Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: When did World of Warcraft come out?
One of the primary features of "Cataclysm" is the redesign of the continents of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor introduced with the launch of "World of Warcraft" in 2004. While the initial game design did not allow for the use of flying mounts in 'old-world' zones, those zones have been completely redesigned with flight in mind for "Cataclysm". Flight is still unavailable for Burning Crusade starting zones for the blood elves and the draenei.
On September 20, 2002, Blizzard Entertainment announced the development of "StarCraft: Ghost" in conjunction with fellow video game company Nihilistic Software. Nihilistic aimed to release the game for the Xbox, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube video game consoles in late 2003, which elicited positive reactions from the press. The game was consistently delayed, and during the third quarter of 2004, Nihilistic discontinued their work on the project. Blizzard stated that Nihilistic had completed the tasks it had been contracted for, and the game would be delivered on time.
Forgotten Realms is a campaign setting for the "Dungeons & Dragons" ("D&D") fantasy role-playing game. Commonly referred to by players and game designers alike as "The Realms", it was created by game designer Ed Greenwood around 1967 as a setting for his childhood stories. Several years later, Greenwood brought the setting to the "D&D" game as a series of magazine articles, and the first Realms game products were released in 1987. Role-playing game products have been produced for the setting ever since, as have various licensed products including novels, role-playing video game adaptations (including the first massively multiplayer online role-playing game to use graphics), and comic books. The Forgotten Realms is one of the most popular "D&D" settings, largely due to the success of novels by authors such as R. A. Salvatore and numerous role-playing video games, including "Pool of Radiance" (1988), "Eye of the Beholder" (1991), "Baldur's Gate" (1998), "Icewind Dale" (2000) and "Neverwinter Nights" (2002).
A video game adaptation of the book and film versions of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" was made for Microsoft Windows, PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, PSP, Nintendo DS, Wii, Game Boy Advance and Mac OS X. It was released on 25 June 2007 in the U.S., 28 June 2007 in Australia and 29 June 2007 in the UK and Europe for PlayStation 3, PSP, PlayStation 2, Windows and 3 July 2007 for most other platforms. The games were published by Electronic Arts.
The development of "Doom", a first-person shooter video game by id Software, began in November 1992 and continued until the game was released in December 1993. Seven people worked on "Doom", which is considered one of the most significant and influential titles in video game history. The initial development team was programmers John Carmack and John Romero, artists Adrian Carmack and Kevin Cloud, and designer Tom Hall; late in development Hall was replaced by Sandy Petersen and programmer Dave Taylor was added to the team. The music and sound effects were created by Bobby Prince.
"Empire: Total War" was released on 3 March 2009 to the North American market, on 4 March in Europe, on 5 March in Australia, and on Christmas Day in Japan. The game has become the fastest selling "Total War" title to date; "Empire" topped British video game sales charts for all platforms in the week of release, the first PC exclusive title to do so in a year and a half. The game was reported to have sold nearly double the number of "" and "". In the United States, "Empire: Total War" and its "Special Forces" edition were ranked as first and second respectively in the PC sales charts for the week of release. The game's Australian version debuted as the top PC game; across all platforms "Empire: Total War" was ranked fourth, behind "Halo Wars", "Wii Fit" and "Killzone 2". Sega reported the game sold 810,000 units worldwide during their last fiscal year period of 2008. However, consumer response was hampered by technical problems arising from incompatibility with certain Nvidia drivers released after the game's development was completed and reports of installation problems with the Steam content delivery system. In an interview with IGN, Studio Communications Manager Kieran Brigden discussed the problems inherent in developing such a huge and ambitious game, saying: "Are there some issues with "Empire"? Yes there are." As part of its post-release support, he said that Creative Assembly is planning on addressing issues with stability and performance, as well as adding improvements for gameplay and artificial intelligence.
