TLC puts the C in Warcraft

Mood: ~_~
Currently reading: Sun Tzu's Art of Warcraft

*WARNING: The following post may only be funny to people who have played Starcraft and Warcraft by Blizzard Entertainment. Even if you happen to have played both those games, you may not find this post funny at all.

*DISCLAIMER: All comments that appear anti-South Korean are nothing but satire.

Blizzard Entertainment took the world by storm (unintended pun - check!) when it released its first Warcraft game in 1969. It debutted on the Condor 64 (an old computer system) and featured black and blacker graphics. Players could choose from a total of just one race and duked it out mono-e-mono-emo-style-mono using a single stickman. The game was so primitive that ASCII boobs could not be produced properly, but after a feminist gaming group threatened to sue, Blizzard released a patch that would allow players to play as stickwomen also.

From its humble beginnings, Warcraft was an incredibly successful game. Although the combat resembled something out of Runescape (aka. laggy pixelated filth of an MMORPG), one thing was clear: Blizzard was way ahead of its time. Rival game producers from that era could almost match Blizzard's efforts with Warcraft with one flaw: they could not get their stickmen to animate.

Shortly after the original Warcraft was released, Blizzard sent out Warcraft II: Orcs & Huntresses in 1987. It should be noted that the North American release of WarII took place on February 24, 1987. This game has special significance in the office because it is older than me by one day. For the same reason, Blizzard sent me a birthday cake in the shape of a Orc Great Hall on my birthday this year. Thanks Blizzard, it's nice to know you somehow have my personal information and aren't using it for unethical purposes.

Warcraft II was far more successful than its predecessor Warcraft. Warcraft II featured stunning graphics running on a 386 engine. A total of 6 colours were able to be displayed. The Night Elf huntresses, however, did not show up properly in game. Night Elves are known for their purple skin (like Barney the Dinosaur or Grimace the something), yet on the graphics engine of the late 80s, they appeared to be green. This caused outrage against activists for Night Elvish rights and announced they were boycotting the game. There was no documentation found of any reaction by Blizzard Entertainment.

As we continue down the timeline, the Warcraft series is briefly interrupted by the release of Starcraft. Starcraft vaguely resembled Warcraft in many ways, and it seemed like a bad dream for many gamers of that day and age. An American Blizzard fanboy commented, "I am absolutely sure this is meant to be Warcraft III. They just made a typo in the name, that's all." Unfortunately, this fanboy was wrong. Blizzard made a public announcement regarding the release of Starcraft. There was an urban legend floating around urbandictionary.com that Blizzard was so ashamed of this announcement they destroyed all records of it. Luckily, the letter C specializes in making the big names eat their own words and we were able to "undestroy" the transcripts of the speech with the help of a time machine toaster we built by accident back in 1997.

This is what we recovered of Blizzard's announcment, 18 June, 1995:
"Starcraft pushes the genre of real-time strategy to its limits. Many were anticipating the release of Warcraft III, but hope is not lost, because it is already in development."

Because of my duty as a time travelling journalist, I could not deny the fans the true story behind Warcraft, and travelled a little forward in time to 1996. Unfortunately, I read my time machine wrong and had actually gone all the way to the year 9661. I report with much regret that I spawned on the Protoss planet Aiur during the channeling of the crystals and was obliterated in the big Zerg barbecue (if you remember watching this, then I have 2 things to say to you: 1. You're old; 2. Let's play Starcraft sometime). Of course, I don't mean to brag but it turns out that in the year 9660 I received a Ph.D. from Char University in Science Fiction. I know, I laughed too (you actually didn't laugh but let's pretend you did).

So, in 1996, the Starcraft Effect wore off. This social phenomena was first observed by Starcraft Original Developers Society in late 1995 when people stopped waiting for Warcraft III and started to enjoy Starcraft. Sadly, the Starcraft Effect was shortlived and people got bored of Starcraft and wanted something new. Little did the gaming community know Blizzard already had a trick up its sleeve, and had waited nearly a year to show its hand. And thus, Blizzard released an expansion pack for Starcraft called Blood War. It was actually pronounced incorrectly for many years by Asian players who kept calling it Brood War to this very day.

Archived copy of Blizzard's announcment, 4 April, 1996:
"Starcraft: Blood War pushes the genre of real-time strategy to its limits yet again. Many were anticipating the release of Warcraft III, but hope is not lost, because it is already in development."

