Warcraft

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is a real-time strategy computer game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment in 1994. It was followed by two sequels: Warcraft II and Warcraft III. Warcraft was developed for the MS-DOS operating system. Warcraft III is now available for Windows and Mac OS X. This game initiated the Warcraft franchise, arguably one of the most successful in computer game history. It also popularized the real-time strategy genre of computer games.

Overview

Bloodthirsty orcs—denizens of another dimension—discover a portal allowing them to enter the largely peaceful human kingdom of Azeroth. The player can play as either the orcs or humans, the main differences being the spells of the mages.

Critics cite that the obligation to have the CD in the drive and the incompatibility with newer operating systems as problems with this game.

Warcraft Adventures was to be a role playing game set in the Warcraft universe, but it was cancelled somewhat into development.

The board game

Trivia

• Bill Roper, the game designer and self-proclaimed "closet actor," provided all the voices for this game and the sequel Warcraft II.

Legacy

Due to the success of the game, several developers created "clones" of the game that included several similar elements.

There was an open source clone in development called FreeCraft, however the effort was ended by a "cease and desist" letter sent to the project developers by Blizzard in July 2003. It concerned the use of the –Craft in the name and the inclusion of ideas which were to similar to WarCraft II.

See also: StarCraft, World of Warcraft

External links

• Official homepage of the computer games
• Slashdot post on cancellation of FreeCraft
• Page about the history of Warcraft
• Official homepage of the strategy board game

Referenced By