The first entry in the series "Tomb Raider" was released in 1996 for personal computers (PC), PlayStation and Sega Saturn consoles. The Saturn and PlayStation versions were released in Japan in 1997. The second game, "Tomb Raider II", launched in 1997, again for PC and PlayStation. A month before release, Eidos finalised a deal with Sony Computer Entertainment to keep the console version of "Tomb Raider II" and future games exclusive to PlayStation until the year 2000. The PlayStation version was released in Japan in 1998. "Tomb Raider III" launched in 1998. As with "Tomb Raider II", the PlayStation version released in Japan the following year. The fourth consecutive title in the series, "", released in 1999. In 2000, with the end of the PlayStation exclusivity deal, the game also released on the Dreamcast. In Japan, both console versions released the following year. "Tomb Raider Chronicles" released in 2000 on the same platforms as "The Last Revelation", with the PlayStation version's Japanese release as before coming the following year.
With the release of the "Dungeons & Dragons" 4th Edition, the Forgotten Realms were updated again to the new rules system, featuring a very changed Realms and moving the fictional world's timeline 94 years into the future. The "Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide", released August 2008, is a 288-page book for Dungeon Masters. The "Forgotten Realms Player's Guide" was released the following month, and contains information for players to help create Forgotten Realms characters. An adventure, "Scepter Tower of Spellgard", was also released in September 2008 and can be used in combination with the adventure in the "Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide" to start a Forgotten Realms campaign. In 2008, the Forgotten Realms also became the setting for the RPGA's sole living campaign, Living Forgotten Realms, replacing Living Greyhawk. In 2011, the Neverwinter Campaign Setting was released.
"Doom"s original release date was the third quarter of 1993, which the team did not meet. By December 1993, the team was working non-stop on the game, with several employees sleeping at the office; programmer Dave Taylor claimed that working on the game gave him such a rush that he would pass out from the intensity. Id began receiving calls from people interested in the game or angry that it had missed its planned release date, as hype for the game had been building online. At midnight on December 10, 1993, after working for 30 straight hours, the development team at id uploaded the first episode of the game to the internet, letting interested players distribute it for them. So many users were connected to the first network that they planned to upload the game to—the University of Wisconsin–Parkside FTP network—that even after the network administrator increased the number of connections while on the phone with Wilbur, id was unable to connect, forcing them to kick all other users off to allow id to upload the game. When the upload finished thirty minutes later, 10,000 people attempted to download the game at once, crashing the university's network.
Doom (typeset as DOOM in official documents and stylized as DooM in other media) is a 1993 first-person shooter (FPS) video game by id Software. It is considered one of the most significant and influential titles in video game history, for having helped to pioneer the now-ubiquitous first-person shooter. The original game was divided into three nine-level episodes and was distributed via shareware and mail order. The Ultimate Doom, an updated release of the original game featuring a fourth episode, was released in 1995 and sold at retail.
"Doom"s original release date was the third quarter of 1993, which the team did not meet. By December 1993, the team was working non-stop on the game, with several employees sleeping at the office; programmer Dave Taylor claimed that working on the game gave him such a rush that he would pass out from the intensity. Id began receiving calls from people interested in the game or angry that it had missed its planned release date, as hype for the game had been building online. At midnight on December 10, 1993, after working for 30 straight hours, the development team at id uploaded the first episode of the game to the internet, letting interested players distribute it for them. So many users were connected to the first network that they planned to upload the game to—the University of Wisconsin–Parkside FTP network—that even after the network administrator increased the number of connections while on the phone with Wilbur, id was unable to connect, forcing them to kick all other users off to allow id to upload the game. When the upload finished thirty minutes later, 10,000 people attempted to download the game at once, crashing the university's network. Within hours, other university networks were banning "Doom" multiplayer games, as a rush of players overwhelmed their systems.
Relic was started in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada by Alex Garden and Luke Moloney in 1997. Their first title, "Homeworld", was released on September 28, 1999 to critical acclaim and successful sales. Though they did not immediately continue working on the franchise (Sierra Entertainment, the game's publisher, owned the rights), the game did have a spin-off, "", developed by Barking Dog Studios and published by Sierra.
"Age of Empires", released on October 26, 1997, was the first game in the series, as well as the first major release from Ensemble Studios. It was one of the first history-based real-time strategy games made, utilizing the Genie game engine. GameSpot described it as a mix of "Civilization" and "". The game gives players a choice of 12 civilizations to develop from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. The expansion pack, "The Rise of Rome", published by Microsoft on October 31, 1998, introduced new features and four new civilizations, including the Romans. Although the two games had contained many software bugs, patches resolved many of the problems.
