World of Warcraft Hits 9 Million Users

By Nick Mokey July 25, 2007

The pool of World of Warcraft diehards just keeps getting bigger. Although the game is going on three years old, it has only become more popular with time: Blizzard reported Tuesday that the game now has 9 million subscribers worldwide.

To lend some perspective, that’s greater than the population of all five boroughs of New York City (8.2 million as of 2006), and right about equal with the population of Sweden (9 million as of 2004). World of Warcraft fans, banded together, could overfill a metropolis or populate their own country.

"We’re thrilled that gamers around the world have continued to embrace World of Warcraft so enthusiastically," said Mike Morhaime, president and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment,in a statement. "We’ve worked hard to provide a compelling experience for our players, and we plan to continue updating the game with exciting new content for them to enjoy for many years to come."

According to Blizzard, World of Warcraft is the most popular massive online role-playing game (MMORPG) in the world. It was a best selling PC game for 2005 and 2006, and the Burning Crusade expansion pack broke industry records by selling 2.4 million copies in 24 hours.

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World of Warcraft Shadowlands dungeon guide: How to fight through Plaguefall

wow shadowlands plaguefall dungeon boss guide

Toward the end of your romp through World of Warcraft's new Maldraxxus zone, a region of the Shadowlands caught in its own civil war, you’ll make your move on the desecrated land of Plaguefall. The former House of Plagues is home to the now utterly nuts Margrave Stradama, who needs putting down.

It’s a dungeon filled to the brim with poison clouds and goop-covered floors, making movement a big part of the trick to surviving its tunnels. It's a tough one to heal, but everyone playing their part can make it far easier than it sometimes looks. Here’s the complete guide of Plaguefall boss strats.
How to unlock
Much like the first dungeon of the expansion -- The Necrotic Wake -- Plaguefall is unlocked simply by hitting a certain level. In this case, 54. On top of that, you'll need to have an average item level of 100 to enter, after which you'll be free to queue as and when you please.

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World of Warcraft: Shadowlands dungeon guide: How to survive the Necrotic Wake

wow shadowlands necrotic wake dungeon boss guide

The Necrotic Wake is the first dungeon you'll likely wander into during the Shadowlands story campaign. If you haven’t played World of Warcraft in a good couple of years, you might be surprised to hear you can’t just “tank and spank” your way through it. It’s not exactly on Heroic or Mythic level difficulty, but ignore the not-so-obvious boss mechanics, and you could end up spending 10 minutes fighting just one of them. Here’s the complete Necrotic Wake boss guide with every strategy you need to know.
How to unlock
Before we dive right into detailing the various bosses in the dungeon, it’s important to know how to unlock it. The Necrotic Wake unceremoniously unlocks as soon as you hit level 51. In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of way, it should cycle through the center of the screen as you hit 51, letting you quietly know that it’s there to explore.

That being said, you won’t receive a quest to dig into it until around level 53 and plodding through Bastion. What this means, though, is that you’re free to run it out of order to grab your Daily Dungeon reward for a wedge of EXP and a good chunk of change. Just don't be surprised if the story makes absolutely no sense just yet.
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World of Warcraft’s new leveling gives reason to play without watching Netflix

world of warcraft new leveling experience rework good wow shadowlands opinion 01

At Blizzcon 2019, in a simpler time, Blizzard outlined its plans to make World of Warcraft feel like an RPG again. It was a shocking confession of failure from the minds behind the most influential western MMORPG. Blizzard promised that before the (now delayed) Shadowlands expansion release, it planned to refine the leveling experience to make every “ding” feel rewarding.

It would all start with a squish, reducing the game’s lofty maximum level of 120 down to a measly 60 -- the lowest cap since "vanilla" World of Warcraft (now known as Classic) launched 16 years ago.