Later players would call Warcraft 4 the watershed moment for Blizzard, the former being Blizzard's golden age and the latter its monetization era. They would then vehemently declare that Blizzard changed starting with Warcraft 4, becoming extremely focused on monetization, and lament that the entire gaming world had become increasingly obsessed with money, where one could no longer enjoy a complete gaming experience without it.
Some players even designated Warcraft 4 as the turning point of the global gaming era, simply because the game was so incredibly profitable.
After users downloaded the game for free, they entered the city. The city itself was sparsely populated, with only a few cats and dogs. Apart from a rudimentary thatched hut and a fence, there was nothing else. There were no shops open.
The only NPC in the city would then tell them that this was the Heroic Spirit Space created by the great Titans, and that players were the last surviving Titans. From here, players could descend into the mortal realm and experience the various stories and adventures of Azeroth.
Then, the player would be led to the center of the city, where they would find a majestic, hundreds-of-meters-tall giant gate. After entering the gate, players could choose to play the game's campaign or directly engage in cross-realm matchmaking battles.
As for the game's storyline, there's not much to say. Due to Mr. Huang's involvement, the script for the Warcraft project has always been handled by the original writer, and there were no changes in scriptwriters. Therefore, from the first DLC of World of Warcraft, "The Titan's Body," the entire historical storyline of World of Warcraft completely diverged from the previous life.
The plot of Warcraft 4 centered around the human hero Jaina gathering soldiers on the new continent, forming an alliance with Thrall, and then allying with the blood elves. Finally, they would lead their troops to counter-attack the continent of Lordaeron, using the power of the Titans to purify the Burning Legion.
Simply put, it was a standard story of revenge, reclaiming the throne, and defeating enemies. Although it might not have matched the narrative depth of the Warcraft storyline in another world, this plot was praised for its catharsis. Especially when Thrall and Jaina joined forces to defeat Arthas, who had become the leader of the Burning Legion, and the awakened Arthas, after realizing his misdeeds, decided to sacrifice himself to push the entire Burning Legion away from Azeroth. Thus, the story of Warcraft 4 concluded, leaving all players from the third generation with fond memories of their youth.
Well, there's no need to worry about the later plot of Warcraft, as Mr. Huang has already prepared a brand new story arc that involves the collision of two universes. This will become the most epic poem in the history of online gaming, but that's a story for another time.
Anyway, the plot progression remained largely the same as in the third installment, with each race having its own storyline. Each storyline could unlock a building and a unit, and by completing each race's storyline, a complete narrative thread would be formed.
Of course, there were also some Easter egg campaigns, which are not worth mentioning. While these campaigns might not have been exceptionally brilliant, they were not significantly inferior to those in the third installment. Additionally, there were innovations in unit design, so players were very satisfied with the story and campaigns in the fourth installment.
Especially when they discovered that after completing each campaign, they could automatically bring the unlocked buildings, units, and heroes into their own Titan City, gradually making the city more vibrant. Upon completing the campaign, they could stroll through the city and interact with the story characters at any time.
This experience left all players enthralled. At this time, Warcraft 4 held the top spot on various gaming magazines and charts with scores above 9.5, even surpassing the rating of its predecessor, Warcraft 3.
However, soon many players realized they had been tricked. Although the campaign storyline was designed to last for a total of 40 hours, which was quite long for a real-time strategy game at the time, as RTS games typically did not focus on the campaign.
A 40-hour campaign would generally take an ordinary player one to two weeks to complete, considering that players also had to work.
But the fervor ignited by Warcraft 4 was too intense, and the game itself was truly thrilling. Especially the various reward buildings and NPCs provided for the city, which greatly stimulated players' enthusiasm. Players had never imagined games could be played this way!
Consequently, many players even took leave to play the game. Within 24 hours of its release, some players had cleared all the campaign storylines.
And after 72 hours, over 30% of players had completed all campaign storylines. Within a week, over 60% of players had also completed the campaign storylines.
These players then found, to their dismay, that they could no longer make any new additions to their cities. This was because almost all game buildings and NPCs originated from the campaign storylines. Although there were still a dozen or so buildings and NPCs unlocked through achievements from skirmish and ranked matches, these rewards were too few, took too long to acquire, and most importantly, were unstable. Thus, players who particularly enjoyed the city mode, especially watching the various race maidens enter their palaces, cried out for more fresh city content!
Do you know what's the most infuriating part? The most infuriating part is that these maidens were either wearing thick armor or long robes, with only their arms and ankles exposed.
