Did you guys know that the late Sandra Powers, MMORPG developer and one-half of the Project Gorgon team, was once a leading figure over in the World of Warcraft community too? I sure didn’t, but the folks who now run the popular WoW pet site WoW Petopia have illuminated her founding role over there with a touching obit – and the revelation that Powers is actually already memorialized in in that game.
“I’m devastated to report that Sandra Powers, the power behind Petopia and creator of Warcraft Mounts, passed away from cancer on 25 January,” admin Wain wrote early this morning.
“Known as Mania to Petopians, Sandra ran Petopia through WoW’s golden age and is responsible for taking the small site and making it what it has become. Sandra was funny, patient, smart, generous, and a great teacher. When she couldn’t run it anymore she handed Petopia to me in the mid-2010s and taught me all I needed to know. Sandra was an MMO producer and engineer who worked on Asheron’s Call, EverQuest II, and she and her husband Eric built their own MMO: Project Gorgon. The world is a worse place for her loss. You can find Sandra’s famous orc persona immortalised behind Trueshot Lodge in Highmountain.”
Wain has a screenshot of Powers’ character, the orc huntress Beastmaster Mania, where she is permanently installed to guide hunters. Wowhead’s entry on the NPC says she was added all the way back in Legion and in fact has a second tribute NPC in Anamiss the Hive Queen in Tanaris.
As we’ve been sadly chronicling, Powers passed away at the end of January following several years of cancer; she continued working on Project Gorgon with her husband and co-dev, Eric Heimburg, through it all, as players rallied to support the game – and her. Now you’ve got two more places to visit and pay respects.
