When do you remember WoW becoming a household name?

[Lauren Morton]

Hey PC gamers welcome back to the chat log! This week we talked with two of our long-time World of Warcraft players about the 20th anniversary of WoW. In between all our other nostalgia about favorite expansions, being converted by friends, and years of updates we also got to chatting about when we remember WoW entering the cultural consciousness. We aren't all WoW players around here and you may not be either, but there's not been any escaping its cultural power in the past 20 years.

When do you remember World of Warcraft becoming a household name?​

What was it that you remember cementing WoW as a culturally relevant name? Was it the South Park episode? The Big Bang Theory episode? Trailers on TV or your friends skipping sports practice to raid? WoW is still going strong as one of the biggest MMOs around so we may yet have 20 more years of it ahead of us. What a time!

 

[Alm]

I think the South Park episode struck me as it really becoming well known. Though I think most people have vaguely heard of it but don't know exactly what it is. I remember my Uni mates mocking people who played World of Warcraft.

I bought it early on and thought it would be an evolution in gaming. I got to the point where I needed to group with people and that's where it lost me. I found most people to be toxic / annoying in some sort of way or another. Or just not enjoyable to play with. I think maybe because I'm some kind of introverted hermit. Humbug

 

[red_5ive]

Sometime before Guild Wars released. I remember getting a few of my WoW friends to jump into GW, and their assessment was, "It isn't WoW", or, "I'm not WoW'd." Anyone I knew at that point just called it WoW.

But I never referred to it as WoW myself. Having played a lot of Warcraft and Warcraft II, it was always just Warcraft to me. But for some reason I never got into WoW.

 

[Colif]

When every new MMO was going to be a Wow Killer. Still waiting

I played it in 2005, I stopped when TBC had been out about 11 months
I only know I started so soon as tbc came out Jan 2007, and I had been on 60 for over one year in game time on my Rogue before we got expansion.

I enjoyed levelling more than end game... probably as it let me be alone more. That hermit statement above is familiar. 40 man raids were funny though

 

[COLGeek]

I never played, beyond a brief trial. One of my daughter's best childhood friends and a nephew of mine are lifelong devotees and players. Both for 20 years or so. Neither called WoW. Just Warcraft. Wow...

 

[Frindis]

Back in 2008, I worked at a local radio station and we helped GameStop with their Wrath of The Lich King sale release while covering the event. There were a lot of cool WoW decorations, and video/music, including the huge banner of the Lich King himself and the line of people that were waiting for getting the game was quite long. So for me, that was the time I noticed locally just how popular World of Worldcraft had become.

 

[mjs warlord]

WoW reminds me of something really funny.
Many years ago in a game shop a young kid wanted to buy some sort of micro payment card .... not sure what.
The shop assistant said no your not old enough , the kid lols and says thats ok mate i will give my dad my pocket money and he will buy one for me.

Shop guys says you cant do that ... kid replies oh yes i can cos you dont know who my dad is.

 

[Zloth]

I was into City of Heroes, so WoW was just the Everquest people turning into World of Warcraft people.

At least gameplay-wise, those two games seemed pretty similar. There were quite a few MMOs out at the time trying new things to move the MMO genre forward. They got audiences, but EQ stayed on top until WoW came around. MMOs aren't like single player games. The gameplay, IMHO, is a distant second to just hanging out with your friends. New features and ways to play just get in the way. (Nicer graphics are even worse. Nobody wants to leave friends behind because they can't afford a new graphics card.) When WoW came around and offered pretty much the same sort of game but better run and without high system requirements, they took over.

Still true today. CounterStrike2 is 12 years old and dominating the Steam player count.