20 years of World of Warcraft

Happy Vault Day readers,

Hope the RNG gods treat you well.

In this week’s issue, we have:

• Up to 85% increased experience gains during the anniversary event

• Fastest and Easiest Way to Complete Celebrate Good Fun Quest for the WoW 20th Anniversary Event

• The wow-head economy weekly round-up

• And more….

News

• Up to 85% increased experience gains during the anniversary event (Wowhead)

• New Hallow’s end items for 2024 (Wowhead)

• WoW Token Prices Drop and Stabilize After Brutosaur Mount Surge (Ivy-veins)

Guides

• Fastest and Easiest Way to Complete Celebrate Good Fun Quest for the WoW 20th Anniversary Event (Wowhead)

• WoW’s 20th Anniversary Bosses: The Easiest Way to Farm Veteran Gear for Tier Set Appearances in Season 1 (Icy-veins)

Economy

• The wow-head economy weekly round-up (Wowhead)

Art Spotlight

• Kahz Algar concept art (Wowhead)

The weekly animal vote winner is…

Congratulations to Ember for winning this week’s favourite pet, with that gorgeous face and beautiful heterochromia it is no surprise he is a deserving winner.

Remember to head over to the Facebook page to share images of your pet for next week’s vote.

20 years of World of Warcraft

In the U.K there are people who can buy alcohol and tobacco, drive a car, get married and have children, all who are younger than World of Warcraft.

With 2 decades of content, and millions of active players all with their own stories, let’s take a look at the last 20 years and celebrate where World of Warcraft has come from and where it is looking to go.

In 2004 World of Warcraft was released, following a 4-5 year development, Following Warcraft’s history as a group of RTS games, moving into the new MMO genre was a big risk for Blizzard. However, following positive reviews and a committed player base, the game started its journey of dominating this burgeoning video game genre.

One of the earliest viral videos based on World of Warcraft has gone down as a legend for the game. I am of course talking about Leeroy Jenkins. I’m sure all of you know about this character in WOW history, the video sees a player charge into a group of enemies before his group is ready, they then have to try and struggle with the encounter and ultimately fail. This has now entered the terminology of the genre and running in on your own before everyone is ready is now known as leeroying.

Corrupted blood. The next notable event in our history is the corrupted blood saga. This refers to a broken boss mechanic that caused realm-wide destruction for the servers. During the boss fight for Hakkar the soul flayer, Hakkar would cast a debuff on players known as corrupted blood, which would damage players while also spreading to nearby other players. This mechanic in isolation is annoying but not devastating. However a bug in the game allowed hunters pets to maintain this debuff outside of the boss fight. These pets could then spread the debuff to other players, and thus the start of the plague began. One of the biggest problems with this plague was that not only player characters could contract the debuff but NPC’s as well. Therefore the high health guards of the major cities became walking plague spreaders and would cause the major cities to become wastelands, where new players would be insta-killed and useful NPCs could no longer be accessed. This unintended event would actually be used as a model to look at real-world disease spreading.

The first expansion for the game was the Burning Crusade, released in 1/16/2007, this expansion included two new races: Blood elves for the horde and Draneo for the alliance. Other major features included a new world to level in and explore, and the first inclusion of flying mounts to the game. The expansion was met with positive reviews and continues to grow the game’s player base. In January 2008 the game broke 10 million subs.

The second expansion is Wrath of the lich king, released on 13/11/2008, Moving into the north of the world with a new continent on Noerthrend, this expansion reintroduced a major character in Warcraft’s history Arthas Menathil. As well as the game’s first hero class the Death Knight. Again this expansion met with favourable reviews, praising the game’s narrative direction.

The Third Expansion Cataclysm was released on 7/12/2010. This expansion saw a rework of the old zones of the origin continents as well as some new zones added in, to flesh these areas out. The expansion came with two new races: Goblins for the Horde and Worgen for the Alliance. Another feature was the expansion of certain race/class combinations such as the Tauren Paladin. Again another positive release for the game and by February 2012 it saw 12 million subs.

WOW’s fourth expansion was Mists of Pandaria on 25/09/2012. Added the first neutral race to both Horde and Alliance, the Pandaren, as well as a new class the monk. This was the start of problems for the game with increasing time between patches and expansion, the player base was beginning to get frustrated with the lack of content, with sub numbers slowly decreasing for the first time in the history of the game.

Warlords of Draenor came on 13/11/2014. This marked a new era for the game and introduced an update to the now 10-year-old player models, as well as other graphical updates to the game. However due to the much-needed updates the game needed this took away development time for any new races or classes, which only added to the player's frustration with new content. This along with a slow content cadence for the expansion saw some negative reviews for the game.

WOW ended this era of the game with one of its most beloved expansions: Legion which was released on 30/08/2016. This expansion saw the return of a major enemy in Warcraft history: the burning legion. As well as a new hero class the demon hunter. But the most notable addition in this expansion was the addition of artefact weapons, which allowed your character to acquire a legendary weapon from Warcraft history and work to make it stronger throughout your progress during the expansion. This was met very favourably among the players, however, this was the start of the borrowed power problem that would plague the game for the next few expansions.

The seventh expansion for the game was: Battle of Azeroth which was released on 14/08/2018. This expansion was the first inclusion of allied races in the game. Allied races were new races that resembled the core races of the game but with a new flavour and would be unlocked by completing elements of the game. While these races were received well, the expansion is not remembered fondly due to its reliance on the borrowed power system, where Azerite power would be used to unlock new powers and stats. However, like Legion when the expansion ends this power is lost which was not a rewarding system for the player base.

Unfortunately, this is the time when we must mention Shadowlands, released on 23/11/2020. This is widely accepted to be the lowest point in World of Warcraft’s history. The reasons for this are multiple. First of all the needed “level squish” felt like a punishment to committed players (previously the level cap in BOA was 120, with the new level cap being 60), and the story direction was convoluted and poorly executed and received by players. The borrowed power system continued whilst being hated by players, and the long downtime between content continued. All of this along with controversial real-world issues with the company, meant that World of Warcraft saw its lowest-ever subscriber numbers and real trouble for the game.

Dragonflight, released on 28/11/2022, was the start of a new direction for the game and its redemption. Dragonflight included a new allied race and class the Dracthyr Evoker. A new flight system Dragonriding and a new story which was less “world-ending” than Shadowlands. Following a restructure at Blizzard, faster content cadence and what appeared to be a real appreciation and listening to the player base, the game started climbing out of the hole that Shadowlands had put it in.

Now we are at The War Within, released on 26/08/2024. This is the beginning of the World Soul Saga, a three-expansion narrative expansion with a beginning, middle and (hopefully) end. Introducing more evergreen content (moving away from borrowed power) with Delves, applying hero talents and expanding the popular skyriding (formally dragon riding) system. The expansion has so far been positively received and is being hailed as the game ”coming back”.

Looking at the future things are looking good. While we know that things can change very quickly the game is in a good place. It is clear looking at the history, that the game is very different now than what it used to be, but this needed to happen and the game has changed with time and must do so. Staying the same and relying on old concepts working nearly killed the game. But a dedicated player base and Blizzard’s willingness to listen and change, are leading to a prosperous future for the franchise.

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