World of Warcraft

Title- World of Warcraft

Author- Not applicable

ISBN Not applicable

Publication Information- Blizzard Entertainment

 

Plot Summary- There is way too much to be able to summarize with the plot of this game because there are multiple storylines going on all the time. Instead, I'll explain the game dynamics. A player can select from two sides to play, Alliance and Horde. Within each side there are five races. Each race has six classes to select from. Once the player selects the side, race, and class, he then selects the gender and visual characteristics of the toon. Once in the game, the player is immediately presented with quests to complete to raise the character's level. There are multiple things a person can do with a character: raise level, acquire better gear, run quests and dungeons, and complete feats among other things.

Critical Evaluation- World of Warcraft or WoW is a MMORPG or massive multiplayer online role playing game and currently has over 11.5 million monthly subscribers which attest to the popularity of the game. In the time that WoW has been running dozens of other games have been launched and died. The only real competition is console games on xbox and PS3. The game is incredibly dynamic. Players quickly make friends in the game and bring real-life friends to the game. Players can play multiple characters in different realms (servers). I have 5 characters in my main server with several friends and two characters in another server with some other friends. Players can elect to play in two different modes, PVE or PVP. PVE is Player versus Environment or Player versus Player. The PVP play allows players from different sides kill each other, while PVE does not. Having played both types of servers, each side has benefits and problems.

Reader's Annotation- Can 11.5 million users be wrong? See what the world is like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYK_Gqyf48Y

Author Information- Not applicable

Curricular Ties- Not applicable

Genre- fantasy, video game

Book talking ideas- Not applicable

Challenge issues- not applicable

Interest Age- 14 to adult- though I've seen kids as young as 8 playing.

Why I selected this piece- I play it. My husband plays it. Many of my students play it. You know who when you say "I'm a level 80 Night Elf Druid, heal spec" and they smile