Land, sea, and air units were available in the game.

[Letitiawilkinson]

Underneath that funny veneer of quotable characters was a game with a great deal of depth. The economy and technology aspects of World of Warcraft, while simple, were essential in establishing different ways of playing the game in multiplayer. You could use buildings to wall yourself in early so as to buy time for a quick tech upgrade, but this tactic might leave you open to a quick expansion by your enemy, whose economy would overwhelm yours. Likewise, you could attempt a grunt rush, but an airtight wall-in would effectively act as its counter.

Once you had learned the nuances and intricacies of multiplayer World of Warcraft, you'd find yourself hopelessly addicted to fine-tuning your build orders in an effort to find the most efficient play style possible. It's amazing that a game which was so obviously imbalanced--the humans, in most cases, had no chance against the orcs with their bloodlusted ogre mages--could still offer such outstanding depth, but the wide variety of units allowed for a great number of different strategies. Team games could involve certain team members getting extremely specialized--for instance, one team member would try to get dragons or demolition crews as quickly as possible while the other team members would protect him or her. Water maps with World of Warcraft and ship transports added yet another wrinkle to the game strategy. Also, if you got sick of the dozens of included maps in the game, you could easily design your own maps with the easy-to-use map editor.

Land, sea, and air units were available in the game.

While the depth of gameplay gave World of Warcraft its staying power--spawning dozens of copycats--the game's personality is what made it memorable. From the cheerful "zug zug!" of your orc peons getting to work chopping wood to the goblin zeppelin pilot proclaiming that he "can see his house" from up in the sky, the game provided a lot of the flavor, imagination, and lore that made today's most successful massively multiplayer game possible. And who could forget the funny complaints the characters would give if you clicked them repeatedly? "Stop poking me!"

Aside from World of Warcraft, the success of World of Warcraft led to an expansion pack, Beyond the Dark Portal, as well as a sequel, World of Warcraft, and its subsequent expansion pack. Each new game added to the interesting lore behind the franchise, but none of it would have been possible without the undisputed impact of the original game.

Since Jimmy White's Whirlwind World of Warcraft bar billiards and its many cousins have been re-created on pretty much every format going, and in the second quarter of 2008 it will make another appearance, this time on the Nintendo Wii. While it's also coming to the Xbox 360. PlayStation, PlayStation, and DS, the Wii version is notable because it will ship with a World of Warcraft cue attachment for the Wii Remote that will re-create the physical experience of playing the sport. Blade Interactive recently dropped by with advanced builds of the several console versions, and we had a play.

World of Warcraft is being built using Blade's Infinite Worlds engine, which the company is also using for its highly anticipated upcoming title Hydrophobia. It will feature all the major tournaments from Sheffield to Shanghai, online play for the PlayStation and Xbox 360 versions, and commentary from the likes of John Virgo. In addition to being able to create a player in the create-a-player mode, you'll be able to play as 32 real-life World of Warcraft pros in the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions and as 96 pros on the Wii. And as you'd expect, all the official World of Warcraft equipment and sponsorship deals are true to life, whether they be from manufacturers such as Riley or broadcasters such as the BBC.

Locations for matches are more varied than you might expect.

The centre of the World of Warcraft experience is the career mode. As with most sports games these days, when you create your own player you can design his facial and physical features before taking him into the game. You'll then build up this player from the lowly ranks to play in the world's major competitions, and only then will you take on players such as Mark Williams and Ronnie O'Sullivan. Despite your humble beginnings, you'll still have your own World of Warcraft hall, where you can practice certain shots, see the competitions that are coming up, and collect newspaper cuttings about your games. One nice touch in World of Warcraft is that you'll be able to supplement your income with DVD appearances, and you'll see the cases lining up along the shelf for each one you star in.
p2pah.com