100 Rules of Warcraft

October 10, 2009 - 75 Responses

Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. However, I have been away from the game for some physical health reasons that prevent me from playing.  I am unsure if I will ever return.

This is my farewell post. It is a post I started over a year ago. I believe it shows the love I had and still have for the game.

~ The 100 Rules of Warcraft ~

This is a list of hyperbolically-stated truths making fun of everything from raid progression to roleplaying, to the players behind the characters, to the various classes, to quests, to game physics, to PvP … and more!

This post was inspired by the very famous Grand List of Console Roleplaying Game Cliches.

1. Law of FedEx Conservation
A quest sending you to deliver something will make you take it to either the NPC standing right next to you, or to an NPC on the complete other side of the world/zone.

2. Bonus Racial Ability: Rabbit-Like … Reflexes?
95% of the children encountered in the game will be human.

3. The Notoriety Penalty
If it has a name, kill it.  It must drop something good.

4. The Fecal Inevitability
At one point or another, you will find yourself sifting through poop.

5. The Bubble-Hearth Housing Market
The population of any major city is listed as being in the hundreds of thousands, but you can only find 12 actual houses or homes in it.

6. The Limited Vacancy Rule
While houses do exist, no one ever appears to live in them.  Inns exist as well, but their rooms are always vacant.

7. The Limited Vacancy Exception (The Menage-a-Many Rule)
On Roleplaying servers, the beds of inns happen to be the most densely populated regions in the game.

8. I Got My Degree Online!
For 10 copper, you have the smarts to learn engineering.

9. The Clone Army Constant
No matter how many times you kill that raid boss, he will be back next week.

10. The Life Insurance Assurance
No matter how many times you die, you come right back.

11. The Continuum of the Traveling Pants
The gear will always fit.

12. The Pick-Pocketer Problem
Some creatures have pockets, and you do not want to know where.

13. The  Survival of the Fittest
You have to kill 16 zherva to find 4 hooves, 12 murlocs to find 7 eyes, 57 bears to find one with a brain.

14. The Gnomish World Enlargement Axiom
The more epic the zone, the shorter you are in relation its architecture, topology, and animal life.

15. The Sentient Machine Postulate
Zeppelins and other machines can power and run themselves.

16. The Hypocrisy of Avian Travel
The windrider will not know how to get there, unless you do, but it flies itself.

17. The Deja Vu Constant of Deja Vu
NPCs will always say the same thing, no matter how many times you speak to them.

18. The “I’m not even supposed to be here today…” Principle
The same NPC has been selling bread in Ironforge for 1,383 days straight, in back-to-back shifts, without a break.

19. The Menopausal Immunity (“Is it hot in here, or is it just me?”)
The heat from lava will always damage you, but the cold of ice/snow never will.

20. The Hippie Principle of Time Dilation
You can skin an entire beast about 3 times faster than it takes you to pick up a flower from the ground.

21. It’s Made of Magnets!
No matter how little the female’s plate armor covers her body, it protects as well as the male’s.

22. World of Mesomorph-Craft
No matter which class you choose to play, all characters of that race/gender combination have the same amount of muscle mass.

23. The “I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts!” Constant
No one cares if you walk right through them.

24. The Procrastinators’ Creed
It doesn’t matter how desperately the dying child needs the medicine to live.  Unless there is a ticking clock on your screen, you can take as long as you want to get it to her.

25. The Münchhausen Rule
After giving an NPC an antidote , they remain hunched over, waiting to be saved by someone else.

26. Game Character Physiology 101 (“I Eat Danger for Breakfast“)
You will never need to eat or drink to live.

27. Game Character Physiology 102 (“I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead”)
No one needs sleep to live.

28. Game Character Physiology 103 (“Killing Keeps Me Young”)
No one ever gets older.

29. The Hunter Postulate
No matter how much an animal wants to crunch your face off, if you wave your hands in front of it for 20 seconds and give it some food, it can become your best friend.

30. The Priest Postulate
No matter the race or gender of the priest, they all become a human female as a spirit (of redemption).

31. The Rogue Postulate
You could be carrying 50 pounds of weapons, be wearing gear that glows red, have a giant flag mounted on your back, and still be able to sneak around in front of someone without them hearing or seeing you.

