Most Famous WoW Players

by Tyler Edwards, May 25, 2012

As the name would imply, World of Warcraft is a world unto itself. By far the most popular MMO of all time, it has become a unique culture and society. It has its own etiquette, slang, memes, subcultures, and even celebrities. Some players have risen to fame (or infamy) among their fellow gamers due to their spectacular achievements (or failures) within the virtual world of Azeroth. We here at WhatMMO now provide our list of the greatest and most well known WoW players.

5: Kralnor:

An Orc warlock, Kralnor is not famous for his accomplishments in game, but instead for his "accomplishments" on WoW's official forum. He started a thread for fellow warlocks to discuss their preferred staves - a very ordinary point of discussion. But Kralnor brought new spice to an old topic with his "unique" take on the English language:

"I dont like to stress the fact that the warlock rocks, but he jus does,So, for all you staff users out there, feel free to come in and post, my staff is a good one, but here is how it goes
1. post message in the room
2. LOOK IT OVER
3. dont report anything, i might get in trouble :)
and 4. Have fun!!!"

Some players responded as expected, discussing their staves, while others flamed Kralnor for his utter failure to understand concepts such as grammar and spelling. As these things tend to do on the Internet, the conversation rapidly spiraled out of control and turned into an explosion of jokes, arguing, speculations about Kralnor, and other general nonsense. It eventually reached over a hundred pages, despite a bug preventing most people from viewing posts after the forty sixth page.

Kralnor himself made only one other post, telling non staff users to "GET YOUR ASS OUT!!!!!!!!" He then added, "Jesus!!!!"

Kralnor's legacy extends beyond the thread, however. His name and likeness have been used in many Blizzard promotional materials, and a card in the Warcraft trading card game was based on him. He also became something of a folk hero to the warlock community.

4: Athene:

Athene is a Warcraft celebrity and livestreamer with a well earned reputation for arrogance, making him a very controversial person among the fans. Not only is he the self proclaimed "greatest paladin in the world," he also claims to be the greatest gamer in the world. It's worth noting that at least some of this arrogance is obviously just bluster and showmanship.

Athene is most definitely not the greatest gamer on Earth, but to be fair, he is clearly a very skilled gamer. He can lay claim to many impressive in game achievements, and he's attempted many more. Most notably, he was the first person to reach the new level cap of eighty five after the release of the Cataclysm expansion, accomplishing this feat in just five hours.

He was also arguably the first player to reach the level cap of eighty in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, but the validity of this achievement is disputed due to the creative exploits he used to reach it - exploits which led to a temporary ban.

Questionable tactics like that, as well as his famous arrogance and elitism, make Athene the controversial figure he is. He has many fans, but he also has at least as many haters. It's not uncommon for flame wars to erupt when the two groups cross paths. If nothing else, you need to give him credit for stirring such strong responses in people.

3: Swifty:

John Pyle, better known to the universe as the warrior "Swifty," is a player who has been famed for his World of Warcraft videos since the game's earliest days. He is a very skilled player, especially in the realm of player versus player, and many of his videos focus on clever tricks with macros and tactics to help other warriors succeed as he has.

Swifty has a pretty large following, and many consider him to be a helpful source of info, but he is not without controversy.

A few months ago, Swifty ran afoul of his own celebrity. While livestreaming, his fans started to gather around him, and this quickly led to a virtual flash mob of epic proportions. Soon, the hundreds upon hundreds of players piling into one area and spamming emotes led to a massive server crash. Attempting to disrupt the game's servers is a severe violation of WoW's terms of use, and so many of the players involved were permanently banned - including Swifty.

This caused a massive backlash from Swifty's fans. While many people involved in the crash had been intentionally spamming emotes to destabilize the server, Swifty wasn't one of them. Although he was indirectly responsible for the crash, he'd never intended to cause any trouble.

Luckily for Swifty and his fans, Blizzard soon realized that he had meant no harm, and they reversed his permanent ban. A few other players found to be innocent of wrongdoing also had their bans lifted.

2: Alamo:

Similar to Kralnor, Alamo's fame comes from his exploits on the official forums. A Tauren druid, Alamo rose to fame when he posted a lengthy thread filled with badly edited photos and spelling that isn't worthy of the term. The purpose of this thread was to "teechs u 2 play DURID!"

The entire post was a train wreck - by design. Alamo has gone on record as saying that his sage advice - such as "cat durid is 4 fite" and "bare druids is not so good at uh moonfare spam" - was a deliberate parody.

Naturally, the thread was met with much love and amusement from other players. And probably a little flaming, too, because this is the Internet.

Alamo isn't a one-trick "durid," either. He created many similar threads in the same vein as the years rolled on, covering the changes to the druid class from each major expansion. He also showed some diversity in his parodies in his response to a heckler to one of his threads. Changing gears and making use of a ludicrously refined writing style, he defends his posts as a way to cheer up the druid community and compares himself to the famous poet T.S. Elliot.

Alamo's writings gave rise to many memes, and to this day, "cat durid is 4 fite" jokes are commonplace among all corners of the Warcraft subculture. Blizzard has also recognized his contributions to the community, immortalizing him in the trading card game and utilizing his character's likeness for promotional materials on their website.

1: Leeroy Jenkins:

You're probably not surprised to see this most infamous of players topping our list. Leeroy Jenkins, the Internet alias of player Ben Shulz, is an icon of not just the MMO world, but the world of video games in general. What that says about video game culture, and how the rest of the world views it, would be interesting subjects to ponder.

Old Leeroy is one of the great memes of all time, appearing in or parodied by countless images and jokes. He's been immortalized in the trading card game and other WoW merchandise. He's even made an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and been used as a clue on Jeopardy!

In case you've been living under a rock with no Internet access for the past several years and don't know who Leeroy is, his tale originates from a created by his guild, < PALS FOR LIFE >, depicting them forming a strategy for the Rookery, a difficult encounter in the Upper Blackrock Spire raid in which eggs will spawn near endless numbers of whelps if not carefully avoided and managed.

As < PALS FOR LIFE > prepared to implement their master plan, Leeroyjenkins, an AFK human paladin, leapt to his feet, screaming "LEEEEROOOY JEEEEENKIIIINS!" over Vent, and charged into the Rookery, spawning dozens of whelps and causing the grizzly deaths of his friends.

The guild later admitted to staging the video, but they swear up and down that it closely parallels an incident that really took place.

Ever since, any act of stupidity in World of Warcraft - and some in the real world - has been met with enraged cries of, "LEEEEEROOOY!!!!" And therein lies the source of the meme's popularity. Everyone has experienced a moment like Leeroy's suicidal charge. We've all felt the agony as our best plans are unwoven by one careless dumbass.

a But hey, at least he has chicken.