last night of azeroth

A world awaits… to pass away.

1

On Thunder Bluff in Mulgore, a tauren warrior sees off his necromancer friend.

This is the “Geomantic Treasure Land” chosen by the pastor for himself. In a few minutes, he will go offline here and leave this character forever on this verdant mesa, which is also his friend’s hometown.

At this time, there are still nearly two months before the closing of the national server of “World of Warcraft” announced by Netease, but the official regular recharge channel has been closed in advance. Although the channel was reopened later, at that time, the only solution was to find those people who still had a large amount of pre-paid Battle.net points left in their accounts, and ask them to buy the “Dragon Age” Collector’s Edition gift pack in the mall and give it away.

This gift pack contains many limited decorations such as mounts and pets. It is a product launched for the new expansion pack that will be launched on November 28. “, on the contrary, it has become the most valuable content.

The gift package with the original price of 328 was fired to nearly 1,000 yuan

Compared with the monthly card with an original price of 75 yuan, this gift package has been fired up to thousands of yuan in the second-hand market. It is called “the last pot of gold for WOW national server RMT” (RMT refers to cash transactions outside the game), and the price is obviously beyond most Human tolerance range,.

This means that those players who miss the recharge due to various reasons will eventually have to leave this world early.

Some players comforted themselves by saying that in this way, they could grab a “good tomb” for themselves in advance and choose a geomantic treasure to go offline-many of them chose to return to the main city or birthplace of their race, making the starting point of the journey a end.

Picking the “grave head” became a popular stalk among players at that time

But this necromancer didn’t want his character to go back to the gloomy Undercity or Deathknell Town, and sleep on those gloomy and cold cemeteries or in coffins. He finally chose Thunder Bluff facing the grassland and blooming in spring. The wind guides its own path.

After saying goodbye to each other, the warrior watched the mage’s figure gradually fade away until he disappeared.

2

Rige Farm, located in the Valley of the Four Winds, is the first piece of land that players can own in “World of Warcraft”. It was added in the “Mists of Pandaria” expansion that was launched ten years ago.

After going through the task line that takes a week to complete, the player can inherit the farm from an old pandaren farmer, grow and harvest vegetables every day, and thus obtain some practical props in this version, and can also contribute to this farm. Add more facilities to the farm.

After the new expansion was updated, the materials harvested here lost their value for continued planting. There were more luxurious player buildings later in the game, but until the end, this log cabin was still the place closest to “home” in the hearts of many players. , many people choose to let their characters who have experienced various HTC adventures “retreat to the countryside”, nestle in this soft bed, and sleep undisturbed.

“Fortress” is a player building added by “Lord of Draenor”. Players can recruit many NPC partners here to build the fortress into a fully functional home.

Because of the existence of this facility, this expansion pack was once called the “most friendly to lone wolf players” version. The most common sentence everyone said was “don’t try to trick me out of the fortress”. Perhaps because of this, the independence of player buildings has been weakened in subsequent versions to promote player interaction, making it difficult for players to have such a small world of their own.

After the players left Draenor to go to the new expansion, the NPCs in the fortress were still living and working, producing outdated resources, waiting for the players as “commanders” to come back and collect them. Some of them had a rare chance to see the return of the commander recently, but they couldn’t understand what the player said “goodbye” meant.

3

At the beginning of December, a few days after the “Dragon Age” expansion pack was launched, NetEase opened a special recharge channel. Players can recharge their account with a World of Warcraft monthly card through private messages to customer service or GM.

Some national server players who missed the recharge before were able to “cheat the corpse” and experience this last new version again.

The main line of the story told in “Age of Dragons” is “the past and future of the guardian dragons”. Players will follow the Azeroth dragons back to their birthplace, and they have left their hometown for tens of thousands of years.

In the Holy Land of Red Jade Rebirth, players can see an old man sitting on the edge of a high platform. He provides a task called “Hero stays behind”, inviting players to look at the distant scenery with him and listen to him tell his own story .

Ten thousand years ago, when he left here, he was still a recruit of the dragon army, at the age where he could still play tricks on adult dragons with his companions. But the betrayal of Deathwing and the black dragonflight destroyed everything, and the former playmates killed each other, and finally forced everyone away from the land that raised them.

