65 Million Boars

World of Warcraft truly hit the mainstream (as if 7 million subscribers wasn’t mainstream enough) when South Park dedicated an entire episode to the boy’s adventures in Azeroth. In fact this site is named after the line in the episode where Cartman describes how many boars they will have to kill in order to level up high enough to kill the mega-nerd that is ganking everyone on the server.

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Blizzard apparently collaborated with the South Park animators to create the episode, as many of the animations used in the episode are impossible to do with the game alone. Blizzard’s press release also mentions that they worked with the South Park guys on the episode.

Wikipedia has a plot summary and other info on the episode.

Errors

Of course when a game as beloved as WoW is featured on a world wide cartoon, they have to make some modifications in order to keep the laughs moving and not focus on detailed game mechanics that would be boring to people that don’t play the game. This fact is lost on some devoted fans of the game however, so people jumped onto Wikipedia and posted a list of all of the errors included in the episode. They were subsequently removed from the entry, so I have posted them here and added links to relevant info.

• The sword used to defeat the ganker is graphically identical to the epic sword The Hungering Cold, although it doesn’t work like the one in this episode.
• The unnamed Renegade player does not have a single line of dialogue. His stature partially resembles Tourettes Guy.
• The fictional Sword of a Thousand Truths does 120.0 DPS, has a mana burn proc, and has a +80 Stamina enchant. Such a weapon would be incredibly powerful and unbalanced, as the Blizzard employees suggest. Imbalanced weapons and armor do in fact exist within the game that are attainable by players.
• Trailers for this episode show Stan and Kyle in what appears to be the Undercity, right after Kenny is killed. In the airing of the show, they were in Goldshire.
• When Randy hijacks a car to take himself and the two Blizzard employees to Cartman’s house, he does it in the exact same way as in the video game Grand Theft Auto.
• When asked what enchantment his cloak has Stan claims “+15 agility” but the highest agility enchantment for cloaks is +3.
• Stan’s name in the game is really Staniscool, not Luvs2SPWG

The in-game avatars

• Cartman’s character, a Dwarf Warrior named bigboNed3, is the main tank and wields an Unyielding Maul. He is the leader of the boys’ group and is always the last killed. He is a warrior, but when you see his actionbar, it looks like a Rogue’s action bar (it has Eviscerate and Stealth).
• Stan’s character — either Staniscool or Luvs2SPWG — is a Human Warrior. His armor color is the same as his hate. Though, he could be considered a paladin until the end, when Cartman tells Stan to check his Fury talents, a warrior talent branch.
• Kyle is a Human Mage. Kyle’s character has an Arcane/Fire spec. His armor color is the same as his hat. Cartman makes fun of his character because it is female.
• Kenny is a Human warrior. Kenny’s character dies twice in game, the first time receiving the usual “Oh my God, they killed Kenny” response from his friends. The second time, Jimmy informs that Kenny is down. His armor color is the same as his parka. Kenny has Trueshot Aura which is mentioned he uses. Kenny’s character kicks the ganker in the final fight (which interrupts spellcasting), so he might also be a rogue.
• Randy Marsh’s character, Falcorn, is a Human Warrior. He incorrectly suggests that he is a hunter.
• Token is a Human Rogue. His class is not made explicit, but his leather armor and melee fighting suggests a rogue. His character is dark skinned just like him.
• Jimmy’s character is a Night Elf and is wearing a quiver and leather armor, suggesting a hunter.
• Timmy is a Human and is wearing the starting equipment for the priest class.
• Butters has the exact same character as Cartman. After Cartman tells him to change characters, he leaves. Although it is not mentioned, another human female is with the group afterwards that may be Butters again.
• Kyle’s brother Ike is a human and is wearing the Devout set (minus the head), an end-game dungeon set for priests.
• Clyde is a Night Elf Hunter. He is wielding a crossbow and wearing leather armor.
• Tweek is a gnome. Tweek’s character is seen only on fire, but he appears to have a sword and shield. Warriors are the only gnome class who can use shields.
• Craig is a gnome. Craig’s character is wearing robes and a staff, and Cartman instructs him to use his intellect buff – a spell only mages can cast.

