< World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft/Tropes I-P


More tropes present in World of Warcraft.

  • I Am Very British: Since Cataclysm brought out the Worgen race, you can spend a lot of time in Gilneas. There are two basic accents to be heard - the Aristocrats all use Received Pronunciation and sound like a bunch of snobs, while everybody else (including you) talks like they're choking on a cockney - although an occasional version is Manchestrian. Men and women alike wear rather badly treated bowler hats and top-hats, and so can you, since they're also quest rewards.
    • Just in case it wasn't obvious enough, their villages and cities are generally a rip of Victorian London in the grip of a werewolf epidemic, the terrain is mostly pine and oak forests and small farms, and the weather fluctuates between rain and heavy rain. Sometimes it stops raining long enough to hail.
  • Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: Heroic, a harder version of the 5-man dungeons that scales them up to be challenging to players at the level cap of that particular expansion (or just more challenging) and reward better gear as a result.
  • Idle Animation: All the player races feature animations if you stop moving/doing anything for a few seconds, the example in the aforementioned trope lists a few of these.
  • If I Can't Have You: Stalvan Mistmantle kills his student when she gets together with another man.
    • Goblin characters eventually get to kill their exes after they are dumped.
    • The thing with Stalvan was retconned into being a worgen thing even though this leads to a lot of Anachronism Stew
  • I Have Your Hatchlings: On the Lost Isles, the Goblins try to end the Naga threat by kidnapping a dozen hatchlings, and demanding their surrender. It almost works as the Naga stop attacking, but their leader, a Faceless One doesn't give a damn about the Naga and will attack you anyway.
  • "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Subverted with the Lich King. In the "Heart of Arthas" questline, he taunts Tirion Fordring with trying to redeem Arthas, and that this makes him weak; however, this quest proved that Arthas threw away the last vestiges of his humanity, and Tirion realizes that redemption is impossible, so killing him is the only option.
    • Also subverted with the Alysrazor fight, hitting her in a specific phase gives a buff implying there is still some green dragon in there but nothing comes of it besides a convenient buff
  • I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You: A new quest in the Southern Barrens called By Hook Or Crook has you interrogate a Quilboar (Pig-like men) to learn the name of his leader. If you choose to kick or punch the Quilboar he will eventually exclaim that "Tortusk trained us not to break" he will then Lampshade this by saying he "said too much".
  • I'm A Humanoiditarian: Most accurately, the Forsaken have "Cannibalize" as a racial ability to regain health from humanoid or undead corpses. In fact, you'll probably never need to use regular food again.
    • Awilo in Dalaran really loves serving up gnome!
    • Also many/most/really any Troll tribe except the Darkspears (and Revantusk) practice cannibalism.
    • One quest in Silverpine now sends you after bear meat, but due to Dying as Yourself we find out those bears were actually worgen druids.
    • Worgen, being basically werewolves, don't seem to shy away from taking bites out of their opponents, sentient or not (This has no affect on gameplay, unlike forsaken, it's just the set up for some "I like my meat rare/bleeding" jokes several npcs, and the players, make).
    • In Uldaman, three Dwarves are in a holdout position against the Troggs, an item that might appear at their camp is a cookbook suggesting they've been eating the Troggs they killed. Uldaman is a Titan installation, and an artifact there reveals that Dwarves and Troggs are decendants of the Earthen.
    • Jez Goodgrub in Winterspring warns you not to accidentally get too close to his cooking fire by mentioning a previous member of your race who fell in ... and was delicious.
    • An NPC at the new Darkmoon Isle but not at the Faire itself sells items of food heavily implied to be made from each playable race.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The Vrykul do this as a warning to the Alliance in the Howling Fjord, by nailing the still-living infantrymen to the ground with their huge spears. The only thing players can do is remove the spears so they bleed to death fairly quickly.
    • A dragon has apparently impaled itself in the scenery of Blade's Edge Mountains in Outland.
    • Deathwing eventually does it to himself in an averted Bad Future.
  • I Need You Stronger: The basis of the Lich King's plan in Northrend. It works pretty well, too. At least, until Tirion Fordring calls upon the power of Deus Ex Machina and destroys Frostmourne.
  • Inevitable Tournament: The Argent Tournament, and, on a lesser scale, the Ring of Blood in Nagrand, the Amphitheater of Anguish in Zul'Drak, and the Crucible of Carnage in the Twilight Highlands.
  • The Infiltration: On several quest lines, players have to infiltrate an evil group, posing as a member of said group, and then doing quests for them. In one notable case, the Knights of the Ebon Blade send you to infiltrate the Lich King's operation in Zul'Drak as yourself, as a Scourge infectee.
  • Infinity Minus One Equipment: Heirloom gear and weapons, see Purposefully Overpowered below. The whole point of Heirloom equipment was to help players level up new characters, by creating high-class equipment that levels up with the user, so they don't have to waste time acquiring ever newer Infinity Plus One Equipment.
  • Infinity Plus One Weapon: All the Legendary weapons are this, for their given expansion/patch - and most of them are fiendishly difficult to acquire, save the rare few which simply drop from a boss. The easiest ones to get that aren't boss drops can require several thousand gold on the Auction House to gain the materials - and they tend to be weapons designed for level top-level content. The two Legendaries in Wrath of the Lich King could take months of farming raids to get all the needed items to start making them, coupled with sometimes counterintuitive requirements during intensive boss battles to forge them. And they then become outclassed.
  • Informed Equipment: The new Transmogrification feature plays this straight in a good way, by letting you reskin your equipment if you don't like how it looks.
  • Informed Attribute: Tauren are supposed to be nice according to the lore but asides from some Easily Forgiven to Garrosh for killing their leader(admittedly in a duel to the death but he only won because outside interference poisoned his weapon) and not giving a crap about the ensuing Coup they haven't done anything to show any kind of distaste for the current Horde which is willing to attack neutral nations, use chemical warfare to kill civilians or just killing civilians who are fleeing the chemical warfare or the mass Mind Control or allying with the Dragonmaw who still enslaves dragons who are sentient or more
  • Insane Troll Logic: One of the male!pandaren's /silly quotes is a wonderful example of this:

It is said, 'if you can't beat them, join them'. I say 'if you can't beat them, BEAT them'. Because they will be expecting you to join them, and you will have the element of surprise!

  • Instrument of Murder: The Arcanite Ripper is an axe that doubles as a guitar.
  • Interchangeable Antimatter Keys: Several quests have players collecting keys to unlock some number of locks and will need one key for each lock.
  • Interface Screw:
    • As you get more and more drunk in-game, monsters will show as lower levels, your vision will blur more and more, and you will stumble randomly when you try to walk. There are a handful of monsters in-game who can actually force players to deal with this.
    • In the Madness of Deathwing boss encounter, if he succeeds in casting his instant-kill "Cataclysm" spell, your vision will fade to black after you die. Because, well, he technically just blew up the planet.
  • Interface Spoiler: The Trial of the Crusader raid achievements avert this, as all of them go to fairly great lengths to hide the fact that Anub'arak is the final boss.
  • Interplay of Sex and Violence: The Worgen besides being the most "savage" race in the Alliance (they're werewolves, after all) are also the most shamelessly sexual.
    • That's nothing compared to some of the removed female draenei flirts.
  • In the Blood: After her battle against Deathwing, which ends with both combatants severely wounded, Alexstrasza comes to the conclusion that Deathwing's very blood is corrupt, and that it extends through his entire bloodline, i.e. every single black dragon; she orders the entire black dragonflight slain.
    • Rheastrasza's questline in the Badlands involves purifying a black dragon egg from said corruption. The followup "Fangs of the Father" questline shows the outcome of this.

“They wanted to hold me, to keep watch over me – a prisoner in all but name. But I will NOT be held accountable for the sins of my father. My destiny will be my own.”- Wrathion, the Black Prince

    • Subverted with the Netherwing dragonflight, which are descended directly from Deathwing; due to his lack of influence, or their exposure to the Twisted Nether, they are not corrupt like the black dragons. While the Netherwings are very hostile to humanoids, this comes from their enslavement by the Dragonmaw Orcs, and can be befriended if you liberate them.
  • In the Hood: Many important armor sets, including tier sets, have hoods as part of the set. They're very popular among NPCs of the Priest class, and also Dark Rangers, inspired naturally by Sylvanas.
  • In the Local Tongue: This is one of the male draenei's jokes:

We did not realize, but in the Naaru language, Exodar means "defective elekk turd."

  • Involuntary Battle to the Death: Being enslaved for gladatorial combat happens a few times in the universe.
    • Lo'Gosh, one half of King Varian Wrynn was enslaved by orcs and fought in the Crimson Ring.
    • The Naga ended up on both sides of this. The Bloodwash Naga enslaved the Rockpool Murlocs and had some of them fight for their amusement. Also, the Riplash Naga and the nearby Tuskarr were defeated by the Kvaldir, and those not sacrificed to Leviroth were forced to fight each other.
  • Item Crafting: 13 different professions, all but two of which can craft to a certain extent.
  • It Has Been an Honor: As a shoutout to The Rock, Apothecary Baxter says this line to Apothecary Hummel when he is killed during Love is in the Air.
  • It's Probably Nothing: When Worgen players start, they get bitten and gain a debuff called "Worgen Bite", with this description:

You were bitten by a worgen. The wound looks minor... maybe it'll go away with time?