“This was originally my home, and I never thought that I would never return. After a long time, I no longer dare to expect to go home.” Looking at the already unfamiliar scenery, the now aged dragon said.

But what he doesn’t know is that the “heroes” sitting beside him are about to leave this land in a hurry, and they also don’t know when or even whether they will return.

4

In the last few days before the game’s server shutdown, Blizzard added the “lock account” function to the WOW national server. Players can use this to download the game progress in their account to the local for storage. It’s just that at the same time, all characters in the account will also be locked, and they can no longer log in to the game, and this function can only be performed before the game is officially closed.

This feature is also called “cyber urn” by players

This means that players can only choose between “seal account progress” and “accompany the character to the last moment”. According to some players who have experienced this function in advance, its success rate is not stable, and players should reserve Several hours to perform this operation.

So on the evening of the day when the server was shut down, some players who still wanted to keep their account information began to bid farewell in advance.

Booty Bay is one of the original neutral areas in “World of Warcraft”. If players from the Alliance and the Horde fight here, they will be surrounded by guards. There is a neutral auction house that can be used by both parties here, and any weekends will be held. Fishing conferences that players can participate in… This is one of the few places in the early game that promotes harmonious coexistence between Alliance and Horde players.

At the last sunset before the game’s server shutdown, some players from the Horde and the Alliance gathered here. Everyone just set off fireworks in silence, watching the boats circle the island in circles under the setting sun in the distance. bypass……

In the game, the words published by the players of the opposing camps cannot be displayed normally in the eyes of each other, but at this moment, when the players of the other camps suddenly yelled an incomprehensible sentence, and then flew away on the mount, or the figure was in the original Everyone present knew he was saying “goodbye” as the land faded away.

5

Highmountain in the Broken Isles is the highest mountain in Azeroth, and the most magnificent starry sky can be seen from there. Looking up among the mountains, you can see the clear Milky Way, as well as the hometown of Draenei race players – the planet Argus.

The last night of Azeroth is also the last night of all planets in World of Warcraft. All epic disputes are gone. The vertices of the High Ridge ushered in an endless stream of players. Under the Milky Way, they are no longer the great lords who saved Aixing from danger a few years ago, but tourists who come to remember their old places and take pictures.

Backlighting Peak, red stars twinkle in the night sky of Highmountain. That was the Pantheon, the shadows of Azeroth’s creators in the sky. In the last few hours, the figures of the Alliance and the Horde appeared here again and again, and there were several unnamed tombs on the snow, which seemed to be at the right time.

Like Booty Bay, some people sit here silently, and then disappear silently into the air; some are just anxious passers-by, rushing to the next location to take pictures at the last moment.

As the crowd gathered inadvertently, the players began to talk one after another. The content was nothing more than greetings such as “You are here too”, or blessings such as “May the wind guide your path” . The opposing camps interact through actions such as “hugs” and “blow kisses”.

After all the words, the crowd finally fell into a long silence, until a warlock said: “I want to cry”, and after another long silence, a soldier answered: “We will meet again”.

People waved, hugged, and said goodbye.

6

“Golden Plains” is the only RP (role-playing) server in the national server. Players who choose this server should theoretically fully integrate into their characters, and try their best to avoid OOC (Out Of Character, that is, making things that do not conform to the characters and game world view settings) Behavior) and in principle should not even use the “world channel”.

But at this moment, someone on the alliance’s world channel is calling over and over again, let everyone come to the Golden Town not far from the outskirts of Stormwind City. There is a spacious open space in front of the hotel here, which is also what many alliance players encounter during their travels. The first town.

Even at such last moments, there are still players faithfully carrying out their role-playing: some people are still advertising that they have opened a tavern in the dwarf district of Stormwind City, and everyone will have a chance to try it again in the future; a priest suggested that everyone can use The feelings at this moment are written and sent to her as a time capsule, and she will send these letters back to everyone as soon as possible on another day (when the server is opened again)…

It’s a pity that no matter how hard the players persist, it is difficult to reasonably explain through the game settings that the world is about to end without a problem, but the characters in the game can’t find a suitable reason to say goodbye to each other. Even the pastor who made the time capsule couldn’t help but say OOC in the end.

But it’s enough to believe that she said it from the bottom of her heart.

