98 Fun Facts About World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft's November 2004 launch coincided with which milestone?

The Warcraft series turning ten: the first game came out in November 1994. For the online game's own twentieth birthday in 2024, the University of Washington's football team briefly became the 'University of Warcraft'.

On which fictional planet is World of Warcraft set?

Azeroth began as the name of a single kingdom in the first Warcraft game; the kingdom was later renamed Stormwind, and its old name grew to cover the whole planet.

In World of Warcraft, which two opposing factions must every player choose between?

Alliance and Horde players could not even group up for the game's first seventeen years; only in 2022 did Blizzard let the two sides run dungeons and raids together.

Which two continents made up World of Warcraft's game world at launch?

Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms were once one landmass, until a magical implosion 10,000 years before the game sank most of it and left the Maelstrom, a permanent whirlpool, between them.

Which was the first game in the Warcraft series?

Orcs & Humans was nearly a Warhammer game: Blizzard's co-founder wanted that licence, but no deal came together, so the team invented a fantasy world of its own.

How many subscribers did World of Warcraft have at its October 2010 peak?

12 million was the high-water mark: within five years more than half of those players had gone, leaving 5.6 million by mid-2015.

Which World of Warcraft class fights by shapeshifting into a bear or a cat?

Druid forms each have a job: a bear shields the group from damage, a cat claws enemies up close, and the same character can heal as well, so one druid can fill any of the three group roles.

Which was World of Warcraft's first expansion pack, released in January 2007?

The Burning Crusade sent players through the Dark Portal, the very gateway the orcs had first invaded through, to fight on the orcs' own shattered homeworld.

Which two playable races did World of Warcraft's first expansion add?

Draenei and Blood Elves each handed their side a class it had been locked out of: until then shamans belonged to one faction and paladins to the other.

In World of Warcraft's first expansion, where were players finally able to ride flying mounts?

Only in Outland: the original zones were never designed to be seen from above, so flying over them had to wait until a later expansion rebuilt them from the ground up.

Which villain made the Black Temple his stronghold in World of Warcraft's first expansion?

Illidan Stormrage died there at players' hands, yet nine years later the Legion expansion resurrected him to fight at their side.

Which fallen prince, wielder of the cursed sword Frostmourne, is the villain of World of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King?

Arthas Menethil took up Frostmourne to save his people from a plague; the sword took his soul instead, and he went home and murdered his father the king.

What was World of Warcraft's first 'hero class', introduced in Wrath of the Lich King?

Death Knights start out as the Lich King's own champions and break free of him; at first you needed a level-55 character just to create one.

Which continent, home of the Lich King, did World of Warcraft's 2008 expansion add?

Northrend is where Warcraft III left its story hanging, at the Frozen Throne atop Icecrown; the expansion let players storm Icecrown Citadel and end it themselves.

Which dragon's return reshaped the world in World of Warcraft's Cataclysm expansion?

Deathwing was once Neltharion the Earth-Warder, sworn to protect the land, before he went mad and burst up through it, flooding some old zones and splitting others with lava.

Which two races were added in World of Warcraft's Cataclysm expansion?

Worgen and Goblins: the worgen are the people of Gilneas, a human kingdom that shut itself behind a giant wall, only for a curse to spread inside and turn its citizens into wolf-beasts.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm's record as the fastest-selling PC game fell in 2012 to which game?

Diablo III, another Blizzard game, sold over 3.5 million copies in a day, edging past Cataclysm's 3.3 million, so Blizzard only lost the record to itself.

Which World of Warcraft race was an April Fools' joke years before it became playable?

Pandaren grew out of panda art Blizzard's Samwise Didier drew for himself; Blizzard announced them as a fake Warcraft III race one April Fools' Day, then put a panda brewmaster in the game's expansion for real.

Which class did the Mists of Pandaria expansion add to World of Warcraft?

Monk: its Brewmaster tanks swig mystical brews mid-fight and 'stagger' heavy blows, taking the damage a little at a time instead of all at once.

Which hero class arrived in World of Warcraft with the Legion expansion in 2016?

Demon Hunters ritually blind themselves in exchange for spectral sight, then fight demons with the demons' own power, growing horns and wings along the way.

Which leader ordered the burning of Teldrassil, the night elves' great tree, in the run-up to World of Warcraft's 2018 expansion?

Sylvanas Windrunner came to conquer the tree, not destroy it; then a dying night elf told her she was fighting a war on life itself that she could never win, and she gave the order to burn it.

Which two island realms did World of Warcraft's 2018 expansion add?