    • To put it mildly, it doesn't.
  • Jerkass: Countless NPCs, for a variety of reasons, but most particularly Varian Wrynn, Fandral Staghelm, and Garrosh Hellscream. Many of the less important ones apparently do this for little other purpose than to give players an excuse to kill them. Players also get the opportunity to be a Jerkass in-game on several occasions:
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Moodle the Gorloc, who is the smartest and (one of) the rudest of the Gorlocs /and/ Wolvar you'll meet throughout Sholozar basin. He pets the dog several times through his lines during a quest to save the Mosswalker Gorlocs.
  • Jet Pack: Everyone gets one to mess around with prior to the gunship battle in Icecrown Citadel. (Oh, and use them in the actual battle too.) Druid bear form + jet pack = comedy gold
  • Jiggle Physics: All the females have plenty of jiggle to an ample bust, but the female Tauren and Trolls have it particuarly bad - their idle animation has them stand there breathing, while their massive boobs bounce up and down like they're busy on a trampoline.
  • Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: This appears to be one of Blizzard's favorite ways of generating villains. Arthas, Illidan, Kael'thas, Sargeras, the Scarlet Crusade, Malygos, and probably a lot more.
    • In the Mists of Pandaria expansion, Horde Warchief Garrosh Hellscream ends up becoming the Big Bad after jumping off the deep end.
  • Jungle Japes: Feralas, Un'Goro Crater, Stranglethorn Vale and Sholazar Basin.
  • Kansas City Shuffle: In the Badlands, the red dragon Rheastrasza purifies a black dragon egg, hoping to spawn a new breed of good black dragons. She blows her cover when she's talking to you, and now has to smuggle the egg out of the region. After having you kill some of the evil black dragons in the area, ending with the egg's mother, she goes to retrieve it, only to be cornered by Deathwing, who destroys her and the egg. When players go to the cave where she was killed, they find a note saying that she swapped the egg with one of her own, knowing that the only way to save the egg was if the black dragons thought it was destroyed.
  • Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: The Westfall quest line starts with the murder of the Furlbrows, who were killed because they were the only ones who even knew Edwin VanCleef had a daughter and could identify her, something Vanessa VanCleef (Hope Saldean) had to keep secret while she reformed the Defias Brotherhood.
  • Killer Gorilla: Gorillas usually appear as aggressive enemies in tropical areas such as Stranglethorn Vale, Feralas, Un'Goro Crater or Sholazar Basin. Particularly notable ones are King Mukla, a giant gorilla living on an island, holding a woman captive, and a robotic ape called A-ME, communicating in sign language. Some of them drop barrels on death.
  • Kill Sat: The Titans left 4 in orbit around Azeroth as defenses after they left. Each is named for one of the 4 Keepers of Ulduar.
  • Lantern Jaw of Justice: King Varian Wrynn's. Deathwing has a villainous one.
  • Large Ham: Most bosses love to yell hammy lines at you while they're trying to smash you into a pulp. Some of the most memetic examples are Kael'thas, Malygos, Gothik the Harvester, the Headless Horseman, Lord Jaraxxus, Kologarn, Thorim, Sindragosa, and of course Yogg-Saron, who has possibly the best Evil Laugh ever recorded in a game .
  • Last Chance Hit Point:
    • Protection Paladin's Ardent Defender will allow them to survive a hit that would otherwise kill them, and instead heal them for 15% of their health.
    • Subtlety Rogues' Cheat Death ability will give the player a boost of HP when they are hit by an attack that would otherwise kill them, it comes with a debuff that prevents Cheat Death from happening more than once every 90 seconds, so they don't become immortal.
    • Fire Mages have the Cauterize ability that will give them back 40% of their health when they die, but adding a DoT that deals 48% damage in 6 seconds.
  • The Last of These Is Not Like the Others: The quest leading you to Rhea involves a package containing compressed blasting powder, a tempered mithril bomb casing, and some safety goggles; being Goblins, the safety goggles were the hardest thing to find.
  • Last Second Chance: The "Heart of Arthas" quest chain is basically Fordring trying to determine if there's anything redeemable left in the Lich King. To the surprise of few, there isn't. This gives Fordring and the Argent Crusade renewed determination to defeat the Scourge.
    • Though when you do finally kill him, it turns out there was a tiny remnant of good holding the rest back. Whether this was enough to redeem him is left kind of open, but his final words suggest not.

Arthas: I see only... darkness.

