World of Warcraft going offline triggers a “Professor Sheep” career crisis: (Couldn’t find the original author — if you know who it is, please speak up) Click the images below to view them full size

I’ve been playing WoW since the open beta, and after the 9C servers started having frequent, mysterious and unstoppable energy fluctuations that made the game really unpleasant to play, I gradually went AFK. After TBC launched, I went back in and played casually for quite a while, but in the end I left again. I once thought WoW could no longer tempt me, but now that I’ve lost WOW, I feel an unprecedented sense of powerlessness — like the Kaldorei Moon Guard losing the source of the Well of Eternity.

Just saw the news on the WoW transition site — NetEase is about to roll out a brand-new Battle.net account system in mainland China:

Warcraft Chronicle: In the explosion of the Well of Eternity over 10,000 years ago, Mount Hyjal in Kalimdor survived, and Illidan released the waters of the Well of Eternity into the lake at the mountain’s summit, turning it into a new Well of Eternity. Later, the red dragon planted an acorn from an oak tree in the new Well of Eternity, and it grew into Teldrassil_ the Crown of the World.

WoW has left us for the time being — I really miss it. Over the past few days I played through the campaign again, starting from Reign of Chaos, and then I stumbled across “The Official History of Warcraft, Audio Edition” on verycd! A real gem from several years back.

“It has been 4 years since The9 and Blizzard fought shoulder to shoulder, together resisting the invasion of countless online games. Though they succeeded in pocketing endless cash from players, the fragile agreement between The9 and Blizzard has long since vanished into nothing. Now, the war drums thunder once again…”