Incongruities with actual WoW play: Because the in-game portions of the episode were filmed with Blizzard’s assistance, the characters are able to push the operational limits of the game by performing the forbidden actions listed below by modifying the game into an animation project. However, the entire premise of the episode centers around a violation of the game’s limits, so this is most likely due not to the inattentiveness of the writers but due to the nature of the plot. It is quite possible that the writers of South Park indeed have lives too.

Goofs

• While fighting the Renegade, Cartman uses Mocking Blow. This special attack meant to draw a hostile NPC’s attention has little effect on a human controlled enemy. Dialogue hints that Cartman is a warrior, although when his screen is shown it is clear that he is actually a Rogue; which would make his weilding of a two-handed mace impossible.
• Stan’s character is wearing a Frostwolf Battle Tabard, an item available to buy only for Horde players.
• The skills Kenny is instructed to use in the game suggest he is a Hunter, a class not allowed by his obvious Human race. He may actually be a Rogue or a Warrior instead.
• The Renegade seems to be a Mage, but wears a Plate helm. Mages are restricted to cloth armor.
• Butters states that only four races are available. This is only true if one ignores the Horde, as the rest of the episode seems to do.
• There is no spell that summons four Scorpids, as the Renegade does. (though the renegade is possibly a hacker/modder since he surpassed level limits and is able to fight and kill others of his own faction even oustide of duels)

Misc.

• The known character names (bigboNed3 for Cartman and Luvs2SPWGE for Stan) would not be allowed because of Blizzards Terms of Use.
• The episode appears to ignore the concept of Soulbound items, both with Randy handing the Sword of A Thousand Truths to Stan and Cartman instructing Stan to give his cloak to Kenny. Most high powered items in the game become Soulbound either when equipped or picked up and cannot be traded.
• In the game, thrown away items (such as The Sword of a Thousand Truths at the end) disappear rather than remain.
• Cartman’s plan to level up is flawed. Boars, like all other creatures, have a fighting difficulty and experience point award relative to their level vs. the player’s level. At some point, the boars would become “trivial” to the boys’ characters and grant no experience at all.
• The boys’ characters seem to wear armor of a level too high to allow them to be able to go up 30-50 levels more.
• It is impossible for characters to attack other characters except in certain special locations and circumstances (and even duels do not kill a character, but leave them with one hit point). This is a deliberate incongruity.
• In the real game, the maximum level pending the next expansion is 60. At this level, the Renegade could have easily been taken care of by the Admins or the several other Level 60s on most servers. This is most likely also a deliberate incongruity.
• There are over 100 separate servers for World of Warcraft with limited interaction between them. One Renegade could at best inconvenience only one server.
• Crushing an enemy’s head into a bloody pulp as depicted in the final fight is impossible in the game.
• Contrary to implications in the episode, character death is at best a minor inconvenience in World of Warcraft, overcome with time, effort and/or in-game money. One implication of this is that the boys accomplished nothing and the Renegade would be back at full strength less than five minutes after the end of the episode.
• In one shot there is a close up on the XP bar with a counter with the amount of experience counting upwards as a number, with the bar filling up smoothly. The numbers wouldn’t be there without a mod, but you don’t see this in any other shots of the game. Also the XP bar doesn’t fill up constantly and smoothly, but instead jumps up whenever XP is gained.
• The Sword of a Thousand Truths is uploaded to the client computer. World of Warcraft stores all items on the server, as allowing players to use locally-stored items would result in many hacked, unbalanced items being used.
• The episode did a remarkably accurate job of representing the ridiculous levels of zeal and seriousness with which WoW-devoted players approach the game. Just look at this Wikipedia entry.

Miscellany

The Sword of a Thousand Truths is said to appear in the WoW Expansion pack, The Burning Crusade. This is not the first time Blizzard has created an item in the game after a fake weapon being referenced in popular culture. They also added Doomulus Prime to the game after it was mentioned in this Foxtrot comic. Though it did receive a very substantial nerf in the process.

Transcript

from South Park Scriptorium