  • Last Stand: There are several quests with "Last Stand" in the name, but in most of them, players beat the odds. The quest called "Last Stand" in the Worgen starting zone, has players following Darius Crowley and his men in a hold-out position at the Light's Dawn Cathedral, in order to buy King Greymane time to evacuate the rest of Gilneas; it ends with the Worgen overrunning the cathedral, killing or turning everyone inside, and it's where the player's previous infection takes over.
  • Late Arrival Spoiler: The new loading screen for Northrend shows Bolvar wearing the Lich King's helm of dominion, true you might not know who it is, but it does spell out that there's still a lich king.
    • This is partially due to the severe case of Anachronic Order that was a by-product of the release of Cataclysm. By this point, Arthas' death is well-known, and the fact that Bolvar is the new Lich King is assumed common knowledge to the playerbase. However, none of this is helped by the fact that Northrend is time-locked into the events of Wrath of the Lich King, where Arthas is still (confusingly to new players) the Lich King.
    • Several Wrath of the Lich King questlines spoil events from Warcraft III, especially from the human and undead campaigns. If you stand in the Ruins of Lordaeron long enough, you can hear the scene in which Arthas kills his father.
  • Lawful Stupid: Chances are that you'll feel this way at some point for some of the quests you undertake when following orders.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The quest "Welcome to the Machine" where the player spends the entire quest as a quest giver.
    • When players defeat Maloriak in Blackwing Descent on Heroic mode, Nefarian (boss of the Blackwing raids and infamous Genre Savvy Troll) congratulates them and temporarily grants a vanity title of the sort rewarded for completing difficult achievements. The title is "<Name>, Slayer of Stupid, Incompetent, and Disappointing Minions."
  • Leave No Survivors: Lord-Commander Arete makes it clear that he won't rest until the Scarlet Onslaught is destroyed. It's not because Arete is a monster, but the Scarlet Onslaught is a zealous anti-undead organization who doesn't distinguish between the Scourge and other undead, that the Forsaken Death Knight sees no other option but to Kill'Em All.
  • Leave No Witnesses: During the Goblins' escape from Kezan, they run into an Alliance fleet attacking a Horde ship; when the Alliance sees the unidentified ship, they cite this before firing on it. This event leads some Goblins to joining the Horde.
  • The Legions of Hell: The Burning Legion, pretty much literally.
  • Let's You and Him Fight: Lantresor, a half-orc, half-draenei in Nagrand, arranges a heroic version of this, with your assistance.
  • Level Grinding
  • Level-Locked Loot: The only things that aren't implicitly so are the items you get from quests... which you have to be a certain level before they're available for you to accept anyway.
  • Ley Line: Ley nodes are shown in the elven territory, and Karazhan is highly spooky because every single ley line passes through it.
    • Malygos's master plan was to reroute every one of these on the planet to run under his fortress, then channel all their power into space, removing magic from the world and thereby preventing mortals from abusing it. That this would most likely result in an Earthshattering Kaboom didn't quite register to him.
  • A Lighter Shade of Black: The Scarlet Crusade vs the Scourge. At least until Wrath of the Lich King.
  • Light Is Not Good: The Scarlet Crusade and Blood Elves (before patch 2.4 gave them some redemption, anyway).
  • Limit Break: Rage acts like this, to an extent - built by dealing and taking damage, and allowing the use of powerful attacks.
  • Loads and Loads of Races: Type 2, following the example from the previous games
    • WoW began with eight playable races, all inherited from the RTSs, plus at least a dozen nonplayable sapient races inherited from previous games. Three expansions since WoW was first released have each added half a dozen new races or more while making some existing races that had been nonplayable playable for a total of probably around 30 intelligent races or more depending on how you count them.
  • Loophole Abuse: A lot:
    • If you attacked players in neutral towns, the guards would slaughter you both, no matter who started it or if they fought back. Cue rogues and hunters griefing by stabbing or shooting a player, then throwing aggro off of them as the guards slaughter the poor victim.
    • In Gadgetzan and Duskwood (Mostly Gadgetzan), guards would not climb buildings or jump onto roofs, so players would get on there and snipe at players who cannot fight back, while the Guards either simply stand around or run to a ledge and stand there, unable to jump up. This was fixed in an Obvious Rules Patch where snipers were added. This was called "Rooftop Camping".
    • Aint No Rule against naming your arena team similar names with only one letter difference to screw up macros.
    • Aint No Rule against naming your hunter pet the same as you to screw up targeting macros.
    • Priests (as well as hybrid classes) would carry around two sets of gear, a set that was more appropriate for healing and support and another set that was more appropriate for damage. Cue quick-change mods happening where people would appear to be walking around as a healer suddenly draw an axe or go shadowform and slaughter you. Also cue priests who would look like shadow priests suddenly start spamming heals so they wouldn't Shoot the Medic First. likewise, Aint No Rule against using Transmogrification for the same thing.
    • One thing that really annoys people in the dungeon and raid finder (Especially the latter) is that there Aint No Rule against having friend(s) who already are geared queue with you, roll for the same piece of gear, and then give it to you since you actually need it. There is nothing saying you can not do this, but the 20 or so who are not playing with two or more friends will typically shake their fists at you in frustration, since they're always getting outrolled by people who already have gear and there are plenty of people who have not won a single piece of gear since 2011.
  • Lost Forever: Several one-time-only events offered goodies which are otherwise unobtainable. A particularly rare mount could only be obtained after an event requiring countless man-hours from the entire server, for a period of less than a day. Any future new servers will have this event completed already, as well. Add in holiday rewards, anniversary pets, world events, and advertising promotion rewards...
    • The Battle For Undercity quest chain, which originally followed the Wrath Gate, has been removed as of Cataclysm.
      • Before that, Varimathras - an important undead NPC who was made a killable villain during said quest chain - was removed to players who had completed the quest chain, preventing access to a a few low-level quests which he gave out. However, a new orc NPC was added in patch 3.3. who handed out the same quests as Varimathras did.
    • Many breadcrumb quests become unavailable if you go to the quest giver that breadcrumb quest would take you to before taking said quest.
    • Some achievements are no longer obtainable, whether from being tied to a one-time event (such as logging in during World of Warcraft's anniversary) or from removed content (such as completing the original Zul'Gurub, or maximizing weapon skill), and those that are become Feats of Strength*
  • Lost in Translation: Many of the game's names, particularly those of orcs, rely on the ability of English (and other Germanic languages) to string nouns together; "Hell-scream," "Blade-fist," etc. This is completely lost when the game is translated into Romance languages, which don't have this ability, resulting in awkward names like "Garrosh Grito Infernal."
  • Luck-Based Mission: Several quests, achievements and boss fights, see the trope page for examples.
  • Ludd Was Right: The Blood Elves.
  • MacGuffin Girl: Anveena.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: Several Alliance aircraft certainly qualify; Mages using Mirror Image are a slightly more arcane version.
    • An early Alliance quest in Northrend requires the player to defend an excavation site from gargoyles. The plane's Macross Missile Massacre even Robotechs to the targets.
  • Made a Slave: Happens to the player twice:
    • In the Uldum questline, it happens to the player and Adarrah when you escort her caravan into the zone. Fortunately, Adarrah is able to pick locks and the Neferset are too stupid to confiscate your gear. (Of course, you can escape via your Hearthstone if you're callous enough to abandon Adarrah, but completing the quest requires you to escape the old fashioned way.)
    • In Legion, it happens during the Azsuna quest line. After the player is used as an Unwitting Pawn (as always) by Athissa, she has the other Naga bring him/her to the Slave Pits. Unlike the example in Uldum example, the guards are rather competent, and the player cannot escape on his own. Prince Faronidis helps with that. (Not a Deus Ex Machina, as the player assumes the role of Farondis.)
    • Naturally, Thrall's entire backstory revolves around this trope and winning his freedom. (His name is a pretty blatant indication.)
  • Made of Explodium: Goblin Technology.
  • Made of Phlebotinum: World of Warcraft seems more Made of Phlebotinum than most fantasy worlds, what with all its magically-powered civilizations and crystal planeships and such.
  • Magic Is a Monster Magnet: Primarily to the Burning Legion, although there's plenty of dangerous critters in Azeroth itself that like to snack on wizards.
  • Magic Knight: Paladins, Death Knights, and Enhancement Shaman.
  • Magic Pants: Druids can transform into various beasts without removing their clothes. Standard issue for Worgens in Cataclysm.
    • Lampshaded by Prince Anduin Wrynn who has a different phrase for each class when you escort him. Naturally this is what he asks druids about.
  • Magikarp Power: From Vanilla through to Wrath of the Lich King, a number of classes and/or specializations suffered from having a limited skill set at low levels, not receiving their core abilities or important passive skills till higher levels. This has thankfully been averted come Cataclysm, where each character now gets to choose their main specialization at level 10, receiving one signature spell/ability from that talent tree and a number of innate passive bonuses relating to that spec.
  • Magitek: Naaru constructs such as the Exodar and Tempest Keep, Ethereal technology, Titan technology.
  • Magnum Opus: Deathwing and Nefarian have been carrying out experiements on the dragonflights, including their own, and each has their own crowning achievement. Nefarian considers reanimating Onyxia as his finest work, while Deathwing refers to Ultraxion as his greatest creation.
  • Mama Bear: In the WotLK beta, feral druids had a talent called Mother Bear, which increased attack power and decreased the amount of damage taken by a percentage for every other member in the party (it capped at a four player increase, otherwise raids would get ridiculous) while in bear form.
  • Mana: All classes use some form of resource in order to use their special abilities. All magic-wielding classes use Mana, warriors and druids in bear form use Rage, rogues and druids in cat form use Energy, death knights use Runic Power, and hunter pets (and in Cataclysm, the hunters themselves) use Focus. In trope terms, they're all a form of Mana, though.
    • Some classes have other resources: Death Knights (runes), Rogues (combo points), Warlocks(soul shards), Druids(combo points in cat form, solar and lunar energy for balance druids), and Paladins (holy power). There are also various proc effects that work as resources, such as Maelstrom Weapon stacks for enhancement shaman.
    • Bosses often have their own unique resources, which may charge over time until being released in a single attack (The Conclave of Wind's Energy, Deathbringer Saurfang's Blood Power, Fandral Staghelm's Energy), or slowly be spent until being recharged in a "recharging" phase (Rajh's Solar Energy, Beth'tilac's Energy, Alysrazor's Energy)
  • Man On Fire: Bolvar Fordragon at the end of Icecrown Citadel. More generally, many attacks and spell animations involve this at some point, whether it's on the recipient's end or the caster's. The Warlock spell Hellfire is a particularly notable example as it damages the caster as well as all surrounding enemies. Demonology Warlocks also have Immolation Aura while (and only)in demon form. They are, essentially, on fire and hurting any foes nearby, though it does not affect the warlock or allies.
  • Marathon Level: Taken to an extreme in many classic dungeons and raids, but toned down significantly with each expansion. Blizzard discovered that dungeon/raid participation among the player base improved dramatically as the requirement to spend multiple hours in them at a time (or per week, for raids) was reduced.
  • Marshmallow Hell: A quest giver (specifically, a dryad) in Mount Hyjal is described as doing this to the player prior to giving out a quest.
  • The Masquerade: Many dragons will take on a humanoid form for the purposes of interacting with smaller races. Once a deceptive tactic of Machiavellian proportions (as in the case of Onyxia/Lady Prestor, for example), the practice is by now so well-known and common that it borders on They Walk Among Us.
  • Mass Monster Slaughter Sidequest
  • Master Poisoner: The Assassination talent tree for Rogues partially focuses on this.
  • May Contain Evil: Saronite. In fact many forget that it doesn't just contain evil, it's made of evil. It's made of the blood of the Old God Yogg-Saron, and people who mine it tend to go insane. So clearly, the logical response here was to wear the stuff, preferably on your head so Yogg-Saron can whisper in your ear more easily.
  • May-December Romance: Stalvan Mistmantle is apparently thought of as an "old man" by the student with whom he was infatuated, while he claims he was only a few years older. It's unclear who is correct, since Stalvan's age is never disclosed.
  • Mayincatec: The trolls.
  • Mega Manning: The death knight spell 'Dark Simulacrum' allows them to copy the next spell their target casts and fire it as their own.
    • Hex Lord Malacrass can use an ability on players that grants him a few abilities from their class. For example, if he targets a Druid, he can cast Moonfire on his enemies or heal himself.
  • Merchant City: Gadgetzan and Dalaran.
  • The Messiah: Tirion Fordring, Highlord of the Argent Crusade, who started out a hermit exiled for showing mercy to an orc, got (with the player's help) the Call to Adventure and vowed to rebuild the Silver Hand, and has, by the present, become Azeroth's premier honorable paladin who actively urges both sides to join together and destroy the evils threatening them all.
    • Thrall becomes this to the orcs, and both the Naaru and (though to a lesser extent) Velen to the draenei.
  • Metal Detector Puzzle: Digging fragments for Archaeology involves surveying a dig-site, which places a scope and indicator light on the ground. The scope's direction, and the color of the light give a vague idea where the fragments are.
  • Miles Gloriosus: Kingslayer Orkus. At least, at first. Thanks to some Character Development, he becomes the boast and performs a Heroic Sacrifice so the player can get Alliance war plans back to Horde command, thus becoming the hero he had always dreamed of being.
  • Military Moonshiner: One quest line you undertake in the Nesingwary Base Camp involves you and the mess sergeant "inventing" a mana restoring potion called "Kungaloosh", which consists of bananas, oranges, and papayas boiled with rum in a homemade still. (Tamara compares it to engine degreaser, but it seems okay for everyone else.) This unlocks a "hidden" quest to obtain the recipe for it from a drunk in the Dalaran sewers, where you can make it with easily-obtainable fruit from a vendor.
  • Milkman Conspiracy: Cro Threadstrong, an orc who sells leatherworking supplies in Shattrath City, continually rants about how the Fruit Vendor is leading an army of ogres trying to eliminate the Horde. Among other things. The Fruit Vendor in Shattrath is a nothing more than a sweet old lady named Granny Smith, so it's likely he's just a loon. Still, at least one Guild on one server has called itself Fruit Vendor Army out of inspiration.
  • Mind Control: Tons of examples among the various NPCs and bosses, both in the lore and in the game itself. There is also a spell available to the Priest class that lets them take control of other players/monsters for a short while.
  • Minor Injury Overreaction: In Nagrand, Harold Lane gets a scratch and is found dying in his tent; the other members of his hunting party generally ignore him, and after players complete a number of quests for him, he miraculously recovers.
    • Harold is a parody of Harry Street from The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemmingway, who also suffers a minor injury; except Harry's injury becomes infected, and he dies.
  • Missing Mom - Practically everyone, including, but not limited to: Jaina Proudmoore (mother unknown), both Varian Wrynn and his son Anduin (both of their mothers died during their youth), Moira Bronzebeard (mother unknown), Medivh (mother Aegwynn had little to do with him after he was born), Garrosh Hellscream (mother unknown), Baine Bloodhoof (mother died in his youth), Kael'thas Sunstrider (mother unknown), and Saurfang the Younger (insert Saurfang fact here).
  • Mithril: It exists, but it's disappointing compared to the original or in other settings. Due to the Expansion Pack World franchise and the leveling process in general, gear is continually replaced. When the game was new, mithril was the second- or third-best naturally-occurring ore available (depending on what you want to call "naturally occurring"...). Players could make weapons and armor out of it and some of those weapons would probably last them until just before the endgame. Today, after three expansions on one new world and two new continents, a dozen better metals have been introduced, and mithril is just another relatively brief part of leveling.
  • Money Sink: Tons, designed to drain gold out of the economy to prevent rampant inflation.
  • Money Spider: Averted, as most animal/nonhumanoid enemies drop Vendor Trash instead of cash, although you can still find a two-handed sword inside of a spider (which generally is not in wieldable condition, but may be of uncommon quality).
    • Enemies dropping money is fairly common in dungeons; while Vendor Trash goes to the person who gets to loot the corpse, money can be split between the party.
  • Monster Modesty: Several creatures. The skeletal mobs in particular.
  • Monster Sob Story: Murlocs are found in almost any zone with water in it, and cause no end of trouble; until players reach the Blasted Lands, and find an entire Murloc village enslaved by the Naga; and no matter what players do, they cannot be saved.
    • And the Naga get some of their own medicine in Northrend, when they are attacked and almost wiped out by the Kvaldir; one Naga questgiver is completely unrepentant, but has no choice but to ask for help as the Kvaldir are about to awaken a Sealed Evil in a Can.
  • Mood Whiplash: Although it's constantly possible in an open-world game like this, it's especially noticeable in the standard Forsaken zone progression. Silverpines is a dramatic and dark war story in which the tragic plight that is the heart of the Forsaken's problems are explored... and then your character enters Hillsbrad Foothills, and things suddenly become a knockabout comedic parody.
    • Within Hillsbrad's own quests, there's one notable instance of this. Meeting Orkus, he's proven himself an incompetant blowhard throughout the entire quest chain. Then while on Purgation Isle, he begins telling you things about his life, like how he met his frost wyrm mount, Horde politics, and at one point, says you're his first real friend. Then he takes on three level ?? Alliance "players" and tells you to get on his mount and fly away, leaving him to fend for himself. You fly a short distance before the wyrm u-turns and picks him back up. Before reaching Tarren Mill, he asks you to take his mount somewhere cold to live before dying of his injuries. When you land, the NPC's in Tarren Mill honor him as a fallen hero and his death is treated as genuinely sad.
      • Silverpine itself has one. As mentioned, the overall quest chain is quite dark. Then you get the quest to kill the worgen druids sneaking around pretending to be actual bears. The questgiver lamphades the absurdity of the situation.
    • In Felwood, there's a heartwarming quest where you raise an Ancient from birth to maturity. When he freezes at the top of the hill you found him at, he tells you to come back years later to find him growing big and strong. If you're a Horde player, your next quest may be a goblin quest, where the girl in charge basically says "yeah, that stuff about you protecting the forest was cute, but now you have to help us cut the trees down. Tough shit."
  • Mook Promotion: In Cataclysm, Hogger becomes a dungeon boss in Stormwind Stockade, gaining about 15 levels or so in the process. (It's a start.)
  • Mordor: There are several, but the most obvious is Icecrown, which takes its design directly from the film version of The Lord of the Rings and contains an area called Mor'drethar. The difference being where Mordor is mainly covered in fire and lava, Icecrown is mainly, well, icy.
  • More Than Mind Control: Features regularly in Mind Control scenarios, and combined quite frequently with Evil Feels Good.
  • Motivation on a Stick: There's a trinket like this that increases mount speed.
  • Mr. Exposition: Uther serves this purpose in the Halls of Reflection.
    • In Cataclysm, there's a quest in Silverpine which is essentially you riding horseback next to Sylvanas while she tells you the history of Lordaeron and how the Forsaken came to be. It lasts for a good 2-3 minutes and plays out all in a cutscene.
    • A Shattrath City quest involves Khadgar summoning a familiar to show you around the city and tell you about the Aldor and the Scryers.
  • Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Female Naga have four or six arms, the Shivarra are 20-foot tall, six-armed, demon women (wearing thongs), and various undead constructs tend to have a few extra arms thrown in for good measure.
  • Multishot: A hunter skill.
  • Mundane Utility: The Tahret Dynasty Mallet was "crafted by the titans, blessed by the sun-kings and who knows what else", and you're going to use it to smash pygmys. The item's description says it all.

