World of Warcraft just turned 20 last year, and now one of its most viral moments, Leeroy Jenkins, has too.
The video, originally uploaded to the WoW forums but gaining more traction on May 11, 2005 when it was uploaded to Warcraftmovies.com, shows a guild of WoW players in voice chat looking to conquer the Rookery room in the game's Upper Black Rock Spire raid. After going over an elaborate battle plan with a "32.33, repeating of course, percentage of survival," one AFK player, a paladin named Leeroy Jenkins, bolts up and shouts "Time's up, let's do this! Leeeeroyyyy Jenkinsssss!" He runs into the adjacent room and aggroes every dragonkin in sight. Chaos ensues and internet history is made.
Leeroy Jenkins instantly became an internet icon and helped cement WoW in the public consciousness, his name becoming a call to arms for anyone who was about to do something with gusto without thinking about the consequences. The video has been watched tens of millions of times in the last two decades and became a viral sensation at a time when the modern internet as we know it was still in its infancy (YouTube, for example, was just a few months old at the time of the original video). An HD reupload of the video posted to YouTube in 2014 has racked up 26 million views alone.
That the whole video is staged is beside the point. The comedic writing and timing (and the absolutely absurd strategy of trying to clear out the Rookery room, rather than just avoiding the eggs entirely) was always too good to be true even before the folks behind the video openly admitted it.
But that is what makes the video so funny and also makes those early days of WoW so special. Here was a time before every raid strategy was known and when players hadn't quite min-maxed the fun out of encounters like this. Leeroy Jenkins blew up not because it was real, but because it was, despite its over-the-top nature, still believable as something that could happen if you joined a random UBRS group of well-meaning idiots. Such was the beauty of WoW's earliest days--something that developer Blizzard looked to recapture with its launch of WoW Classic in 2019.
References to Leeroy Jenkins would go on to appear in everything from a Jeopardy! question to episodes of Family Guy and How I Met Your Mother. Blizzard has immortalized Leeroy Jenkins in a number of different ways too, including an official NPC who was added to the game during the Warlords of Draenor expansion and more recently played a role in WoW's in-game 20th anniversary event. He is also on various Hearthstone cards, and Blizzard even reward's WoW players with a special title, "Jenkins," for succeeding in UBRS where Leeroy and his group failed.
Leeroy Jenkins continues to be an important reminder of what kind of hilarity can ensue when players don't take games too seriously and instead live in the moment. Even though his group failed miserably (on purpose), Leeroy's final words in the video still ring true today. Even in the face of ridicule and adversity, it's the fun we had along the way and the little things that matter. After all, at least he has chicken.
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The video, originally uploaded to the WoW forums but gaining more traction on May 11, 2005 when it was uploaded to Warcraftmovies.com, shows a guild of WoW players in voice chat looking to conquer the Rookery room in the game's Upper Black Rock Spire raid. After going over an elaborate battle plan with a "32.33, repeating of course, percentage of survival," one AFK player, a paladin named Leeroy Jenkins, bolts up and shouts "Time's up, let's do this! Leeeeroyyyy Jenkinsssss!" He runs into the adjacent room and aggroes every dragonkin in sight. Chaos ensues and internet history is made.
Leeroy Jenkins instantly became an internet icon and helped cement WoW in the public consciousness, his name becoming a call to arms for anyone who was about to do something with gusto without thinking about the consequences. The video has been watched tens of millions of times in the last two decades and became a viral sensation at a time when the modern internet as we know it was still in its infancy (YouTube, for example, was just a few months old at the time of the original video). An HD reupload of the video posted to YouTube in 2014 has racked up 26 million views alone.
That the whole video is staged is beside the point. The comedic writing and timing (and the absolutely absurd strategy of trying to clear out the Rookery room, rather than just avoiding the eggs entirely) was always too good to be true even before the folks behind the video openly admitted it.
But that is what makes the video so funny and also makes those early days of WoW so special. Here was a time before every raid strategy was known and when players hadn't quite min-maxed the fun out of encounters like this. Leeroy Jenkins blew up not because it was real, but because it was, despite its over-the-top nature, still believable as something that could happen if you joined a random UBRS group of well-meaning idiots. Such was the beauty of WoW's earliest days--something that developer Blizzard looked to recapture with its launch of WoW Classic in 2019.
References to Leeroy Jenkins would go on to appear in everything from a Jeopardy! question to episodes of Family Guy and How I Met Your Mother. Blizzard has immortalized Leeroy Jenkins in a number of different ways too, including an official NPC who was added to the game during the Warlords of Draenor expansion and more recently played a role in WoW's in-game 20th anniversary event. He is also on various Hearthstone cards, and Blizzard even reward's WoW players with a special title, "Jenkins," for succeeding in UBRS where Leeroy and his group failed.
Leeroy Jenkins continues to be an important reminder of what kind of hilarity can ensue when players don't take games too seriously and instead live in the moment. Even though his group failed miserably (on purpose), Leeroy's final words in the video still ring true today. Even in the face of ridicule and adversity, it's the fun we had along the way and the little things that matter. After all, at least he has chicken.
Source