Few games ever enjoy the level of pre-release hype that Blizzard’s long-anticipated World of Warcraft has seen already. Following Squaresoft’s lead with their release of Final Fantasy XI, Blizzard took their blockbuster franchise and transplanted it into the financially lucrative MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) genre. In so doing, they’ve created an uncharacteristically large following. Their promise of a beta on an unprecedented scale has also done much to stir the interest of the average ‘Joe Gamer’, and not without good reason. The game is impressive on all counts, and unlike most games in the upper echelons of the hype-machine, WoW actually looks set to deliver.