Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

A world is waiting. Vanish.

A Tauren warrior is seeing off his undead priest friend on Thunder Cliff in Mogore.

This is the "fengshui treasure land" that the priest has chosen for himself, and in a few minutes he will be offline here, leaving the character forever on this verdant terrace, which is also the hometown of his friends.

At this time, it is nearly two months from the "World of Warcraft" national service announced by NetEase, but the official regular recharge channel has been closed ahead of schedule. Although the channel was later reopened, at that time, the only solution was to find people who still had a large number of pre-recharged Battle. net points in their accounts and asked them to buy and transfer the Giant Dragon Age gift bags in the mall.

This gift bag contains mounts, pets and many other limited decorations, which is launched for the new expansion launched on November 28, but for national service players at the moment, the "one-month game length" included in the gift bag has become the most valuable content.

The gift bag with the original price of 328 was sold to a monthly card with a price of nearly 1,000 yuan compared with the original price of 75 yuan. The gift bag was hyped to thousands of yuan in the secondary market and was called "the last bucket of gold of WOW national service RMT" (RMT refers to out-of-game cash transactions), and the price was obviously beyond the reach of most people.

This means that players who miss recharging for a variety of reasons will eventually have to leave the world ahead of time.

Some players reassure themselves that they can pre-grab a "good grave" and pick a feng shui line-many of them choose to return to the main city or birthplace of their race, making the beginning of the journey the end of the journey.

The choice of "grave head" became a hot stem among players at that time, but the necromancer did not want his character to go back to the dark city or death knell town and sleep on those spooky and cold graveyards or coffins. He finally chose the Thunder Cliff facing the prairie and blooming in spring, and let the wind guide his way.

After saying goodbye to each other, the soldier watched the figure of the priest fade away until he disappeared.

2 Rigo Farm, located in Sifeng Valley, is the first piece of land that players can own in World of Warcraft, which was added to the "Panda Mystery" expansion launched a decade ago.

After experiencing a task line that takes a week to complete, players can inherit the farm from a panda farmer, grow and harvest vegetables every day, get some practical props in this version, and add more facilities to the farm.

After the update of the new profile, the materials harvested here lost the value of continuing to grow, and later there were more luxurious player buildings in the game, but in the end, this cabin was still the place closest to "home" in the hearts of many players. many people choose to let their adventurous characters "return to the country", sleep undisturbed in this soft bed.

Fortress is the player building joined by King of Delano, where players can recruit a large number of NPC partners to build the fortress into a fully functional home.

Because of this facility, this expansion was once called the "most friendly to lone wolf players" version, and the most common saying was "Don't trick me out of the fortress." Perhaps as a result, the independence of the player building has been weakened in the subsequent version, promoting player interaction, and it is difficult for players to have such a small world of their own.

After the players left Delano for the new expansion, the NPC in the fortress are still living and working, producing outdated resources, waiting for the "commander" players to come back to pick them up. Some of them have rarely seen the commander return recently, but they can't understand what the player means by "goodbye".

In early December, a few days after the launch of the "Dragon Age" expansion, NetEase opened a special recharge channel, where players can recharge a World of Warcraft monthly card for their account through private customer service or GM.

Some players who missed the recharge were able to "cheat the corpse" to experience this final new version.

The story line of "the Age of Dragons" is "guarding the past and Future of Dragons". Players will return to their birthplace with Azeroth dragons, who have been away from their hometown for tens of thousands of years.

In Hongyu Shengsheng Mecca, players can see an old man sitting on the edge of a high platform. He offers a task called "Hero lingering", inviting players to watch the distant scenery with him and listen to his stories.

Ten thousand years ago, when he left here, he was a recruit in the Dragon Legion, at an age when he could still play pranks on adult dragons with his companions. But the betrayal of Deathwing and the Black Dragons destroyed everything, and the former playmates killed each other and eventually forced everyone away from the land where they were raised.

"this used to be my home, and I never thought I would never return. After a long time, I dare not hope to go home." Looking at the strange scenery, the old dragon said.