The game originated as an entry in the 2013 7 Day FPS Challenge, which Superhot Team expanded into a browser-based demonstration that September. Widespread attention from the demonstration prompted the team to develop out the full game, using Kickstarter to secure funding to complete the title. "Superhot" was released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux in February 2016. An Xbox One version was released in May 2016, and a PlayStation 4 version was released in July 2017. A rebuilt version of the game to better support virtual reality, Superhot VR, was later released for the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR headset devices. A standalone expansion, Superhot: Mind Control Delete, which utilizes roguelike elements such as procedural generation and permadeath, is planned for a 2018 release and became available through early access in December 2017.
The first two games in the series, "Castle Wolfenstein" and "Beyond Castle Wolfenstein", were stealth-based and featured a 2D top-down perspective. The third game in the franchise, "Wolfenstein 3D", developed by id Software, introduced a first-person perspective with faster-paced action. Because of this, it is widely regarded to have helped popularize the first-person shooter genre. In 2001, the series was rebooted with "Return to Castle Wolfenstein", developed by Gray Matter Interactive. It was followed in 2003 by "", by Splash Damage. Raven Software's "Wolfenstein" followed in 2009. After ZeniMax Media acquired id Software, Swedish developer MachineGames released "" in 2014 and a standalone expansion "" in 2015. A direct sequel to "The New Order" entitled "" was released on October 27, 2017.
At release, "Wolfenstein: The New Order" received generally positive reviews, with praise particularly directed at the combat and the narrative of the game. Critics considered it a positive change to the series and nominated it for multiple year-end accolades, including Game of the Year and Best Shooter awards from several gaming publications. A stand-alone expansion was released in May 2015, set before the events of the game and entitled "". A sequel, "", was released in October 2017.
"Gears of War" was an immediate hit upon its release. On November 7, 2006—the day that it was released—it became the most popular game on the Xbox Live service, until the release of "Halo 3", overtaking "Halo 2" which had held the spot since its launch in November 2004. "Gears" was the second most-played game on the Xbox Live service throughout 2007. "Gears of War" sold one million copies in its first two weeks on sale making it the fastest-selling Xbox 360 game to date. By January 19, 2007, just ten weeks after its debut, over three million units of the game had been sold. It received a "Double Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 600,000 copies in the United Kingdom. As of November 7, 2008, the game has sold 5.88 million copies worldwide. "Gears of War" was also the first Xbox or Xbox 360 game to sell out and reach the top ten charts in Japan.
The World Wide Web Worm (WWWW) was one of the earliest search engines for the World Wide Web (WWW). It is claimed by some to be the first search engine, though it was not released until March 1994, by which time a number of other search engines had been made publicly available. It was developed in September 1993 by Oliver McBryan at the University of Colorado as a research project.
"" is the sixth main game in the "Guitar Hero" series, released by Activision to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii consoles in September 2010. The game was developed by Activision's subsidiary studios RedOctane, Neversoft, and Vicarious Visions; the latter provided support for additional features in the Wii version of the game. Following a decline in sales of music games in 2009, partially due to the large number of music games released that year, Activision scaled back their efforts in the "Guitar Hero" series. "Warriors of Rock" represents the final game developed by RedOctane and Neversoft. Both studios' respective "Guitar Hero" divisions were closed once the game was complete, with key personnel brought into Activision directly for future games. It was initially announced that Vicarious Visions would take over future game development of the "Guitar Hero" series, however due to declining music game sales, all further development of the "Guitar Hero" series was cancelled, until 2015 when "Guitar Hero Live" was released.
Epic Games had released "Fortnite", a cooperative survival game, into early access near the release of "Battlegrounds". Epic saw the potential to create their own battle royale mode, and by September 2017, released the free-to-play "Fortnite Battle Royale" which combined some of the survival elements and mechanics from the main "Fortnite" game with the Battle Royale gameplay concept. The game saw similar player counts as "Battlegrounds", with twenty million unique players reported by Epic Games by November 2017. Bluehole expressed concern at this move, less due to being a clone of "Battlegrounds", but more so that they had been working with Epic Games for technical support of the Unreal Engine in "Battlegrounds", and thus they were worried that "Fortnite" may be able to include planned features to their battle royale mode before they could release those in "Battlegrounds". "Battleground" developer, PUBG Corporation, filed a lawsuit against Epic in South Korea in January 2018 claiming "Fortnite Battle Royale" infringements on "Battlegrounds" copyrights. By the end of June 2018, the lawsuit had been closed by PUBG, under undisclosed reasons.