Kul Tiras and Zandalar: one is a kingdom of human sailors, the other the ancient homeland of the trolls, and each side in the war sails off to win over its navy.

Which World of Warcraft expansion, delayed by a month, launched in November 2020?

Shadowlands slipped from October for extra polish and landed on 23 November, sixteen years to the day after the original game, then sold 3.7 million copies in a day.

Which feature did World of Warcraft's Midnight expansion add?

Player housing sets homes in neighbourhoods of about 50 plots, and the game keeps making new neighbourhoods as they fill, so nobody has to fight for a plot.

World of Warcraft's 2005 Corrupted Blood plague began with a spell cast by which raid boss?

Hakkar the Soulflayer's spell was meant to stay inside his Zul'Gurub raid, but players' pets carried it out into crowded cities, where it killed low-level characters in seconds.

Which US agency contacted Blizzard after the Corrupted Blood incident?

The CDC phoned asking for the simulation data, a Blizzard producer recalled, and had to be told the plague was only a bug; epidemiologists wrote it up in medical journals anyway.

When voluntary quarantines failed to stop World of Warcraft's Corrupted Blood plague, what drastic step did Blizzard take?

Hard-resetting the servers cleared the plague after players ignored the voluntary quarantines, and a later patch closed the loophole by making pets unable to catch it.

The famous Leeroy Jenkins video was posted in May 2005 by which guild?

Pals for Life meant it as a joke: the guildmate who filmed it said in 2017 they thought it was obviously satire, and released a rehearsal take to prove it.

In which World of Warcraft dungeon area were Leeroy Jenkins's guildmates planning a careful attack when he charged in?

The Rookery in Upper Blackrock Spire is a room carpeted with dragon eggs, and his charge hatched them all at once and wiped out the group; his defence was 'At least I have chicken.'

Leeroy Jenkins later became a Legendary minion, able to attack the moment he arrives, in which Blizzard game?

Hearthstone's Leeroy attacks the turn he is played but hands the opponent two whelps, just as his charge in the video woke a swarm of them.

What did a Blizzard producer tell a BlizzCon 2013 fan who asked for classic servers?

'You think you do, but you don't' became infamous, and J. Allen Brack had to eat it: four years later he walked on stage at BlizzCon himself to announce World of Warcraft Classic.

On World of Warcraft Classic's Hardcore realms, what happens when a character dies?

It can never be revived there: the dead character lingers only as a ghost that can chat and hand over its guild, or take a free move to a normal realm.

Who directed the 2016 Warcraft film?

Duncan Jones had made his debut, Moon, as a small indie film; in 2013 he took over the $160 million Warcraft from Sam Raimi.

Which country supplied about half of the Warcraft film's worldwide box office?

China: its cinemas supplied about half of the film's $439 million while American ones gave under $50 million, so a film that flopped at home still became the biggest video game adaptation of its day.

Which animated series won a 2007 Emmy for an episode set largely inside World of Warcraft?

South Park's 'Make Love, Not Warcraft' has the boys play for weeks to beat an unkillable griefer with the Sword of a Thousand Truths, and Blizzard later slipped a nod to the sword into the real game.

Which celebrity declared himself a night elf in a 2007 World of Warcraft TV commercial?

Mr. T's ad had him announce he was a Night Elf Mohawk, and in 2009 Blizzard made the joke real with Mohawk Grenades that gave other players' characters his mohawk.

Which company took over running World of Warcraft in China from The9 in June 2009?

NetEase ran the game in China until a contract row switched it off in January 2023, leaving players to download their characters and wait; the two firms made up and it returned in 2024.

Which actor missed a director's call about a film role because he was playing World of Warcraft?

Henry Cavill let the phone ring because he was mid-game, and the caller was Zack Snyder, ringing about the part of Superman in Man of Steel.

Blizzard launched the WoW Token in 2015 to undercut which black-market trade?

Selling in-game gold for cash was a black market until the token let players do it through Blizzard: one buys a token for real money, another pays gold for it and redeems 30 days of play.

Which orc, raised as a gladiator by a human officer, led the orcs as Warchief when World of Warcraft launched?

Thrall escaped his human master, helped free the orcs held in prison camps after their defeat, and led them across the sea to found a new homeland before the game begins.

Which 1999 online role-playing game was the main inspiration for World of Warcraft?

EverQuest had hooked Blizzard's own developers, who scrapped an unfinished project called Nomad to build a more accessible take on it set in the Warcraft world.

