With World of Warcraft: Season of Discovery releasing on November 30, the game’s community wants to bring back arguably the game’s oldest meme.
For those who don’t know, the announcement of Season of Discovery back at Blizzcon was widely seen as confirmation of the oft-requested Classic+ mode. The game takes the original world of Vanilla Azeroth and alters it to add new encounters, loot and the opportunity to explore some unfinished zones from years gone by.
Additionally, players will be able to discover Runes for their chosen class. They will provide new powers and abilities after engraving these Runes onto their gear slots. This should, in theory, then allow players to use their classes in previously unprecedented roles.
Now, players have spotted how this exciting new dawn for Classic WoW could prevent a brilliant opportunity to resurrect one of the game’s longest-running jokes.
Mankrik’s poor wife may remain doomed in Season of Discovery
Back when World of Warcraft first launched, one of the more notorious quests involved finding the wife of an Orc named Mankrik in the Barrens after they were separated during a Quilboar attack. This was a hugely tricky prospect, thanks to the size of the zone and the lack of quest direction in Vanilla WoW. This led to many entering the chat for the area to ask, “Where’s Mankrik’s wife,” spawning one of the game’s most notorious memes in the process.
Presumably remembering the experience fondly, one player has taken to Reddit to suggest that the Season of Discovery could bring back the joke by moving Mankrik’s wife and starting the issue all over again.
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In the original game, players find a dead female Orc named “Beaten Corpse” before returning to Mankrik to report the bad news. Though moving her is undoubtedly an option, Blizzard could also give her a happier fate, finally reuniting the couple after all these years.
One player suggested they take the frustration levels even further, saying: “random spawn points all over the barrens and juice up the quest reward so that players will be eager to find her ASAP.”
Another added that this idea may say more about the original poster and their chosen class than anything else, saying: “Definitely a warlock player, probably an undead one. No other class could be so evil.”
Mankrik’s wife does end up having a resolution of sorts in Shadowlands. Her spirit was sent to Maldraxxus where she became a pretty badass warrior named Olga, so it was nice to see that she ended up living an impressive life, after her first life in Azeroth.
Whatever does happen with Mankrik’s unfortunate wife, there is no doubt that this new direction for WoW is one of the most exciting in years. With the opportunities for exciting changes opened up in a provably popular world, it could also mark a new dawn for the MMO.