The "Wolfenstein" series of video games started with the 1981 stealth-adventure video game "Castle Wolfenstein". It was developed by American programmer Silas Warner, a pioneer in the early eras of video gaming, especially the stealth genre. It was published by his (then) company M.U.S.E. Inc. (Muse Software). The player controls an unnamed American prisoner of war as he steals war files containing information about secret German war plans while avoiding or sometimes killing guards, and tries to escape the fortified Nazi stronghold Castle Wolfenstein, set during World War II. The game is often credited as one of the first video games of the stealth genre, since it focuses more on avoiding or disarming enemies, and killing them is considered a last resort.
World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade is the first expansion set for the MMORPG "World of Warcraft". It was released on January 16, 2007 at local midnight in Europe and North America, selling nearly 2.4 million copies on release day alone and making it, at the time, the fastest-selling PC game released at that point. Approximately 3.53 million copies were sold in the first month of release, including 1.9 million in North America, over 100,000 copies in Australasia, and nearly 1.6 million in Europe.
The 2D animation style of "Warcraft Adventures" was chosen to maintain visual consistency with the "Warcraft" strategy games, a major concern of Blizzard's. This was in contrast to the pre-rendered 3D graphics featured in certain other games of the time, including "", whose 2D artwork had been drawn overtop pre-rendered 3D models. When it was announced in March 1997, "Warcraft Adventures" was slated to include above 40,000 individual animation frames, 70 characters and 60 areas for the player to visit. Around 20 minutes' worth of animated cutscenes were ultimately created for the game. The quality of Animation Magic's output was a concern for Blizzard, and the team had difficulty keeping the Russian team in line with the "anal-retentive" attention to detail of the Irvine team, according to Roper. Blizzard's Micky Neilson later recalled a moment early in the project when Metzen, alongside artists Samwise Didier and Ron Millar, traveled to the Russian office to coordinate with the animators. He noted that Blizzard had been unable to convey its directions remotely, and that "the art improved [after the visit], though it still had a ways to go before reaching Blizzard quality." Didier and Metzen continued to put long hours into managing the Russian team through early 1997; in Neilson's view, the project began "taking a lot longer than expected." Later that year, Roper reported that Blizzard felt the art was coming out well.
Blizzard routinely applies older expansions to all accounts as new expansions are released. On June 28, 2011, "The Burning Crusade" expansion was automatically applied to all previous "Warcraft" accounts at no cost. On September 19, 2012, the same thing was done with the "Wrath of the Lich King" expansion, and on October 15, 2013 the "Cataclysm" expansion was also applied. On October 15, 2014, "Mists of Pandaria" was applied to all accounts following the release of Warlords. On May 17, 2016, "Warlords of Draenor" was applied to all accounts to coincide with the release of the Warcraft movie that gives a 30-day trial of the game.
All "The Burning Crusade", "Wrath of the Lich King", "Cataclysm", "Mists of Pandaria" and "Warlords of Draenor" content is now effectively part of the original game, with all new "World of Warcraft" accounts automatically including these expansions upon creation. As of the pre-patch release of "Battle for Azeroth" in July 2018, all expansions up to "Legion" are included in the base game.
The game was released in November 1994. Although reviews did not appear until months later, in "Dragon" Paul Murphy described the game as "great fun – absorbing and colorful," and Scott Love praised its solid strategy, simple interface and fantasy theme. "Warcraft: Orcs & Humans" won "PC Gamer"’s Editors' Choice Award, "Computer Life"’s Critics' Pick and the Innovations Award at the Consumer Electronics Show, Winter 1995. It was a finalist for "Computer Gaming World"’s Premier award, "PC Gamer"’s Strategy Game of the Year and the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences's Best Strategy award. In 1996, "Computer Gaming World" declared "Warcraft" the 125th-best computer game ever released.