Tahret Dynasty Mallet: This artifact is beautifully crafted. You suspect it was intended for an activity more dignified than this one.

  • Murder by Mistake: On the Lost Isles, Megs Dreadshredder goes out to stop an impending attack on the Town-in-a-Box by bringing the fight to the Naga. After killing several Naga and a Faceless One, Megs reveals she made a mistake, the Naga weren't going to attack, and sends the player off to save the Goblins from a Pygmy attack.
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: Stalvan Mistmantle not only kills his student, but also, her lover.
  • The Mutiny: Players take part in a few of these. It's how Tony Two-Tusk got his own pirate crew, and how Warchief Mor'ghor, a Fel Orc who makes Warchief Garrosh Hellscream look like a Reasonable Authority Figure, meets his end.
  • My Master, Right or Wrong: Lord Godfrey is willing to set aside his disdain for the Worgen because his liege, King Graymane is trying to restore their humanity; once he finds out Graymane himself is a Worgen, his Fantastic Racism overrides his loyalty. To be fair to Godfrey, except for the Gilneans in Cataclysm, the Worgen are blood-thirsty killing machines.
  • My Name Is Inigo Montoya: In the Blade's Edge Mountains, the NPC fighting alongside players against Goc wants the dragon-killing gronn to know who killed him.

Baron Sablemane (Alliance): It's only right that you know the name of the one who will take your life. Baron Sablemane. It will be on your lips as you gasp your dying breath.
Rexxar (Horde): I am Rexxar, son of the Mok'Nathal, champion of the Horde. And the torment at your hands is at an end. By my name, I shall put an end to your life.

