On World of Warcraft’s 16th Anniversary Event

I’m going to skip my usual preamble and get right to the point today, folks. World of Warcraft’s sixteenth anniversary event is currently live. It’s scheduled to remain that way until Sunday, November 22, 2020 at 10am Pacific time. Honestly, I can’t help but feel as though this event is something of a letdown. I do wish to strongly emphasize, however, that I’d like to think I completely understand why that is. I’m here today to share with you a few of my thoughts on this matter.

For those of you who might be unaware of what WoW’s anniversary events usually entail, especially if you’re new to the game; this year’s event consists almost entirely of the standard fare. You’ll start things off by noticing that all of your characters have mail. This is because Blizzard uses the in-game mail system to deliver to each character the standard “celebration package” bundle.

As always, this package contains an item which grants you a 16% experience and reputation buff until the event ends. Due to the nature of the consumable item that gives you this buff, its effects persist through death. This is handy because it means you don’t have to worry about re-enabling the buff’s effects should you happen to meet with a terrible fate. Fortunately, the celebration package’s effects are also no longer only one hour long per use as they once were, so you additionally won’t have to remember to reuse the item every so often.

Secondly, each character’s celebration package will also contain two hundred Timewarped Badges. These badges are a form of currency which can be exchanged with specific Timewalking vendors. In the case of the anniversary event in particular, you can use these badges to obtain such things as a Corgi Pup non-battle pet. Alternatively, you could perhaps get an Inflatable Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker, if you happen to be someone who refuses to let that meme die. There are ways to acquire more of these badges if you’ve got your eye on any purchasable rewards, to boot.

The primary method of earning more Timewarped Badges takes the form of a battleground. This battleground is known as “Korrak’s Revenge.” It’s essentially a more “classic” version of the beloved player-versus-player conflict, Alterac Valley. You’ll be awarded twenty Timewarped Badges each time you win this battleground, and ten Timewarped Badges for each defeat. What’s more, if you earn two hundred Timewarped Badges from this battleground, you gain the opportunity to purchase the Frostwolf Snarler mount on the Horde or the Stormpike Battle Ram on the Alliance.

If that concept sounds familiar to you, I suspect that’s because this entire battleground event has been recycled from 2019’s anniversary celebration. That’s one of the reasons I personally consider this event to be something of a disappointment. Allow me to elaborate. You might also recall that 2019’s anniversary extravaganza featured an event wherein you could queue up to battle famous raid bosses from The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and Cataclysm.

If you were to prove victorious against all nine bosses in this event, you were rewarded with the Deathwing-inspired “Obsidian Worldbreaker” flying mount. Of course, since you were tasked with slaying an onslaught of bosses from the most famous raids present in the expansions in question, you really had to work for your reward. That’s especially true if you were in a group composed of players who weren’t familiar with the mechanics of each boss fight, or if (like myself) you were one such player. However, I personally feel that the mount awarded to players for this event is sufficient considering the effort required to obtain it.

I don’t feel that way about the “Korrak’s Revenge” part of the festivities, though. Don’t get me wrong, I think the mounts are special in their own right because this could be the last time they’re able to be earned. Despite that, I must admit that it saddens me to see Blizzard reusing content from past anniversary celebrations while not adding anything most players would consider new or “fresh,” for severe lack of a better word.

Yes, the 16% experience and reputation buff is nice, especially with the reduced experience requirements that have arrived as part of the level squish. Having said that, I don’t think most players need me to remind them that we’ve recently lost access to one hundred percent buffs to both reputation and experience gains that were active off and on since March. I did say at the beginning of this article that I suspect I know why this year’s anniversary festivities are so comparatively lackluster, however.

My reasoning for making that claim is the fact that World of Warcraft’s eighth expansion, Shadowlands, is currently scheduled to reach live servers precisely one day after this year’s anniversary event concludes. I would argue that the expansion’s release is the big draw in this context, with the buffs and activities from the anniversary celebration serving to simply tide players over until Shadowlands is out. With the expansion, there are all manner of new things to do and experience in-game.

I know that reasoning seems rather obvious. Of course Blizzard would tone down the more “party-heavy” aspect of any given year’s anniversary event if there were an entirely new expansion on the particularly near horizon. I suppose all we can do at this point is enjoy the buffs to experience and reputation gains while they last, and subsequently hope the new expansion’s content is worth it.