If you look at books, movies or video games in the genre of fantasy, you will see that they are always set in an incredible complex world. The author, or authors, has to create a realistic universe with it’s own life system in it. These universes have their own set of rules that the have to abide to. There will also be strange races and classes of people that are governed by their own system and often magic has a place in these worlds as well. If you take a look at the complexity of these books,movies and games you will understand that it takes a lot of work to realize these things.

And looking at World of Warcraft you will see that it is not very different from any of the other fantasy movies, books or games. Once you enter World of Warcraft you become part of a complex land and when you are hooked you will have a difficult time cutting yourself loose again. You can not call this game shallow because if it was there wouldn’t be so many players around the world playing this game. If you look closely you will discover that the theme of World of Warcraft follows the universal rules of this fantasy genre. It is because of these rules that the game is very attractive for a lot of people who see the beauty of it.

Playing for the sake of playing

It is the World of Warcraft theme that attracts players to the game. The thing that makes this game unique is the large background that was created and developed specificly for it with the addition of the expansion packs. Okay, so the rules that are followed are rahter universal and the type of game is not unique as well, but the way the rules are applied and the story is written and played is what makes it stand out and have people talking and writting about it.

Azeroth is what the games theme is based in. There are other worlds, but Azeroth is where most of the action takes place, it is also where many of the races originate from. You can explore most of the thirteen continents and islands in this world, some more friendly than others.

Of course other fantasy rules are also applied to the game apart from the world you walk in. Creatures, magic, factions, classes, it is all there. Things like dragons, ogres gnomes and other fantasy creatures roam Azeroth. And in the game there is the battle between good and evil, which is played out by the Horde and the Alliance. The fun is that as a game player you can choose if you want to be good or evil.

So you see, World of Warcraft follows a theme with a set of rules seen in many fantasy games, books and movies. But still it is very unique and attracts a lot of gamers around the world. It is the storyline that gives it this uniqueness.



By: Jenny Cumbersome