I’ll admit, when it comes to World of Warcraft’s Hardcore ruleset, I am a coward. I have played a little, but nowhere near enough to really immerse myself in the risk of losing all your progress – so I sit on the fence, and indulge in the exploits of others.
And like a degenerate, I fiendishly seek the entertaining demise of adventurers braver than I. And a particularly epic treat for people today, with an incredible Hardcore death event that befell Guzu on Twitch being remade into a cinematic masterpiece by the WoW machinima god Hurricane:
Now, for those in the know about all things World of Warcraft – especially the Vanilla or Classic variety of such, you know where Guzu was. The Sunken Temple is a level 50+ dungeon that is well known for many things, including:
- Its labyrinthian layout (you WILL get lost)
- It is chock-full of scary green dragons
- It’s quite dangerous in a few unique ways
So seeing a hardcore player venture into there is admirable from the start, because they are quite literally laughing in the face of danger. In the incredible re-telling of Guzu’s death, we see his staff-wielding orc rush to engage the green dragon Weaver – before oddly stopping to admire his Alexstrazsa mousepad briefly. Seizing this opportunity, Weaver deploys one of their signature abilities: Wing Flap.
Simply put, it’s a knockback ability – used to devastating effect when you consider that the central chamber of Sunken Temple has a conveniently massive hole in the centre; leading to a deep and dark area known as the Pit of Refuse.
So his orc literally gets dumped in the trash.
The hero hole that made this all possible
It’s a comedy of perfectly stacked dominos, that all come crashing down to create 40 seconds of comedic gold. There are so many ways to perish in the terrifying depths of Sunken Temple, any one of its terrifying bosses could claim you – even the hordes of dragons would be happy to snuff your candle – but our boy Guzu got slam dunked. The true enemy was gravity this whole time.
Weaver essentially putted his ass – all because he stopped for a moment to engage with his chat and show off his (admittedly awesome) dragon queen mouse pad.
You can see this in the initial clip, where you get to drink in the intoxicating moment of his realisation – and even root for a better outcome when you see him open his bag and start chugging a special elixir (Noggenfogger) in the hope that it will randomly give him a slow fall effect.
Spoiler: It does not.
Most people indulge in Hardcore death clips to drink in the frustration and misery of the player at the keyboard – a little dark, a bit like attending a racing event and only wanting to see crashes. But the demise of Guzu is such a uniquely incredible set of events, that seeing the remake just feels like a celebration of how amazing it really was.
Guzu himself is of course is thrilled with such a homage, reacting to it on his livestream with a genuine sense of awe. And who wouldn’t be blown away, it has turned his classic blunder into a cinematic triumph.
If ever there was evidence that the WoW Hardcore experiment was a success, it could very well be this set of events. A dude’s character died, and it was awesome.
Maybe I should level up more and see what fate befalls me.
Have you jumped into WoW: Hardcore? Did you perish in an epic way? Tell us about it in the comments or on social media.
Addendum: Haw haw I just got the double meaning/joke of the video title. The FALL of Guzu. Bwahaha.
