I realized a hard truth the other day. I’ve been playing the video game World of Warcraft for 15 years. For those of you who don’t know what WOW is, it’s a massive multiplayer online role-playing game set in the fantasy world of Azeroth. It was first released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment, and had over 11 million registered users within its first ten years of gameplay. By 2017, the game had grossed over $9 billion, making it one of the highest-grossing video game franchises of all time.
Now before you scream “NERD!’ at the top of your lungs, you non-WOW-playing weirdos should know what you’ve been missing. I won’t go on about how successful the game has been, or why its popularity has faded a bit since the The Wrath of The Lich King expansion, or how the game designers frustratingly keep nerfing my Orc Hunter’s stats.
What I am gonna talk about is the sense of community and camaraderie that came with playing WOW. You could play with people all over the world, at all hours of the day. People made friends for life in the game. People met their future IRL spouses in Azeroth. And people peppered Barrens Chat with the eternal question, “Where the fuck is Mankrik’s wife??”
Some gamers played for the teamwork-heavy raids. And some players just liked to wander the Eastern Kingdoms picking Mageroyal. But there’s one thing all players inevitably ended up doing — and that’s dancing naked in front of the Auction House.
Stripping down to your digital underwear and dancing at some random moment in the game is one of the greatest joys of playing WOW. Maybe you Druids want to shift into Moonkin form and get your boogie on…
Or maybe you want to don your Macabre Marionette gear and shake your undead ass off.
Or you humans can just leave your clothes on and grind what the gods gave you…
But if you haven’t stripped off your armor and shown us your finest grooves, I say what are you waiting for? You can dance naked by yourself…
Or you can dance naked with a room full of random strangers…
Just do it! Because nothing is more WOW than an impromptu naked dance party. I even heard a rumor the game designers are adding a “Dance Naked in the Opposing Faction’s Auction House For Five Minutes” achievement in the next expansion. So come find me stripping down to my orc undies for a little bump-and-grind.
Because we all know “My lok’tar ogar brings all the boys to the yard!”