32. The Warlock Postulate
Nobody likes Warlocks, not even Warlocks.

33. The Paladin Contradiction
In the amount of time it takes you to kill one mob, you could have killed 11 mobs faster.

34. The Casters’ Comfort Zone
Much is said about the infiniteness and vastness of magic, but casters only seem to cast the same four or five spells over and over again.

35. The Law of Critters
Bears can be any level of fierce, but cows will always be one shotable.

36. Murphy’s Law of Upgrades
You can spend countless runs finding a better weapon, only to upgrade it with badge gear a week later.

37. Smurfette’s Law
Some races must procreate by who-knows-how (no female ogres).

38. The Requisite Prerequisite
If you have to clear 20 boars to get to a questgiver, he will give you a quest to kill another 20 boars.

39. The Wile E. Coyote Rule
The platform will fall a moment before you step onto it, plummeting you to the ground.

40. The Transgender Inequality
Only 1 in 100 male characters are played by female players, but half of the female characters are played by males.

41. The Futility of Genocide
No matter how many of a species or its eggs you destroy, its overall population is never permanently affected.

42.  Social Engineering Superiority
You could make a better living by signing guild charters at level 1 than by leveling a crafting profession.

43. The Lady Prestor Rule
Most human NPCs are either really dumb or have some kind of amnesia.

44. The Fixed Brain Capacity Principle
You can learn every profession, but can only remember two at a time.

45. Size Doesn’t Matter
A small ring takes up as much space in your bag as the head of a dragon does.

46. The Ultima BFG Axiom
No matter how big the gun gets, there will always be a bigger one later.

47. Path of Greatest Resistance
An injured peasant being escorted to safety will attempt to go make friends with any hostile NPC in the area waiting to bring it harm.

48. The “I’m Pretty” Rule of RP Servers
Player-created characters will all have the same few “pretty” faces.

49. The “I’m Special” Rule of RP Servers
The majority of players who write their own RP profiles will either be: 1) Part god, 2) Part dragon, 3) Hybrid of 2 or more races that just don’t work, or 4) Royalty.  And will likely be all of the aforementioned.

50.  The “Look at Me!” Rule of RP Servers
On RP servers, everyone had a cool scar that you should ask them about.

51. Plainsrunning, My Ass!
Despite being 5x the size of gnomes, Tauren can move no faster.

52. The First Law of Raid Zerging Conservation
If you get enough people together, you can slay a god, but cannot bash in a door with a lock on it.

53. The Second Law of Raid Zerging Conservation
In order to slay a god, you can’t just bring more warriors with big swords.  You have to bring some players in stupid-looking dresses, too.

54.  The IKEA Principle
It doesn’t matter how legendary the weapon is, at least 83 other players on your server also have it.

55. Amnesiac Book Axiom
The log you keep of your quests doesn’t actually log what you have accomplished.  It will only ever tell you what you are trying to do at the moment.

56. The Universal Learner’s Permit
You use the same kind of skill to ride a raptor, as you do to ride a felstead, as you would to ride a kodo, as you do to ride a motorcycle, etc.

57. The Civil Engineers’ Dilemma (“I”m a Builder not a Fighter!”)
NPCs are able to set up towns in the most desolate of locations, but cannot fend it off from simple boars.

58. One Good Deed Deserves Twelve More
NPCs reward you for saving their life or the life of a loved one by asking you to kill another 20 boars for them, then to bring something to the other side of the world for them.  And all for just 17 silver.

59. Nesingwary’s Principle
The greener the zone, the more grinding quests there are.

60. The Bigger is Better Rule
The larger your shoulder armor, the more epic the gear.

61. The Bigger is Better Exception (The Smaller is Better Rule)
The skimpier the plate on females, more epic the armor.

62. The Economic Stimulus Theory
Shopkeepers will have unlimited means in which to buy partially digested meat and troll sweat off of you, but unsurprisingly, no one ever wants to buy their bread.

63. Law of Selective Sight (The General Drakkisath Rule)
NPCs don’t care if you noisily kill their friends a few yards away, right in front of them.

64. The First Rule of Adventuring
You can kill hundreds of thousands of beings and still be the good guy, even if half of them were dumb animals that weren’t even going to hurt you anyways.

65.  The Second Rule of Adventuring
It’s doesn’t matter how intimidating you look; friendly NPCs won’t think twice of you wandering through their town (even if your sword is unsheathed and bigger than you are).

66. The Third Rule of Adventuring
You can be out to save the world from disaster, but NPCs will still charge you full price for goods.