But what he does not know is that the "heroes" sitting next to him are about to leave the land in a hurry, and they also do not know when or even whether they will return.

4 in the last few days before the game is closed, Blizzard added a "lock account" function to WOW, through which players can download the game progress in their account to the local store. At the same time, however, all characters in the account will be locked and will no longer be able to log into the game, and this function can only be performed before the game is officially suspended.

The feature is also known by players as the "cyber urn", which means that players can only choose between "storing account progress" and "accompanying the character to the last minute", according to some players who have experienced the feature beforehand, the success rate is not stable, and players had better set aside a few hours to perform the operation.

So in the evening of the day, some players who still want to keep their account information begin to bid farewell in advance.

Zangbao Bay is one of the first neutral areas in World of Warcraft. If the allied and tribal players fight here, they will be surrounded by guards, and there will be a neutral auction house that can be used by both parties. There will also be a fishing convention that any player can participate in on weekends. This is one of the few places that promoted the harmonious coexistence of alliance and tribal players in the early days of the game.

At the last sunset before the closing of the game, there were some players from tribes and alliances, who only set off fireworks wordlessly, looking at the distant sunset, ships circling around the island.

The words published by players from rival camps in the game do not seem to display properly to each other, but at this moment, when players from other camps suddenly shout an incomprehensible word and then ride away, or the figure gradually disappears in the same place, everyone present knows that he said "good-bye".

The highest mountain range from the broken archipelago to Gaoling is Azeroth, from which you can see the most magnificent starry sky. Looking up among the mountains, you can see the clear Milky way and the planet Agoos, the hometown of Delaney players.

The last night of Azeroth, and the last night of all the planets in World of Warcraft, all the disputes in the epic are gone. To the summit of Gaoling ushered in an endless stream of players, under the Milky way, they are no longer the big lords who saved Ai Xing from the crisis a few years ago, but just came to remember the tourists from their hometown and take pictures.

Against the light peak, red stars twinkle in the night sky to Gaoling. That is the Pantheon, the shadow of the creators of Azeroth in the sky. In the last few hours, the figures of the alliance and tribes appeared again and again here, and there were several unknown tombs in the snow, which seemed to be the right time.

Like Zangbao Bay, some people sit here silently and then disappear into the air, while others are just anxious passers-by who rush to the next location at the last minute to take photos.

As the crowd inadvertently gathered, players began to put together words with nothing more than pleasantries such as "you come here, too" or blessings such as "may the wind guide your way". Opposing camps interact with each other through actions such as "hugging" and "blowing kisses".

At last, the crowd fell into a long silence, until a warlock said, "I want to cry," and after a long silence, a soldier said, "We will meet again."

People wave, hug, and say goodbye.

6 "Golden Plain" is the only RP (role playing) server in National Service. in theory, players who choose this server should fully integrate into their roles, try their best to avoid OOC (Out Of Character, that is, behavior that does not conform to the role and game worldview), and in principle should not even use the "World Channel".

But at the moment, someone on the Alliance's World Channel is calling again and again for everyone to come to Flash Town, not far from the outskirts of Storm, where there is a spacious space in front of the hotel and the first town that many league players encounter on their travels.

Even at this last moment, there are still players who faithfully carry out their role-playing: someone is still promoting that they have opened a pub in the dwarf district of Stormwind, and you will have a chance to try it again in the future. a priest suggested that you can write a letter to her as a time capsule, and she will send these letters back to you as soon as the server opens again.

Unfortunately, no matter how much players insist, it is difficult to reasonably interpret the moment through the setting of the game-a world is coming to an end, and the characters in the game can't find the right reason to say goodbye to each other. Even the priest who made the time capsule finally couldn't help saying OOC's words.

But it was enough to make people believe that she meant it from the bottom of her heart. At the same time, some tribal players of Golden Plains came to the Golden Plains in the game and took pictures of them in the moonlight.

