The universe of Azeroth was an already vibrant and dynamic world even before the massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) World of Warcraft (WoW) captured the attention of millions of gamers around the globe. Prior to this monstrous hit, Azeroth was brought to life through the hard work of the folks at Blizzard Entertainment who built an elaborate and sometimes phantasmagoric world in their earlier titles. My entrée into this gaming world began with Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, which came on the scene in 1994. I was just a kid at the time, diving headfirst into the joys of computer gaming.
The core conflict in the Warcraft series is the one that Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, the very first game, introduced: the life-or-death struggle between the orcish Horde and the human Alliance. My first taste of the series was certainly an epic one. Not only was the Horde’s invasion of Azeroth villainously “the first of many conquests” that the player was told to repel over the course of the campaign, but the game also allowed the player to control plenty of the Horde’s own units (in an alternate universe, one could argue that this all but guarantees the completionist’s impulse to control protagonist units not once but in two entirely separate experiences’ worth of gameplay as well).
The mechanics of the game were enthralling. They made me think about how to gather the right amount of resources, gold coins and lumber, that I absolutely needed to construct not just buildings and units but also the bases which those buildings and units came out of. It was like I was a war engineer who had to think and act with a meticulously measured amount of speed, patience, and strategy. I simply loved doing what an engineer does: finding a solution to each war problem I was presented with. But I also loved the fact that the things I constructed were destructible: They gave me a palpable sense of accomplishment, as well as a newfound respect for the paradox that is war.
A singular quest from my past life as an orc in Warcraft stands out in my memory. It was a bold, some might say foolhardy, raid that took us into the night and through the sculpted landscapes till our ragtag band was standing in the bowl-like arena of a human encampment. It was a deathtrap, and we were the prospective performative surprise.
The tale of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is a straightforward one, and some might find it appealing for its very simplicity. But the game’s story had a tremendous long-term effect on the Warcraft lore by giving names to a lot of things that even non-players of the game sometimes recognize. Its success led to a much, much larger storytelling experience in the sequel, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness.
The 1995 release of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness took the already beloved game and scaled it up in every way. It featured greatly improved graphics that were closer to true 3D and a greatly enhanced overall gaming experience. It was also on display at the CES Winter show in January 1996. With its all-around enchantments, the one thing that truly made Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness shine more than its predecessor was how it took the opportunity to further detail the universe with its manual, and just as importantly, the moments and experiences shared through all of the maps generated by the game, as well as the conversations held with its characters.
The struggle between the Horde and the Alliance in Warcraft II scaled to new intensities. Fresh components like naval combat and units really took the game to a vital and previously unseen level in terms of the sheer epic factor. The oceanic and nautical geography that my friends and I had to deal with when fighting in multiplayer maps was bad enough for someone like me who was, and still is, rubbish at navigation. And that was the way I felt before I had even learned that the units I commanded when at sea were every bit as vital and varied as the ones I fielded on land.
The campaign of the game was complex and intriguing—much more so than the original. The plot was not just about getting from one mission to the next, like all good RPGs; it unfurled in memorable, unexpected ways with greater character development and more interesting dialogue than the original Warcraft. This was a game with a plot, a serious plot. And like all great fantasy epics, the story of how the plot wraps up in the end matters… dramatically. The penultimate chapter, told with plenty of foreshadowing, made the course of the final chapter not just the course of a final chapter but also the unraveling of a destiny… for Azeroth and the characters that inhabit it.
The Battle of Blackrock Spire is burned into my brain. The showdown at the end of the game between the Alliance and the Horde has you, as the player, actually in command of Lothar and his closest allies taking on Doomhammer, who makes one hell of a last stand. There are fights that don’t feel like tests of strength so much as tests of will throughout the game, but there was something about the absolute size and considered chaos of this fight that drove everything in the game home for me.
Beyond the Dark Portal was the first expansion pack introduced to the Warcraft series by Blizzard Entertainment in Warcraft II’s time. This expansion was the first to add new storylines to the series, mainly in the form of new campaign settings, which separated the map screen from the main menu with some art borders in between – the art featuring heroic figures, which would establish the style for not only the rest of the series but also most likely the future settings in the World of Warcraft.
The Warcraft universe kept growing as the series went on. Another major step in the evolution of the franchise was the release of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos in 2002. This game introduced night elves and the undead Scourge as playable races to Warcraft, with unique units, buildings, and talents to diversify gameplay. A big addition to the game was also powerful “hero” units, which brought even more strategic depth to the game.
In so many ways, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos was a revolution. It had a far more ambitious and complicated narrative, which told the always-growing story of a whole bunch of individuals, along with their various designs for the society they all inhabited; that narrative promised that the story would not stop with what was going on inside the game’s box, but would infect the whole so-called “real world” as well and the way in which a lot of us would remember what we were doing during the various dawns and dusks of that time period as well. The game’s cinematic cutscenes were particularly stunning, not just in how they looked.