67. Battleground Failure 101 (“Someone Call a Medic!“)
Only about 10% of any given battleground will be specced for healing, and half of them will be out-healed by a warrior with bandages.

68. Battleground Failure 102 (Too Many Rockstars)
No matter how good the advice is, if the battleground group isn’t a premade, no one will take it.

69. Battleground Failure 103 (Less QQ, More Pew Pew!)
The people who complain the most about other people in the battleground are the ones who are working the least toward the objective.

70. The Universal Language
Despite massive cultural differences and language barriers, all races have the same currency.  Even plainstriders.

71 Just a Tickle!
The largest, toughest, and strongest bosses will still be vulnerable to weapons 1/10,000th their size.

72. The Good Guy Contradiction
The Alliance, despite their pretty faces and good-guy facades, have intentions far more sinister than the motley Horde.

73. “It’s not Easy Being Green.”
No raid boss is as fearsome or persistent as a murloc with friends.

74.The First Rule of Trade Chat
You do not talk about trade in trade chat.

75. The Second Rule of Trade Chat
You do NOT talk about trade in trade chat.

76. The Third Rule of Trade Chat
You do complain about people not talking about trade in trade chat.

77. At Least I’ve Got Chicken
The only thing worse than a pugger with no title is a pugger whose only title is “Jenkins.”

78. The “At Least I’ve Got Chicken” Corollary
The Real Leeroy doesn’t need the title “Jenkins” after his name.

79. The First Swimmer’s Irony
Swimming fatigue has nothing to do with how long you have been swimming, just how far you are from the shore.

80. The Second Swimmer’s Irony
You can swim as fast wearing full plate armor as you can naked.

81. The Third Swimmer’s Irony
Armor never rusts or becomes damaged from swimming.

82. The Fourth Swimmer’s Irony
All pets can swim and breathe underwater. Indefinitely.  Even that white kitten.  And that orphan.

83. Oops, I Did it Again!
Most of what has gone wrong in the history of Azeroth has been caused by Night Elves (worgen, Ahn’Qiraj, Illidan, the first bringing of Sargeras, etc.)

84. The Treasure Hunter’s Fallacy
Just because it is in a chest, doesn’t mean it is going to be any good.

85. Law of Beverages
The milk is always ice cold and in a glass, despite how long it has been sitting in the baking hot sun and been toted around by a raptor.

86. The Auction House Assholerly Constant
Someone will always be trying to sell one piece of linen cloth for 16,578 gold.

87. The Auction House Assholery Constant Corollary
Someone will always be trying to sell stackable items in stacks of one, flooding the auction house with dozens of pages of said single items.

88. The Columbus Conundrum
Though there are globes in game depicting a round Azeroth, you cannot travel west from Kalimdor to get to Eastern Kingdoms; you just fall off the world.  The world is, indeed, flat.

89. The Whimsy of the Babel Fish
Many NPCs can communicate in a language you understand, regardless of race, however you can only ever understand one.

90. The Bibliophile’s Nightmare
There are thousands of books in the world, but you can only read the same 20 over and over again.

91. The Law of Selective Appendage Augmentation
Haste will let you move your fingers or arms faster, but never your legs.  So you can fight, cast spells, unlock doors, and cook things quicker, but cannot run any faster.

92. The Law of Maximum Occupancy (or The Dungeon Weight Limit Rule)
For some reason, you can only get those 25 people into the raid instance before no more can get through the door, despite there being plenty of space inside.

93. The Infallibly of Time Travel
If you travel back in time and mess things up, the present won’t change.

94. The Inequity of Motion
There are hundreds upon hundreds of ways of murdering a foe, but only about twenty different dance moves.

95. The Law of Persistent Vengeance (Sisyphus’s Rule)
No matter how many times their plots are foiled, the bad dudes just keep trying the same things again and again.

96. The Law of Retroactive Tradition
New holidays will be periodically introduced to the game and will have immediate traditions, because haven’t we always celebrated them?

97. The Catastrophic Constant
Someone is always trying to take over and/or destroy the world. If that person is ever defeated, then someone else immediately takes that person’s place.

98. Something’s Fishy
There have been more patch notes about clams than there have been about all the legendary weapons combined.

99. Boredom’s Dilemma
You will never feel a stronger need to try to kill things than when you have rez sickness.

100. The Law of Infinite Entertainment
You can never win the game. That will never stop you from trying.

Got any to add?  Comment!