Even the elven female warriors, who wore only leather armor, were fully armored. It was outrageously excessive.
It was at this point that Blizzard announced the Titan Store within the city. The store sold two types of items: blind boxes, and various buildings, NPCs, and the clothing worn by NPCs.
Among the first batch of publicly sold items, two items made all the players' eyes widen.
One was a set of apparel from all the publicly sold items: stockings, available in white and black. Their effect was to give all characters who equipped them a "white silk" appearance.
Many players imagined the scene of dressing up their night elf maidens in white silk and couldn't resist. Moreover, the price was not expensive; a pair of stockings only cost 500 in-game coins, less than 10 US dollars. It was hardly more expensive than buying a pair of stockings in reality!
Buy it, not buying it would be inhumane!
Thus, this became the most sought-after item in the first batch of products. It was said that every player bought at least one item, and some incredible players bought over 400 items at once, dressing up all the NPCs in their cities with stockings... including the male NPCs.
That's right, even male NPCs could wear stockings. Blizzard's attention to detail here is commendable; they truly rendered the stocking effect for all NPC character models, even tauren. Well done!
However, it's worth noting that stockings could only alter the leg model's visual effect. Therefore, if you bought stockings alone without other matching apparel, you would often see a Horde Warchief like Thrall riding a wolf, wearing heavy armor, and adorned with white silk stockings on his legs!
This was not an isolated case. Many players even bought stockings specifically for male NPCs, but their motivations remained unclear.
According to incomplete statistics, in just 4 months, Warcraft 4 sold over 100 million pairs of stockings, generating approximately 500 million US dollars in revenue from stocking sales alone.
In addition to this, another item that amazed players was the deluxe reward within the blind boxes.
First and foremost, items sold in blind boxes naturally could not be purchased through other channels; they could only be obtained by drawing from the blind boxes. The rewards from the blind boxes were significantly better than the publicly sold items. The most common reward was an NPC outfit.
Rare rewards included mounts and special NPCs. For example, the special NPC in the first batch was King Terenas Menethil of Lordaeron, who had already died in Warcraft 3 and thus could not appear in Titan City through the campaign. However, if you drew from the blind box, you could obtain the tragic king.
Some might think that this King of Lordaeron was not famous enough to drive blind box sales. However, the reality was the opposite. Terenas triggered a considerable consumption wave, with many players purchasing blind boxes solely to obtain the King of Lordaeron.
This was due to a player who invented a rather nefarious way of playing.
First, it's worth praising the freedom of Titan City. Within Titan City, there was an arena building. As the king, players could freely arrange the NPCs who would fight in the arena, or even personally enter the arena to duel with an NPC.
Meanwhile, Arthas automatically joined Titan City as an NPC after completing all major quests. Therefore, players could set Arthas and Terenas as the two NPCs to fight in the arena, and then players could sit in the VIP box of the arena, smiling as they watched this father and son engage in a brutal battle once more.
It is worth noting that since all heroes appeared in their prime when entering Titan City, and Arthas had shed his Lich King state, both opponents were human heroes and were considered evenly matched in terms of physical constitution.
Therefore, when these two heroes clashed, it was no longer a son assassinating his father, but rather the old father overpowering his son, beating Arthas to the point where he couldn't even lift his head. These two NPCs also had their own dialogue. After defeating his son, the old father would proudly declare, "Your dad will always be your dad!"
You can imagine the enormous reaction this video would cause among players when it appeared online.
However, this was still far from the deluxe rewards in this batch of blind boxes. This batch's deluxe reward was a building, meaning a special building that could only be obtained from blind boxes: the Li Qiu Courtyard.
Ah ha, upon hearing this name, readers will immediately understand what this place is.
Well, some might think this is a case of selling dog meat with a sheep's head. Many online games in China also have similar buildings, but when you look inside, the NPCs are dressed more and more conservatively, and it's not exciting at all.
Indeed, in China and other countries with strict controls in this area, even though the Chinese version of Warcraft 4 also had this special building reward, all the female or male NPCs inside were dressed more conservatively than each other, and each was a professional who sold their skills but not themselves.
However, players could still watch these NPCs from various races sing, dance, or even play musical instruments, showcasing their talents, which was still a worthwhile experience.
But there are also some countries with few restrictions, at most requiring slight modifications. Therefore, in these cities, this special building is truly...
Alright, by this point, you should understand how terrifying the sales of this blind box were.