14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that some of World of Warcraft's long-term fans will receive a neat gift from developer Blizzard Entertainment.
World of Warcraft is arguably the best massively multiplayer online role-playing game ever created, and it still has a very strong following, in spite of the fact that it just turned ten.
In order to celebrate this prodigious achievement, the developer has decided to reward fans who stuck with the MMO through thick and thin with a very nice gift, consisting of a statue of an orc riding a wolf.
Blizzard made an announcement last Friday, stating that a physical gift would be sent to loyal players who have stuck with World of Warcraft since the very beginning, and it appears that this is it.
The statue is an exact replica of the huge one erected outside Blizzard's headquarters in California. The massive, 12-foot-tall statue was placed there back in 2009, and ever since it's been a beacon for the Blizzard staff members.
Of course, back then, the fact that the statue depicted an orc sparked some controversy among the community, as orcs belong to the Horde in-game faction, and Alliance fans felt somewhat betrayed by the developer's preferential treatment.
A nice reward for loyal players
The same vibe was seen in the thread started on the Battle.net forums by one lucky recipient of the statue's replica, only thankfully, this time it was in jest.
In any case, as you can see in the gallery below, the statue looks really nice, seemingly well-made and pretty sturdy, weighing around 7 pounds, if we are to believe the claims.
However, there won't be many recipients of the gift, as eligible players must have opened their account within 60 days of the game's initial release, and must not have any lapses, according to Wowhead.
The lucky few who qualify for this gift should already have received an email informing them of the good news, so make sure to check your spam folder in case you missed it.
Considering that maintaining an active account for ten years would have a cost of around $1,800 / €1,560, that would make it a pretty expensive statue.
It takes a special kind of dedication to stick around even during the lengthy breaks between expansions, once you finish all the content and there's nothing else to do.
