4) World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft: Legion cinematic trailer introduces the latest expansion for the already massive MMORPG

Choose your side: Horde or Alliance. The two factions have been at odds for years, ever since the First War. You are a soldier for whichever side you choose, moving up through the ranks and getting more and more powerful as you go. The story of WoW is the story of its factions, and the long and short of it is that whether facing an undead scourge or an army of demons, these two factions just can’t get along.

The World of Warcraft isn’t an active-combat game. Rather, when you attack someone, your character will auto-attack and you can activate different special attacks keyed to your number bar by default. For example, I play a rogue. My guy attacks the boss with his daggers, and as I’m doing these attacks, I can activate my special: Hemorrhage, which deals bonus damage and causes a bleeding status effect so I can watch in perverse joy as my opponent slowly bleeds out. I can activate other abilities that might increase my attack speed or lower my threat level so I don’t aggro an enemy. I can completely ruin anyone’s day by using these attacks in specific orders depending on the enemy. In addition, I have some out of combat abilities, and stealth attacks like a backstab or pickpocketing.  

Every single class in the game has something similar to what I described, but tailored to that class. A ranger character will have abilities centered around his ranged weapon and battle pet, and a wizard’s abilities center around the use of spells. As well, each class has two to three specialties. I’ll use my rogue again as an example: When I got to level 10, I could choose a specialization that was most suited to my playstyle. I could choose from assassination, combat, and subtlety. Each is a vastly different play experience within one class. In short, no two characters are exactly alike in this game, and I haven’t even mentioned racial spells and abilities.

After finishing your character creation, you’re released into a truly massive world to do pretty much whatever you want. And that includes finding players of the other faction and kicking their asses. World of Warcraft has dedicated PVP servers, which means if you enter contested territory on that server, you’re automatically flagged for pvp and any passing opposite-faction player can attack you. Or you can attack them first to ensure victory for the Horde. Or, you know, Alliance, whatever.

You can also join skirmishes, which are smaller maps for pvp play without needing to be in a pvp server. Outside of skirmishes, the point of pvp is to capture territory for your faction. In Outland, the site of WoW’s first expansion, the first area had three towers you had to capture from opposing players and really helped sell the Alliance vs Horde narrative. Skirmishes are smaller scale, 2v2 or 3v3, to compete in arena style matches to earn Honor and other bonuses, which you can use to buy pvp-specialized equipment.

World of Warcraft is by far the most popular MMO in the world today, and is gaining even more players as it prepares to launch its sixth major expansion, LEGION, which sees the return of the demonic Burning Legion and the introduction of a new hero class, Demon Hunters.

Going against a dragon? Okay, man, if you really think you can.

Players facing off against the Lich King, possibly WoW's most chilling villain.