This past year saw a major milestone for one of my favorite games of all time: World of Warcraft, who crossed an very rare 20 years of uninterrupted live service.
World of Warcraft (WoW) is a special game for a variety of reasons, not just for myself, but for the game industry in general. It wasn't the first MMORPG, but it was among the first that truly popularized the genre with western audiences, making the gameplay more familiar for those used to action-oriented RPGs, reducing the grind to more palatable levels versus those that came before, built atop a truly massive world already rich with lore.
Fast forward 20 years, and WoW is a very different game, in a very different time. The game is now fully owned by Microsoft and Xbox, following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard. We're finally getting player housing for World of Warcraft, opening it up to all new audiences. The game is increasingly designed to respect players' free time, while catering more than ever to solo players and casual players, while maintaining high-end difficulty at an esports-grade level. We have multiple game modes, from World of Warcraft retail pushing the story forward, hardcore modes with perma-death, and even Classic, imitating the game as it once was 20 years ago. And what it was 20 years ago, was truly cutting edge — in more ways than one.
In honor of Leeroy Jenkins, I went digging for my own old WoW videos
World of Warcraft came out when I was 18 years old, which almost feels like another dimension to me now. Online video was only just beginning to gain traction, and World of Warcraft gameplay videos were on the forefront of this new wave of user generated content.
Web series like Pure Pwnage and the legendary Leeroy Jenkins clip also hit their 20 year anniversaries alongside WoW recently, and I went ahead over to WarcraftVideos.com (which shockingly still exists in full!) to see if my old WoW PvP videos still existed. Lo and behold, they sure do.
I dubbed this "the most boring PvP video of all time" since it was literally just me healing my Rank 14 warrior guild mates as they ran around the map mortal striking everything to death. It was supposed to be an ironic reaction to all the uber 1337 pro PvP videos flooding the web back in 2004.
What struck me in the video beyond the silly gameplay are variety of hints of simpler times. The cringy 1337 speak. The Ventrilo push-to-talk sound effect, back before we had Discord. The crushed .wmv Windows Movie Maker compression, before we had mp4 and h.264. The 4:3 aspect ratio, before widescreen monitors were widespread and affordable. My awful keyboard turning and minimal keybind usage before I learned WASD 1234. I didn't even have an RGB mouse, I'm sure.
I, like many others, was inspired by the likes of Leeroy Jenkins and others creating those early World of Warcraft "machinima" style videos as they were known back then. It led me down a rabbit hole of content creation — perhaps ironically leading me here, today, writing this silly article.
What are your fondest gaming memories?
It was roughly a year after World of Warcraft's initial launch that YouTube arrived in earnest, transforming online video delivery forever. I've since found a career on YouTube and the web across Windows Central and my own live podcast, covering gaming, like thousands of others out there. I'm incredibly grateful for the journey, but it would be a lie to say I'm not nostalgic for those simpler times, and friends I fell out of contact with.
If you'd have asked me 20 years ago if I thought I'd still be playing WoW as I approach 40, I'd have honestly said yes — but with the caveat that the game continued to get new content. I don't think I believed for a second World of Warcraft would still be around 20 years hence, while still getting truly huge new permanent gameplay features like solo dungeon Delves or Player Housing.
World of Warcraft may not be the zeitgeist buster it was when Leeroy Jenkins inspired a generation of young video game creators, but I think there's still plenty of potential left in this legendary game I continue to call home. Long may it live.
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