Leeroy Jenkins rose to fame for his epic pull of dragon whelps in UBRS after standing /AFK. His guild leader was explaining the encounter to the group, and out of the blue he stood up, yelled: “Leeroy Jennnnkinnnnns!!!!”, and rushed into the room full of whelps without a warning. Even an achievement exists in-game as homage to Leeroy Jenkins, as well as a World of Warcraft TCG card in his name.
The Leeroy Jenkins video has been watched 39,587,834 times and gotten 267,885 Likes.
Yet, I consider Doubleagent-Mannoroth to have accomplished a far superior epic feat than many out there can claim. His feat took a lot of determination, and patience.
Doubleagent-Mannoroth reached level 90 without taking sides at level 10. He didn’t choose Horde nor Alliance. By doing so, he remained in The Wandering Isle for the entirety of his level up experience. There was a catch though.
- No Mailbox = No Heirloom gear
- Can’t queue to LFG Flex Raid, any raid, Normal or Heroic dungeons because he must be Horde or Alliance to be paired with likewise players.
- Can’t craft high iLevel gear due to lack of materials and can’t mail them from an alt.
- No more quests in The Wanderling Isle after level 10, no dailies.
- Can’t be teleported or summoned out of The Wandering Isle
- No PvP access for XP
- To reach the west side of The Wandering Isle and move back to the east side he had to kill himself by drowning or falling as there is no path past the temple in the middle of the isle
This list is very minimal, but there is far more to the limitations of not choosing a faction. How the heck did he gain experience?
He used professions such as mining and herbalism to gain very small amounts of experience. Think about it for a minute. That’s insane! Took him a very long time to reach level 90. In the forums, he announced he was few experience points away from reaching level 90 and invited people to witness his feat. Hundreds of players gathered at the central temple to witness the moment he hit level 90. Some came in, and left shortly after, and more people logged in and created a Pandaren level 1 just to say hi and to congratulate him.
Even World of Warcraft community manager Rygarius posted in the WoW General forum to congratulate his feat.
Doubleagent plans to reach level 100 with his neutral pandaren once Warlords of Draenor goes live to perpetuate his legend and epicness even further.
I visited the Mannoroth server and saluted him; and got a short video to share with you. I got to inspect his gear.
A Change of Heart
This mega-feat puts Blizzard Entertainment in an awkward position. Millions will eventually hear of Doubleagent’s stance in not choosing the Horde nor the Alliance. Could Blizzard tinker introducing a neutral faction, or a third faction?
Then there is the no mailbox thing. If a player decides not to pick a faction, why can’t they benefit from Heirlooms? Why not have items in the Blizzard Store for people who decides that sort of crazy experience? They are paying their monthly bill. They take months or years to fulfill their wish to make something unique no other player dares to accomplish.
The in-game World of Warcraft Store automatically adds your purchased item into your bag without the need of visiting a mailbox. For Doubleagent, purchasing a heirloom to gain extra bonus experience would have been ideal. Could Blizzard consider adding heirlooms to the in-game World of Warcraft shop for real-money? That doesn’t seem too bad an option if you think about it. There is the Boost to level 90 service.
Should Blizzard allow all neutral players in The Wandering Isle, and Kezan to be able to queue with other neutral players as a simple solution, or maybe add an UI to allow those who haven’t picked a faction to choose a faction temporarily to be able to queue to the LFG tool? That’s something to ponder about.
Though World of Warcraft was designed to be for multiplayer, there are many casual and solo gameplay features. If you chose to spend your time in the Wandering Isle or Kezan — you should be able to, and have the benefits of those who chose a faction.
Can Neutral players at least get the benefit to join the Raid/Dungeon LFG and be paired with Horde or Alliance groups? Sometimes with Alliance players, and sometimes with Horde players?
In a sense, Deathknights can also choose to be Horde or Alliance. What if there was a neutral faction where you can walk in into Stormwind or Orgrimmar without getting attacked by guards. Such thing exist as a Neutral faction. Didn’t the Alliance/Horde leaders attend the trial of Garrosh on neutral ground? Haven’t both the Alliance and the Horde stood side by side at the Wyrmrest Temple? Or set foot on Dalaran (before queen-#$%-of-the-universe Jaina became leader), didn’t we fight together as one under the Argent Crusade banner? How about the Timewalkers represented by all races as well? Neutral Factions do exist, just not as a playable character — unfortunately.
On another note, I consider that Doubleagent deserves a place among the Hall of Legends of World of Warcraft. Alright, not such thing exist … at least officially, but we have Leeroy Jenkins immortalized by Blizzard Entertainment in the World of Warcraft TCG, and in an achievement; and we also have The Red Shirt Guy immortalized as the Fact Checker in Iron Forge.
No Ironman Challenge player have had all the limitations Doubleagent as a Pandaren had. That places him high in the omg-meter.
Update: Doubleagent’s feat has caught the attention of some gaming sites like TheEscapist, Polygon, and Kotaku.
