wow Ethereum and Consequently NFTs Were Created Because of a Warlock Nerf?

[Starym 3,787]

 

This one definitely takes World of Warcraft's influence up a notch, while also topping the weirdness scale, as apparently Ethereum (and consequently NFTs) were at least partially created due to a change to 2010 Warlocks. This is one of those stories that's been around for quite a while now, so you may have already heard it, but it was recently brought up again by PC Gamer so we thought we'd share.

Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency and the foundation of NFTs. It was created in 2013 by Vitalik Buterin, who talked about that period of his life in his biography, where he notes that the reason he got into cryptocurrency was the realization of how bad centralized systems (like Word of Warcraft) were, after his Warlock's Siphon Life spell was changed:

I was born in 1994 in Russia and moved to Canada in 2000, where I went to school. I happily played World of Warcraft during 2007-2010, but one day Blizzard removed the damage component from my beloved warlock's Siphon Life spell. I cried myself to sleep, and on that day I realized what horrors centralized services can bring. I soon decided to quit. In 2011, searching for a new purpose in life, I discovered Bitcoin. At first, I was skeptical, and did not understand how it could possibly have value without physical backing. But slowly I became more and more interested. I started writing for a blog called Bitcoin Weekly initially at a meek wage of $1.5 per hour, and soon with Mihai Alisie cofounded Bitcoin Magazine. In 2012, I entered the University of Waterloo; in 2013 I realized that crypto projects were taking up 30h/week of my time, so I dropped out. I went around the world, explored many crypto projects, and finally realized that they were all too concerned about specific applications and not being sufficiently general - hence the birth of Ethereum, which has been taking up my life ever since. - Vitalik Buterin, via about.me

While the "realized the horrors" part is a bit of an exaggeration, it's entirely possible he did really quit the game over the Warlock nerf/removal, which subsequently led him down the path he's on today. He's presumably talking about this Wrath of the Lich King patch 3.1 change:

The Siphon Life spell has been removed. Siphon Life now causes your Corruption spell to instantly heal you for 40% of the damage done. In addition, the damage done by your Corruption, Seed of Corruption and Unstable Affliction damage-over-time effects is increased by 5%.

So, whatever you think about cryptocurrencies, Ethereum specifically and NFTs, the WoW balance team was at least partially responsible it seems! Hopefully they will take their huge power into consideration the next time they ponder big balance changes and spec reworks!

[Prophet001 552]

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