After weeks of speculation, a group of World of Warcraft players stumbled across an “Aladdin”-quoting genie tribute to Robin Williams in a test version of the game.
Gamers at the WoWhead fan site discovered the character on Thursday, when a user named Haldhur posted an image of the genie and its coordinates on the expansive role-playing game’s world map. Thus ended weeks of searching prompted by game maker Blizzard’s promise to include a Williams tribute following the actor’s death in August.
.@robinwilliams Thank you. You gave us so much joy in our lives, and we hope you enjoyed your time in our world. We’ll see you in-game.
— World of Warcraft (@Warcraft) August 13, 2014The blue genie, named “Robin,” emerges from an “Ever-Burning Lamp” when players interact with the object. Then, the genie quotes one of the best lines from “Aladdin’s” Williams-voiced genie character in the 1994 film: “INFINITE COSMIC POWER!” he says, before shrinking, waving and adding, “itty-bitty living space.”
While he’s not yet available in the current version of World of Warcraft, players with access to the beta version of the upcoming Warlords of Draenor expansion pack can visit and interact with him.
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And they have been, in droves, according to WowHead site director Alexis Kusy. Hours after Kusy posted several of her own screenshots of the genie and its location, she signed back into the game to find “a crowd of people paying tribute to him,” she told The Post. Users, through their avatars, were “saluting” and “bowing” to the genie, she added.
On a WoWhead character page for “Robin,” fans have left hundreds of heartfelt comments about Williams and the new character. “And there start the feels,” one user wrote, adding: “I’m going to visit him daily.”
Blizzard hasn’t said much about the Williams tribute aside from the fact that it would happen, eventually. But Kusy and her fellow WoWheads have uncovered a few other clues indicating that there might be more to Warcraft’s Williams tribute.
Sometimes, World of Warcraft fans are able to find possible new features before they appear in the actual game with a process called data-mining. That, essentially, involves combing through all of the files Blizzard sends out when they update the game on a weekly basis.
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Those files often contain information — like, say, new objects and characters — that don’t yet appear on in the game to its players, but will in the future. “It’s kind of like a sneak preview,” Kusy explained.
Share this articleShareA few weeks ago, through this process, users found evidence of two other versions of the “Robin” character that appear to be references to “Mork and Mindy” and “Mrs. Doubtfire.” These versions don’t yet appear in the game. But this is what they look like:
Some other clues are plainly visible: Next to the genie in the beta version are a large egg and a couple of stuffed animals and tanks, which Kusy speculates might end up as Mork and “Toys” references, respectively:
Williams was an avid gamer; his daughter Zelda is even named after the character from the Nintendo series of games.
He’d spoken of playing World of Warcraft and its predecessor, Warcraft III. That’s, in part, why fans petitioned both Blizzard and Nintendo to include tributes to Williams. (Nintendo, unlike Blizzard, hasn’t indicated that it’s working on incorporating a Williams tribute into its games anytime soon.)
And that’s why the genie is striking a chord with so many fans, even though the commercial version of the new World of Warcraft expansion doesn’t even come out until November. Kusy, reflecting the feelings of many gamers, said that Williams was “one of us.”
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