The Record
The Corrupted Blood incident, Leeroy Jenkins, the Method and Echo world-first races, machinima, and the Blackrock Depths server-first — the documented community record.
4 pieces
A raid night in progress. Twenty years on the picture has barely changed; almost everything behind it has.
Photo: UMUT 🆁🅰🆆 / Pexels
The incident depended on a world where thousands of players stood in the same room, on the same realm, with no way to opt out of each other.
Photo: Siarhei Nester / Pexels
Start here
Patch 1.7 introduced a debuff. It escaped. The public-health literature noticed.
The RecordLeeroy Jenkins: The Video, the Date, and What It Actually WasPosted to Warcraft Movies in May 2005, and probably staged. Both facts are part of the record.
The RecordMethod, Echo, and the Race That Became a Broadcast EventA forum thread in 2006; a 200,000-viewer broadcast by 2019. The race did not change, the audience did.
The RecordWarcraft Movies and the Era Before YouTubeBefore YouTube there was one site, and a generation of player-made film on it.