Player Test Realm

Player Test Realm

World of Warcraft (WoW) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994. World of Warcraft takes place within the Warcraft world of Azeroth, approximately four years after the events at the conclusion of Blizzard's previous Warcraft release, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Blizzard Entertainment announced World of Warcraft on September 2, 2001. The game was released on November 23, 2004, on the 10th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise.

The first expansion set of the game, The Burning Crusade, was released on January 16, 2007. The second expansion set, Wrath of the Lich King, was released on November 13, 2008. The third expansion set, Cataclysm, was released on December 7, 2010. The fourth expansion set, Mists of Pandaria, was announced at BlizzCon 2011 by Chris Metzen on October 21, 2011, and released on September 25, 2012.

With over 8 million subscribers as of March 2013, World of Warcraft is currently the world's most-subscribed MMORPG, and holds the Guinness World Record for the most popular MMORPG by subscribers.

Read more about Player Test Realm:  Development, Reception, Security Concerns, Community and Study of Player Interaction, In Other Media, Professional Competition

Famous quotes containing the words player, test and/or realm:

    “It is a fundamental characteristic of civilization that man most profoundly mistrusts those living outside his own milieu, so that not only does the Teuton regard the Jew as an incomprehensible and inferior being, but the football player likewise so regards the piano player.”
    —Robert Musil (1880–1942)

    “It is commonly said ... that ridicule is the best test of truth; for that it will not stick where it is not just. I deny it. A truth learned in a certain light, and attacked in certain words, by men of wit and humour, may, and often doth, become ridiculous, at least so far, that the truth is only remembered and repeated for the sake of the ridicule.”
    —Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)

    “Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state, a hummock left by the ice.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)