World of Warcraft players are begging Blizzard to bring back Game Masters (GMs) in Season of Discovery. But they don’t just want to be able to contact them through tickets—they also want to see them roaming around the world like they did in the good old days.
Season of Discovery is set to release on Nov. 30. While Blizzard has already told us a few things about this new version of WoW Classic, there’s still so much we don’t know. One player on Reddit hopes Season of Discovery brings back GMs, game moderators who used to walk around with other players and solve issues.
Many WoW players miss the old days when they could encounter GMs randomly in Azeroth. GMs used to directly interact with players, solve problems, teleport around (sometimes with other players), and even cause mayhem that would otherwise be impossible. In a way, WoW players viewed GMs as gods because of their ability to manipulate the game.
WoW players on Reddit highlighted that many private servers have GMs still walking around and it shouldn’t be a problem for Blizzard to bring them back. While it certainly would be fun to bring GMs back and have them be part of the community again, there are several reasons why they no longer appear as frequently as they used to. GMs are still very much in WoW, they just aren’t as active anymore.
As documented by YouTuber Jaggro, GMs used to go out of their way to help players in any way they could, whether that was necessary or not. On websites like Bluetracker.gg, players post stories about their encounters with GMs. Many of the stories portrayed GMs as generous benefactors who would often give players special gifts and benefits. Unfortunately, some players saw this as an opportunity to gain an unfair advantage from willing GMs, and this caused an uproar among the community. When word of this got to the higher-ups at Blizzard, GMs lost a lot of power.
Sometime after the Wrath of the Lich King expansion (2008), GMs were limited in how much they could help players. GMs were also no longer visible in the game’s world, which made them lose a lot of the charm they used to have.
It would be great if GMs came back in WoW, but given why they lost so many privileges in the first place, it seems unlikely that Blizzard would let them roam free again.
