So, I was reading MMOC today and saw something amazing. No, it wasn’t the loss of a few hundred thousands of subscribers.

It was the WoW 10th Anniversary post! I’m going to assume you didn’t know the clinger there from reading the title. Yes, I am that ignorant.

So anyway, they’re doing some really exciting stuff for this anniversary that puts the event on or above par with the Wrath of the Lich King pre-release event. I can’t be certain it will be better, but after reading about it I have a hunch it will be.

Southshore vs. Tarren Mill

Yes, you heard right: they are bringing back the good old days of Southshore vs. Tarren Mill. You know, the first battleground, albeit unofficial, in WoW. Yes, the best and brightest WoW had to offer gathered there looking for opponents of equal skill and level to fight to the death in honorable battle. Oh wait, no they didn’t. It was an absolute gank-fest of max level Horde and Alliance congregating to lay waste to the opposing town and slaughter all the fresh level 20-30 players who were not yet used to having their PvP flags forced on. Just picture it:

A bright-eyed gnome full of wonder and excitement got off the gryphon and walked north out of Southshore where he saw a bunch of races he didn’t recognize, like Orcs and Tauren. He /waved. “Hello!” he thought to himself. He paid no mind to the skulls on their nameplates, while they all began to drool with a bloodlust only satiable by destroying him. As he walked closer each player chose his quickest spell or attack and executed it, just to watch the poor guy fall to the ground faster than he could say “lag”.

Ahh, the good old days. No seriously. It was awesome. The battle of Southshore vs. Tarren Mill was like a father to us. That is, a father who utilizes the same teaching methods as a High School bully. Having tons of unfair advantages, he kicked us and told us we were worthless. We woefully came to accept his painful words, but rose with new vigor out of the ashes. We had a new purpose - to continue this endless fraternity-like institution and beat our opponents into a pulp, i.e. low level players. It was in this manner that we passed our tradition of youthful insecurity from generation to generation. Isn’t it beautiful?

But even though it made us sadists it also taught us to help our friends. Usually you filtered it out when some low level guildmate said “gaiz can u help me plz i keep getting ganked.” But if that guy made sure to include that he was in Hillsbrad, people rushed to the rescue seeing a chance for a 100 on 100 deathmatch that would never end. I mean, who didn’t get 90% of his honor points from Southshore WPvP? Check out what Blizzard has to say on the subject:

If you engaged in PvP early on in WoW, you might have fond memories of and perhaps a few scars from the endless tug-of-war between Horde and Alliance players at Tarren Mill and Southshore. To recapture that feeling, we ll be opening a Team Deathmatch style Battleground based on that timeless struggle. 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

The best PvP I ever participated in was in those areas. I remember the bad times of leveling in that yeti cave in the north just to glance over the ledge and see some red text. Then, feeling a combination of dread and excitement, one of which would dissipate after I discovered his level, I began to walk up that spiral ramp. As I got in clicking distance I could see the fairness of our match: if he was my equal, we would do fair battle; if he was higher level, I would just sit on the floor and await my inevitable demise.

Molten Core

Woah! No way! The Molten Core? Being remade? I mean I know it’s raid finder but it’s still super exciting. Molten Core composed the “hardcore-ness” of my raiding career in vanilla.

Molten Core provided many WoW players with their first taste of WoW raiding. For the anniversary celebration, max-level players will be able to participate in a special 40-player Raid Finder version to relive the experience of hunting down Ragnaros and his minions within his fiery lair. Downing the Firelord will earn you an Achievement and a special Core Hound mount reward (fireproof leg armor not included). - Blizzard

I remember being a fresh level 60 whispering some raiding guilds saying “I’ll go!” Then, to my despair, attunement was required. Looking back, why wouldn’t it be? But young, naive me kept whispering guild after guild asking each if attunement was required, looking to piggy back into their lagfest and compete with 40 other people for loot. Eventually I gave up on finding the benificent guild willing to take one useless cog in the greater clock of raiding through an entire dungeon just so he could get to the instance portal without doing the quest. I did the quest and was ready to go! I joined a guild and went to Molten Core the same day, not knowing what this new world of raiding would hold for me.

I was a healer, and the experience was roughly equivalent to watching Twitch Plays Pokemon. There were quite a few of us all healing who were essentially two targets. Healers fought with their fellow healers trying to get a heal in before their teammates could. How did one accomplish this? By being sly and healing the tanks while they were at full health trying to, in a very loose sense of the word, anticipate the next attack. Then, when you succeeded sniping all of the heals you were able to try and justify leeching all of the innervates, which then made you perform better and gave some cyclic sense of superiority over your fellow raiders. You could then link the healing meters with pride knowing you were the best.

Well Blizzard, in their all-knowing wisdom, wanted to simulate this exact experience I just described and realized they already had an engine by which they could accomplish this. It’s called Raid Finder. Obviously seeking to emulate the experience from the 40-man MC raids, Raid Finder is a way to get 25 strangers together and try to accomplish a single goal which inevitably and inviarably happens due to pure random chance. Have I mentioned Twitch Plays Pokemon?

So in Raid Finder you get your Pigeot to level 85 and then one shot all of the Elite 4’s… oh wait, wrong thing.

So in Raid Finder you work with these other people to get some watered down loot. But Blizzard is one-upping the idea of 25 random strangers of skill levels all over the spectrum (generally on the lower end of the bell curve, however) and making it 40 people! Never before have 40 people of incredibly low video gaming skill congregated for a single cause. Let’s hope there aren’t any difficult mechanics.

SPOILER: Don’t worry, there weren’t any difficult mechanics in Molten Core. I hope players nowadays like decursing, because that’s what they’ll be doing! I remember fondly back when we had the Decursive addon, and it was my job to just keep clicking a little window which did the dispel for me. Afterwards, I was praised as a hero.

But in all seriousness, I am also very excited about this feature. It’s going to be awesome to go back to old content, get some revamped versions of the gear, and experience all of this on new character models in Warlords.

Molten Corgis

This is pretty self-explanatory. It’s basically a pet Corgis that is set aflame. It’s also unbearably cute and I want one. Luckily it is within my reach, as it requires a very low skill level to acquire. Yes, I believe even I can manage to log in to my account so that I may obtain this rare item.

This was a very ranty rant, so I hope it was bearable. In case you missed what I said, it’s right above you. In case large amounts of text scare you, look below.

TL;DR Below: