World of Warcraft celebrates the twentieth anniversary of its launch later this 12 months, and like all long-running sport, it’s seen some huge adjustments in its time. The most important of those sometimes arrive within the “pre-patch” updates that usher in main systemic adjustments shortly earlier than a brand new growth goes dwell. Previous pre-patches have reworked all of the questing on the sport’s unique continents, squished the stats on each merchandise, lowered character ranges, reworked expertise timber, and principally restructured all the sport.
The pre-patch for the tenth growth, The Conflict Inside, simply dropped, formally shifting WoW to model 11.0. With the brand new replace got here the primary full redesign of the character-select display screen within the sport’s historical past — a seemingly minor replace that also brought about my coronary heart to leap into my mouth.
Let me clarify.
Certainly one of a few massive systemic adjustments arriving within the 11.0 patch is Warbands. WoW developer Blizzard is shifting quite a lot of development within the sport to be account-wide, somewhat than particular to a single character: For example, faction fame will now be shared throughout all of your characters. It’s a recognition of the truth that today, quite a lot of WoW’s viewers performs a number of characters (or “alts”), and doesn’t essentially wish to do the identical grinding over and over. To simplify this course of, Blizzard created Warbands, a grouping of all of the characters on an account — even when they belong to opposing factions, or dwell on totally different servers. (You’ll be able to learn extra about Warbands in this official Blizzard blog post.)
To visualise your Warband, WoW’s character choose display screen now teams all of your characters collectively, no matter server — and reveals the highest 4 characters hanging out collectively round a comfy campfire. (Beforehand, WoW would simply provide you with a person hero shot of every character towards a background acceptable to their race.) Blizzard says it plans to introduce new Warband scenes afterward, doubtlessly making room for greater than 4 characters.
![Four World of Warcraft characters stand around a campfire: a Troll Hunter, a Tauren Monk, a Night Elf Druid, and a Troll Warrior](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Di6WXpfAI5Fd06aVbNzLi_TsabU=/0x0:1839x1034/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:1839x1034):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25544431/wow_oli_s_warband.jpg)
It’s arduous to elucidate to somebody who hasn’t been taking part in the identical online game for 20 years, however attending to pose 4 of your alt characters — any of your alt characters — subsequent to one another on this manner is kind of an enormous deal. It made me emotional. These are avatars I’ve spent years of my life with, however I’ve by no means been in a position to put them in the identical area collectively earlier than. As a result of they’re all on the identical account, and to play one, I’ve to log off of the others, they’ve by no means really met. Now I can watch them chilling collectively round that little campfire, and picture them telling one another tales about their adventures.
It’s greater than that, although. To me, these characters symbolize not simply totally different eras of the sport, however totally different instances in my life, and totally different teams of pals. There’s my first troll warrior, who I tanked with within the sport’s earliest days, and who made mechanical squirrel pets for each member of my unique guild. There’s my night time elf druid, the one Alliance character I spent any time with, who I used to play with my oldest good friend Rob when he was residing on the different finish of the nation. There’s my troll hunter major, who’s been with me since at the very least The Burning Campaign, and who had a quick raiding profession within the late 2000s. Right here’s my tauren monk — an inherently hilarious race/class mixture — who I made to play with my spouse after we moved in collectively, once we sat subsequent to one another and gamed on blissed-out lazy Sundays.
Twenty years! Any sport you play for that lengthy turns into a part of your life, and your life turns into a part of it. These are actual reminiscences, hooked up to actual tales and actual folks. WoW’s new character-select display screen is sort of a treasured photograph album, bringing these moments collectively for the primary time. I like it.