I never know what to get people for their birthdays. Luckily, it looks like Blizzard will handle the gift-giving for World of Warcraft’s upcoming 10th anniversary.
World of Warcraft originally launched on Nov. 23, 2004. You probably heard about it. Even today, the massively multiplayer role-playing game has 6.8 million subscribers. Now that we’re coming up on the 10th anniversary, developer Blizzard is starting to share some of the details on how it plans to celebrate the milestone.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":1521914,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"games,","session":"B"}']Specifically, Blizzard plans to give players nostalgic content that looks back to the MMO’s early days. A new player-vs-player Battleground will let Horde and Alliance players relive the struggle between the towns of Southshore and Tarren Mill. Back before WoW had actual player-vs.-player modes, this eternal battle pretty much was the game’s PvP.
Above: Anyone who played World of Warcraft during its first year will remember this map.
“However, unlike the old days of Tarren Mill vs. Southshore, there will be a clearly defined victor, so you’ll need to work as a team or face crushing defeat,” Blizzard states in the blog post detailing the anniversary content.
Blizzard’s also opening a max-level, 40-player version of Molten Core, one of WoW’s first Raid dungeons. Player who log in during the anniversary event will also get a Molten Corgi pet (pictured at the top of this article).
New content is crucial if Blizzard hopes to keep World of Warcraft alive. While its 6.8 million subscribers is still a lot, it’s far from the 2010 peak of 12 million. Blizzard is also releasing a new expansion, Warlords of Draenor, this fall, so it’ll have plenty of new content for the rest of the year.
The anniversary events and items will only be available during the anniversary celebration. Blizzard hasn’t said when the event will start, but we can presume it’ll be sometime around November.
