World of Warcraft recently released Legion in August 30th and it is worth playing for the tons of WoW fans out there. It is also one of the longest virtual gamesaround, having been in existence even before the inception of theiphone brand, twitter, facebook and a couple of other technologies that we now have. There are lots of weird things that have happened in the game both in our world and Azeroth (the game’s world) and here are the top 5 things you probably never knew about;
Azeroth and Sweden
World of Warcraft holds the Guinness record for having the highest number of subscribers to an online role playing game. At its peak in 2010, the game had 12.1 million paying subscribers and probably another 100 million others who were not subscribed to it. This 12.1 million mark of people puts Azeroth’s population at par with that of Sweden.
Periodic copycats
As with any good invention, there are always people trying to replicate it in one way or the other. World of Warcraft is not an exception to this. There have been cheap not so great knockoffs of the game, like World of Fight which some denied as to being remotely related to WoW. However, their website wofchina.com was pretty much a good imitation of wowchina.com. Maybe it was just a coincidence, or probably not!
Can you play the game continuously for several days?
If you’ve played WoW, then you’ve probably thought of whether you could pull off playing the game continuously for a couple of days. Well you are not the first to think of it. In 2005, a player named ‘Slowly’ decided to play WoW continuously for several days and as much as it was ambitious, the end result was not anticipated. He was found dead not long after.
A virtual plague of sorts
Ever heard of the “Corrupted Blood” outbreak? In 2005, a monster named Hakkar the soulslayer released a spell known as Corrupted Blood infecting a player. The main reason for this was to weaken and eventually kill all the players that were fighting in the dungeon. However, one player managed to teleport back into Azeroth hence the outset of the plague that started wiping out players. This virtual plague received attention from researchers because it was unanticipated by both the game’s developers and players and its aftermath was destructive.
A look at the numbers
World of Warcraft did not receive worldwide acclaim overnight, there were many things that were done before WoW became as famous as it is. It took 150 developers to develop the game over a course of 4 years. All these efforts finally paid up with WoW taking in $1.15 billion in 2008, $1.24 billion in 2009 and $1.23 billion in 2010. Given that its annual costs usually average $240 million, it roughly makes a profit of $1 billion every year.
If you are new to the World of Warcraft, it helps a lot to know just how the game came to being and the off-the-scene issues that detail the game’s 12 year journey.
Ever wondered how come World of Warcraft managed to attain the heights of fame in massively multiplayer online role playing games? It is solely because of the unique and indifferent gameplay offered by the developers of the game.