My daughter was shouting, “Dad! Come look!”
Something had happened in World of Warcraft yesterday morning that she really wanted me to see.
I came over to see what she was so excited about.
She had fallen through Stormwind. She took some screen shots for me.
A new view of Stormwind
But she hadn’t just fallen.
Looking up to see down
She had been working on something.
Open architecture
She had been trying to climb up the walls of Stormwind ala Super Mario to try to get up on the roofs of the city.
She is truly my daughter. I remember doing the same thing in EverQuest. And I remember being especially proud when I made it up and could see over the edge of the city. The sky, it turned out, was just an inverted bowl, open down below the horizon where people normally wouldn’t be able to see. (Unlike in EverQuest II, where the sky appears to be a complete sphere.) But there I was, seeing things from a new perspective.
So it was a shared moment, a thrill that we both understood.
And even better, falling through was repeatable. She walked back out from under Stormwind, which you can do by just heading to the harbor, then went back to the same spot and showed me how she had jumped from a box to a torch, then from the torch to a ledge. And, walking along the ledge, she fell through.
I went back to my computer to try it.
I failed.
It turns out that you need to be a night elf to do this. I had been trying to jump up to the torch with Vikund, who is human, and humans just cannot seem to make that jump. This may be the first tangible difference between races I have seen in WoW.
After switching to one of my night elf druids (I have two) I was able to make the leap up to the torch and then the ledge quite easily, thus confirming my daughter’s assertion that you need to be a night elf to do this.
The Jump
Once I ran up the ledge I fell through to the green fields below Stormwind.
Amazing how much sunlight gets through the city
Also amazing is how much better WoW screen shots look when taken from out iMac. Does QuickTime compress that much better by default?
So I was able to share this moment of accomplishment with my daughter, and appreciate it through the eyes of someone who has experience the same joy of getting into some place they weren’t supposed to be.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
I remember a bug sort of similar to this where you could get to the old throne room in ironforge – a mage could blink through the closed door somewhere near the king… (memory getting hazy here, this was back in 2004…)
took me a while to get it but on the other side there was a complete rendering of hallways and a throne (as opposed to missing textures in the falling through stormwind thing above).
ahh – got to love exploring the limits of the game world :-)
LikeLike
I used to do something similar by leaving ironforge and turning left. Once you got almost all the way to the tunnel to the next zone you ran up the hill and to the mountain peak. Some careful maneuvering and you could follow the mountain range all the way down around and into the no man’s land between zones (the reason you can’t fly in vanilla areas) Some more running and you could find yourself under Stormwind.
You can see some of old ironforge by getting to the airport and running your character into one of the houses there. If you swivel your camera around sometimes the camera will clip through the wall and you can see a tunnel… i forget which house you can do this to, but I think I remember it being on the right. (if IF is on the left.) There’s also a camp on top of the IF mountain.
I love stuff like this!
LikeLike
I remember doing this in Dark Age of Camelot.
Going into Camelot, going to the top floors of various buildings, trying to jump through the ceiling (Dark Age of Camelot didn’t have very good collision detection with this).
I remember when I first got up to the rooftops. Running around, jumping from rooftop to rooftop.
Trying to do whatever I could to get people to notice me, announcing it on chat.
Once I had figured out how to reproduce it I even organized tour groups (I was such a little role player back then).
I’d announce that the “Camelot Roof Top Tour Group” is departing in 10 minutes from so and so building. I’d get three or four people showing up. I’d take them all around the place, then at the end of the tour request tips :)
LikeLike
There’s also “HELP” scrawled on the wetlands mountains out of sight of any flight paths or anything – the entire area is blocked off by invisible walls now, but it used to be open.
The are of terrain south of Silithus and Ung’oro Crater is also some of the most bizzare stuff i’ve ever seen – blizz going crazy with the random terrain deformation tool.
LikeLike
My draenei can make that jump too, thanks for the pointer towards the underworld.
As for tangible differences, there is of course the height difference between the races, where elves and draenei can fjord rivers more easily than gnomes, who end up swimming a lot more. It’s a minor difference, but it’s noticeable.
LikeLike
Did your daughter consider it cheating?
LikeLike
Hyjal was my favorite, but when i played wow i found all sorts of interesting stuff, including an entire underwater gnome town at the edge of the map, i suggest actually exploring a few things in old world.
Something quite easy and fun is the underwater section of the if-sw tram tunnel, jump out midway and find nessie among others, course the real trick is jumping back onto the moving tram(there are ramps to get back onto the platform in the tunnel)
LikeLike
Look up how to get from Winterspring to Mount Hyjal – it seems only a Night Elf can do that one too. I tried with my Paladin and couldn’t do it.
LikeLike
Great stuff :)
My friend and I once explored and accidentally climbed the western mountains of Tanaris. Crazy unfinished textures, great views…it was a small insight into the smoke and mirrors. Well before we fell down and couldn’t get back up again. :)
WOW is a great world, both from in front and behind the curtain.
LikeLike
“Look up how to get from Winterspring to Mount Hyjal – it seems only a Night Elf can do that one too. I tried with my Paladin and couldn’t do it.”
Nah i did it with an undead warrior, no point in doing it now what with the no-man’s land debuff.
LikeLike
It’s been about a year since I gave up my WoW “addiction”–at least that’s what my boyfriend of the time called it–but it’s always delightful to see parents playing with their children!
I’m not quite certain of this anymore, but I believe that I was able to encounter this “bug” on my draenei as well!
What other games do you all play?
LikeLike
Pingback: /AFK – August 16 « Bio Break
Pingback: Killed in a Smiling Accident. » Blog Archive » Behind the stage curtain.
I had a friend (yes, a Night Elf ;) who showed me a lot of these. I think we used to get to Under Stormwind by wall hopping up the north-east corner of the moat section, just outside the Flight Master. He also took me to Mt. Hyjal via the demon caves in the south of Winterspring.
The same friend also got me into Old Ironforge – you need to be Feared or Sheeped to pass through the door in the King’s throne room – and showed me how cliff hopping up behind a certain tree – on your left when you exit the North Gate Pass – in Loch Modan is the key to getting to the Ironforge Airport.
LikeLike