It was an epic moment for Blizzard Entertainment, because for the same amount of years that its name was mispronounced, Blood War was voted No. 1 in the Top 100 Real-time Strategy Games by LIER Magazine. Nobody seemed to notice there were only a total of 2 RTS games on the market that were actually played, with the other being Total Alienation (if you know the real name of this game, then I have 2 things to say to you: 1. You're old, 2. Let's play Starcraft sometime).

As we fast forward this dramatic story of the uprise of Warcraft, it should be noted that Starcraft is currently the most widely played sport in South Korea. In Western countries, shallow teenage girls dream of marrying rich men, but in South Korea, a professional Starcraft player is the ideal husband. The higher his APM (actions per minute) the better. I assure you; that was not a sexual reference.

Then, in 2003 came the Warcraft that so many were waiting for. Warcraft III was released receiving a warm response by the RTS fanbase. Players could pick from a variety of races and use some classic units as well as new. Blizzard introduced the Hero system which were a form of superunit that leveled up as it gained experience. Many Diablo II players became jealous and felt unloved when they found out that much of Warcraft III was in fact Diablo II, except in an RTS. This is actually fact and not parody. For anyone who's played Dungeons & Dragons (or a D&D clone), Diablo II and Warcraft III (you need to play all 3 games to understand this), you (like myself) would have noticed that D&D inspired much of the Diablo II mechanics while Warcraft III's hero system is largely based on RPG elements taken from Diablo II. And for anyone who just read those last few sentences, you would have guessed that someone at Blizzard Entertainment has a disturbing fetish with Roman numerals. Disgusting.

To continue our story, scroll back up a few paragraphs and replace Starcraft with Warcraft, and Blood War with The Frozen Yogurt. The release of the TFY expansion set for Warcraft III was a milestone for Blizzard Entertainment. However, it also sparked the downfall of the more traditional gametypes of ladder play. A custom map by the name of Defense of the Asians was made by a racist white person to make fun of Asians who played Warcarft III. The objective of the game was to pick an Asian from the hero taverns and defend the Tree of Rife from the enemy heroes. Hardly any Asians were able to read English and thus nobody was sued over this controversy. When DotA was translated into other languages, many words had to be changed to make it less offensive to South Korean players on the Kalimdor (Asia) Realm. No special treatment was given to any other group of Asians because the Koreans made up 99.8% of the Asian playerbase of Warcraft III. To this very day, DotA is still played on every server, and is infamous for clogging up custom game listings on Azeroth. Many noobs do not realize that DotA is actually a custom map and they also lack the skill to play normal.

Shortly after Warcraft III: The Frozen Yogurt, Blizzard sold the source code for WarIII and other companies began buying up on this opportunity. A number of 3rd-party spinoffs were released, with titles ranging from:

Carcraft

Avatarcraft

Cellularcraft

Dollarcraft

Familiarcraft

Caviarcraft

Superstarcraft

Solarsystemcraft

Galaxycraft

*Note: Many people thought Lincraft was a spinoff of a Blizzard game, but it turned out that it was just some crappy place to buy carpet and stuff.

With the advent of the spinoff games (which were never released because Blizzard had the best professional assassins out of all of the game companies), Blizzard had no competition remaining and was free to unveil its ultimate weapon: World Wide Web of Warcraft. People had been anticipating WWWoW since the beta of Everyquest, one of the most popular MMORPGs of its day. Most gamers had heard WWWoW was good, but nobody actually expected it to be as good as it really was. WWWoW blew all other MMORPGs to smitherines. The release of WWWoW actually caused around 14 game companies to shut down because they had no chance at the market anymore. Blizzard used WWWoW to rake in big bucks in very little time. With a monthly subscription fee of $100 (give or take $50 USD), and a loyal playerbase of around 7 million worldwide, well, you do the maths.

WWWoW has thrived for nearly 2 years now as the greatest MMORPG of all time voted by LIER Magazine. Game industry analysts speculate that it will be at least 40 years before WWWoW gets dethroned and that people won't stop playing WWWoW until 2080. With new content being released every year, avid fans will very likely stay subscribed for at least another decade or two. World Wide Web of Warcraft was a really successful game and Blizzard spokespanda Mojo Stormstout had this to say, "I hear you man." Yeah, dude, fully.

And so ends our cute story of the origins of WWWoW, the golden idol of geeks galore and greatest enemy of Everyquest. Yet, who knows, in the future, you may meet me on a WWWoW server with me playing a female character (probability of female character: 100%, probability of bumping into C on WWWoW: 5%). I have just one thing to say though... If you do see me running around on WWWoW like a sad little sod, don't hesitate to tell me to get a life, because that's exactly what every WWWoW player needs. Yeah, more than they need a girlfriend.