Ten years after launch, World of Warcraft players are still standing in front of giant two-headed corehounds of death and dying to their fiery breath.
It’s good to know that some things may never change.
The 10th anniversary celebration of the ultra-popular massively multiplayer online RPG, which started yesterday and continues into the new year, revels in nostalgia. It offers classic raids, battlegrounds, and rewards to WOW’s 10 million subscribers. Most of the events take place in areas made famous by the original “vanilla” version of WOW, including some that gamers who joined in during more recent expansion packs have never seen.
Introducing a new generation of players to flaming death
The special anniversary edition of the 40-man dungeon Molten Core, the first large raid area available to players a decade ago, includes new level 100 creatures to kill but all the old looks and mechanics. It’s available to max-level players whose gear level is rated at least 615.
I first set foot in Molten Core a decade ago as the leader of a raiding guild determined to conquer its bosses. This week, it was a walk down memory lane, if memory lane is in a really bad part of town filled with giant fiery creatures of doom who can one-shot you.
Skeletons of player corpses began to pile up at the door. Experienced players jokingly yelled at others to take their loot from the corehounds after they’d been killed so they could be skinned — not a concern this time around, but a constant irritation for raids who successfully took them down in 2004.
“Have you guys never done MC?” asked one druid, exasperated, after the group died on yet another fight. “MC hammer,” replied another.
Above: “You have awakened me TOO SOON, Executus. These players haven’t learned even basic raid mechanics yet,” the fire boss Ragnaros told his underling. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what he said.
The group struggled with its own size; modern raid dungeons in WOW hold a maximum of 30 people, and most are 10-20. Forty characters moving together made the caverns feel like they rumbled with the tread of an invading army.
Players unused to the more-demanding requirements of early dungeons (which asked gamers to use a wide variety of abilities and were less forgiving if they failed) died frequently — or killed each other.
A dozen players died in my raid when they were psychically controlled by the lieutenants of the large snake-like Lucifron boss. That mind control wears off after 15 seconds or so, but players were annihilating each other before that could happen.
Ah, the good old days.
Above: A fiery reward for a lot of patience.
Those who made it to the end of the dungeon — a process that could take hours depending on the skills or lack thereof in the group, and a painful reminder of how many meaningless lower-level enemies WOW raids used to contain — automatically earned a corehound mount [shown above] and an epic-quality fiery crown for their character to wear.
Extremely lucky players might also receive a miniature fire elemental pet (Hatespark the Tiny) from Ragnaros the fire lord, or an item that would make their weapon take on a fiery glow.
Above: The Molten Corgi is automatically awarded to players who log in during the anniversary. The fiery crown from Ragnaros takes lot more work.
Old-school PVP returns after ten years
If PVP (player vs. player) is more your thing, Blizzard Entertainment also recreated one of the top player battle areas from those early days. Southshore vs. Tarren Mill is a special anniversary battleground that recreates the two small towns in the Hillsbrad Foothills zone the way they originally appeared in the game. (Southshore was later drowned by the flood created when Deathwing, the giant dragon boss of the Cataclysm expansion, cracked the world.)
One town was a questing hub for the Horde faction, the other for Alliance players, and because virtually all characters had to move through the area to quest, players were constantly fighting. On busy nights, especially on PVP servers, you might have a hundred Horde and Alliance players battling back and forth, ranging from very low-level characters all the way up to max.
Above: Somehow, it always ends up looking like this: the killing fields of the anniversary Southshore vs. Tarren Mill battleground. No, I am totally not ignoring my teammates to take this screenshot.
The battleground is a 40 vs. 40 team deathmatch — which is to say the object of the game is to pile up in the middle of the map and annihilate the other side, just as it was a decade ago. Victors earn a “Southshore Slayer” title if they belong to the Horde. If by some fluke they pull off a win as Alliance, they receive “Tarren Mill Terror.”
Players can join the battle in one of two brackets, depending on whether their characters are level 90-99 or max-level 100. (The Warlords of Draenor expansion pack, which just launched last week, gives players one free level 90 character to play in addition to any others they previously created.)
There is no strategy; it’s just a slaughter. In a match, players are awarded the titles that PVPers used to earn long ago, gradually becoming more and more senior, until they die or leave the battleground. Higher-ranked players are worth more. Realistically, everyone must die. It’s a free for all and a perfect celebration of what outdoor PVP used to be like in that part of the WOW world.
Players who are willing to slip away from the battle for a bit can take a quick look at the towns of Tarren Mill and Southshore as they once existed, a rare opportunity. Only one low-level dungeon still shows this area, and it only features part of the map.
The anniversary celebration will be available until Jan. 6.