Shirgaal’s Rant in E-Minor

I hereby bring you incontrovertible proof of Blizzard’s diabolical brilliance.
Blizzard Entertainment is the company responsible for unholy games such as Warcraft I-III, Diablo, Starcraft and World of Warcraft.

To give not-so quick summary, Blizzard released the fantasy Real-Time Strategy(RTS) game
Warcraft: Orcs and Humans in 1994 focusing on the alien Orcish Horde’s invasion of the Human kingdom Azeroth. The Humans are naturally defeated by the Orcs and driven northwards to their sister kingdom Lordaeron.
The 1995 sequel Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness picks up seven years after where Orcs and Humans left off, with improved gameplay, graphics, sound and storyline. The Orcish armada invades Lordaeron, but despite the Orcs’ upgrade in leadership, the Humans are triumphant due to a betrayel from within the Ocish Horde, and drives the Orcs back through the Dark Portal from whence they came.
Tides of Darkness was shortly followed by an expansion called Beyond the Dark Portal, and it focuses on the Human expedition into the Orcs’ homeworld Draenor to seal the portal from within.
A Battle.net edition of Tides of Darkness was released in 1999, which enabled players to play the game online through Battle.net without the use of IPX Emulators.

Fans of Warcraft I and II waited in breathless anticipation for a third installment, but no such installment arrived, to the major disappointment of fans worldwide.
In stead, Blizzard released the Hack&Slash-RPG Diablo, that turned out to be a major success and bestseller.
Battle.net was released at the same time, which enables players to play against and alongside each other online for free.

In 1998 Blizzard released a new Real-Time Strategy game called Starcraft(Original!). Starcraft shared similarities with Warcraft, both in name and gameplay, but featured a Sci-Fi setting (Duh).
The game turned out to be a tremendous success, especially in South-Korea, which became a haven for professional Starcraft players, including the then-16 year old “Slayer” from Askøy, Norway.
And when I say proffessional, I mean sponsorships, team-contracts, Television contracts, comercial fame and status. The South-Koreans even went as far as to devote en entire television-channel to the game, aswell as several other channels focusing on proffessional gaming.
Fuck football, basketball or any other athletic sport, in South Korea proffessional gaming is what truly counts.
Stracraft has left a significant imprint on gaming culture, coining terms such as “Zerg Rush” or simply “Zerging”, which are still frequently used in RTS games, FPS games, and MMOs such as World of Warcraft.

One offical expansion and two add-on packs followed, but no sequel, despite the game’s immense success.
The Norwegian 16-year old Slayer financed his education through Starcraft tournaments, and in 2000 he won a major tournament in Seoul, South Korea. He was apperantly given the offer to stay in there – Most likely with offers of sponsorship and contract – but decided against it, choosing to focus on his education.

In 2000 Blizzard released Diablo II, and it became a huge success. Designed with online gaming in mind, Diablo II became extremely popular on Battle.net, and naturally an expansion was released in 2001, with the storyline focus on Diablo’s older brother Baal.

2002 was a year of rejoycement for all Warcraft fans, because the highly anticipated third installement in the Warcraft series, “Reign of Chaos” was released. With two additional races, drastically changed gameplay aswell as a clear storyline, Warcraft was back with a vengeance.
Warcraft III became an instant success, and earned itself six “Game of the Year” awards, aswell as several other awards. The gameplay was very different from its predecessors, whereas the two previous installements had focused more on pure RTS with small hints of RPG, Warcraft III had now implemented a Hero system. Every race had 3 heroes to choose from, all of which had different abilities and strengths, and could Level to a maximum level of 10. These abilities for example summon temporar reinforcements, augment fellow troops, heal allies or damage enemy units and buildings.
Also the differences between races had drastically changed aswell, whereas the two featured races in Warcraft I and II were almost identical in strengths – apart from Magic-using units – these four races shared few similarities when it came to unit strengths, for example one race could have the strongest melee units, whereas another race could have the strongest range or magic classed units.
An expansion titled The Frozen Throne was released in 2003,

The game also featured a powerful World Editor, which allowed players to create their own maps and campaigns, equal or even better to the ones featured by Blizzard. This sparked a huge “Map-Making” community, with players devoting hours to create large projects, featuring custom models, skins, sound, AI, and even game mechanics.

