Massively OP’s holiday gift guide for the World of Warcraft fan

December 11, 2015 4:00 PM

Look, I know what you’re thinking, and I’m sorry to say there’s not much to be done. As great a gift as it would be, we cannot give you a key to the current expansion testing, nor can we help your favorite World of Warcraft player with a long content drought. There’s simply no technology available to prevent these unpleasant realities.

“Well, great,” you say with no small amount of irritation. “So what am I supposed to get my friends who are super into this game?”

Oh, frustrated reader, don’t lose hope so easily. There are always options. And as we’ve done before, we’ll help point you to some of those options. They might not be the non-content drought that players really want, but they’re something you can give that’s more thoughtful than a simple game time card and more effort-intensive than just printing out the game’s logo on a laser printer and wrapping it. (Don’t ever do that, incidentally.)

1. Old collector’s editions!

First and foremost, if there are people in your life who do not have the original collector’s edition of World of Warcraft and dearly want it… well, they are just going to have to live with not having it. If you can drop $3,000-ish on a single present for someone, you live in a world so far removed from what most of us deal with that I do not understand you in the slightest.

Fortunately, most of the other editions are far more affordable. You could pick up The Burning Crusade with a starter pack for a defunct card game, or Wrath of the Lich King with a soundtrack CD. Cataclysm is basically the same as Wrath with its contents, Mists of Pandaria has a mount as well as a pet, and Warlords of Draenor offers a bunch of items for other games because this is the world we live in now. It’s not a bad way to fill up someone’s library of handsome boxed editions, after all.

2. The Art of World of Warcraft

I really enjoy art books. What I’m not quite as fond of is the fact that too many art books use the same four or five stock promotional images that I’ve seen dozens of times already, and I get very tired of those. I like seeing all sorts of concept art. I like diversifying. I like stuff that I haven’t seen. And I’m not going to lie – I would be very happy to see this under the tree this year because it looks pretty darn gorgeous as a full retrospective.

Of course, there are other options as well, such as the Ultimate Visual Guide from a couple of years back. See what your intended recipient already has, if that needs to be said.

3. Pepe plushie

Because who doesn’t want birb?

I suppose you could, of course, grab a Dark Whelpling or a Frostwolf Pup. Or a wind rider. If you really must, you could even grab a murloc, although the charm of that particular memetic villain has been worn so thin that aught remains aside from a nub. I’m personally most fond of Pepe. Your mileage may vary.

Remember, with Pepe you don’t even need to wrap a gift. Just leave it lurking in the house until the recipient finds it. Fun for you and probably not the rest of the family!

4. Toys!

Real talk: I am an incredibly anxious person. The reason my desk is covered with Transformers is because I have a deep and abiding love for these characters, especially when they’re tied to IDW’s current continuity, but also because they’re great to fiddle with to reduce anxiety. The various World of Warcraft Mega Bloks sets can serve a similar purpose; if you have the space, stuff like Deathwing’s Stormwind Assault is fun to play around with, or you could grab the Horde Zeppelin if you need more holy-powered cows in your life. And you almost certainly do.

But perhaps the person you’re getting things for is not half as anxious. Why not pick up a Sylvanas vinyl figurine, then? Sure, there are several other options that could be used to decorate one’s workspace, but Sylvanas looks adorable.

5. Warcraft III Battle Chest

Wait, what? Who’s playing WoW without this game? A surprisingly large number of people, that’s who. And while you may not think that’s a big deal, it’s worth considering that as it stands now, a solid decade of material has been getting mined from this game in particular. If you’re buying gifts for someone who has a love of the lore, who wants to look back to before WoW was a twinkle in someone’s eye, or even just a player who hasn’t experienced these titles… you could do a lot worse, that’s the point.

6. Female Draenei robe

Yeah, I’m on board.

Some links included within this article may be part of MOP’s Amazon affiliate program, income from which goes entirely to funding our operational budget. MOP’s writers have selected products based on their own opinions and receive no direct commission or profit from the affiliate program. We have not been sponsored or coerced to mention any product. Stay tuned for more of our holiday gift guides for MMO players throughout the winter holiday season, and feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments!

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