The WoW funeral raid – four years later

What’s funny about a woman who died of a stroke? Nothing. Nothing at all. But once you add World of Warcraft to the mix bizarre things happen. Yesterday marked the four-year anniversary of the infamous WoW funeral raid. According to the lore on forums, an avid WoW player, who was an officer in a Horde guild on the Illidan server, suffered a fatal stroke. Her friends decided to organize a virtual funeral to say farewell. It was said that she enjoyed fishing, and the snow. So the meeting place was set in Winterspring and posts advertising the event explicitly requested that attendees be left alone out of respect.

Above: The opening image from the infamous video of Serenity Now’s raid sets the tone for what came next

Assholes or ace players?

This is where things got out of hand. Once Alliance guild Serenity Now got word of the event, they decided to crash the Horde e-Funeral, earning many honorable kills for their most dishonorable attack. Some have argued that while Serenity Now’s actions can’t be described as right, they didn’t really do anything wrong. This may have been a funeral for a friend, but it was an “in-game” funeral on a PvP server where slaying players from the opposing faction is a big part of the game. In this sense, Serenity Now’s raid on the Horde funeral didn’t break any rules.

Above: Four years ago, many Honor Kills were awarded for Serenity Now’s most dishonorable attack on an in-game funeral

But rules were broken on that day, social rules that fall outside the artificial boundaries of “in-game” rules. These are the same rules that separate us from savages – and they’re the reason why most of you wouldn’t gather a group of friends together to piss on a stranger’s grave at their funeral. What say you? Were Serenity Now’s actions hilarious or horrible? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.

Mar 5, 2010