Warcraft and Other Hooha

Crildor, Man of Mystery (and Wolverinesque Fist Weapons!) - 2008-07-08 04:37:16
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Not much going on in downtown Darnassus. Actually not much ever goes on there. Which is probably why Crildor (55 Elite) spends so much time sitting and waiting.

He'll sit here for some time, but eventually Crildor stands up, and then begins to walk his usual path around an area of the city.

And this is why I stopped and followed - you didn't see fist weapons like that in ye olden days (pre BC), and I was impressed. (I'm thinking Crildor is a Wolverine fan.) I also was extremely curious to see fist weapons in action, which is another reason why I followed him.

But he does nothing - no exciting fights with those weapons - he just continued on his rounds, and then returned to his spot and sat down. And stared glumly into space.

So who is Crildor?

The gossip?

Wowhead comments: "Oh, he is apparently placed in memory of a programmer who died just before the game's release."
Author: Viva on 04/03/2007

Thotbott comments: "This NPC was created/named as a tribute to Crildor AKA Mitchel who died at the age of 21. He was a big fan of World of Warcraft from the early days. I would just like to thank Blizzard again for this tribute to someone who is still dearly missed."
Author: AG_Froggy, 1.3 years ago
...
"ok i heard he was a tribute to a game programmer who died before the game was released...not a fan of warcraft"
Author: hyuugahinata21, 11.1 months ago
...
"The post about the guy being a tribute to a fan of WoW is correct i dont know much about it myself but he had died in a car crash and blizzard had created this NPC as a tribute-The End-"
Author: p0tm0nst3r, 2.2 months ago

Problem - both Wowhead and Thottbot have information shared by other gamers; it's not offical information from Blizzard, and there's always a lot of misinformation in the comments. (Especially on Thottbot.) Plus the fact that if you look up any npc that doesn't seem to have a purpose (won't talk, no quests, etc.) there's usually a comment saying that the npc represents a real person, and is a tribute. (Yes, I suddenly realize I should now look up other npcs of this sort - I can think of a few.) There have definitely been characters created that are tributes to people, both living and dead - but it's also become the standard answer for every mysterious npc. So unless I can find a source that gives me a bit more information...

For instance there's this bit on Allakhazam comments:

"Placed in loving memory of a former blizzard programmer who died in a terriable car carsh 4 months before the release of the game.
LoL, im a jackass... JK"
Author: Tenetri, Posted: Apr 12th 2006

"Info about him is posted here." (link to alphagamer.net doesn't work)
Author: sandmanwr, Posted: Aug 17th 2006

That's pretty typical of the forum information I've found. All rumors.

Ah ha, but here is a classic example I've found of why you have to take these comments with a grain of salt.

Comments from Thottbot for npc Arantir:
Arantir
The Hand of Chaos
Level 45 Elite Humanoid
Redridge Mountains

"Arantir is an NPC plaed in tribute to either a gamer or Blizzard employee that past on as is Crildo in Darnassus. just look up Crildor on wowwiki and get the story on him. It is the same story with the this NPC in lakeshire.

This is quite common with MMORPGs. they will make an NPC tribute to a favored person that was loved or was a worker of theirs and has died.
Author: reapers1, 4.0 months ago

"[above comment quoted]
Actually...
"Arantir (The Hand of Chaos) is a level 45 elite night elf Alliance NPC in the Lakeshire Docks, in the Redridge Mountains. He currently serves no purpose.
He once finished a rogue only quest, Horns of Nez'ra, that his shadow gave. However, the quest was removed and Arantir remained. The quest served as a way to gain reputation with Ravenholdt."

And there is no page for Crildor"
Author: Landrar, 2.6 months ago

So there we have the first comment confidently stating that both Arantir and Crildor are tributes, next comment refutes this with WowWiki info on Arantir. And then states that Crildor isn't in WowWiki.

So we can't trust every claim of "this npc is a tribute."
Call it an MMO Urban Legend.
(Yes yes, I will post more on actual, documented tributes another time, really.)

Just double checked WowWiki for Crildor...and commenter is right, there's nothing. Which is weird, I could have sworn I found Crildor there a while back...

I did find this when searching various forums:

World of Warcraft, Archived News for Jan 2004

Tuesday January 6 2004...
Forum Chatter, Community News - 11:44 AM PST | Posted By: OptikFusion

In the Official WoW Forums Katricia has stopped by to respond to some of the questions posted up by the community. Here are a couple:

...Official community member Zerul asks:

could a blizzard employee tell me anything about this new NPC? i would want to know what he is so i know where to look for him... please?

