After only 3 days and 7 hours, streamer JokerdTV became the first max-level World of Warcraft Classic player. He was far from the only person gunning for the coveted title. Method, arguably one of the most famous WoW guilds, trained for months in preparation. They even partnered up with World Showdown of Esports for a high-profile live-streamed event. Speed-levelers, content experts, and famed WoW streamers competed to win the title. WSOE brought their classic high-production values with casters and sponsors entertaining the audience.
But in the end, the winner was a relative unknown from Malta.
JokerdTV: The wild card
JokerdTV has a history of speedrunning vanilla WoW and had been doing it since before Blizzard even announced the remake. He was unstoppable; he only took two breaks to sleep for 6 hours at a time. And he has made a lot of money from his history-making run today. At one point, he encouraged viewers to subscribe with Twitch Prime, and dozens readily agreed.
After his feat, JokerdTV attempted to delete the character, but he was blocked by dozens of players sending him congratulatory in-game mail (you can’t delete a character in WoW if they have mail).
Method: The runner up
Method, for their part, hadn’t even reached level 55 at the time. They got in a bit of hot water when they accused JokerdTV of account-sharing. They later apologized when they admitted their source was a joke Jokerd’s friend said in his chat stream. But while they can’t take first place in this race, several of their players have finished or are very close to finishing the challenge themselves. Method is keeping a running tally of World of Warcraft Classic players who reach Level 60 in this Google spreadsheet.
Finally, you may be wondering what was that video playing in JokerdTV’s lower-left hand corner. It’s the infamous recap of Ryan Lockwood’s 1:12 speedrun of GoldenEye’s Streets level (warning: colorful language). It’s a fitting video to have playing during a similar speedrunning feat!