The story of the game was broken down into four components, each concentrating on a separate race and a part of their history. The human part of the story was mainly about Prince Arthas’s journey into “unfortunate heroism.” The orc section followed the tale of Thrall, who had to find his true destiny while leading his people out of previous bonds. Then there was the night elf campaign, which was primarily about the nature of good and evil magic and the choices ancient, often solitary, figures make for the good of the many. And then there was the undead campaign, which blended together the stories of Arthas, the demon he found and had a lasting relationship with, and the multitude of beings involved in how that section of the story came out.
The gameplay became much richer with the addition of hero units. These were strong figures that had special abilities that could change how a fight was going. Using them properly was a delight because each hero felt as different from the next one as any of the regular grunts did from each other. And with a little work in the game’s experience-based system, wherein units that saw more action were also in line to get some neat power-ups if they survived, it was possible to make some really cool dream teams of variously able-national and non-national heroes.
One of the most striking parts of Warcraft III from way back was the night elf campaign finale, wherein mighty forces dared to make a united stand against the coming demonic hordes. These were the very legions within which there had resided the dark spirits who now bedeviled the reign of these northern human simulacra. Night elves risked a great deal in mustering this powerful host. Indeed, the night elf forces themselves ended up being something of a speed bump between the Legion’s regiments and a World Tree, which was literally supposed to be the next worldly host for the fate-tempting legion.
The expanded version of the game, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, introduced new characters and new parts of the story. It really started to tear apart the basis of where the Lich King and the Scourge came from in terms of their creation. What a lot of fans hope the remaster will do is that it will fill in some of the gaps. Why, for instance, was there an I Serve the Deathmaster skeleton guard at that one place when you’re going up a hill?
Defending Dalaran in The Frozen Throne is an experience that stands out. I did that mission the way I’ve done hundreds of tower defense maps at this point, so when I did it that way the first time through, it felt completely natural. I considered it one of my better tactical decisions completing that quest with a variety of siege weapons in my World of Warcraft arsenal. Still, something was nagging away at me inside, and I knew that if I could do the same thing again and still feel like my brain was kind of engaged, then I had planted myself in a good tactical position.
The hit Warcraft real-time strategy games set the stage for Blizzard’s next big project: World of Warcraft (WoW). The first public announcement of WoW came in 2001, but the game itself wasn’t released until November 2004. Fans who loved the first three Warcraft games could hardly contain their excitement in the run-up to its release—they were absolutely frothing at the mouth. And most of them still are: WoW may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but the fan base is as large and rabid as any other in the world of MMORPGs.
I recall all the excitement that led up to the release of WoW. We were all waiting for something completely new, a sensation that virtual worlds could evolve into shared, massive experiences, an exciting blend of embracing the nerdiness that housed being a kid, well, in a kid’s body and our secret dreams of becoming the socially accepted badasses we saw Elrond or Aragorn. And WoW was all of that – and more. The artificiality that might have been suspected was masterfully negated by the artistry of the game, and the artistry of the game returned both halves of the diptych in soggy warmth – warm for NPCs and warm for the real folks who were teams of people traipsing about the universe named for them.
A moment of sheer bliss happened when I was creating my first ever character in World of Warcraft, the biggest and still most influential massively online multiplayer role-playing game of our time. Yes, okay, it is a time-sink, and it costs a monthly fee. As someone who’s played the night elf both as a druid and a mage, I can tell you that their starting zone of Teldrassil is probably my favorite. It’s because it feels incredibly lush and is massive in scale. The moon well, for instance… is top-of-the-line. Don’t get me wrong; I love a lot of other starting zones, too.
One of the most mystical aspects of WoW was the impression of the society it cultivated. When you became a part of a guild, or when you and a group of friends did quests together or achieved a common virtual goal, it seemed as though you were a part of something so much more meaningful than the isolated moments of play between you and a screen. Florin remembers a time when she and her allies ventured into a dungeon—Molten Core—where the final boss, Ragnaros, was a thrilling challenge that would make most people’s palms sweaty.
Also remarkable were the game’s extensive lore and the way it was interwoven into the storytelling. The Stranglethorn Vale quests, in particular, were delightfully fun to play for reasons I didn’t understand back then. It was a zone that seemed to offer a nonstop stream of quest content, and I think that was a key factor in keeping my group so engrossed in the game when we didn’t have much time to do anything serious.
The world of the game we know as World of Warcraft continues to grow and change. It has seen numerous expansions since it first launched in 2004. And with each of those, the game seems to reach further back and also further forward into the future. Or maybe, with the long view that we fans of the game also embrace, we might see that the past, present, and future, when held together, make a certain kind of sense or follow a particular story pattern.
Looking back on the journey from the first Warcraft to the World of Warcraft, it is clear: Why has this series endured and evolved when so many others have not? The answer is in what the gaming really means to the gamer. Story and setting are key, of course, but the foundation is gameplay. The rhythm and rhyme of its duels are the driving force behind the production of the series from stage to stage—this may also be why the series can’t seem to carry a tune when next gen music and sound are put to use. Indeed, as the language and look of the game have also evolved, so too has the community of players with whom the experience is shared, until a shared story is what each one brings.
