A creative World of Warcraft fan discovers a cunning trick to keep himself alive beyond the boundaries of the world map to explore its secrets.
For as long as video games have existed, players have tried to scour the secret corners of game worlds, using exploits and hacks to peek behind the developers’ curtain. World of Warcraft is no exception; popular YouTube content creator and PvPer Rextroy recently revealed a simple trick that allowed him to explore beyond the bounds of World of Warcraft’s playable areas.
World of Warcraft uses a system called Fatigue to wrangle its players into the areas of the game it intends for them to stay in. Once a character flies or swims beyond a certain threshold over the open water, the Fatigue bar appears. Once it runs out, the character quickly dies, losing a percentage of their maximum health every few seconds.
Rextroy discovered a simple combination of tools and effects that could allow anyone to explore in areas where Fatigue would normally kill characters. Seraph Wings, a food item from the Shadowlands realm of Bastion, heals a character for about 1000 hit points every 5 seconds. By reducing a character’s maximum hit points via the Resurrection Sickness debuff, and removing all of their gear, the percentage damage dealt by Fatigue is counterbalanced by the healing from Seraph Wings, since Fatigue damage does not count as combat. This allows characters 10 minutes of freedom to explore in Fatigue areas until Resurrection Sickness wears off.
It isn’t surprising Rextroy discovered this exploit. In his videos, he is one of many World of Warcraft players constantly looking for exploits that allow him to perform unexpected feats, from creating game-breaking combos with legendary items to battling dozens of players at once in the opposite faction’s home city. During this Fatigue venture, he discovered many fascinating secrets, including a cave and an underwater forest, the edge of the rendered ocean, and a gigantic dragon skeleton far beyond the boundary of the game.
Players love watching players like Rextroy explore the secret corners of World of Warcraft and discover exploits within it, even if WoW developers don’t. Exploration is one of the greatest attractions to MMORPGs like WoW, and exploring places no player was meant to explore is but a natural evolution of that desire for many. Still, plenty of World of Warcraft players wonders if these areas were not meant to be explored in the first place.
After all, most of the areas Rextroy and other players like him discover had to have been placed there intentionally by a WoW developer. While some areas are theorized to have been used in scenarios during the story, like the underwater forest many believe was featured in Battle for Azeroth’s Horde War Campaign, other Easter eggs, like the underwater caves, skeletons, and sea monsters, seemingly serve no purpose beyond being hidden away for players like Rextroy to discover.
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is available on PC. Eternity’s End is currently in development.
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