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I've never played "World of Warcraft" but it's a game whose reputation precedes it.  It is the standard bearer for all MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) and also the standard bearer for the stereotype of the anti-social gaming loser who forsakes human contact to live in a world of fantasy.  With over 11.5 million subscribers, the game is slightly popular and would probably rake in some big box office.  But the appeal of an open-world game like this is to craft your own character and tell your own story.  With that in mind, I say "good luck" to Oscar-nominated screenwriter Robert Rodat who now has the task of writing a single, non-playable plot line for director Sam Raimi's adaptation of "World of Warcraft".  Take a break from grinding up your avatar's level and hit the jump for what Raimi and Rodat have in store for the horde(s) of devoted players.

MTV Movies Blog can confirm that Robert Rodat has come on board to write "World of Warcraft" and can also confirm that it will be an original story that will be faithful to the WoW universe but may or may not be about the game's central non-playable characters.  I believe it would be wise to involve those characters since gamers are used to not playing them.  To create original characters would beg the question, "Why are your made-up characters better than my made-up character?"  Then you get into the whole messy business of which characters should be this race and this class and let's keep in mind that while the followers of WoW are many, there has to be an appeal to mainstream audiences.  So Rodat and Raimi will have to walk the impossible path of being faithful to the source material and attempting to please fans who will never be happy no matter what as well as communicate a dense mythology to the uninitiated who already think the game is kind of silly.

I've washed my hands of video game movies (unless they're a trippy and *gasp* imaginative take on classic 8-bit games that eschewed stories in favor of bizarre worlds where a yellow circle tries to eat dots and fruit while avoiding ghosts) but for those who love WoW, I know you'll be keeping a close, skeptical eye on this project.

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