
It also created the Warcraft Expanded Universe. It shifted the Warcraft universe's storytelling from RTS to MMORPG, retconned some of the backstory developed by the previous games and continues the universe's story after the end of The Frozen Throne. The success of Warcraft III eventually gave birth to World of Warcraft in 2004, which grows with a new expansion every two years on average. This ended up indirectly creating the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena genre, with Defense of the Ancients as prototype/originator. Blizzard focused on online play and custom games, believing them to be an important part of the Real-Time Strategy experience. In terms of gameplay, its many innovative features really pushed the series ahead of its competitors in both game play and sales. The franchise began life as a hopeful Warhammer Fantasy game, which accounts for certain similarities in aesthetic and lore, but the studio was having trouble negotiating licensing rights, and the developers became more interested in owning their intellectual property and creating their own world, so Blizzard scrapped the Warhammer angle and Warcraft was born. Most notably, its narrative led to the creation of Blizzard Orcs. Taking place primarily in the magical world of Azeroth, Warcraft chronicles the many fantastical wars between men and orcs, ( not to mention a gallery of elves, dwarves, the undead, demons, Lovecraftian horrors.) often with greater political strife, betrayal and a healthy dose of moral ambiguity in the background.

While Dune II is considered the Trope Codifier of the Real-Time Strategy genre, Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft series was one of the franchises that popularized it. Yes, there were Warcraft games before World of Warcraft.