  • My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Unless a fight is designed around the enemy's mana reserves, said enemy can cast spells at you even if you drain its mana down to zero.
    • Several enemy abilities work differently than player ones of the same name. Player Whirlwinds strike all enemies around them once for half weapon damage. Enemy Whirlwinds strike all enemies around them a few times over a period of a few second, for standard damage, more akin to the Arms Warrior talent Blade Storm (which has a significantly longer cooldown than player or enemy Whirlwinds).
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: TONS! Most orc names tend to be this. Grom/Garrosh Hellscream, Kargath Bladefist, Orgrim Doomhammer, Tagar Spinebreaker, Teron Gorefiend, Nekrum Gutchewer....
    • The orcs are one of the few cases where this trope is justified. Last names are given to orcs (and their descendants) who did something really impressive in their lives. In a warrior culture, more often than not, this involves beating someone to death in a cool way. Hellscream is called hellscream because he screams in a cool way, bladefist actually has a blade for a hand, Doomhammer wields his hammer of doom, the doomhammer, Spinebreaker probably broke someone's spine, Gorefiend was a fiend that created a lot of gore and you can probably guess what gutchewer did.
    • Unholy Death Knight PC's get a minion who has one, of the Noun Verber variety. However, as the names are re-randomized every time you summon the minion, this has the potential for hilarity.
    • Some races have these. The Faceless Ones and the Dreadlords come to mind.
    • The Old Gods and their minions deserve a special notice for having names that no human should have to pronounce. Bonus points for having their name inspired by a very certain mythology.
  • Names to Trust Immediately: A few. One notable example in lore is Uther Lightbringer, the very first paladin.
  • Nemean Skinning
  • Neutral No Longer: The Gilneas worgen and Bilgewater goblins in the Cataclysm expansion.
    • And in Mists of Pandaria, Jaina Proudmoore.
  • Never Found the Body: John J. Keeshan, who is thought to have performed a Heroic Sacrifice at the end of the Redridge Mountains storyline, but reappears in the Burning Steppes.
    • Turalyon and Alleria, since the Second War.
    • A lot of old world NPCs after the Cataclysm.
  • Never Mess with Granny: Grandma Wahl of Gilneas seems like a typical old lady, but don't mess with her kitty! Because she will transform into a worgen and beat you up with her rolling pin.
  • New Game+: See Alt-Itis, in A-H. The heirloom items available for purchase with endgame emblems are usable at any level and grow along with the character they're on at any given moment, along with generally having Superior-quality stats when your character doesn't even see useful Uncommons on a regular basis until level 20 and beyond.
  • New World Tease: Sort of: In the final chamber of the Blood Furnace, you can look straight down through the floor and catch a glimpse of Magtheridon's Lair. And in Magister's Terrace, there is a scrying orb that you can click to get a glimpse of the Sunwell Plateau.
  • Nice Hat: Many hats in the game, but the tophats that the citizens of Gilneas wear takes the cake.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: You do this in an uncomfortably high number of quests.
    • Drak'tharon Keep, a citadel of hostile ice trolls, is proving to be a major impediment for the war effort, so the player is tasked with capturing ice trolls so that they may be interrogated for information. Drakaru, one of your captives, tells the player that the Keep is currently besieged by Scourge and offers the player a truce: if the player can gather the components Drakuru needs, Drakuru will perform a magical ritual to cleanse the Keep, presumably earning the trolls' gratitude. The player agrees and, after a series of quests, eventually enters the Keep with Drakaru, but in the process causes the Keep to fall to the Scourge. Turns out Drakuru was secretly an agent of the Lich King and the "cleansing" ritual was designed to break the Keep's last magical defenses holding back the Scourge. When the player enters Zul'Drak, the neighboring zone and home of the ice trolls, he finds the loss of the Keep to the Scourge has let in a large Scourge invasion force led by Overlord Drakaru, now seeking to "cleanse" all of his troll brethren. The player must now undermine the Scourge invasion all the while pretending to work with Drakaru, who thinks the player is his best buddy for helping him take over the Keep. In the end, the player succeeds and defeats Drakaru in battle after disrupting his operations in Zul'Drak.

Arthas: As for you... I spare your insignificant life as a reward for this amusing betrayal. There may yet be a shred of potential in you.

    • In Shadowmoon Valley, you hear rumors that Teron Gorefiend, the first ever death knight and a generally very evil guy, may have returned to the Valley, though he's supposed to have fallen in battle ages ago. Given this potential threat, you seek out information from an Ancient Shadowmoon Spirit. The Spirit requests you gather items that once belonged to Gorefiend so that the Spirit can use the items' residual connection to Gorefiend to locate him. You gather the items, only to discover that the Spirit is the trapped spectral remnant of Gorefiend and that bringing the items together allows Gorefiend to return. Gorefiend thanks you for freeing him and promptly rides off to join up with Illidan and become a raid boss in Black Temple.
    • Goblin characters were apparently getting a truly epic one of these, but it's now merely moderately epic. It is now a complete coincidence that Deathwing shows up and wrecks your home island just as you kick a rather large bomb into a volcano. The volcanic destruction of the island you wind up marooned on, however? Yeah, that's still pretty much down to you, a giant turtle and a rocket launcher.
    • While on one of your periodic murderous rampages through Northern Stranglethorn Vale, you come across an adorable baby raptor who adopts you as a parent and follows you around. Dawww. A few totally unrelated quests later while she's tagging along, she digs up a troll skull which you feel the need to take to an NPC for examination. You inexplicably agree to try to resurrect the troll to whom said skull belongs. No points if you guess early on that the skull belonged to someone who should have remained dead, possibly even by your hand a long time ago. The resurrected bad guy kidnaps your newest friend and as of 4.1 is the source of no shortage of trouble in the area.
    • A quest chain in Alterac Valley starts with a dwarf suggesting you go investigate strange voices in the ruins. The voice claims to be a princess and has you undertake a series of quests that will free her from bondage. Turns out she's not a princess, and when you report back to the dwarf he is nonplussed at your actions. Fortunately he knows how to reverse the effect.
    • The whole mess that occurs in Return to Karazhan is your fault too, but far more blame falls on Archmage Khadgar. when he has you go there as part of a larger quest to restore the Pillars of Creation, you basically get by the magical security via the magical equivalent of kicking the door down, and he neglects to shore it up again. This leads to the Legion taking control of the place. (Sargeras is pretty familiar with it, as he had possessed its owner for a while.) This of course, means you have to go there and drive them out of it before they use it to open portals to bring their armies through. (And that's the short version.)
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The Forsaken invasion of Gilneas drives the Worgen to rejoin the Alliance.
    • An Alliance ship shooting down the goblins and the hostile SI-7 lead the goblin refugees to team up with the orcs.
    • Kologarn in Ulduar, whose corpse conveniently becomes a bridge across an otherwise impassible ravine. Highlighted here.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: What. WHAT.
    • EPICUS MAXIMUS!!
    • Sadly, he's not seen around Maelstrom as in the Beta. He does appear in a quest in Uldum as a holographic projection however.
  • Noble Demon: Thassarian pre-Heel Face Turn.
  • Nobody Calls Me Chicken: Male Goblin. Try a /chicken when playing as one. Other races work too, but this one plays the trope straight.
  • Nobody Poops: Well, sort of. There are a few outhouses around, but perhaps one for every hundredth NPC, and that's being generous. Still, there are more aversions than typical for a video game.
    • A large number of quests involve you digging through animal poop.
    • There's a quest line where you accidentally eat a valuable seed, and have to collect the ingredients for a powerful laxative, then pay a visit to a nearby outhouse.
    • Ogre camps are a general aversion to Nobody Poops, because they don't bother with outhouses. Visibly.
  • Nobody Touches the Hair: Lor'Themar Theron.
  • No Dead Body Poops: The Pit of Saron

Forgemaster Garfrost: Garfrost hope giant underpants clean. Save boss great shame. For later.