What genre were the Warcraft games before World of Warcraft continued their story as an online role-playing game?

Real-time strategy built the setting: World of Warcraft picks up about four years after the last of those games, swapping armies commanded from above for one hero seen up close.

When World of Warcraft launched, how many players could its largest raids hold?

Forty players filled raids like Molten Core at launch, but the cap only fell from there: later raids were built for 25 or 10, and today's hardest mode, Mythic, takes exactly 20.

In World of Warcraft, what penalty does a character suffer after being revived by a spirit healer at a graveyard?

Resurrection sickness weakens the character and damages their gear, which is why most players instead run back to their corpse as a ghost and revive there at no cost.

Which of these professions can every World of Warcraft character learn without using one of their two primary slots?

Fishing is a secondary profession, like cooking, so any character can pick it up on top of their two primary trades, while mining, skinning and herbalism each take a slot.

Which expansion added the Evoker, a class that only one race can play?

Dragonflight's Evokers must be dracthyr because the class is that race's story: soldiers made to wield the magic of all five dragonflights, then shut in stasis for nearly 20,000 years.

The Worldsoul Saga announced at BlizzCon 2023 spans The War Within, Midnight and which third expansion?

The Last Titan closes a trilogy that Chris Metzen, a creator of the Warcraft universe newly back from retirement, unveiled all at once: three expansions in a single announcement.

In World of Warcraft, which black dragon experimented with the blood of other dragons deep in Blackrock Mountain?

Nefarian was breeding chromatic dragons, warriors mixing the powers of every colour of dragon, for an army of his own, until players fought through Blackwing Lair and killed him.

Why did Blizzard choose the name 'Warcraft' for its fantasy series, according to co-founder Allen Adham?

It sounded super cool, and that was the whole reason: the name carried no particular meaning. Blizzard developer Sam Didier was the one who proposed it.

What does World of Warcraft's 'rested' bonus, which speeds up experience gains, reward a player for?

Time spent away from the game is what earns it, so a rested character levels faster for a while. Reviewers welcomed the bonus as a way to catch up with friends.

Which cryptocurrency did Vitalik Buterin co-found after a World of Warcraft patch weakened his warlock?

Ethereum's co-founder says he cried himself to sleep when Blizzard removed the damage from his warlock's Siphon Life spell. That day, he wrote, he realized what horrors centralized services can bring.

Which actress drew on her own World of Warcraft addiction to create and star in the web series The Guild?

Felicia Day wrote The Guild between acting roles and plays Codex, the guild's healer. She kept the plot generic to avoid copyright problems, so the series only ever calls its game The Game.

Which fan-made Warcraft III mod is widely credited as the main inspiration for the whole MOBA genre?

Defense of the Ancients, or DotA, was first built in 2003 by a modder known as Eul using the game's World Editor. Valve later bought the rights and released the sequel Dota 2 in 2013.

In World of Warcraft dungeon groups, what is the main job of the player known as the tank?

Drawing the enemy's attacks keeps the rest of the group alive, so tanks often end up as its unofficial leader. They decide which monsters to pull and hold their attention.

Which college football team was briefly renamed 'University of Warcraft' for the game's 20th anniversary?

Washington Huskies got the new name in 2024, when Blizzard partnered with the University of Washington for the game's birthday. The school already goes by UW, so only one word had to change.

Noblegarden, a seasonal event in World of Warcraft, is the game's version of which real-world holiday?

Easter becomes Noblegarden in the game, just as Halloween becomes Hallow's End and Christmas becomes Winter Veil. Children's Week and Midsummer get events of their own.

Which future Trump adviser became CEO of IGE, a trader in World of Warcraft virtual goods, in 2007?

Steve Bannon took over IGE in June 2007, having joined its board after persuading Goldman Sachs to invest. The company had been co-founded by former child actor Brock Pierce.

Why are the dungeons that World of Warcraft parties enter together commonly known as 'instances'?

Each group gets its own copy of the dungeon, complete with its own enemies and treasure. That lets a party explore and complete quests without other players interfering.

In which California city is Blizzard Entertainment, the studio behind World of Warcraft, based?

Irvine named the main street of the company's campus 1 Blizzard Way in its honour. A twelve-foot bronze statue of a Warcraft orc riding a wolf stands on the grounds.

What does World of Warcraft call each server a player must select before entering the game?

A realm is the in-game name for a server, and each one holds a separate version of the whole world. Some are marked RP, for players who like to stay in character.

In World of Warcraft, which race's characters become a wisp rather than a ghost when they die?