The release and popularity of Wasrcraft III unleashed a new wave of professional gamers, consisting no longer almost exclusively of Koreans, which had been the case with Starcraft.
Huge offical tournements were hosted, sponsorships and contract offers were everywhere, national teams arose, and several high profile names entered the gaming community. Perhaps most notably Korean “Moon”, dutch “Grubby” and Swedish “Madfrog”. Blizzard continued to support the game for years ith patches, and high profile events. The latest patch to date is, I believe, 1.21b if I’m not mistaken.

In late 2004 – or early 2005 for Europeans – we saw the release of what everyone had been waiting for since the announcement in 2001. World of Warcraft.
The Warcraft universe had now taken the large leap from RTS to MMORPG(Multi Massive Online Role-Playing Game), and what a leap indeed! World of Warcraft has set the standards of future MMOs, and Jerry Holkins and Michael Krahulik behind the popular webcomic Penny Arcade have even went so far as to state that World of Warcraft has achieved everything that can possibly be achieved from the genre, and that upcoming MMOs, such as Warhammer 40.000k and Age of Conan will only be pale imitations.
There are currently 9 million subscribers to World of Warcraft, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to decrease anytime soon. Because this game never ends, no matter how much you raid, how many encounters you defeat, Blizzard will be ready to implement new encounters and features for players to spend hours trying to defeat them, or work out new strategies. No matter how good your gear is, you can bet that within a maximum of six months there will be a new set of gear and wepons implemented, rendering your own equipment worthless given enough time.
It’s been a year since the first expansion The Burning Crusade was released, featuring the Orcs’ partially destroyed homeworld Dreanor as an entire new continent. The Burning Crusade is nearing the end, the next expansion “Wrath of the Lich King” draws near. And this is how it will continue, World of Warcraft will continue to re-invent itself for years to come.

World of Warcraft has also provided 500,000 Chinese people with work. These people play the game for a living, grinding the in-game currency “Gold”, and selling it for real world money. Why would anyone want to buy fake money for real money, you ask? Simple, because a 1000g is a hell of a lot harder to come by than a 1000NOK, Grinding gold is soul crushingly boring, and it can take some time, depending your professions and the current server economy.

Almost 3 years of World of Warcraft has changed the way I think, and provided me and for example my brother with an entire storeroom of geeky references and humour material. I carry with me such timeless terms like “It has new stats”, “Pop Enrage”, “Bubble + Hearth” etc. In other words: food for a geek like me.
It’s a fucking good game, with a gigantic community and continued support from develeopers. So why don’t I play anymore? Simple, I quit at a time when the changes that the expansion brought became too much for me to bear, and became tired of playing a game while longing for the “good ‘ol days”, also the server I was playing on had developed into a very immature community in my oppinion.

Recently however, Blizzard has corrected many of the changes that I despised. one can now, according to my brother who has recently started playing again, play hardcore without having to play a lot, and all the time. One can, absurdly enough, play hardcore and casual at the same time(!).
And so, this has caused me to toy with the idea of starting to play again, but for that I need a new computer, something I don’t prioritise at the moment. So if I start playing again, it won’t be anytime soon.

But does Blizzard’s tale end with the ever-growing World of Warcraft? Not a chance.
Remember that little game that became so immensely popular, called Starcraft? Yeah, they have announced a sequel

See, who else has the brain and will to pull such a diabolical scheme off, other than Blizzard? No-one! That’s who!
So here it is, incontrovertible proof. Blizzard is pure evil, and we love it!.