  • No Eye in Magic: The Lunatic Gaze spell, used by Yogg-Saron and the Laughing Skulls, will only drain the sanity of players who are facing it. Also, Eadric the Pure's Radiance and Isiset's Supernova are blinding attacks that will only work on players who look at it.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: The players get to do this to, of all people the Lich King. Granted, you have had three phases of fight with him beforehand not counting Remorseless Winter, and he's just been the victim of Tirion.
  • Noisy Nature: Every thing that attacks on both planets will make a lot of noise in the process, even (sometimes especially) when it shouldn't.
  • Non-Indicative Name:
    • The Combat Rogue's Mastery skill, "Main Gauche," increases the rate at which you attack with the weapon in your right hand. "Main Gauche" is French for "left hand."
    • Lio the Lioness, a Worgen NPC in the Dalaran Pet Store. You can ask how she got the title, her reply being "Kid, don't start with me!" (Causing your character to back off.)
  • No OSHA Compliance:
    • Blackrock Depths is built inside a volcano, and is populated by evil dwarves. What makes them evil? The handrail-less bridges and walkways that are nothing but giant chains built over pools of lava. Even the capital cities feature these.
    • Aldor Rise features small open air elevators that go up a huge sheer cliff.
    • Ironforge has pools of lava all over, only some of which have grates to stop you falling in.
    • The Undercity has pools of green glowing liquid all over - not dangerous to players but animals dipped in a similar substance have grown huge and attacked people.
    • Silvermoon City is suspended over a Bottomless Pit that is thankfully guarded by invisible walls, though there's a lot of other Malevolent Architecture, with lots of Floating Platforms and no guard rails.
    • The Dalaran Underbelly. A tunnel that ends in a 500+ foot drop, strange potions are lying around everywhere, and a lovely shark swimming around by some shops, waiting to munch on anyone who gets too close.
    • The Gnomish city Gnomeregan is a partial subversion, abandoned due to having been flooded with radiation... except that there are not only a lack of rails in most places, but an elevator entrance to the subterranean city featuring a heavy lid slamming over the elevator shaft as the platform descends (don't stand too close).
    • Tauren capital Thunder Bluff is another offender, with the whole city built on a mesa hundreds of feet tall. The only safety is afforded by fences that are low by human standards, let alone the Tauren who are quite a bit taller. The plains at the foot of Thunder Bluff are frequently littered with the corpses of players who fell or jumped off.
    • Blackrock Spire is pretty bad in this respect too. The dungeon - supposedly a city inhabited mostly by orcs and dragons - is full of narrow bridges and easily-accessible ledges with no handrails whatsoever. While the bridges may be defensive structures a la Khazad-Dum, where they aren't over lava they're over drops that you need a parachute to survive.
    • Gilneas has several very high bridges with no railings whatsoever.
    • Grim Batol, a high-end dungeon, prevents you from Mind Controlling enemies to prevent abuse of this trope, since there are pits everywhere.
    • The Goblin city of Kezan was one of the worst. Never mind that the roads are on elevated platforms with no guardrails that the player can drive on haphazardly while mowing into civilians, or the fact that EPA laws are clearly nonexistent. In order to meet Trade King Gallywick's price for safe passage from the Doomed Hometown, the player must set his own office on fire to collect insurance on it. This is done by overload the defective generator, turning on the leaky stove, and dropping a cigar on the flammable bed, and finally directing a Gasbot to enter. The claims adjuster is actually surprised to get "another" claim like this, even though he falls for it. Clearly justified, as Goblins are the type who do this a lot.
  • Noodle Incident: In "Mysteries of the Unknown", your future self tells you, "Listen, I'm not supposed to tell you this, but there's going to be a party that you're invited to. Whatever you do, DON'T DRINK THE PUNCH!" (Unfortunately, for most players, this does very little to narrow it down...)
  • No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: According to the lore, Gnomes are a complete aversion of this. They plan meticulously, taking more time to draw schematics of things than it takes to actually build them, and will often test, redesign and upgrade their inventions until they are perfect. Those tanks that go backwards and teleporters that get you to your destination but hundreds of feet in the air, those are the unperfected prototypes.
  • North Is Cold South Is Hot: Azeroth fits this trope to a T. In the south, you will find Tanaris, Stranglethorn Vale and the Swamp of Sorrows. In the north, you have Northrend, and the snowy Winterspring in northern Kalimdor.
  • The Nothing After Death: Both Arthas and Sylvanas refer to this. It might have something to do with both of them being already undead though.
  • Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Cataclysm brings this to a head with Deathwing devastating Azeroth simply by reemerging from his hideout. Yes, he is that powerful now. In addition, many races will be gaining access to previously unavailable classes due to their constant exposure to different cultures, and rumors have circulated that several major faction leaders will be stepping down as well.
  • Not Quite Dead: Pretty much everyone from Warcraft III whose death wasn't shown on screen returns, and even some whose were. This continues throughout the expansions, with bosses defeated in world zones or 5-man dungeons frequently putting in appearances in later raids.
  • Not So Different:
    • The Horde and the Alliance. See Grey and Gray Morality. The Lich King also includes this argument in his Hannibal Lecture to you as you advance through the Shadowmourne questline.
    • The quests for the Forsaken in Cataclysm seem to say this about them compared to the Scourge. The actions in Hillsbrad disturbingly mirror the actions of some of the Scourge scientists.
    • In Duskwood, when Tobias Mistmantle confronts his evil brother Stalvan over him killing the student he had a crush on and her lover, the now undead Stalvan confirms the accusation and says that Tobias is now feeling what he felt- enough rage to want to kill someone, prompting Tobias to assume his Worgen form. After Tobias and the player kill Stalvan, Tobias has a Big No and runs off, but when you turn in the quest, he's decided that it's up to him whether he lives as a monster.
  • Not-So-Safe Harbor: Booty Bay. Especially when it's New Year's and the guards are too drunk to intervene if another player attacks you within the city.
  • Not Worth Killing: One has to wonder why so many minor threats are allowed to exist in the starting areas, which are near major capitals, instead of being wiped out to secure the area. In the case of the Frostmane Trolls south of Anvilmar, the Dwarves simply don't consider them a major threat, focusing more on the Troggs, the still warring Dark Iron Dwarves, and the other Trolls.
    • Arthas plays with this, as a necromancer he wants to kill the mightiest warriors in Azeroth, and raise them as part of his undead army; so unlike other cases of this trope where the killer doesn't feel the victim is worth the time or effort to kill, he spends a lot of time and effort looking for the strongest warriors, and using challenges to make them as strong as possible before killing them.
  • Number of the Beast: Hogger, an Elite who lurks around Elwynn Forest, has exactly 666 health. Of course, that really isn't much, but Hogger has been the subject of a lot of Memetic Mutation, In-Universe and out. (As the first Elite likely encountered by Human characters, he has the reputation of killing beginner players' characters, as they can make the mistake of horribly underestimating him and get themselves killed quickly.) Same deal with Old Icebeard and Flat Tusk, who can be just as bad for Dwarf and Horde players, respectively.)
  • Obvious Beta: A more mild example. The game was playable but there were still a lot of bugs and issues with balancing, and in some cases, the developers intentionally left things as an Obvious Beta so that they can go rework it or add more stuff in a later patch. Some of these include:
    • The endboss of a lot of raids was intentionally made unwinnable so that players wouldn't storm through the dungeon so fast and be on the boards complaining that there's nothing to do. Nefarian was not even completely coded into the game yet, but when he was, it turned out to be worth the wait.
      • The initial raid dungeons were bugged; partly because they weren't completely tested. The first guild that killed Vashj had her instantly respawn and kill the raid. It was also possible to kill Arthas by throwing bombs at him, which resets the outer ring and thus makes the Valkyr unable to drop people off in Phase 2. When players are able to ignore the Valkyr, they have more freedom to position Defiles appropriately, and can spend more time DP Sing the boss, making Phase 2 shorter and easier.
    • Silithus was an Obvious Beta zone. The zone was left unfinished at launch with minimal quests leading into the zone and by patch 1.8, it was actually finished. (Heck, before 1.8, you couldn't even go through half the zone!)
    • This was one of the criticisms of Cataclysm, which was rushed to make the release to make sure it actually made it on time. Vashj'r had problems with mob density and respawn rates (See Offscreen Teleportation) but the respawn rates weren't entirely Blizzard's fault. Amongst other things, it was released with a lot of bugs but was still playable. There were still some bugs after the first major content patch, too.
    • Death Knights, at release. Also Paladins in patch 3.0. There was a time in Wrath beta when paladins could solo the fel reaver. They both got nerfed in short order.
  • Offscreen Teleportation: Because the game needs to respawn enemies for other players to kill/loot, it's extremely common to be ambushed from an enemy that you killed. This was especially prevalent in the release of Cataclysm, and in Silithus where the mob density is actually quite high.
    • And because the game is controlled by a server, it doesn't always wait for the "offscreen" part; at its most extreme, a new enemy can respawn the instant the first one is killed, right on top of the first one's corpse.
  • Oh Crap: The Goblin captain and navigator of Trade Prince Gallywix's ship are arguing over who got them lost in a thick fog, but when they get out of the fog, they end up in the middle of an Alliance-Horde naval battle.
  • Oh, Wait!: Tony Two-Tusk, a pirate captain that you kill, comes back as a very chatty spirit and haunts you until you take him to his ex-wife to resurrect him; he may come to this Heel Realization:

Spirit of Tony Two-Tusk: They say I have a bad reputation as a pirate, but you don't see me sailing around indiscrimanately killing people just to make a profit. Oh, wait...

  • Olympus Mons: Subdue the freaking Raven God and use him for a ride?
  • Omnicidal Maniac: The goal of the Burning Legion is to unmake the universe.
    • Deathwing becomes this as a result of the Old Gods' corruption.
  • One-Man Army: Every class ends up being this against normal world mobs once they reach max level and get geared out.
  • One Steve Limit: Lampshaded by one shaman of the Earthen Ring who is worried that people are getting them confused with the druid group, the Cenarion Circle.

Stormcaller Jalara: Many confuse the Earthen Ring with the Cenarion Circle. ...I TOLD Thrall we should name ourselves the "Earthen Square".