Night elves become a wisp, while every other race returns as a ghost at a nearby graveyard. Either way, a character can come back to life by travelling to the spot where it died.

Which actor played Anduin Lothar, commander of Stormwind's human forces, in the 2016 Warcraft film?

Travis Fimmel led the human side of the story, while Toby Kebbell played the orc chieftain Durotan and Ben Foster the reclusive Guardian Medivh.

Which Blizzard game lets players fight as Warcraft characters on the Alterac Pass battleground?

Heroes of the Storm draws more of its playable heroes from Warcraft than from any other Blizzard universe. Many of its mounts are borrowed from World of Warcraft too.

Which sorceress, once apprenticed to Archmage Antonidas, founded the port city of Theramore in Warcraft lore?

Jaina Proudmoore led the survivors of a plague-stricken kingdom west across the sea to found Theramore. Once a diplomat who argued for peace, she changed course after the city was destroyed.

Which gateway, reopened by the Doom Lord Kazzak, leads World of Warcraft players to a shattered orc world?

The Dark Portal reopened in 2007 at the start of the game's first expansion, and demons flooded through it before players could cross the other way.

Which World of Warcraft capital city is home to the dwarves, longtime allies of the humans of Stormwind?

Ironforge is the dwarves' capital. Their fire-blooded cousins, the Dark Iron dwarves, spent years as enemies before becoming a playable allied race.

Which orc Warchief turned villain was defeated by a combined army of both factions in the Siege of Orgrimmar?

Garrosh Hellscream fell in the Siege of Orgrimmar, then escaped his trial and fled into an alternate past. His meddling there set up the next expansion, Warlords of Draenor.

Which dragon ruled in disguise as a human noblewoman at Stormwind's court when World of Warcraft launched?

Onyxia, a black dragon, used the disguise to control the mind of Stormwind's regent. Players investigated her manipulations and went on to defeat her.

Which elemental lord, an early World of Warcraft raid boss, returned as the villain of Cataclysm's Firelands?

Ragnaros the Firelord was sent back to the Elemental Plane by the game's first raiders. In the Firelands he was at his most powerful, and champions had to defeat him inside his own domain.

Which king of Stormwind was missing when World of Warcraft launched, leaving his son Anduin as child ruler?

Varian Wrynn's disappearance was later explained in the Warcraft comic series. After his return he ruled as a warrior king, often at odds with his peace-loving son.

In World of Warcraft, who volunteered to replace the defeated Lich King and keep the undead Scourge contained?

Bolvar Fordragon, thought to have died at the Wrathgate, had been altered by the red dragons' flame. He took up the role as the Scourge's eternal jailer.

Which floating city of mages is the neutral sanctuary of World of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King?

Dalaran was moved wholesale by its mages to confront Malygos the Spell-Weaver and the Lich King. It hangs high above Crystalsong Forest, reachable from the ground or by flying mount.

The Undercity, base of World of Warcraft's undead Forsaken, was once the capital of which human kingdom?

Lordaeron's old capital became the Undercity, and its ruins even host a player-versus-player arena. A retaliatory strike on the city opened the game's 2018 expansion.

Which fallen guardian of worlds commands the army of demons that menaces most of the Warcraft series?

Sargeras abandoned his post after deciding creation was irreparably corrupt and could only be ended. His lieutenants Kil'jaeden and Archimonde direct his campaigns for him.

In World of Warcraft, what lies at the centre of the Great Sea, above the sunken naga city of Nazjatar?

The Maelstrom is an enormous, everlasting vortex. The last battle of the Cataclysm expansion ended in its roiling heart.

Which orc warlock, creator of the Shadow Council, was played by Daniel Wu in the 2016 Warcraft film?

Gul'dan first appeared in Warcraft II as a power-hungry sorcerer who helped corrupt his own people. Even after he was killed, his skull lingered as a powerful demonic artefact.

Which Old God lurked behind the Scarab Wall in World of Warcraft's desert fortress of Ahn'Qiraj?

C'Thun drove the insectoid qiraji to frenzy until both player factions prepared a massive war effort. A mixed force from the two sides then opened the fortress gates.

When World of Warcraft launched, which class could only orcs, trolls and tauren play?

Shaman stayed exclusive to one side until the first expansion gave it to a new race on the other. Paladins crossed over in the same swap.

What were the player-built, upgradeable bases introduced in World of Warcraft's Warlords of Draenor called?

Garrisons let players recruit followers and send them out on missions for experience and items. Each one was assembled from separate buildings such as stables and armories.

