You Know It’s Funny…

You Know It’s Funny…

By: Thurston “Ratboy” Hillman

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Leveling up, killing enemies, dueling players, completing quests, and adventuring in Instances. The above are all the basics of character development… but where do the laughs come in? The humor in World of Warcraft is evident in several factors of the game, and while Blizzard has made it their prerogative to throw in a bastion of “Easter Eggs”, but there are still other less direct items that bring out the laughs in players.

To discuss what brings out the “laughs” when playing an MMORPG, you need to realize that each person finds humor in different things. For some players, the items and NPC’s of the game can set a funny atmosphere, and for others it can be more based on different actions and events that happen in game (developer intentional or not) that makes players smile and laugh. What humor in WoW really comes down to is the “content” (items, MOBs, locations, etc) and the “events” (scripted or non-scripted events). These two factors are key in producing much of the humor we specifically see in World of Warcraft.

Content

To start off a brief overview of the two factors; lets take a look at the “content” of the world of Azeroth. Locations in WoW are filled with major and minor bits of humor, be it special named NPC’s like Linken (based of Legend of Zelda’s famed elf Link), or Jhordy Lapforge (a gnome engineer based off Star Trek’s chief engineer Geordi La Forge), or even specially named items that seem to pop up everywhere in game (Wirt’s Third Leg, The Mortar: Reloaded, Hanzo Sword, etc, etc). All of these “Easter Egg” style treats that are in game are also made so that they can be much more then just simple “eye candy”.

Using the above as an example, take Linken from Un’Goro Crater. Linken will start a quest line with you that is rather in-depth and requires traveling across the known world defeating enemies for Linken (who has mysteriously lost his memory). Completion of the quest-line offers two major rewards; Linken’s “Master Sword” (the sword used by Link in the original Zelda video game) and Linken’s Boomerang (another famed item of the Zelda series). A lot of people laugh at the idea of doing this quest line, and truly enjoy completing it, however the most interesting thing that I’ve noticed about this particular quest is that there are quite a few max level characters walking around still equipped with good old Linken’s Boomerang.

Linken’s quest-line is just that; a series of quests that offers decent rewards, however WoW offers random drop humor from time to time and it’s interesting to note what Blizzard has “snuck in” when it comes to the various different item drops in World of Warcraft. Doing a basic search for Rare (blue) single handed items on Thottbot, I was able to pick out quite a few items that brought a smile to my face…

-Digmaster 5000 (A rare pickaxe..)

-Face Smasher (A rare mace with a “direct” name)

-The Fight Club (The first rule about the Fight Club, is don’t equip the Fight Club)

-Hanzo Sword (All we need now is an NPC named Bill…)

-Hookfang Shanker (Blizzard has this love of the word “shank”)

-Mug’o’Hurt (It’s a mug… and it hurts…)

-The Ziggler (A rare dagger that is likely a predecessor to Diablo II’s “Diggler”)

-The Cruel Hand of Timmy (A rare Mace that drops off the poor boy known as Timmy. Dating all the way back to Warcraft III).

-Wirt’s Third Leg (He took a lot of my money back in Diablo I. I guess it’s time for revenge!)

The above items came from just a specific search of rare items in the game, and there were more that others might have found funny as well. This should give you just a “taste” of what Blizzard has been able to sneak into WoW, and how many players get laughs just out of items. Trust me when I say facing a warrior dual-wielding Hanzo Swords is a scary and amusing sight indeed!

Events

With the content given a brief summary, I will go on and explain some of the “events” that occur in WoW. Events are scripted actions that occur in game that add a “funny” moment into an otherwise fairly serious role playing game.

Using the Uldaman Instance as an example of how WoW has scripted humorous moments into the game, lets look at some of the encounters found in game. First off are the “Lost Vikings” that for old Blizzard fans are a well known treat. The Vikings are based off the 3 Vikings from the classic Blizzard action game “The Lost Vikings”. Battling these three enemies is an interesting battle if you are a member of the Horde. Later on in the Instance there is a battle against Grimlock; king of the Troggs. For fans of the old Transformers Movie, Grimlock uses the same line as the Dinobot from the movie; “Me Grimlock, king!”

The Uldaman events are all well scripted events that were intentional on Blizzard’s behalf, however there are situations that arise that are completely non-intentional when it comes to events. Take for example the “conga-line” death that happens in so many Instances (mainly Lower Blackrock and Gnomeregan), in which a player falls far from the raid and engages enemies. Once the enemies are engaged, and the lone player is dispatched, the Mobs will path through the Instance to reach the rest of the party; often resulting in a “Conga-Line” of enemies that simply crushes the party in a matter of seconds.

Blizzard maintains their scripted events even in high end content; with example like “The Bomb” from the Baron Geddon fight. Geddon will randomly turn a member of the raid into “The Bomb” who explodes within about 10 seconds; dealing massive damage to nearby raid members. Even in the new Instance of Ahn’Qiraj, there are pictures of a mysterious “Leeroy Jenkins” who assists the party in one of the battles therein. It’s good to see that Mr. Leeroy is something that Blizzard recognizes.

The above of course are all intentional events that are within the “rules” of the game; however there have been situations where events have gotten… out of control. Using Baron Geddon as an example again; earlier in the deployment of Molten Core, there was an exploit that players were finding quite useful. If a summoned pet was made into “The Bomb”, the owner would simply de-summon the pet and hold it in stasis (the pet still having the curse on it when it was re-summoned). The “Pet Bomb” became a rather large issue, with high end players killing off various people in the auction houses of the world.

More recently, an epidemic has literally swept the world of Azeroth. The final boss of Zul’Gurub was giving players a disease that spread around from player to player, this disease eventually got outside the Instance and spread around the cities of WoW in quick succession. This “epidemic” caused chaos on WoW servers; lower level players getting infected by wandering NPC’s and summarily being killed in one or two ticks of the disease. Blizzard eventually fixed the issue, and was even approached by several international agencies who were interested in gathering information on how this “simulated epidemic” worked for them. Whilst completely unintentional by Blizzard, the Zul’Gurub virus scandal was loved by many players, who got a good laugh out of it.

One Last Laugh…

So is there humor in WoW and does it fit in? Yes.

If you can’t smile at the thought of wandering through Molten Core to fight the elemental lord Ragnaros; armed only with Wirt’s Third Leg; or forgetting to unsummon your pet before he trails back to your party with a hundred enemies in tow; then it’s unlikely that you see the humor in WoW. For the rest of us, the game is just that; a game. You can find humor wherever you want, and appreciate the evident things that Blizzard has put in to make our experience more enjoyable.

And just remember… there is nothing scarier then a fury specced warrior dual wielding Hanzo Swords!