World of WarCraft 101 - The Basics

All right, I know that a lot of people who read my blog look at my posts and just get completely confused about what in the heck I'm discussing. People who play WoW, they know what's up, but a good majority of y'all just kind of smile and nod, and occasionally say, "Ok, I don't get it, but if it makes you happy, rock on!" I love all of ya, so I'm going to do the best I can to explain this game that I play in layman's terms. I don't know how successful this will be, but I want to give it a try!

Part 1. The Name of the Game (a short history)

Waaay back in the day (read: 1994), Blizzard came out with a PC game called WarCraft: Orcs & Humans. This game is what is known as an RTS (Real-time Strategy) game. Basically, you can play as either the Orcs or the Humans, and each "level" consists of building up your base and creating fighting units so that you can beat the tar out of your opponent, which, in single-player, is computer AI playing the other race and trying to do the same thing you are doing, but faster. The strategy comes as you try to develop as much as possible as fast as possible, making the best use of your available resources (read: wood and money). You have several different kinds of units available, and as the levels progress, more become available.

This first game was successful enough to merit several sequels and expansions, the last being WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos, and it's expansion, The Frozen Throne. To understand what an expansion is, consider the first game to be the first building block. It has certain things built into it, but a definite end. There comes a point when you have beaten the game. The expansion.. well, it expands upon what was already built in the first game, allowing more things to be explored and conquered.

Then in 2004, Blizzard decided it was time to make the game truly interactive. Enter: World of WarCraft. Here, instead of controlling a base and/or a hero and working on a map, you get to be a part of the game. You pick a race to play (Orc, Human, Troll, Dwarf, etc.), and based on the race you choose, you can choose a class. For example, Humans can be Mages, Warlocks, Priests, Warriors, Paladins, and Rogues. Trolls can be Shamans, Hunters, Priests, Mages, Warriors, and Rogues. Some races only have a few classes available to them. For example, the Tauren race (minotaurs of a sort) can only be Warriors, Druids, Hunters, and Shamans. In all there are ten playable races and nine available classes.

As may be inferred from the title of the very first WarCraft game, Orcs live in contention with Humans. Overall, the ten races are divided into two separate factions: Horde and Alliance. The Horde consists of Orcs, Trolls, Tauren, Undead, and Blood Elves, and the Alliance consists of Humans, Gnomes, Dwarves, Night Elves, and Draenei. What this means in the game is that a member of one faction cannot directly converse with a member of the other. Well, they can, but through some sort of algorithm, it's not really understandable. For example, if an orc says "LOL" to a member of the alliance, they see it as "KEK".

There are many features to the game, which I will explain in my next post.. sort of a dictionary of WoW terms and concepts.