Similar to other MMORPGs, the game allows players to create a character avatar and explore an open game world in third- or first-person view, exploring the landscape, fighting various monsters, completing quests, and interacting with non-player characters (NPCs) or other players. The game encourages players to work together to complete quests, enter dungeons and engage in player versus player (PvP) combat, however, the game can also be played solo without interacting with others. The game primarily focuses on character progression, in which players earn experience points to level up their character to make them more powerful and buy and sell items using in-game currency to acquire better equipment, among other game systems.
As with other MMORPGs, players control a character avatar within a game world in third- or first-person view, exploring the landscape, fighting various monsters, completing quests, and interacting with non-player characters (NPCs) or other players. Also similar to other MMORPGs, World of Warcraft requires the player to pay for a subscription by using a credit or debit card, using prepaid Blizzard game cards or using a WoW Token purchased in-game. Players without a subscription may use a trial account that lets the player character reach up to level 20 but has many features locked.[15]
warcraft 3 fight of characters ai 183
As characters become more developed, they gain various talents and skills, requiring the player to further define the abilities of that character.[20] Characters can choose two primary professions that can focus on producing items, such as tailoring, blacksmithing or jewelcrafting or on gathering from resource nodes, such as skinning or mining. Characters can learn all three secondary skills: archeology, cooking, and fishing.[21][22] Characters may form and join guilds, allowing characters within the guild access to the guild's chat channel, the guild name and optionally allowing other features, including a guild tabard, guild bank, guild repairs, and dues.[23]
Much of World of Warcraft play involves the completion of quests. These quests are usually available from NPCs.[24] Quests usually reward the player with some combination of experience points, items, and in-game money. Quests allow characters to gain access to new skills and abilities, as well as the ability to explore new areas.[25] It is through quests that much of the game's story is told, both through the quest's text and through scripted NPC actions.[26] Quests are linked by a common theme, with each consecutive quest triggered by the completion of the previous, forming a quest chain. Quests commonly involve killing a number of creatures, gathering a certain number of resources, finding a difficult to locate object, speaking to various NPCs, visiting specific locations, interacting with objects in the world, or delivering an item from one place to another to acquire experience and treasures.
World of Warcraft takes place in a 3D representation of the Warcraft universe that players can interact with through their characters. The game world initially consisted of the two continents in Azeroth: Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. Four separate expansions later added to the game's playable area the realms of Outland and Draenor and the continents of Northrend and Pandaria. As a player explores new locations, different routes and means of transportation become available. Players can access "flight masters" in newly discovered locations to fly to previously discovered locations in other parts of the world.[32] Players can also use boats, zeppelins, or portals to move from one continent to another. Although the game world remains relatively similar from day to day, seasonal events reflecting real world events, such as Halloween (Hallow's End),[33] Christmas (Winter Veil), Children's Week,[30] Easter (Noblegarden), and Midsummer have been represented in the game world. Locations also have variable weather including, among other things, rain, snow, and dust storms.[32]
A number of facilities are available for characters while in towns and cities. In each major city, characters can access a bank to deposit items, such as treasures or crafted items. Each character has access to personal bank storage with the option to purchase additional storage space using in-game gold.[34] Additionally, guild banks are available for use by members of a guild with restrictions being set by the guild leader.[35] Auction houses are available for players to buy and sell items to others in a similar way to online auction sites such as eBay.[36] Players can use mailboxes, which can be found in almost every town. Mailboxes are used to collect items won at auction, and to send messages, items, and in-game money to other characters.[20]