    • In Winterspring is a large owl the locals called "Deathwing", until they found out that name was taken, so now they call her "Hell-Hoot".
  • One-Winged Angel: A few bosses transform mid-battle, whether by activating a special ability (Moorabi, Gal'darah, Tharon'ja) or as a second part to the battle (The Black Knight in the Trial of the Champion, Ingvar the Plunderer in Utgarde Keep).
  • Only Mostly Dead: Death just flings your spirit to the nearest spirit healer. One could technically apply the same logic to the continually respawning NPCs; maybe they just run back from the graveyard. This gets a special Lampshade Hanging by a villainous NPC who writes about being constantly killed and resurrected in his diary. Also played with by Azuregos (a blue dragon who used to drop several important quest items). He's not quite sane after being killed so many times by players, and after deciding to stay dead to avoid being killed again, has fallen in love with a spirit healer.
  • Only One Female Mold: This has been a consistent complaint. The alpha builds, while rough, often had the females look like counterparts to the males of their race, but when it came time for final builds (after receiving many complaints about ugliness) it was like the developers threw up their hands and said "Screw it, let's make them barbie dolls with bad teeth".
  • Only I Can Kill Him: The game is loaded with meta-examples, mostly because the players are accessories to the feats of longstanding characters of the series. For example, during the Boss Battle with the Lich King, the players can reduce him to 1 hp, but never truly deplete them; doing this causes a cutscene of sorts where Tirion Fordring delivers the final blow. Still, the players can take solstice in the fact that they made it possible for him to do that.
  • Only Sane Man: At various times, Thrall, Jaina, Tirion Fordring, Cairne, Varok Saurfang, or Anduin Wrynn.
  • Orcus on His Throne: Illidan in The Burning Crusade, who does practically nothing but wait for players to come kill him. This may again be explained by the fact that he's under siege by the forces of Kil'jaeden. Arthas also gives this impression during some Northrend events, however it is eventually revealed that instead of going out and attempting to kill you while you level, Arthas has merely been waiting for you to arrive so he can one-shot your entire raid and turn the most powerful heroes in all of Northrend into his Scourge minions in one masterful fait accompli. Too bad for him it doesn't work out.
  • Organ Drops: Most beasts, critters, plants, and some other mobs are going to drop them, which is necessary if you have the Cooking Skill.
  • Our Angels Are Different: The Naaru, which are basically extremely powerful, Lawful Good shards of light.
  • Our Demons Are Different: They're implied to be mostly asexual, and a lot of them used to be good.
    • And they're all, relative to the main setting world, aliens.
  • Our Dragons Are Different
  • Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Played with in the Ironforge dwarves, subverted somewhat with the others.
  • Our Elves Are Better: With both Night Elves and Blood Elves, there's delicious blueberry and strawberry flavors!
    • Also included, if unplayable: High Elves, Felblood Elves, Wretched (or Crack Elves), and all cross-breeds and mutations thereof (Satyrs, Banshees, Harpies, etc.). This is to say nothing of the possible connection between the Elves and the infinite flavors of Trolls.
    • Possible deconstructed though: Elves think they're better than everyone but some of the biggest catastrophes in Azeroth's history relate to Elves.
  • Our Ghouls Are Creepier: Reanimated from the remains of fallen warriors. Sometimes stitched together like Frankenstein.
  • Our Goblins Are Wickeder: They like explosions, as well as steampunk tech and money. They have been known to be facinated by rebuilding things they don't even know what it does, at one point resulting in you taking an ill-fated ride on some sort of rocket.
  • Our Gnomes Are Weirder: They like engineering, and descend from clockwork creatures
  • Our Ogres Are Hungrier: ... and some of them sport two heads.
  • Our Orcs Are Different: They started out as the stereotypical evil ORC SMASH kind, but were retconned into being noble savages with a shamanistic-hunter-warrior culture.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: The Darkfallen, Blood Elves that Arthas turned after Kael's failed excursion with Illidan against Arthas, are vampires, though they seem to feed off of energy as much as blood.
    • Blood Death Knights are overt vampires by design. The visual of what their talent tree would actually mean in combat is nightmare fuel incarnate. A Blood Elf Blood Death Knight with the right hair could pass for Dracula himself!
    • Also the Nathrezim, demons who follow some vampiric rules like having the ability to summon a swarm of bats or a "vampiric aura".
    • The Blood Elves could be seen as a sort of energy vampire, and the Wretched and Felblood Elves do drink demon blood.
    • Shadow priests have spells like Vampiric Touch and Embrace which qualify them as having psychic vampire abilities. Though they probably don't count since they can give up using them anytime they like.
  • Our Werewolves Are Different: The Worgen look like werewolves but their descriptions go some way to insisting they are not. They were originally Druids who liked becoming wolves. And with the Cataclysm expansion, you can be one.
  • Our Zombies Are Different: And playable since the beginning.
  • Oxygen Meter: Players get a "Breath" meter when swimming underwater, it lasts 3 minutes, or 10 minutes for Forsaken players. Some spells or items give players a water breathing buff; in the case of Vashj'ir, a shaman gives players a permanent buff, but it only works in that zone.
  • Oxygenated Underwater Bubbles: Some areas have fissures which spew enough oxygen for your character to breathe underwater.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: One Death Knight quest involves you ambushing a Scarlet Crusade courier by hiding behind a small tree literally made of cardboard.

"Hrm, what a strange tree. I must investigate."

    • In Burning Steppes there's a quest where you infiltrate the enemy army wearing, essentially, a paper mask and no other disguise. And they give no sign, whatsoever, of being at all suspicious of you, even though your backside is completely obviously whatever race you are.
    • And in Blasted Lands, there's a truly hilarious quest where you get past the enemy's miners disguised as a box. And every single one of the miners and foremen comments on the walking box (with feet!), but not one bothers to look under it.
    • In the Goblin starting area (well, the second one), you hide among a tribe of pygmies by simply wearing one of their oversized helmets. Pygmies aren't too bright and as a goblin you really are about the right size, but you still essentially put on a hat as a disguise.
    • In Stonetalon Mountains, Alliance players are tasked with meeting a gnomish spy who has infiltrated a goblin oil-drilling facitily. Her disguise? A flimsy goblin mask.
    • In Borean Tundra, a D.E.H.T.A. Druid became "king" of the Murlocs by wearing a Murloc disguise suit. On closer inspection, you can see a zipper in the back.
    • In Loch Modan, a very blatantly drunk dwarf makes a "costume" for you so you can sneak up on a diplomat and throw murloc pee on him (it's a long story). It basically consists of holding a potted plant in front of yourself. It is amazingly effective.
  • Parachute in a Tree: This is how one first arrives in Sholazar Basin.
  • Patchwork Map
  • Pet the Dog: If you beat Tragic Monster Deathbringer Saurfang as an Alliance race, Varian gets one when he orders Muradin to stand aside to let his (Orc) father collect his body.
  • Perpetually Static: Started out pretty straight at the game's release, but each expansion has delivered additional ways for players to impact the game world. The most noticeable one in the original game was when players had to cooperate to complete the War Effort and open the gates of Ahn'Qiraj. The game world also changes for the periodic holiday events, adding new (albeit temporary) objects and NPCs.
    • Burning Crusade allows players to participate in key events related to their factions and conquer Player Versus Player objectives in several zones that provide temporary bonuses to fellow faction members.
    • Wrath of the Lich King further averts this by delivering a new technique called phasing, which allows the story to advance for the player once he completes certain quests. This is particularly evident in Dragonblight, Storm Peaks, Icecrown, and the Death Knight starting area.
    • Cataclysm turns Perpetually Static on its ear and kicks it in the balls -- in addition to utterly changing the face of Azeroth as we know it, the latest expansion promises to take advantage of phasing like never before, altering the terrain of the world in addition to objects and NPCs as players progress through the story.
    • In the quest chain to unlock the Molten Front, after completing one quest, Hamuul Runetotem is badly burned and some of the daily quests involve healing him. At a later point, he recovers and has a Big Damn Heroes moment, and a placeholder quest is used instead of the daily quests related to treating his injuries.
  • Personal Effects Reveal: Improbably enough, this is done (if you have a certain item) with the Lich King.
  • Pink Elekks;
  • Pirates: The "Booty" in Booty Bay refers to pirate booty, not the other kind. There's even a quest where players become pirates, and kill Ninjas.
    • There's also a commonly available food that will turn you randomly into one or the other, as well as costume wands given out around Hallow's End that let you turn other people into them.
  • Pirate Booty: One early four-part quest you can take in Westfall is following clues to find the treasure of Captain Sanders, a pirate with a weird sense of humor. If you actually find it, said treasure isn't very impressive. (Well, more like nearly worthless. And Sanders isn't truly dead - yet. Fortunately, there's little risk involved in the quest.)
  • Plaguemaster: The Forsaken of the Royal Apothecary Society, who as of Wrath of the Lich King have brewed a plague capable of destroying both the living and undead.
    • Death Knights are the only player class capable of casting diseases and the Unholy talent tree grants numerous bonuses to them.
    • Professor Putricide in Icecrown Citadel boasts of creating a plague that can destroy all life on Azeroth, and attacks the raid with a variety of chemical and biological weapons, including transforming himself into a tentacled monster.
  • Pocket Dimension: This is functionally what instances (dungeons, raids, and battlegrounds) are. A portal takes players to an area that is cut off from the rest of the gameworld, though thematically they are still in the same world that everyone else is in. This is most apparent with the outdoor instances like Shadowfang Keep or Zul'Gurub, players can fly over these areas and find very little there until they go through the portal and find the places crawling with ghosts and trolls.
    • The Firelands area is next to the Molten Front, and players in MF can get a quest to fly over FL and bomb the enemies there; on occasion, they may see a "raid group" at the start of the "instance", who can also be bombed.
    • Mists of Pandaria plans to break instances out of Pocket Dimension by making the dungeon present in the world, to scale, and inside will feature outside segments to remind players where they are.
  • Poke the Poodle: By the Undercity Champion at the Argent Tourney during 'confession.'

