World of Warcraft is an online role-playing experience set in the award-winning Warcraft universe. Players assume the roles of Warcraft heroes as they explore, adventure, and quest across a vast world. Being "Massively Multiplayer," World of Warcraft allows thousands of players to interact within the same world. Whether adventuring together or fighting against each other in epic battles, players will form friendships, forge alliances, and compete with enemies for power and glory.
Dedicated live team will create a constant stream of new adventures to undertake, lands to explore, and monsters to vanquish. This content ensures that the game will never be the same from month to month, and will continue to offer new challenges and adventures for years to come.
Business Strategy
Blizzard's award winning World of Warcraft has been one of the most influential game of the year. The gaming industry is by nature has its share of risks. Developers have to invest a huge sum of money into research and development of a particular game. However, WoW has become a worldwide brand name.
What does it take to produce a profitable online game? There are many factors that needs to be taken into account. Some of the main determinants are the complexity of the gameplay, the wide range of creativity implemented into the game, availability of the game throughout the world, and stability. WoW managed to achieve these objectives and thus has over 7 million subscribers.
WoW siphon in its revenues through players purchasing the game client cd, monthly subscription to the game and the sale of WoW merchandise such as the trading cards.
Game Features:
Adventure together with thousands of other players simultaneously.
Explore an expansive world with miles of forests, deserts, snow-blown mountains, and other exotic lands.
Join the Horde or the Alliance as one of 8 playable races.
Select from 9 classes, including holy Paladins, shape-shifting Druids, powerful Warriors and Mages, demon-summoning Warlocks, and more.
Encounter many familiar and new Warcraft characters and monsters.
Learn the continuing story of Azeroth by completing a wide variety of challenging quests.
Journey through an epic world filled with dungeons of different styles and depths.
Explore 6 huge capital cities, which serve as major hubs for the races inhabiting them.
Practice various trade skills to help locate reagents, make and enhance custom items, acquire wealth through trade with other players, and more.
Purchase tickets for travel along a number of air routes flown by creatures such as Gryphons and Wyverns. For global transportation, travel by Boat or Goblin Zeppelin.
Once a certain level has been achieved, players can choose to purchase permanent personal mounts, such as Dire Wolves and Horses.
Establish a guild, purchase a custom guild tabard, and promote or demote recruits to different ranks within the guild.
Locate and engage other players with easy-to-use features and tools, including chat channels, friends lists, and animated and audible character expressions.
Customize the game’s interface via XML.
Enjoy hundreds of hours of gameplay with new quests, items, and adventures every month.
Official Website Features
The World of Warcraft (hereby refer to as "WoW") website is a multi information platform. Meaning to say players are able to obtain latest news of the game and updates, account management, game information/guide, game mechanics, FAQ section, media (wallpapers, screenshot, music, video etc), player community forums, and a support section for all related matters pertaining to the game. We shall discuss these features respectively.
News update Section
The news section is the most important aspect of any gaming website. The game developers communicate directly to the players through the use of news updates. What type of updates do the developers post? Generally, the news posted are directly related to the gaming itself. For example, Blizzard (the developer of WoW) will inform players of new patches (fixes/changes) for the game, in-game events that will be held, upcoming game server maintenance, or reports on illegal activities by players such as scamming, botting and hacking.
Account Management
Account management and settings features are a must for all gaming website. This is the section dedicated to the players to sign up for a new account, or to make changes to their existing accounts. As WoW is a P2P game (pay to play), players can purchase game credits either through a subscription basis using credit card or the manual method of using prepaid cards. All these can be done effortlessly through the account management section.One aspect which makes WoW different from any other gaming sites is the function of parental control. The Parental Control feature allows a secondary login point from which the parent or guardian of a minor is able to control login time down to 30 minute intervals. Meaning to say parents are able to control their children's playing time.
Game Information/Guide/Mechanics
This section essentially provides all the relevant information regarding the gameplay and how the game works (mechanics). New players are likely to get a better headstart by visiting this section. The game guide feature introduces players to the different playable characters, items statistics, and some basic guide for those who are 'lost' in the vast virtual world of WoW.Besides serving as a information database, it also includes the storyline that builds up the WoW world. The developers included the new expansion sets, namely 'Burning Crusade' and 'Wrath of Lich King'. Players are able to obtain information regarding these new releases and the latest undergoing developments.
The FAQ Section can be found in the Game Guide section. The faq covers the questions that are normally enquired by players about the gameplay as well as the player ranking system.
Media Section
This section is dedicated to the fans of WoW. From this section, fans are able to download a wide variety of media related to the game itself. Example, players are able to contribute and download screenshots of the game, acquire videos made by the developers and players themselves, theme music of the game, and download images of the game which can be set as wallpapers to their desktop.The Blizzard store link enables players to purchase the softwares and merchandise of WoW.
Player Community Forums
The paradise for all gamers. Forums exist to allow players to interact among each other. They are able to flaunt their screenshots here, or discuss about their own strategies to conquer the game. The forums also becomes an important trading platform for players to buy and sell their equipments and items. The economy of the game very much depends on this forum marketplace.Besides that, players are able to recruit new members to join their guilds. A guild is where small groups of players get together as a 'family' in the game and help each other in parties to overcome difficult gaming situations.
The forum is also widely used by the developers to gain information about existing bugs and technical glitch of the game from the reports of players. The moderators of the forums are mostly the developers themselves. This allows them to communicate with the players on a daily basis.
Support Section
Last but not the least, let us browse through the Support Section. This is the part where the developers post questions and answers to problems that are indirectly related to the gameplay. For example players wish to know the solution to certain game issues. Developers have compiled the known issues and solutions to the support section to help players. If there are no current solution available, then the player will have to send in an email to the developers and work out a new solution.Some issues that are covered in the support section includes recovering of hacked and lost accounts, billing/subscription information, in-game support and tecnical issues.
Conclusion to the Features of WoW website
To the bottom line, WoW website has produced adequate, if not complete information to help players in overcoming their problems and general enquiries. It covers most features that all gaming website should have. Additionally, WoW has included some extra options for players which ultimately increases their satisfaction of the game, both the gameplay and support provided.
