World of Warcraft: 25 Best Moments in the Game's History

If you're one of the many people that once called WoW home and have since moved on to other games or adventures in life, there's no denying that World of Warcraft holds a special place in the hearts of many. The game has provided its players with not just memorable moments in game, but has at times also transcended the games industry and spilled out into our popular culture.

With the latest World of Warcraft expansion, Legion, set to launch in a few months, we thought this would be the perfect time to take a trip back into the game's storied history. Here are our top 25 World of Warcraft moments, in-game and IRL, of the last 10+ years.

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The Blood Plague

Ebola ain't got nothing on Corrupted Blood. One of the very first World of Warcraft moments to get the game significant press in the mainstream media, this virtual plague began on September 13, 2005 and lasted for about a week. Players discovered an exploit that allowed them to take a debuff that was dished out by Hakkar The Soulflayer, the end boss of the Zul'Gurub raid instance, and use it to infect unsuspecting players in the game's major cities.

The "disease" was highly contagious and rapidly jumped from player to player, quickly killing hundreds of low level characters that came into contact with it. Blizzard had to code in a quarantine of sorts and the player base reacted by changing the way they played the game, including staying out of the major cities in order to avoid infection. The pandemic and ensuing reaction caught the attention of scientists, who used the incident as a case study on how human beings might react in the case of a bio-terrorist attack or accidental deadly outbreak.

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Did Someone Say Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker?

Molten Core was vanilla WoW's first major raid instance, and a sword called Thunderfury was one of the game's first seriously coveted pieces of loot. As a "legendary" item, Thunderfury was more powerful than even the "epic" gear that dropped off of most raid bosses. Befitting its status, obtaining Thunderfury was no simple task.

Players had to obtain two different low percentage drops off two different Molten Core bosses, and that was just the beginning. Thunderfury's long quest line would serve as a blueprint for how Blizzard would handle "legendary" items for many years to come. The sword has continued to be popular in the years since Molten Core, most likely because of how easy it is to solo the raid instance now and attempt to get the needed drops.

Thunderfury is also responsible for a meme that still pops up in one of the game's main chat channels even today. A player will ask, "Did someone say Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker?" at which point multiple players will start linking the item in trade chat, which of course then dissolves into people linking every other legendary added to the game since, greatly annoying all the normal people trying to use the channel for its intended purpose. (Some might argue that this IS trade's intended purpose, but I digress.)

Leeroy Jenkins

Leeroy is arguably the most famous WoW character of all-time, which is funny, considering that the viral Internet video that created him was completely staged.

The video was released by guild "PALS FOR LIFE" in 2005. In it, "Leeroy" and his guildmates are about to pull a difficult room in the Upper Blackrock Spire dungeon. 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. Upon returning to his computer, he simply screams his name and runs into battle, tossing the group's careful preparation out the window and ultimately leading to their deaths.

Jenkins quotes of "LEEEROOOY!" and "At least I have chicken" are still widely quoted by the player base today. Blizzard has honored the character's place in WoW's history several times, including making Leeroy a playable card in Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.

The Onyxia Wipe Audio

"Odd groups got left, even groups got right."

So starts one of the most epic recordings of a raid in WoW's history. What makes this recording so special is that unlike Leeroy, it really happened.

In early 2006, someone recorded the Ventrilo audio of Wipe Club guild leader Dives during the encounter in Onyxia's lair. Most players thought it was funny enough just because of Dives foreign accent, but things took a turn when someone didn't follow the leader's precise instructions.

Dives' screaming of phrases like "Many whelps! Handle it!" and "50 DKP Minus!" quickly found their way into the lexicon of every WoW player.

South Park WoW episode

You know you've made it when Matt Stone and Trey Parker come after you.

This 2006 episode saw Stan, Kyle, and the rest of the boys adventuring in Azeroth, only to be foiled by an evil character who kept killing them off. South Park had Blizzard's full cooperation, including in-game graphics for the episode, even though Stone and Parker used "Make Love, Not Warcraft" as an opportunity to make fun of gamer stereotypes.

"Whoever this person is, he has played World of Warcraft nearly every hour, of every day, for the past year and a half. Gentlemen, we are dealing with someone here who has absolutely no life."

Azeroth is saved after the boys use the Sword of a Thousand Truths, (arguably a rip-off of famous WoWswords like Thunderfury) to vanquish their attacker.

Illegal Danish (and other WoW machinima)

As World of Warcraft grew in popularity, more and more players wanted to try and make their own creative mark on the game and its community. 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.... HOOOOOO!) that players started using in-game. The success of Illegal Danish and other early works led to an explosion of WoW machinima films on sites like WarcraftMovies. Not every film is a priceless work of art, but a great deal of them can probably claim influence from this early classic.

Southshore vs. Tarren Mill

When World of Warcraft first launched, the game didn't have any of the PvP battlegrounds or arenas that we have today. If you wanted to kill players of the opposite faction, you simply had to go out into the world and hunt them down.

One of the earliest zones to see Alliance vs. Horde bloodshed was Hillsbrad Foothills. The map located north of Ironforge featured an Alliance town, Southshore, and a Horde town, Tarren Mill, in close proximity to each other. Players from both sides formed up at their respective town and then attempted to push forward and take over the opposing side. The fights quickly got out of control with hundreds of players from all across the server all descending on Hillsbrad to try and lead their faction to victory.

What is truly remarkable about SS vs. TM is that there were no real rewards to win, other than the satisfaction of destroying the other side. The battle, and World PvP in general, is often brought up by WoW veterans as something that they miss the most in the game's current landscape.

Blizzard will be giving players a taste of what this epic battle to the death used to be like during its special 10 year anniversary event in-game. Players will be able to go to an instanced version of Southshore vs. Tarren Mill and fight in a 40 v. 40 battle.

High Warlord/Grand Marshal

Once Blizzard finally implemented an actual PvP system, things intensified in a different way. PvP had a tiered gearing system, and the better you were at PvP, the better tiers you had access to. But in order to reach the highest possible ranking of High Warlord for the Horde or Grand Marshal for the Alliance, players had to be absolutely dedicated. If you took even one week off, you could plummet back down the ladder and have to climb all over again.

In order to hit the top ranks, some gamers played for 16 to 20 hours every day. Some even shared accounts (against Blizzard's terms of service) and took turns playing the same character to try and increase the chances of getting the best gear. Blizzard would eventually do away with this system so that players would no longer have to kill themselves to get gear, but the system is still remembered fondly by some. Hitting Grand Marshal or High Warlord was a sign that you were truly hardcore.

Alterac Valley Lasting All Day

Speaking of hardcore, how about Alterac Valley in its first couple of iterations? Whereas other battleground maps focused on smaller scale 10 v. 10 or 15 v. 15 battles, Alterac Valley was the first, and for a long time, the only 40 v. 40 map. AV was also a bit different in that it contained PvE objectives that needed to be accomplished in order to win the PvP battle. 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. If one side started to win the fight, the opposing side could "turtle" at one of several bottlenecks along the map and delay or even push back the aggressors. Add in NPCs that could be summoned into the battle to fight for you, and the overall feel of the match could change at any given moment. It wasn't uncommon for the typical Alterac Valley to last for several hours. The most epic battles would literally take up much of your day. Blizzard eventually implemented a system that gave all battlegrounds a finite amount of time to complete, but classic AV will always be remembered by those who were there.

AQ Event

Ahn'Qiraj was vanilla WoW's third major tier of end game content, and Blizzard wanted to do something special to celebrate its release. When AQ was first patched into the game, the gates to its 40 and 20 man raids were closed. In order to "open the gates" and get access to the next tier of content, the entire server had to participate in collecting various items for the "AQ War Effort." Once players collected enough items, a limited, one-time only event took place out in the desert near the raid entrance. Players had to do battle with some of the huge monsters they would be fighting inside the raids out in the open world. It sounds like a fun idea, but in practice, it was a real headache. Having every single player on the server show up to fight in the same spot caused some significant lag issues, which is why players have never really gotten another event quite like this one since.

The Most Amazing Raid That Nobody Saw

At the tail end of vanilla WoW, Blizzard released a new 40 man raid called Naxxramas. It was by far the most difficult content available in the game, with players needing gear from Blackwing Lair and Ahn'Qiraj to even have a chance of survival. Those who got to play it still say that it was one of the most tightly tuned but epic experiences Blizzard has ever created.

That said, Blizzard learned an important lesson from Naxx that had a significant impact on future development of the game. The developer didn't see the point to spending so many hours of development time for a raid that so few players would ever get to see because of its difficulty. You could argue the failure of many players to ever get to Naxx is one of the reasons Blizzard began to take steps to make its raid content more accessible to a larger group of players.

Blizzard has gotten plenty of mileage out of Naxx since those early days, reusing it as the entry-level raid for Wrath of the Lich King and even using an adaption of it as Hearthstone's first PvE adventure.

I Can Fly, I Can Fly!

When Blizzard released The Burning Crusade, WoW's first expansion in 2007, one of the biggest new features was the ability to gain a flying mount at the new level cap of 70. Adding flight is arguably one of the biggest changes to WoW's gameplay over its 10 year history. Every zone had to be designed with the idea of players being able to take to the skies at max level.

Flying provided a great thrill and sense of progression for many players, but some also hold it responsible for hurting other aspects of the game. With players now able to mount up and take off in seconds to avoid danger, that classic World PvP made famous in the Southshore and Tarren Mill days started to die off. It could also be said that the world felt a little less alive in some spots, with everyone hovering up in the air by themselves all the time instead of traveling the world by foot alongside other players.

Blizzard may be attempting to fix some of these issues in Draenor. Players will not be able to fly at all in the new zones, and while the ability might be patched in at some point in the expansion, Blizzard has remained non-committal. It sounds like we might be getting an experience that harkens back to the days of classic WoW.

The Horde Can Now Bubblehearth

In vanilla, each faction had a class that was exclusive to them. 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. The raid designers had to test every encounter twice, to make sure that each faction could beat it without access to the other faction's special class.

When Blizzard announced that the Horde would be getting Paladins and the Alliance would be getting Shamans in The Burning Crusade, it was a huge bombshell for the player base and a source of heated debate in some corners. In the end though, both factions have seemed to accept the new roles over time.