Massively^™

Today's One Shots is actually one from this blogger's personal archives. This Troll Rogue is enjoying the holiday fireworks in Booty Bay from World of Warcraft, taken before Burning Crusade was released. American MMOG-industry companies are off for the holiday weekend, and we are running on a skeleton crew as well. However, those of us still lurking around the offices are keeping an eye out for news for you.

In the meantime, we hope those of you stateside have a great (and safe) holiday with friends and family. To the rest of you out there, don't worry - we'll be back up to speed once we've had a chance to sleep off all the partying!

And hey, if you have the chance to snap some screenshots while enjoying in-game holiday events this weekend, send them in to us at oneshots AT massively.com! We'd love to see what you're up to.

One of the things we really like about some of these One Shots is showing how things have changed from the early days to now. Take, for example, the above screenshot sent in to us by Gorlac, Orc Hunter from the guild Astrum Brumalis on the Kil'jaeden server. This was taken from back in the days of World of Warcraft's "Friends and Family" alpha. The water's a little murkier, the details aren't as clear, and there's a human statue... wait, what? That's right folks, the statue in the background in Booty Bay was originally a human male, arms outstretched to welcome you. We heard the tales about it being goblinized due to being too similar to a certain religious statue in Brazil, but we just like to think that it's more in keeping with the Goblin nature; those scamps will market anywhere.

Have you got a screenshot that shows off an interesting quirk of the landscape, or some cool bit of history? If so, send those over to us at oneshots@massively.com. (full-size, please!) We love to look around the MMO landscape, so any and all MMOs welcome!


[Additional statue image courtesy of Dopefish]