to be trying to hit the largest % of people at once without losing more than they have, which they seem to be doing.

 

[Billion Backs]

Here, here.

A pretty good timeline although there are some pretty amusing and/or important events that were missed...

Now only if they took all the stuff thats happened in WoW and convert it into a really good RTS and named it "Warcraft 4". Then I'd be happy.

I highly doubt there would ever be a warcraft 4, unless they placed it several thousand years into the future where none of the previous heroes/ events still mattered. Otherwise WoW and Warcraft 4 would clash terribly in terms of story.

WoW already destroyed Warcraft's story. This is like the 8th time Deathwing has come back from the dead, FFS. He died in Warcraft 2, he died in one of the books, he died when Medivh's apprentice went back into the past.

That being said, Blizzard has already stated that they will continue the Warcraft RTS franchise. Eventually. Meaning they'll get around to it after they complete the two Starcraft 2 expansions, Diablo 3 (and whatever expansions it gets), and their undisclosed next-gen MMO project.

So we'll probably see Warcraft 4 around 2050.

Yes, because super-important villains NEVER make a come back in literature, comics, movies, or so on.

I will agree with you that the story isn't exactly heading in the best direction, or in the direction I would personally like it to go. But that kind of applies to a lot of fantasy in my opinion, oh well. Some major characters from Warcraft 3 COULD be dealt with way, way better... I liked Maiev better as an evil psychobitch and Illidan as a Chaotic Neutral (Or even Chaotic Good in a somewhat blind way if you consider some things) sort of guy who I'd gladly root for (and did, during the WC3 campaign).

Can't say much about the books, haven't read them. But I don't see why such a big deal should be made of Deathwing's reappearance. He's, like, one of the major villains of the world and a dragon aspect. And we're talking fantasy here...

 

[John Funk]

-snip-

WoW never did take that much of a time investment unless you were a raider, I started playing while I was still in High School and still managed plenty of time around going to school and studying.

Blizzard never really appealed to a niche market, I mean they gained their 11 million subscribers before they made most of the changes to help casual players. Even with their subscription base rising maybe they felt they'd lose customers? Who knows, I just don't see why they'd change what worked. in my opinion you make a dynamic game with a sense of accomplishment by creating challenges that are worthwhile. I mean look at this timeline, I remember C'thun, top guilds were stuck on him for 6 months. Same with The Four Horsemen. Illidan was down in under a week.

C'thun was unkilled for 6 months because he was bugged and literally unbeatable. He was killed the day they fixed the bug. The 4H were unkilled for so long because you needed to farm 8 warriors their 4pc set bonus to give them the bonus to hit with taunt because one single resist meant a wipe. Kel'Thuzad went down days after the first 4H kill.

I think objectively in terms of game design the fights are only getting more complex. Obviously, there's innate organizational ease when only dealing with 25 instead of 40, but I DID the 40-man thing back in the day, and I wouldn't go back if you paid me.

 

[snowman6251]

No corrupted blood plague?

Is it sad I know exactly what this is and lol'd at it?

 

[3dfx]

Sadly I have been there for all of these events, migrating to WoW due to the Diablo 1.10 patch (the one that destroyed my years of work), I got to experience all of these events first hand, but reading them in this timeline reminded me of a post apocalyptic scifi intro. Expecting to see:

January 2011: Warcraft established as an official religion, highest member rates of any other organized religion, many other religions laughing at it, calling it a joke

November 2011: The Church of Warcraft is now the worlds dominate organized religion

April 2012: The Vatican is renamed "Light's Hope Chapel"

October 2012: Crime rates plummet due to most of the populations dedication to Warcraft

December 2013: New world order is instated after world peace achieved due to 99.97% of the worlds population now following the Church of Warcraft

July 2017: Off world colonization begins, the first livable outpost named "Lordaeron" on the planet M247 in the Pegasus galaxy, which has been renamed to "Azeroth"

January 2032: M247, codename: Azeroth, goes down for routine maintenance, forums burst out in nerd rage, demanding achievement points and game time, new world order collapses.

 

[Razorback0z]

Love or hate WoW, it has introduced over 10 milion people to MMOs. An optimist would argue that means there will be 10 milion more gamers out there soon looking for a more mature experience in terms of complexity of gameplay that may just drive a new level of MMO's for us old timers.

A pesemist would say however that the simplicity of WoW has reduced the likelihood of more complex MMOs because Blizzard has shown you dont need depth to make money.

Personally I like WoW, I played for 2 years and enjoyed every minute of it. I strongly beleive it's effect on the industry will be seen as a positive going forward.

I do have to ad though (coz it irks me to see uninformed comment). The look of WoW is excellent. If you played Warcraft then you understand why WoW looks like it does. If you are not a Warcraft Vet, then you probably think its "cartoony" or some other nonsense. Its not the game sucking..... its just you...

