I’ll admit “World of Warcraft Hidden beautiful yet broken places” sounds a lofty title though what I’m getting at is there are hidden amazing places in World of Warcraft. Finding them is an unintended but enjoyable interest in one of my favourite games.

It is an odd thing to delight in finding something that is clearly not fully intended for public consumption. Though for an avid explorer it is an incredible treat. It doesn’t undermine the game merely goes beneath the polish to find distinctly human elements of the world.

Blizzard has created a vast MMO in World of Warcraft so it’s only natural there will be these anomalies. Though the fact they are so hard to find is testament to Blizz‘s thorough approach to quality. Finding them though is a rush. It’s something we weren’t meant to see and let’s us peak behind the curtain. The mind starts racing as to what it is and how did it get here?

A bit of experimentation, an accident, something that had to be scrapped?

This out of the ordinary hobby began with a friend some time ago. In fact all the way back in Wrath of the Lich King, around 2008. Woah nearly 10 years ago. We both longed to see more quirky locales off the beaten track. Bare in mind this was back before the old world was revamped in Cataclysm.

A fansite talked about a Gnome airport. Being Horde we weren’t the most familiar with the Dwarf and Gnome zones but we hadn’t heard of it. Certainly in the few offensive expeditions to Ironforge we’d not seen so much as a plane let alone airport. Our curiosity had been piqued and we had to see it.

With that we clambered up the odd hills and slopes surrounding the area to encounter the bustling airport hidden in a snowy field. Cue our gobsmacked reaction that this seemingly complete attraction was pretty much hidden from the public. It even featured diminutive Gnome npcs hurrying around. Naturally this ignited our passion to find these hard to reach places.

Obviously we then adventured to all manner of places including hills above zones, a stretch of land in the middle of the ocean and a subterranean tunnel that simply led to… nothing.

When Cataclysm came and gave the old world a new high res coat of paint and fixed up these funky areas our hobby went on hiatus. However with Legion our passion in the game was rekindled so I figured why not revisit our exploration hobby.

It requires more nifty tactics, nothing against the rules however, but we found more such places in Legion and that rush returned! It was amazing to have that thrill back after all those years. Shout out to HeelVsBabyface‘s guides and the inbuilt gliding shenanigans of Demon Hunters for helping us.

This led to us finding a Burning Crusade environment testing area in Dead Mines, the old Eastern Plaguelands in Naxx and a lovely Troll village in Karazahn of all places.

It reminds me of when you are a kid and you invent fun little minigames in the few games you have or the little contests your friend groups make. The fact is gaming is so vast it’s great we can get different joys from the same games.

As a final note I want to say thank you Blizz for keeping these areas. It doesn’t devalue your game but instead gives great behind the scenes gems for those willing to look for these broken yet beautiful places.

Wanna share any fun out of the ordinary hobbies you have found in your games then let us know on the LastLifeClub facebook or on twitter @LastLifeClub.