Mists of Pandaria added Challenge Modes to World of Warcraft dungeons, asking a group to do what?

Finish as fast as possible was the brief, with the dungeon's difficulty raised for the run. The same expansion brought in three-player Scenarios and a pet battle system.

Kyrian, Venthyr, Night Fae and Necrolords are the four what in World of Warcraft's afterlife expansion?

Covenants each rule one zone of the afterlife and run their own story campaign. A player pledges to one of them, earning gear and abilities tied to that choice.

What unusual change did World of Warcraft's 2020 expansion make to the maximum level a character can reach?

The expansion cut it from 120 to 60, the same ceiling the game had at launch in 2004. Characters already at the old maximum were shrunk to level 50.

Which sword, once wielded by Tirion Fordring, became a paladin artifact weapon in World of Warcraft: Legion?

Ashbringer belonged to the Mograine family before it passed to Tirion Fordring. Legion handed every class specialization a storied weapon like it, 36 in all.

Blizzard's in-house band, Elite Tauren Chieftain, repeatedly changed the number in its name to match what?

The game's level cap set the name: Level 60 Elite Tauren Chieftain became Level 70 when the first expansion raised the ceiling. One year the band renamed itself in the middle of a concert.

Which lich commanded the flying citadel of Naxxramas as a base for the undead Scourge in World of Warcraft?

Kel'Thuzad received the citadel as a gift from his master, the Lich King. After his defeat, a traitor fled with his cursed remains so that he could be reanimated.

Sales of Brightpaw, a $10 World of Warcraft battle pet, raised over $1.7 million for which charity in 2015?

Make-A-Wish received every dollar from the pet, a record donation for Blizzard at the time. A second pet, Mischief, raised more than $2.5 million for it a year later.

Which company, best known for sports cards, launched the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game in 2006?

Upper Deck ran the game until it lost the licence in 2010, when Cryptozoic took over. Some packs hid loot cards with scratch-off codes for in-game pets and mounts.

Which of World of Warcraft's first two quest designers later directed Blizzard's shooter Overwatch?

Jeff Kaplan was a creative-writing graduate whose online guild happened to include Blizzard staff, and a visit to their offices turned into a job. He was hired by May 2002.

Which Star Trek actor praised his character class in a 2007 World of Warcraft television commercial?

William Shatner was one of several celebrities who talked up the classes they played in the campaign. Later ads in the same series featured Ozzy Osbourne and Steve Van Zandt.

In World of Warcraft raiding guilds, what does DKP stand for, a scoring scheme for sharing out boss loot?

Dragon kill points are earned for defeating bosses and spent on the items those bosses drop. The name comes from an older online game in which most of the bosses were dragons.

Which Blizzard feature sparked a 2010 backlash over plans to show players' legal names on its forums?

Real ID grew out of an agreement with Facebook to let friends share their identities. Blizzard cancelled the forum plan three days after announcing it.

Under which name did three UCLA graduates found the future Blizzard Entertainment in 1991?

Silicon & Synapse paired the building block of a computer with the building block of the brain. The studio was briefly Chaos Studios before it settled on Blizzard in 1994.

Which fan-run World of Warcraft server's 2016 closure led 200,000 people to petition for an official version?

Nostalrius had 800,000 registered accounts when a cease and desist letter closed it. A former team lead on the official game delivered the petition to Blizzard's president in person.

Which Blizzard project, based on the tabletop game Necromunda, was dropped to make way for World of Warcraft?

Nomad had spent a year without a clear direction while its developers were hooked on another studio's online role-playing game. Only the project's own lead voted against the switch.

Blizzard's lawsuit against MDY Industries targeted which bot that played World of Warcraft for absent users?

Glider let characters advance while their owners were away, and its creator claimed to have sold 100,000 copies at $25 each. The dispute reached a US federal appeals court in 2010.

Which anti-cheating system built into World of Warcraft did privacy advocates accuse of being spyware?

Warden scans the other software running on a player's PC and sends some of what it finds back to Blizzard. It even reads the title of every open window while the game is running.

What was the subtitle of Warcraft Adventures, the point-and-click game Blizzard cancelled in 1998?

Lord of the Clans lived on as a 2001 novel by Christie Golden after fans protested the cancellation. Its tale of a young orc reuniting his people also became the basis for Warcraft III.

Which museum put World of Warcraft in its World Video Game Hall of Fame in 2015?

The Strong, a museum devoted to play, opened the hall in June 2015 and named the game in its very first class. It has also run the National Toy Hall of Fame since 2002.