Blizzard just finished showing off its Looking for Group documentary, a one hour video celebrating the 10-year anniversary of World of Warcraft. It was moving, inspirational, and even taught us a few things about the game.
There’s a lot that’s gone into World of Warcraft over the years. Some of that is visible when playing the game, but there’s much more to it than just the tangible gameplay of its virtual game world. There’s the developer side, and the player side. Both of these parties have been heavily invested in the world, and will never be the same because of it.
Related: Watch World of Warcraft: Looking for Group Right Here
We learned a lot from watching World of Warcraft: Looking for Group. You can find out what we’ve learned in the gallery below.
10 Things We Learned From WoW's 10-Year Anniversary Documentary
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Vanilla's Level Cap Wasn't Originally 60
During the Looking for Raid documentary one of the earliest maps of the Eastern Kingdoms is shown, and it's not too dissimilar from the final product. However, it has some deviations, including zones labeled as being for level 60-70 players, such as Eastern Plaguelands. Well, that's because originally 60 wasn't the level cap for the game. That would change later in development, though.
Also, there was also a "Dragon Raid" just north of Western Plaguelands that wouldn't find its way into the final release.
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It Really Is an EverQuest Clone
Blizzard won't deny that World of Warcraft was the result of MMO fandom at the company. Many of its employees thoroughly enjoyed playing Ultima Online and EverQuest, finding inspiration from their compelling qualities. In the case of the latter, they saw an opportunity to make something just as immersive, but more welcoming. Thus, World of Warcraft was born.
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5 Years to Exhausting Development
While World of Warcraft would release in November 2004, it began development in 1999. At the time, the team wasn't particularly large (there were 500 employees at the company at the time, while now there are 5,000) and Chris Metzen acknowledged in the Looking for Group documentary that by the end of the development cycle the team was absolutely drained.
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Its Booming Popularity Caught Blizzard By Surprise
Back in 2004, there was no such thing as a mainstream MMORPG. Before the World of Warcraft era, MMORPGs were thought to be only for hardcore gamers. It would change that conception overnight.
Originally, Blizzard had a year-long plan that would eventually support a player-base of one million players. However, the game's instantaneous popularity kicked the gears into motion. Blizzard would hired hundreds of new employees, and would push out its servers several months before they planned to. It was only the beginning.
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Leeroy Jenkins Was the First Great Meme
If you're a gamer, chances are you know of Leeroy Jenkins. It was one of the first viral videos of the internet, spurring a meme that was so popular it would find its way into the English dictionary.
World of Warcraft has found its way into mainstream media many times since, including the episode of South Park titled "Make Love, Not Warcraft", as well as even being the answer to a question on the popular game show Jeopardy.
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Ahn'Qiraj Remains the Biggest Mistake in WoW History
In January 2006 with the arrival of the 1.9 patch thousands of players would converge for what still remains the biggest event in World of Warcraft history: The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj. Unfortunately, it was far too ambitious for the game's technology, and designers and engineers wouldn't figure things out until it was too late. The database and world servers would crash repeatedly until there were few enough people logged in to not cause an outage and finish the event.
It remains the biggest mistake in World of Warcraft history, but one that Blizzard learned a lot from.
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Big Things Result From Seemingly Small Ideas
In the Looking for Group documentary a few examples are shown where something big was birthed from a small idea.
For example, Pandaren was the creation of an employee who loved martial arts movies and wanted to create something cute for his daughter. Meanwhile, Illidan was once just a drawing on a page, and he didn't even have an eye mask at the time.
In the case of Pandaren, it's now one of the races in World of Warcraft, and Illidan is one of the most iconic characters of the IP. Everything you see in the game begins as just an idea, and over time that idea can become something much more.
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Wrath of the Lich King Was Supposed to Have Skiing
Apparently Skiing was a concept that was supposed to make its way into Wrath of the Lich King. The idea never materialized into something in the actual world.
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Cataclysm is the Most Complex Integration To-Date
When Chris Metzen sat around with other designers at Blizzard and pitched his idea for remaking all of Azeroth in what would eventually be come the Cataclysm expansion, just about nobody thought it was possible. Nonetheless, the team would go on to redesign both Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms, two massive virtual continents.
While many overlook it since it didn't offer much in the way of endgame, it was a hugely complex task in terms of engineering and patch delivery.
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World of Warcraft is Much More Than Just a Game
If anything was made abundantly clear by the Looking for Group documentary, it's that World of Warcraft has become more than a video game. Myself and many others have forged great friendships in Azeroth, and there are even people who have found their mate in the game world.
It's also been part of the breaking down of the "geek barrier". Up until recently, being a geek, or someone invested in a hobby, was considered uncool. That has undoubtedly changed around the world, and World of Warcraft is one of a few games that has been part of that movement.
There were dozens of people shown sharing why the game means so much to them during the documentary, and for good reason. World of Warcraft is something truly phenomenal.
