It’s been over 7 years since our MeinMMO author Sascha Asendorf recreated the human city of Stormwind from WoW in Minecraft. Even today, the city looks impressive in blocky style, but he wouldn’t do it again.
Wow – it’s already been 7 years since I took it upon myself to recreate the human city of Stormwind from the MMORPG World of Warcraft. How time flies. I still remember what it was like when I was building almost every day, which drove me and is why I started in the first place. However, I wouldn’t do it again today.
So much time went into this: I don’t know exactly how many hours went into this build. I did take breaks for days at a time during the process. However, over a period of 1.5 years, I managed to finish the build. I estimate that it added up to over 2,000 hours.
During that time, I am convinced that I created the most detailed Stormwind on a 1:1 scale. YouTuber Vale Yard, however, surpassed the level of detail under contract from Blizzard and achieved impressive results at a larger scale.
This is how it all started
I estimate that I started building around the end of 2011. At that time, the WoW expansion Cataclysm was running, where I completed all raids with my human paladin and had nothing significant left to do.
This is why I started: Boredom drove me so far that one evening I thought: “I could build something in Minecraft“. A raid colleague had previously encouraged me to start playing the block game. Although I was never particularly good at survival mode, I could let my imagination run free in creative mode and created many smaller buildings.
I have always found the castle in Stormwind really cool. So I tried to recreate it in Minecraft. First just the entrance. But when I had proper fun with it and saw that it was working great to recreate something on a 1:1 scale, I continued to expand the castle.
After several hours or days – who really knows – the castle was also finished and looked impressive. The throne room was waiting for its king, the library was filled with books, and the garden looked well kept. That should have been it, but I wanted more.
This is how it continued: After the castle was completed, I moved on to the old town. Subsequently, I implemented the trade quarter with the Valley of Heroes, the Dwarven District, and the Cathedral Square.
The Mage Quarter gave me quite a headache with its many round shapes. I postponed the build for a long time. Although parts of the city were destroyed by Deathwing in Cataclysm, I wanted to have a repaired version. So I completed the walls and also brought back the old park.
In the end, I reconstructed the entire harbor of Stormwind and edited the surrounding terrain with an in-game editor. But that also took many hours.
This is how detailed Stormwind is
About 95% of the entire city is hand laid stone by stone. Only large areas I filled in with the editor, such as the sea.
This is how I used the template: I tried to stay as close to the original as possible. Meanwhile, I always had WoW open on a second screen. This is how the 1:1 version in Minecraft was created, as well as it could be done in the block game. All walkable buildings have appropriate interiors, and the dungeon and the Mage Tower can also be inspected.
This is why the build was so easy for me: When I started building, I had already completed my first training. At that time, I was not an author, but a trained architectural draftsman.
I have developed good spatial imagination and used it in the construction. For each quarter, I previously laid out a floor plan in the game until it matched the scale or I was satisfied.
I was often amazed at how well everything fit together and interlocked. At least, when you accepted that Stormwind cannot be perfectly recreated in Minecraft.
The media and community motivated me
I spent about 1.5 years and 2,000 hours on the entire build. Of course, that requires a great source of motivation. At some point, I started recording videos of the build for my old YouTube account that I ran with friends. With my old junk computer 7 years ago, the quality was terrible, but the project still gained attention from the community.
This is what the community and media said: Many WoW and Minecraft fans cheered me on in the comments to keep going. They found the project really cool, and various media discovered the project:
- The MMO site Buffed wrote: “That World of Warcraft is also a popular topic in Minecraft is no secret, but such a detailed version of the human city Stormwind is rare.”
- Playcentral (formerly Playnation) was also thrilled: “YouTuber Sascha309 built Stormwind in blocky style. While there are already numerous recreations of the city, none are as detailed as this one.”
You can believe me when I say that I was very proud of it. Had MeinMMO existed back then, you would surely have read something about it here.
But that is exactly what contributed to my motivation. The WoW news site Vanion.eu also became aware of the project. The unfortunately deceased head of the site, Patrick Michalczak, sponsored me a Minecraft server back then so that other people could watch the build live.
Every day new people visited me, who felt at home as WoW fans. That gave me the drive to complete Stormwind.
I look back with pride but wouldn’t do it again
When I think back to that time or talk about it with friends, I realize how proud I am of this achievement. When I start Minecraft, I like to walk through this impressive city and ask myself: “How did I manage to do that?”.
Never again! At the same time, I also tell myself that I will never do such a project in Minecraft again, under any circumstances, let alone finish it. And there are various reasons for that.
This is why I would never do it again
Sure, it was fun for me, and I am glad to have finished Stormwind. But the time that went into the build could have been invested much better in hindsight. I repeatedly neglected my friends or family, and my high school diploma also suffered. I was obsessed with finishing the build, which made me more antisocial at that time.
Today I know better, and like many others, I have much less time in my late 20s to invest 2,000 hours into a single game like this.
The more respect I have for the players who come together as a group and create really great projects in Minecraft. The Harry Potter RPG in Minecraft is one of them.
