Windows 2.0 and World of Warcraft Coming (PCGH Retro, November 23)

Source: http://www.winhistory.de



…1987: Even if Windows 1.0 wasn’t a particularly great success: On November 23, 1987, Microsoft launched a successor to the graphical DOS interface, Windows 2.0 – more precisely 2.03. Among other things, the new version allows overlapping windows for the first time, supports new technical standards with VGA and PS/2 mice and, in the special version /386, uses some of the functions of Intel’s latest processor at the time. Windows 2 is the last Windows generation that can still be started from floppy disks, all later versions require installation on a hard disk. Thanks to some applications that benefit from the graphical user interface including mouse control – including Pagemaker and Excel, and later also Word – Windows 2 sells significantly better than the first generation, but a real breakthrough comes only with the successor Windows 3.
For more information, see the articles Windows 1.0 and Windows Through the Ages.

… 2004: Just in time for the 10th anniversary of the successful “Warcraft” brand, Blizzard is launching an MMORPG called World of Warcraft, which in record time not only became Blizzard’s cash cow, but also the most successful online game in the years that followed. role-playing game for massive amounts of players. Around six years after it was first published in 2004, World of Warcraft has around 12 million paying players in 2010 and is about to have its third expansion called “Cataclysm” after The Burning Crusade in 2007 and Wrath of the Lich King in 2008 upgraded the base game for the numerous fans. With Cataclysm, a current API, namely DirectX 11, is optionally available for the first time in WoW. Due to increasing alternatives in the field of – partly free – MMOs, however, the number of players is falling and reaches a low of around 9.1 million subscribers before the release of Mists of Pandaria. After MoP, however, the number of WoW payers climbs back over the 10 million mark.