World of Warcraft requires a subscription to allow continued play, with options to pay in one-month, three-month, or six-month blocks, and time cards of varying lengths available from retailers, or purchasing a "WoW Token" using in-game currency.[40][41] Expansion packs are available online and from retailers. As the game client is the same regardless of the version of World of Warcraft the user owns, the option to purchase expansions online was added as it allows for a quick upgrade. World of Warcraft is also available as a free Starter Edition, which is free to play for an unlimited amount of time. Starter Edition characters are unable to gain experience after reaching level 20, and there are other restrictions in effect for Starter Edition accounts, including the inability to trade, use mail, use Auction House, use public chat channels, join guilds or amass more than ten gold.[42]
In January 2015, accounts that have lapsed subscriptions, which previously would not let a player log in, work like a restricted Starter Edition account with the one difference that sub-level 20 characters will be able to join a guild if any other characters on the account are still in that guild.[43]
The game's audio was well received, particularly the background music. By assigning music to different areas of the game world, reviewers felt that the fantasy style added to the player's immersion,[90] and that the replay value was increased.[25] The sounds and voices used by characters and NPCs, as well as the overall sound effects, were felt to add a "personality" to the game.[90]
World of Warcraft redefined the MMORPG genre. Its innovations were not necessarily original in isolation, but together they created a model for the genre as a theme park rather than a simulation. Its environment had tonal variety with serious lore and full characters but the intention to entertain. The game used quest completion for experience progression, making gameplay into a shopping list and encouraging mobility rather than dominating a location. Its use of instanced dungeons let players progress together without running into others, such that different areas of the game had different purposes, separating places for group challenges, mass challenges, and leveling. World of Warcraft's original talent system, which let players distribute points among upgrades, saw wide adoption, including by Star Wars: The Old Republic. World of Warcraft also gave structure to the "raid" group activity, in which players needed a specific strategy. Emergent behavior from raid strategies were later built into the game.[160]
World of Warcraft has inspired three board games: World of Warcraft: The Board Game (including Shadow of War and The Burning Crusade expansions),[172] World of Warcraft: The Adventure Game[173][174] (produced by Fantasy Flight Games), and a World of Warcraft edition of Trivial Pursuit.[175][176] There is also a trading card game,[177] and a collectible miniatures game[178] on the market, both formerly produced by Upper Deck Entertainment, now produced by Cryptozoic Entertainment. Cryptozoic released an "Archives" set which contains foil reproductions of older cards produced by Upper Deck. In August 2012, Megabloks launched a licensed line of World of Warcraft 'building block' toys based on the game scenes, scenarios and characters.[179] In March 2014, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft was released, which is a free-to-play digital card game based on the Warcraft universe, using classes similar to World of Warcraft.[180]
The 2016 first-person shooter video game Overwatch, developed by Blizzard Entertainment, features 32 playable characters known as heroes and a number of supporting characters as part of the game's narrative, which is told through animated media and digital comics outside of the game. Its sequel, Overwatch 2, was released in October 2022 and replaced Overwatch. The sequel builds upon the same hero roster and added more characters, launching with 35 heroes. However, as Overwatch 2 had been developed to be a faster game with five-versus-five teams rather than six-versus-six, several of the characters had tweaks or major rebuilds within Overwatch 2.
The story of Overwatch takes place on Earth in the "near future" in the years after the "Omnic Crisis," a period in which robots (called "omnics") rose up in rebellion worldwide, and the United Nations formed an elite group called Overwatch to combat them. Overwatch continued to protect the peace until it was disbanded years later under a cloud of suspicion, but its former members have returned to the fore in light of new threats to humanity. Blizzard wanted to create a diverse set of characters to reflect a positive outlook on this near future, incorporating non-human characters and non-standard character traits. The game launched with 21 characters, with eleven more added post-release. Nine characters[a] reprised their role as playable heroes in the crossover multiplayer online battle arena game, Heroes of the Storm.
Overwatch is primarily an online team-oriented first-person shooter, and an example of a "hero shooter" where players select from one of several pre-designed hero characters with their own unique abilities. Overwatch includes casual play modes, competitive ranked play modes, and various arcade modes where special rules apply. Most game modes bring together two teams of six players each into a match and compete in one of several objective-based game types based on the randomly selected map, including taking control points and escorting a payload. 2ff7e9595c
Commentaires