So it feels like enough people didn’t experience it that I need to share the story of one of my favorite old Vanilla World of Warcraft glitches.
One of my first characters was a human warlock, named Alessa in a Silent Hill Nerd Moment. I also had my now-main, the Night Elf Hunter, who I wanted riding horses, which back then, with mounts not account-tied rather than character-tied, meant a lot of grinding for rep with the humans to get the ability to buy horses for her.
I spent a LOT of time in Elwynn Forest, the Human start/central zone.
And one day, as I am on my demon-summoning warlock, out picking flowers, an ominous, whispery voice booms out from the computer.
“YOU WILL DIE.”
I was in windowed mode, so my first thought was to pause my music, check that it wasn’t something with weird voice clips, then go through every tab on my browser window to figure out what was making noise.
Nothing is making noise. I kill every tab that might potentially play an ad.
I go back to hunting peacebloom.
“YOUR HEART WILL EXPLODE.”
I tab out. I kill my browser. I shut down everything but WoW, and am getting very confused by this. I go back to the game, everything is normal.
I log out after a while. The next day I’m back on the game, peacefully leveling in Elwynn.
“YOUR FRIENDS WILL ABANDON YOU.”
I stare at the computer.
I squint at it.
“YOU ARE ALREADY DEAD.”
I start debating the merits of putting salt circles around it.
Now, I was in a guild with people who did raid, although I hadn’t caught up at all to even attempt it, plus I was in school and my schedule was kinda prohibitive anyway. Those of you who are old timers or have gone kicking over old raids might, by now, recognize the whispers of C’thun, but there was no whisper text or any other indication what it was or even that it was coming from the game.
One of the guild officers on a new, human alt, pops up in Guild chat.
(G) (Officer): WHY AM I HEARING C’THUN IN ELWYNN FOREST.
(G) (Alessa): ….Wait is that what that creepy voice is?
(G) (Officer): YES. IT’S C’THUN’S FUCKING CREEPY VOICE CLIPS FROM THE RAID. WTF.
(G) (Other non-raiding Guildie): That’s a raid boss? Seriously?
(G) (Officer): YES.
(G) (Other non-raiding Guildie): OH THANK GOD I THOUGHT MY HOUSE WAS HAUNTED I WAS STARTING TO CONSIDER AN EXORCISM.
A few hours and a few people going scattering to check the forums later, and we all discovered that there was a noted bug on the forums where, whenever a guild on a given server was running Ahn’Qiraj, for some reason the sound clips for C’thun’s whispers were playing zone-wide in Elwynn Forest, without the whisper text and all to explain what it was.
Keep in mind this was back before LFR and other things were added in, so the 40-man raids were only seen by less than ten percent of the game’s population…. which meant most of the people starting new human characters, new player and existing player with an alt alike, had no fucking clue what was going on.
There were a LOT of people who’d been convinced their computer was haunted and/or possessed.
He’s a former commander gone peaceful and disguises himself as a chunky confused Nightborne fisherman. Those that can’t see through the disguise are very confused how that old-ish weird guy is so good at getting a big catch every time and just knows… a lot… about the sea.
We are William Afton stans first and humans second 