7 on different servers, Orgrimmar, the main city of the tribe, has a similar view-people ride on mounts commonly known as Phoenix and Firehawk and gather in a circle in the clearing of the Valley of Power for a bonfire.

Phoenix and Firehawk are nominally rare mounts, and players usually have a chance to get them by repeatedly swiping their books week after week, but at the same time, because these two mounts have joined the game very early, many players who have played for a long time have taken it into their pockets, striking a delicate balance between "rare" and "universal", and symbolizing the investment of many players in the game.

On the other hand, these two mounts also look more "festive" than other rare mounts. From time to time, some people will shout, "guys, I packed the box first," and then leave the team, but soon, his vacant seat will be filled by someone sitting on the same mount. People come to the center of the circle one by one, dance or show off some of their toys, set off a fireworks, and say goodbye to everyone.

Unlike the rugged but spacious Ogrima, Stormwind, as the main city of the alliance, is majestic and majestic, but the streets and alleys under the town structure are not suitable for people to "talk around the fire." stay at the city gate, where everyone pulls out all kinds of toys from their collection and holds a final fireworks show.

In World of Warcraft, there is an achievement called "fantastic long Journey", which requires players to participate in festivals held at different times of the year to complete various events. At the moment, from mounts to props to skills, players are showing off all the oddities they have collected during this long journey.

8 "Landru's gift box" is a recharge gift launched by NetEase for WOW national service. Players used to buy an annual card and a half-year card to get a gift box, from which there is a very low probability of a quick ghost tiger ride.

This mount was once only available through the Warcraft scratch card, and the market price of the national service was about 50, 000 yuan, until NetEase added this new acquisition method, and its price remained high.

In the past, when someone showed off that they had opened a ghost tiger mount from a gift box, it was usually called "dog support" with a little jealousy by other players, even on the last night before closing.

Mounts that used to be worth tens of thousands or much thought are likely to become worthless, but they still don't affect their weight in the minds of players.

At this moment, other players are still fighting in the copy for the mount, hoping to try their luck at the last minute to see if they can brush the mount they once dreamed of.

Others are helping the former-over the years, a group of Chinese players have spontaneously offered free CD dyeing services, waiting at the door of each copy to help other players go straight to the BOSS where there is a chance of losing their mounts. They saw it as a cause and held on to the last minute.

As the night goes on, most of the people who are still online have decided to give up "boxing" their accounts.

More and more people gathered before the lions of Stormwind slept.

Once the Stormwind Garden, it is now the mound of King Varian Urian, the former leader of the alliance, who fought for Azeroth until the last minute, and his sacrifice represents the passing of an era in World of Warcraft.

I do not know when, the players in front of the tomb have been replaced with the most ordinary but also the most representative of the alliance of the snow Griffin mount.

People gathered around the grave in silence, remembering the NPC who had been with them for many years. Someone in the crowd opened the prop "Sylvanas's Music Box" and turned the surrounding background music into a "dirge of the high elves".

At the end of the song, the crowd shouted, "for the Alliance, for Azeroth!" Not far from the port of Stormwind, there happened to be a call to "raise the anchor". The ship that had carried countless players sailed out slowly with the moonlight and embarked on the last journey.

ten

With ten minutes to go before midnight on January 24, 2023, the chat channel began to prompt the countdown to the server shutdown.

Similar reminders have appeared in previous downtime maintenance, but this time, as the countdown entered the last three minutes, the reminder interval was shortened to every 15 seconds, as if constantly asking players if they were ready for the moment.

The players gathered together took the last time to say good-bye to each other, but some servers were disconnected before the last minute, and the "goodbye" in the chat box stayed there forever.

Other players rushed to their chosen places at the last minute, some jumped down from Dalaran's tower and the edge of the abyss, others leaned against each other in hotels and moonlit woodlands, and some were hurriedly bounced back to the landing interface on the way to their preferred place.

The door that Zakun has guarded for nearly seven years is still standing there, and one world is left on the other side.

Aria also contributed to this article.

This article is from the official account of Wechat: game Research Society (ID:yysaag), author: Lushark

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