 

[3dfx]

Love or hate WoW, it has introduced over 10 milion people to MMOs. An optimist would argue that means there will be 10 milion more gamers out there soon looking for a more mature experience in terms of complexity of gameplay that may just drive a new level of MMO's for us old timers.

A pesemist would say however that the simplicity of WoW has reduced the likelihood of more complex MMOs because Blizzard has shown you dont need depth to make money.

Personally I like WoW, I played for 2 years and enjoyed every minute of it. I strongly beleive it's effect on the industry will be seen as a positive going forward.

I do have to ad though (coz it irks me to see uninformed comment). The look of WoW is excellent. If you played Warcraft then you understand why WoW looks like it does. If you are not a Warcraft Vet, then you probably think its "cartoony" or some other nonsense. Its not the game sucking..... its just you...

Pessimist here, I don't think WoW's dominance on the market will last forever, in fact it's a good thing, it forces game companies to not release bad MMO's (see Star Wars: Galaxies), since they have to compete with that bohemian of a game.

My pessimism kicks in when I see this trend, the trend of charging us for things that should be free. Let me stop you right there before anyone think's I'm saying MMO's should be free, I understand that, keeping the high quality servers up and connected to a juicy fat pipe so Kim Jon Il can farm to his hearts content and you and cyber with a cute NE hunter is Teldrassil costs money, not to mention game masters and constant content updates. I'm talking about FPS's and RTS's charging monthly to play or adding lame micro transactions and map packs, things that used to be free, now not being free because people are used to the idea of constantly paying to play rather than paying once, just for the game.

Maybe this problem is less about WoW and more about this economy and companies trying to make a buck to impress the stock holders at the end of the fiscal year with a nice pie chart, but I believe it undoubtedly had something to do with it.

The Modern Warfare 2 map pack costs 15 dollars and you get: 2 ported maps from CoD4 and 3 original maps.

I played Counter-Strike for years and years, and have gigs and gigs of custom maps; their cost to me? Zero (unless you count bandwidth).

Sure most of them weren't designed by professional map designers, but it doesn't mean they weren't good; besides that, the official designers released official maps for free frequently, to keep people playing their game, and not charging them for it.

It's very frustrating.

 

[Zing]

-snip-

WoW never did take that much of a time investment unless you were a raider, I started playing while I was still in High School and still managed plenty of time around going to school and studying.

Blizzard never really appealed to a niche market, I mean they gained their 11 million subscribers before they made most of the changes to help casual players. Even with their subscription base rising maybe they felt they'd lose customers? Who knows, I just don't see why they'd change what worked. in my opinion you make a dynamic game with a sense of accomplishment by creating challenges that are worthwhile. I mean look at this timeline, I remember C'thun, top guilds were stuck on him for 6 months. Same with The Four Horsemen. Illidan was down in under a week.

C'thun was unkilled for 6 months because he was bugged and literally unbeatable. He was killed the day they fixed the bug. The 4H were unkilled for so long because you needed to farm 8 warriors their 4pc set bonus to give them the bonus to hit with taunt because one single resist meant a wipe. Kel'Thuzad went down days after the first 4H kill.

I think objectively in terms of game design the fights are only getting more complex. Obviously, there's innate organizational ease when only dealing with 25 instead of 40, but I DID the 40-man thing back in the day, and I wouldn't go back if you paid me.

I knew someone would call me out on that. You're right of course, but content still generally took longer to go down then current stuff, mostly because of the 40-man thing and now guilds get weeks of practice on PTR's everytime.

 

[MrSnugglesworth]

Sadly I have been there for all of these events, migrating to WoW due to the Diablo 1.10 patch (the one that destroyed my years of work), I got to experience all of these events first hand, but reading them in this timeline reminded me of a post apocalyptic scifi intro. Expecting to see:

January 2011: Warcraft established as an official religion, highest member rates of any other organized religion, many other religions laughing at it, calling it a joke

November 2011: The Church of Warcraft is now the worlds dominate organized religion

April 2012: The Vatican is renamed "Light's Hope Chapel"

October 2012: Crime rates plummet due to most of the populations dedication to Warcraft

December 2013: New world order is instated after world peace achieved due to 99.97% of the worlds population now following the Church of Warcraft

July 2017: Off world colonization begins, the first livable outpost named "Lordaeron" on the planet M247 in the Pegasus galaxy, which has been renamed to "Azeroth"

January 2032: M247, codename: Azeroth, goes down for routine maintenance, forums burst out in nerd rage, demanding achievement points and game time, new world order collapses.

Haha, that was good for a laugh.

OT: I stopped playing WoW and I never plan on playing it again, but I do enjoy reading things about it and hell, sometimes I enjoy a good PvP video.

Still hate Paladins though.

 

[Melgrath]

This timeline made me sad. I was able to look back and see where the addiction started. The pre-WoW times were a happy time, filled with sunshine and outdoorsy stuff. Not its all dark rooms and energy drinks.

Dang you Blizzard and your drug like MMO!

On a more serious note, 8 months WoW free and counting...too bad that will likely end when Cataclysm comes out