The global MMORPGs owe World of Warcraft a debt of gratitude. Not because it’s the poster game for the MMORPG universe, or because of its image, or because it’s provided a benchmark for them. They owe it this debt because WoW was the MMORPG that proved this genre of games was commercially viable. In a world itching to use its online toys, WoW provided the first real playground that really proved how strong the MMORPGs could be.

How a Blizzard got started

Blizzard Entertainment Inc, the parent company of WoW, started off as Silicon and Synapse in 1993 with an ironic, but definite scene setter- The Lost Vikings, a Sega/Nintendo game. The Lost Vikings was a basic 2D squares game, sort of “Super Mario for Vikings”. The swords, helmets and shields were destined to go places the little plumber might feel unsafe.

The Lost Vikings included three basic characters, and multi-level survival was the name of the game. At the time, before the big boom in PC games, Sega/Nintendo were the last word in graphics, too, so this was a valuable learning curve for Silicon and Synapse in more ways than one. Modern video games have distant ancestors in these old games.

Business picked up, and Silicon and Synapse became Blizzard Entertainment Inc. In 1994, Warcraft- Orcs and Humans started the WoW snowball rolling. If you check out the graphics, the Orcs and Humans graphics are way ahead of their time, with strong graphic values obvious despite the layering, squares and other technical restrictions of the gaming software of the time. You’ll also see a few forerunners of Blizzard’s famous Starcraft game.

Warcraft 2, Tides of Darkness, was the game that first took the current form of WoW. This was followed by Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos in 2002, and the classic World of Warcraft itself, in 2004. This was the real MMORPG with multiple environments, beta tested and WoW became the fastest selling game in history. By 2005, WoW already had 5 million subscribers, and markets were stunned.

Making the rules for the world

WoW became the model for a truly successful MMORPG, understandably enough. It also became the testing ground for MMORPG mechanics. WoW isn’t a static thing, on or off the screens. Development of a game on this scale goes all the way from the micro to the macro levels.

Graphics have to work properly, software has to run properly and work with operating systems of all kinds. Bugs really aren’t an option in any MMORPG, and with 12 million fanatics keeping an eye on things, a good feedback system has evolved. WoW fans are the core of this extraordinary game, and they’re also the drivers. With WoW came a tide of blogs, merchandise, forums, and perhaps most importantly, experts.

This is one of WoW’s many breakthroughs. WoW is a community in a sense a broad spectrum social site like Facebook can’t be. There are WoW specialists, WoW economists, commentators, and there have even been weddings between WoW fans.

WoW is still developing, and the creativity hasn’t slowed down. There’s another WoW expansion coming, but the developers couldn’t even say what it was about. That’s a very good sign for a much loved game.