The World of Warcraft (WoW) is an ever changing world filled with people like you or I, these people create and control avatar’s to complete quest’s either individually or as a “clan” or “guild” in an attempt to obtain rare items or level up their character.

The focus of this slideshow will be the awards WoW has received, an introduction to the publishing company that created this world renowned video among other interesting facts like addiction and number of players.

According to “Wired Magazine’s” “Geekapedia” an MMORPG is defined as Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game which many use as a means of escaping from every day life whether it be family friends or work. These games often offer fun rewards, interesting quests and “all the perks of a tourist destination.

A better definition for MMORPG would be an online universe created just for the people within it often pay as you play where one creates a character to his or her liking and takes control of that character doing whatever he or she pleases with it.

To the left is a

picture of a high

level Elf character

in the World of

Warcraft care of

Google Image

search. High level

characters are

often very coveted

by WoW players

and frequently end

up being sold

online for

anywhere from

hundreds of dollars

to thousands.

Again on the left

two pictures can be

see top left is a

picture of a

character outfitted

like one Chuck

Norris and the other

(Bottom) a group of

three dwarves

outfitted with an axe

and what appear to

be sticks. The Chuck

Norris picture just

goes to show how

much is possible in a

world like that of

WoW.

The World of Warcraft has been recognized by many of today's largest video game awards committee’s

Best Selling PC Game 2005 and 2006; Best PC Game, Best Multiplayer Game, Best RPG and Most Addictive Game at the Spike TV Video Game Awards. Finally earlier this year WoW was honored at the Technology and Engineering Emmy awards along with EverQuest and Neverwinter Nights for significantly contributing to the advancement of the MMORPG as an art form.

The first World of Warcraft expansion is set to release later this year, November 13, 2008 to be more specific. With this

expansion it is safe to assume that the time spent on the WoW servers and the amount of players playing WoW itself will increase drastically. The most notable additions in this expansion, all of which were discussed at the BlizzCon

convention in 2007; are a level cap raise, a new playable class, and the first completely Peer vs. Peer zone in the history of World of Warcraft. For these reasons it becomes clear that Blizzard is making it clear that they never want you to stop

playing this game. Even if you had stopped they rope you back in by allowing you to level up even higher than was possible before, and the introduction of the “Death Knight” is a very appealing addition to the game because of the fact that this

specific class was a predominant and large part of the predecessor to this game, Warcrat III, players who played

Warcraft III will be intrigued by this specifically because the character was a very notable and interesting character.

This chart represents the approximate

number of active subscribers to

the top ten most played

MMORPG’s or Virtual

Communities as of June 13, 2007

according to Gigaom.com

Game Active Subscribers(Approx.)

MMORPG or Virtual

Community (VC)

1. World of Warcraft (2004)

8.5 Million MMORPG

2. Habbo Hotel (2000)

7.5 Million VC

3. RuneScape (2001)

5 Million MMORPG

4. Club Penguin (2006)

4 Million VC/MMORPG

5. Webkinz (2005) 3.8 Million VC

6. Gaia Online (2003)

2 Million VC

7. Guild Wars (2005)

2 Million MMORPG

8. Puzzle Pirates (2003)

1.5 Million MMORPG

9. Lineage I/II (1998)

1 Million MMORPG

10. Second Life (2003)

500,000 VC

According to Dr. Maressa Hecht Orzack, a clinical psychologist at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts approximately 40% of WoW players are addicted to playing that means that an astounding 3.4 million players are addicted.

-Boston.com Care of the Boston Globe and Dr. Orzack

"Apple Images." Apple Images. Apple Computers. 4 Oct. 2008 <images.apple.com>.

Bray, Hiawatha. "Computer addictions are a serious glitch in online play." Boston.com. 2 Sept. 2006. The Boston Globe. 4 Oct. 2008 <http://www.boston.com>.

"Geekapedia." Geekapedia-MMORPG. 9 Oct. 2007. Wired Magazine. 4 Oct. 2008 <http://www.wired.com>.

"Google Images." Google.ca. 4 Oct. 2008 <http://www.google.ca>.

"MMOG." MMOG.com. 4 Oct. 2008 <www.mmogchart.com/chart7.html>.

Snow, Blake. "GigaOM Top Ten MMO's." GigaOM. 13 June 2007. 4 Oct. 2008 <http://www.gigaom.com>.