These are the 25 greatest moments in World of Warcraft history!
Here are our top 25World of Warcraftmoments, in-game and IRL, of the last 10+ years.
The Blood Plague
Ebola aint got nothing onCorrupted Blood.
Befitting its status, obtaining Thunderfury was no simple task.
A player will ask, Did someone say Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker?
(Some might argue that this IS trades intended purpose, but I digress.)
The video was released by guild PALS FOR LIFE in 2005.
The group goes over an in-depth analysis of the upcoming battle, calculating their odds of survival.
Sadly for the group, Leeroy walked away from the keyboard and never heard the plan.
Jenkins quotes of LEEEROOOY!
and At least I have chicken are still widely quoted by the player base today.
So starts one of the most epic recordings of a raid inWoWs history.
What makes this recording so special is that unlike Leeroy, it really happened.
Dives screaming of phrases like Many whelps!
and 50 DKP Minus!
quickly found their way into the lexicon of everyWoWplayer.
Gentlemen, we are dealing with someone here who has absolutely no life.
One of the first original movies featuring in-game graphics to really take off was called Illegal Danish Super Snacks.
The machinima film by Myndflame won multiple awards in a contest held by Blizzard and Xfire.
Illegal Danish features many memorable quotes (ARCANITE REAPER…. that players started using in-game.
The success of Illegal Danish and other early works led to an explosion ofWoWmachinima films on sites likeWarcraftMovies.
One of the earliest zones to see Alliance vs.
Horde bloodshed was Hillsbrad Foothills.
so you can hit the top ranks, some gamers played for 16 to 20 hours every day.
Hitting Grand Marshal or High Warlord was a sign that you were truly hardcore.
As such, AV was immensely popular with the player base.
What made the battle truly epic in the beginning was that one match could literally go on seemingly forever.
It wasnt uncommon for the typical Alterac Valley to last for several hours.
The most epic battles would literally take up much of your day.
It sounds like a fun idea, but in practice, it was a real headache.
Read More: Why Warcraft Adventures Was Canceled
I Can Fly, I Can Fly!
Adding flight is arguably one of the biggest changes toWoWs gameplay over its 10 year history.
Blizzard may be attempting to fix some of these issues in Draenor.
It sounds like we might be getting an experience that harkens back to the days of classicWoW.
Only the Alliance had the Paladin class, and only the Horde had Shamans.
While this was fun from a lore perspective, it created some problems with game balance.
In the end though, both factions have seemed to accept the new roles over time.
Still, the long attunement quest was well-received by much of the player base.
Even the most difficult 5 man dungeon can be taken down eventually with enough persistence.
Blizzard continued its attunement requirements for later raids inThe Burning Crusade, but with mixed results.
This shift from hardcore attunement requirements to eventually letting everyone in would be a precursor of things to come.
Thats a lesson that some other MMOs (coughWildstarcough) still havent learned.
DuringBC, one area of machinima that really took off was music videos.
Nyhm of Madcow Studios took popular modern songs and rewrote the lyrics to be aboutWorld of Warcraft.
Read More: Is Warcraft the Most Influential Game of All Time?
Ezra was a young boy who was dying of cancer.
Blizzard rolled out the red carpet for Ezra and let him be a developer for a day.
Ezra was allowed to create his own unique quest, which was added to the game.
Ezras creation of Ahab Wheathoof remains in the game near Thunder Bluff today.
Ezra passed away in 2008, but his story touched millions ofWoWgamers around the world.
For a while after release, many players became absolutely obsessed with earning points.
Blizzard began designing not just multiple raid sizes but also multiple raid difficulties.
Ulduars raid had special mechanics that had to be triggered so you can activate the hard mode.
as the start of what the game has turned into today.
That all changed with the release of the Dungeon Finder inLich King.
With the click of a button,World of Warcraftnow offered matchmaking for its most popular content.
(Evidence: Any MMO that releases without dungeon matchmaking today has already shot itself in the foot.
LikeStar Wars: The Old Republic, at launch.)
But overall, the changes were seen as an improvement to the world at large.
Introduction of Transmog
And all of a sudden, everyone was playing dress-up.
It has had admittedly more mixed results.
So the Raid Finder is intentionally tuned to be a cake walk.
The dynamics of throwing 25 random people together sometimes dont turn out that well.
People intentionally troll each other and fight and argue simply because there are no real consequences.
You dont know these 24 other people, and youll likely never see most of them again.
But its Connected Realms feature shows that even the behemoth that isWoWcan suffer from low server population.
But as the player base has decreased in size, some of those servers have become ghost towns.
The Connected Realms feature has served to rejuvenate some life back into previously dead servers.
Blizzard came up with a fun battle system in which players pets could do battle with each other.
As ifWoWandPokemonarent both addicting enough by themselves… Now we canPokemonwhile weWoW, or is itWoWwhile wePokemon?
Either way, the addiction is never ending.
One player, however, decided that he didnt want to be forced into making that choice.
This article was originally published on November 6, 2014.
