In 2004, Holly Longdale was a game designer on EverQuest, then the champion of a new genre of video game that allowed for multiplayer role-playing on a huge scale. In these online fantasy worlds, players could quest together rather than alone, adding a fascinating new social – and competitive – dimension to the static, offline role-playing that Holly's generation had grown up with. But whenever she could, Longdale would sneak in a few hours playing EverQuest's main competitor instead. That game was World of Warcraft (WoW). "There were so many moments in WoW I was envious of," she says, "and completely lost in. I remember running through Ashenvale as a Night Elf Hunter and the music and the ambience – there was a mood you couldn't deny. Then I saw another player running in the opposite direction, a Druid who buffed me on their way by. That was when I knew I was going to be in this for the long-haul."

World of Warcraft has an enduring identity problem. What was once one of the biggest games in the world is now approaching its 20th birthday, and with every year that goes by, developer Blizzard has the unenviable challenge of trying to prove that WoW still has a place in today's gaming world. This goes some way to explaining the many times that Blizzard has tried to reinvent WoW. Six years after its initial release, the developer attempted a radical do-over of the game's world in 2010's Cataclysm expansion, in which an ancient dragon ravaged and reshaped the realm of Azeroth (an experience you can relive through the recently relaunched Cataclysm Classic). Since then, Blizzard has experimented with numerous gimmicks to try to keep WoW current, including a now much-maligned mechanic that saw players building their power level for two years, only to lose that power at the end of every expansion cycle.

Recently, I've spent quite a lot of time pondering what an orc would look like with an afro. This, naturally, led to contemplation of an axe-afro-comb combo, and whether such a contraption would fall under blacksmithing or engineering. That's because I've been playing Shadowlands, the eighth expansion to World of Warcraft. For Warcraft fans, there's a lot to be excited about: the new game allows players to explore the afterlife – reviving classic characters such as Kael'thas Sunstrider – and introduces a new style of play in Torghast, a deliciously punishing dungeon that changes each time you visit. There's also a clear recruiting drive for new players with a simplified introduction, more straightforward questing and reconfigured character growth, all aimed at making this venerable and complex game less daunting.

Every so often I get the urge to travel to the Caverns of Time dungeon in World of Warcraft and behold one of the game's rarest creatures. Instead, this once-endangered species is a portly human mage who ambles down shady lanes in the Hillsbrad Foothills. So far as anyone knew, he was the only fat human in the game for at least a decade, and damn if he didn't make a potbelly look good. He carried himself with the poise of a king. He didn't give a flip what you thought of his paunch-friendly shirt.

World of Warcraft allows players to dive into a vast fantasy realm populated with players from around the world. Together they battle to survive alongside dragons, trolls and warlocks - even on Christmas Day. Video games have long proved a formidable force in capturing the hearts, imaginations and wallets of people all over the world. The most immersive gaming experience, according to its fans, is World of Warcraft and in Azeroth, where the game is set, even Christmas Day is celebrated with turkey feasts, snowball fights and presents under a tree. In a time where many of us spend more time online, what does it mean to celebrate 25 December in a virtual world?

In our age of divisiveness, World of Warcraft's Battle for Azeroth expansion begins with a premise that cuts deep. Greed (and quite a bit of petty hate) led the Horde to burn the Night Elves' tree city a few weeks before launch, potentially killing thousands. The Alliance sought revenge, leading to an assault on its old capital of Lordaeron. And all because a godlike figure thrust his gigantic sword into Azeroth itself, causing a powerful new substance called Azerite to erupt from its core through fissures and even small volcanoes, spread over the entire world. At a time when everyone should have been working together, suddenly everyone was at each other's throats.

August is supposed to mire video gamers in the doldrums as they wait for the arrival of the first of the big Fall releases in September. The outlook for RPG fans is not so bleak. This August World of Warcraft gets a new expansion, the Switch gets a new Monster Hunter game while the PC gets a port of Monster Hunter World, and the first DLC packs arrive for the second games in the Pillars of Eternity and Ni No Kuni series. The RPGs on the horizon are both promising and varied. Here's what August has in store for players who enjoy RPGs.

With August 14 approaching fast, fans of World of Warcraft are eagerly awaiting the release of Battle for Azeroth, the seventh expansion in the mega-hit MMORPG. WoW was first released in 2004, and in the fourteen years since, expansions and patches have introduced iconic features like flight (Burning Crusade), the dungeon finder (Wrath of the Lich King), transmogrification (Cataclysm), garrisons (Warlords of Draenor), and artifact weapons (Legion). Battle of Azeroth will introduce two new continents, as well as gameplay features like island expeditions, in which players can compete against artificial intelligence bots in fulfilling objectives. "Each new expansion we add to the game, we're looking to expand the core of the game the players have come to know and love over all these years, but also add brand new ways of playing the game, new features, new types of gameplay, new challenges to undertake, and a fresh look at a game that seeks to reinvent itself every couple of years," says Ion Hazzikostas, the game director on World of Warcraft at Blizzard Entertainment. But that's not always easy to do.

Today's surprise installment in the World of Warcraft end-of-expansion story for Legion means that time is truly running out for the things you want to do with your characters before Battle for Azeroth launches August 13-14. Today's events set the stage for major changes in the game, including the expansion pre-patch, which will include all the game systems, cosmetic and other changes for the new expansion - basically, everything but the content in the expansion's new zones. There has been no official announcement of the prepatch launch date, but if I were a betting woman, I'd say July 10 looks awfully likely. That gives you in the neighborhood of two weeks to get your undone achievements and other Legion-era goodies done before the game changes and they go away. Fortunately, today's storyline quests charge your weapons up to 126 Artifact Power, so you're in better shape than ever before to take them on.

Hordes (and Alliances) of people descended on Anaheim this week for BlizzCon 2017, taking over the newly expanded Anaheim Convention Center for news on World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, and StarCraft II. The first announcement of the day was important enough that we broke it out into its own article, but might as well recap here too: StarCraft II is going free-to-play...sort-of. There are quite a few restrictions in that statement. On the campaign side, only 2010's Wings of Liberty campaign is going free--though if you own Wings of Liberty you'll get Heart of the Swarm instead. The versus side is even more confusing.