Katricia came by with this reply:

Crildor has been added to the game. I don't want to give up his race/class or location as there were many people who said they wanted to make their own "private quest" in finding him.

I think that all those who knew and cared about him will be very pleased with his placement.

~Kat :)

Which sounds like I'm getting closer to an answer. Except for the small problem of not knowing if Katricia is a Blizzard employee, not to mention questions about the website that this is posted on. What is wow.stratics.com? Offical Blizzard site? A guild site?
So, still reading over all that, trying to figure it out.

Meanwhile, this will just be a mystery until I can root up some more info.

Later
Found that Katricia, aka Donna Anthony is World of Warcraft's Community Manager - or at least she was during Wow's beta phase. Here's an IRC Chat interview with her from March 5, 2004. Humorously, she has an in game npc named after her - Donni Anthania, also known as the crazy cat lady.

My brain is now mushy from having read too many forum threads for info. Will return when brain has solidified. And probably remove this paragraph, heh.

UPDATE, 7.28.2010

Thank you to commenter Sherlock - it looks as though Crildor is Mitchell Glorie. The links cited are in Dutch (I think?) but I think that's possibly factual - and WowWiki now has a page for the npc:

Crildor: "...Crildor, or Mitchel, was a Dutch Warcraft fansite moderator who died in a car crash prior to the release of WoW."

So there's no "Blizzard Page of Stories Behind The NPCs for us to fact check any of this - but I think this is probably true.

I'm not sure how I'd show this in game but I wish all such memorials somehow had the ability to give the viewer detailed information about who they're in memory of - or at least a name. I like to know about the real people behind the game, and always find it touching when the designers memorialize their friends this way.

7 Comments

Comments:

Stratics is one of the older MMO networks, like Warcry or Vault.

In my experience, most MMOs are pretty wary of putting in memorials for fans. Honestly, there's too many fans who would want one for a friend or family member. They'd overrun the world.

But memorializing living or dead team members is pretty common, and sometimes they even put in things for unrelated but well-loved people. (AC1 has a memorial quest for Douglas Adams, for instance.)

And having said that, sometimes influential community members do slip into the game, one way or another -- usually unofficially, through a dev who implements something without really mentioning it to the higher-ups.

But I'm just bloviating. Blizzard might handle this very differently.

Posted by Mania at 12:54 PM EST on Jul 8th, '08

I was actually wondering about Crildor the other day, when I was hanging around in Darnassus. He seems rather depressed all the time, which is mostly what made me think about him.

Posted by Kailen at 1:24 PM EST on Jul 8th, '08

"Stratics is one of the older MMO networks, like Warcry or Vault."

Oh ok. Always hard to tell when their main page uses so much Blizzard art if they're affiliated or not. And I didn't manage to find a clear About The Site page. But then there are a vast amount of links on their main page.

And yes, I think the whole "not going to officially mention this so as not to be overwhelmed by requests" thing will keep me from ever finding out whether this is really a tribute. Not that that's a horrible thing - if it's really a tribute the friends and family already know, which is the point after all.

And I agree Kailen, he does seem kind of sad. Or perhaps bored. Maybe I should bring one of my horde characters to visit, just to let him chase me around. Might cheer him up a bit. (None of them are high enough to kill him, so it's not like I'd have a chance!)

Posted by batgrl at 5:41 PM EST on Jul 8th, '08

Whenever I would walk around in Darnasuss, I would see that guy. With a high lvl elite with claws, I that he'd be one of those NPCs who wander through cities like Thief Catchers or Huntress Skymane.

It wasnt until I was looking up Arantir when I saw this guy and actually paid him some attention.

Posted by Kel at 9:17 AM EST on Aug 21st, '08

http://fotoboek.fok.nl/Crildor
http://www.ijpelaan.nl/Archief/IJpelaan/T0700801.html

Mitchell Glorie a.k.a. Crildor, RIP

Posted by Sherlock at 6:14 AM EST on Jun 17th, '10

true, Crildor is Mitchell, allthough i called him Grildor for about a year when i found out my that the font of the C and G where different :)

he was one of the active posters on alphagamer.net, where we all hang out. i remember the day they told me he died in a crash.

they made a NPC to honor him and to make sure no one would ever take his name in the game.

Posted by viperish at 8:31 PM EST on Jun 8th, '11

Seeing his name in WoW, I knew instantly that this had to be a tribute to Mitchell Glorie, who indeed was a huge fan of WoW. The nickname Crildor was made up by him, just like he came up with mine.. I'll never forget him.

Posted by DutchGirl at 4:20 AM EST on Sep 5th, '11

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