At the same time, some tribal players from the “Golden Plain” came to the Golden Plain in the game and took a group photo of them under the moonlight.

7

On different servers, Orgrimmar, the main city of the Horde side, has a similar scene—people riding mounts commonly known as phoenixes and fire hawks, gathered in a circle in the open space of the Valley of Power, and held a bonfire party.

Phoenix and Firehawk are quite rare mounts in name, and players usually have a chance to obtain them by repeatedly brushing the book week after week; but at the same time, because these two mounts joined the game very early, a lot of game time Longer players have already bagged it, striking a delicate balance between “rare” and “universal”, and it also symbolizes the commitment of many players to this game.

On the other hand, these two mounts also look more “festive” than other rare mounts

From time to time, someone in the mount formation would yell “Brothers, I’ll pack the box first” and then leave the team, but soon, the seat vacated by him will be filled by someone sitting on the same mount. One by one, people come to the center of the circle, do a dance or show off some toys from their collection, set off a firework, and say goodbye to everyone.

Different from the rough but spacious Orgrimmar, Stormwind City, the main city of the Alliance, is majestic and majestic, but the streets and alleys under the town structure are not suitable for people to “chat around the stove”. The favorite mount stayed at the gate of the city, where everyone took out all kinds of toys they collected and held a final fireworks show.

In World of Warcraft, there is an achievement called “Long Strange Journey”, which requires players to participate in festivals held at different times of the year and complete various events to achieve it. At this moment, from mounts to props to skills, players are showing all the strange things they have collected during this long journey.

8

“Landro’s Gift Box” is a recharge gift launched by NetEase for the WOW national server. Players used to buy annual cards and half-year cards to get gift boxes. There is a very low probability of getting a swift ghost tiger mount from it.

This mount used to be only available through the Warcraft scratch card, and the market price of the national server was around 50,000 yuan. Until NetEase added this new acquisition method, the price remained high.

In the past, if someone showed off that they opened a ghost tiger mount from a gift box, other players would usually be called “Dogtoo” with a little jealousy, even on the last night before the server was shut down.

Mounts that were once worth tens of thousands or coveted are likely to become worthless, but it still does not affect their weight in the minds of players.

At this moment, some other players are still fighting for the mount in the dungeon, hoping to try their luck at the last moment to see if they can get the mount that they once dreamed of.

Others are helping the former – over the past few years, a group of players on the national server have spontaneously provided free CD dyeing services, waiting in front of each copy, helping other players go straight to those bosses that have a chance of losing their mounts. They saw it as a career and held on to the last moment.

9

The night is getting darker, and most of the people who are still online at this moment have decided to give up “boxing” their accounts.

Before Lion’s Rest in Stormwind, more and more people gathered.

It used to be the garden area of ​​Stormwind City, but now it is the tomb of King Varian Wrynn, the former leader of the alliance camp. This soldier fought to the last moment for Azeroth. The passing of time.

At some point, the players in front of the tomb put on the snow-colored griffin mount, which is the most ordinary in the game but also the most representative of the alliance.

People silently gathered around the tomb, remembering the NPC who had been with them for many years. Someone in the crowd turned on the prop “Sylvanas’ Music Box”, changing the surrounding background music to “Elegy of the High Elves”.

After the song was sung, the crowd shouted “For the Alliance, for Azeroth!” A chant of “Anchor has been lifted” happened to be heard from the port of Stormwind not far away, accompanied by ships that had carried countless players The moonlight sailed out slowly, embarking on the last journey.

10

Ten minutes before 0:00 on January 24, 2023, the chat channel began to prompt the countdown to server shutdown.

Similar reminders will appear in previous downtime maintenance, but this time, when the countdown enters the last three minutes, the reminder interval is shortened to once every 15 seconds, as if constantly asking the player if they are ready for this moment.

The players who got together seized the last moment to cherish each other, but some servers disconnected early before the last moment, and the “goodbye” players typed in the chat box stayed there forever.

Other players seized the last time to go to the place they chose to ascend, some jumped from the tower of Dalaran, from the edge of the Maw, and some leaned against each other in the hotel or in the Moonglade to sleep , and some were hurriedly bounced back to the login interface on the way to the desired location.

The gate that Zakun had guarded for nearly seven years still stood there, and a world was left on the other side.

*Aria also contributed to this article