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In playing World of Warcraft, I’m discovering an interesting culture of memes and in-jokes lurking beneath the visible surface providing a peek into the minds of the people of Azeroth.

Like the Leeroy Jenkins video of World of Warcraft fame, another such phonemenon has popped up surrounding an over-zealous raid leader/warrior named Dives on the Chromaggus EU WoW server. He was leading a raid into Onyxia’s Lair to slay the massive dragon Onyxia, but the thing failed when someone did something they shouldn’t causing the entire group (of 40 people) to wipe. My characters aren’t high enough in level to go visit Onyxia’s Lair, but I do know that she is a tough beast to handle and groups regularly fail in slaying her. She requires patience, skill, and proper planning to beat.

So Dives’ guild goes in to slay Onyxia, and someone is recording the voice chat going on during the doomed raid. The audio has been married with some flash animation to produce the Onyxia Wipe video. It is definitely NSFW (Not Safe For Work) due to language and some nudity in the animation. But it is a classic video and is very funny.

People have taken it a step further and created a page on the YTMND site: throw more dots ytmnd remix. The music is very catchy so I had to figure out what it is. It’s based on the Finnish polka Ievan’s Polkka popularized by the group Loituma. You can listen to the original here. Then someone made the techno remix and added the sound clips from the flash animation. You can listen to that here. There’s also a t-shirt you can buy from Jinx.

Oh, and if you want to watch a really good video of someone actually beating Onyxia, then head over to Youtube.

I guess I should also explain some of the terms used:

dps = Damage Per Second (how much damage the bad guy is getting hit with per second)
dots = Damage Over Time abilities. Spells and curses that are cast that don’t cause instant damage, but a smaller amount of damage each second for a period of time
Aggro = Agression. Bad guys in the game tend to go after people who hit them more/harder and generate more of a threat value. Different spells and abilities generate different amounts of threat. You want a character designated as a “main tank” who is supposed to keep hitting the baddy enough so that the bad guy will keep targeting him. The tank should have enough armor and hit points to take it. In the mean time, other people will cast their spells, heal the tank, and do their hits, but will try to time them so that it doesn’t take the aggro off the main tank. This is a form of art in the game.
DKP = Dragon Kill Points. When guilds get too big, a point system is sometimes used where you get points for attending raids, killing mobs, being ontime, etc. You can use your accrued DKP to buy loot from the raid and it can help you get more preferential treatment based on the amount of points you have. Some guild leaders use it as a punishment, too, by removing points for bad behavior or stupid decisions.