"I punched a penguin on my way in here."

    • While he may suck at being evil, the Champion does go into confession just to tell the priestess that he punched a penguin. Not to apologize.
  • Poisonous Person: Any Boss who has an attack involving Fel Sludge qualifies. This green slime is Chaos in liquid form, and touching it does a lot of damage. Some bosses can spew the stuff, making even getting near them difficult.
  • Porn Stash:
    • The Steamy Romance Novel series. The first one is innocent enough, a cheap paperback about a paladin ("Marcus") romancing a merchant, although the fourth page says, "the writing goes on for several hundred pages without advancing the point". Other books in the series show him being seduced by women of other races of Azeroth, some of them believable (where he's seduced by night blood elves and a draeni), but others of questionable taste (where the seducer is Forsaken, goblin, or Tauren) to the outright bizarre (succubus, naga, and robots). There's always something keeping you from reading the whole story, like requiring lvl 900 or the tome itself being ruined; in one case, it says you stop reading out of disgust.
    • It's kind of an Easter Egg, but once you complete Icecrown Citadel with an Alliance player and unlock the gnome merchant Brazie Getz (you know, whatever you whatever you need, Brazi gets) he sells something called "Brazie's Black Book of Secrets" with five such publications, and you can read them. It's pretty racy stuff. (It will set you back 22K gold, but much like real magazines of this type, [you can read them on the web.)] Unfortunately, the Horde equivalent has nothing similar.
  • PortalNetwork: A fairly extensive one has slowly grown up over the years, allowing rapid travel around the game world. Typically, each expansion has a "capital city" with portals to all the main cities such as Stormwind and Orgrimmar, as well as the previous capitals (Ashran, from Draenor, only had the original 3 main ones, due to being hastily pressed into this job - however, the Pandaria capitals still had all their old portals working).capitals. Stormwind and Orgrimmar also have portals to the major areas from Cataclysm, and all cities have portals going to the original Burning Crusade version of Hellfire Peninsula. In Legion, the updated Dalaran now has two portal areas - one with portals to all the original cities, along with the Pandaria capital, and one that has portals to plot-important areas, such as Wyrmrest Temple, Karazhan, the Caverns of time, Shattrath, and even the original Dalaran site (though for that one you materialize dozens of feet in the air, and land with about 99% of your health gone - fortunately, nothing around there can really hurt you). site. About the only place you can't get to is the original Northrend!Dalaran, which you shouldn't be able to anyway for storytelling reasons (the Wyrmrest portal is supposed to take its place, and the Pandaria capital still has the Northrend!Dalaran portal)
  • Poor Communication Kills: Probably the main reason why the Alliance and the Horde are at war now. Of course, there are many renegade groups within both factions (but mostly within the Horde) who want just that to happen. The novels and the comics make that especially obvious.
  • Potty Failure: Silverpine's orc sea dogs when intoxicated.

Orc Sea Dog: I may or may not have pissed myself!

  • The Power of Hate: Alizabal, Mistress of Hate is the third boss in Baradin Hold. She once used her powers to incite her guards into a murderous rage, she uses the word "hate" in everything she says, and one of her special attacks is called "Seething Hate".
  • The Power of Rock: As an April Fools gag, Blizzard stated that there was a bard hero class for the Expansion Pack that utilized Guitar Hero-style controls and abilities such as "Epic Jam", "Shoegazer" and "Nonconformity". Don't forget their epic axe, "The Facemelter", with the chance on hit to "blow your target's mind".
  • Power-Up Food: Eating food restores your health and provides a buff to statistics. Raids generally have a designated person who brings a feast that gives everyone who eats it a buff that most benefits their class, and it is generally required that everyone eats from it before pulling a boss.
  • Powerup Mount: Mounts can double your travel speed, fly at 4 times your running speed, but you have to dismount to do almost anything else.
  • Practical Taunt: Every tank spec has a taunt, which boosts the tank's threat level to that of their target's current target and forces the target to attack them for a few seconds no matter what.
  • Precision F-Strike: Garrosh called Dark Lady Sylvanas a bitch in post-cataclysm Silverpine Forest after she openly showed him that she was raising the dead and flippantly responded when called on her becoming like the LichKing.
  • Precursors: The Titans
  • Predators Are Mean: Strangely, predator mobs will run to attack players, critters, and some NPCs, but don't eat them at all. Even a few of these who have been tamed by hunters will attack critters when they're not on hostile.
  • Prehistoria: The Un'Goro Crater and Sholazar Basin zones.
  • Press X to Die: A few instances. It's possible to dismount in midair, potentially falling to your death. Attacking Chimaeron without talking to Finkle Einhorn, thereby getting a buff that enables you to avoid being one-shotted at above 10,000 HP will lead to the battle becoming Unwinnable.
  • Prongs of Poseidon: Naga.
  • Proud Merchant Race: Goblins.
  • Proud Scholar Race Guy: Gnomes, and draenei to a lesser extent. In Cataclysm, the Blood Elves also have this going on.
  • Proud Warrior Race Guy: Orcs most obviously, Tauren to a lesser extent. Vrykul are something of a deconstruction, playing it dead straight to the point of being a bunch of brutal murderers.
  • Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Shadow Priests + Mind Control + a tall cliff = Hilarity Ensues.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Cataclysm expansion, Twilight Highlands. The quest is entitled "Madness," and you're to accompany a horde negotiator to the leader of the Dragonmaw clan of Orcs. Along the way, he questions "Hey, does this Red Shirt make me look expendable?" along with invoking Retirony. And worse, at the end of the (unsuccessful) negotiations, he exclaims that "This is madness!" A Sparta kick into the flames behind him accompanies the following-

Warchief Mor'ghor says: This is.....
Warchief Mor'ghor yells: DRAGONMAW!!

    • Also:

Garrosh Hellscreams says: YOU ARE DISMISSED!

    • Egregious example:

Garrosh Hellscream yells: GET!
Garrosh Hellscream yells: OFF!
Garrosh Hellscream yells: MY!
Garrosh Hellscream yells: SHIP!

    • Earthbreaker Dolomite, an NPC in Deepholm, also occasionally yells "This is Stonehearth!"
    • General Husam in Lost city of the Tol'vir:
  • Combat starts* "Invaders! You. Shall. Go. No. Further!"
  • on dying* "Siamat must not go free. Turn back. before. it is. too. late."
    • The Dragon Soul raid, the final Deathwing fight: "I. AM. THE CATACLYSM!"
  • Purely Aesthetic Gender: As they say it themselves, "The gender of your character is purely a cosmetic feature and has no impact on that character's abilities or statistics."
    • Which, in a happy coincidence, allows for a dollop of Les Yay whenever a warlock's succubus pet or a succubus NPC uses her "Seduce" ability on a female character.
  • Purposefully Overpowered: Heirloom gear is Bound on Account, can be sent cross-faction, never needs to be repaired, gives you stats that would normally only appear at higher levels, gives you experience bonuses, levels up as you do and is always comparable to dungeon-quality equipment for your level. Needless to say, having heirloom gear in every available slot will make your character tear through lower level content. The thing is, the only way to get heirlooms is to already have a max-level character who's done a bunch of the endgame content. Their purpose is to let new characters of an already experienced player zoom through the low-level stuff as quickly as possible.
    • Legendary Weapons. While not so game-breakingly powerful that you can curbstomp anything you come accross with them, the amount of time and effort you put into getting them pays off significantly with higher stats than you'd find on any equivilant item of that raid tier. Each weapon usually also has a special passive effect that adds to its already amazing strength.
    • Death Knights were very strong compared to other classes on the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, especially in their starting zone.
  • Put on a Bus: Gnomes return after a long absence, while Dark trolls disappear off the face of Azeroth.
    • Turalyon and Alleria Windrunner. Originally the pair were supposed to appear in The Burning Crusade expansion, but two expansions later they have yet to make an appearance. Despite their son wandering around Honor Hold having visions of Turalyon's apparent death, Word of God says the pair are "stuck in a portal world".
  • Pyrrhic Victory: Silverpine Forest in Cataclysm. The Alliance forces retreat to Gilneas, but have otherwise suffered fairly small losses. The Forsaken, on the other hand, have been severely weakened; their forces have been devastated by Worgen raiding parties, a group of newly raised Forsaken rebel and seize control of Shadowfang Keep, and Sylvanas is given a harsh reminder of her own mortality.
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