World of Warcraft: Midnight’s opening minutes throw you right in at the deep end, seeing you defending the Sunwell in a direct continuation of the expansion’s trailer—alongside a host of paladin and priest cameos.
It’s a really neat moment, honestly—Blizzard’s seriously tapped into the well of named NPCs here. It’s a veritable feast if you’re a lore nerd (here’s a full list of cameos put together by WoWHead during the Alpha) or if you were just on the internet circa 2005.
While I wouldn’t usually explain such a famous video, it’s occurred to me that it is old enough to drink and, as such, some of you might reasonably have missed it—Leeroy’s a meme from the vanilla WoW days, a paladin who, after preparing a feast of chicken, bellowed his own name and charged deep into the Rookery of Upper Blackrock Spire and got everyone killed.
Watch On
Anyway, Leeroy Jenkins, of “Leeerrooooy, Jenkiiiiins” fame is among the host, as spotted by WoWHead back then, and now early access players on the r/WoW subreddit. “The Light really did call EVERYBODY,” writes one player. “Xal’atath stands no chance with this hero on our side,” cheers another.
Xal’atath stands no chance with this hero on our side from r/wow
You might be wondering why a paladin is wearing priest shoulders, and it’s because—to quote the video—that’ll help him heal better, he’ll have more mana. The entire reason they’re at the Rookery to begin with is to get him the devout shoulders, since cloth gear formed a part of healing paladin’s best-in-slot kit at the time.
This isn’t the first time ol’ Leeroy’s showed up in-game, far from it, but it’s certainly a fun cameo to help ease the stress of the very serious business of a beloved WoW location getting torched by Xal’atath. Ah well, at least the rules of MMO makeovers mean that Silvermoon’s actually looking far prettier, nowadays.
