“He was ahead of his time” – A top WoW player became a YouTube star before it was cool
To become a legend in MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, you have to achieve quite a lot. Or evoke the right reactions at the right time. One who was particularly good at this is the undead villain Grim.
Who is the player? Grim was a villain in Vanilla WoW, more than 17 years ago. Similar to the legendary Angwe, Grim is a PvP talent. However, he does not rely so much on nasty assassin tactics.
In the community, Grim is considered one of the best vanilla rogue players. It can’t be compared to today’s skill levels, but at the time his name caused quite awe.
However, his handling of the class and his prowess in PvP wasn’t the only reason Grim became so well known. He was one of the first to show off his talent so well.
Viral videos before there were viral videos
What makes Grim so special? Unlike the dreaded Angwe, Grim has recorded his fights and duels and put them online. Some of his first recordings are from 2006, back then just before Google bought YouTube.
There weren’t many recordings from WoW at the time, and those that did exist often only had a miserable resolution of 240p or 360p – so pretty bad. Accordingly, it was difficult to see exactly how some of the top players actually play so well, since you couldn’t see any keys on the videos.
Grim was among the first to present their skills in so-called “compilations”. On his YouTube channel you can now even find the re-up of his first compilation as an HD version:
Where does success come from? One of Grim’s first and most well-known videos is a PvP fight against the paladin Zalgradis. At that time, he was a well-known name himself, who amazed many players with his PvP skills.
Grim managed to spread his name quickly by showcasing his own accomplishments, compiling his highlights, and collaborating with other well-known players.
Even before Twitter and YouTube algorithms existed, his videos circulated throughout the World of Warcraft community. Today, Grim even runs a Patreon page, but is only slightly active. Nevertheless, his name keeps popping up among WoW fans.
“Grim was an exceptional player”
Whenever Grim releases a new or old video, at least a small group of his fans celebrate the day. In a 2019 reddit post Some members of the community explain what makes Grim so fascinating:
“Grim was an exceptional player by the standards of the time […] he was ahead of his time. His movement in general was one of his standout skills, everything was fluid and he was mechanically good too.
After stopping making videos, he started playing Arena at a high rank in Burning Crusade. He was one of the best in his battlefield group. Gladiator and over in every season he’s played, not just some swanky video maker. There were a lot of those, but Grim wasn’t one of them.”
Another praises the fact that he was well above the level of knowledge of most players at the time. Hardly anyone knew about the correct key assignments and Co. With the spread of Google Videos and WCM at the time, it was also difficult to learn something like that. YouTube and a wide range of information about WoW did not exist to that extent at the time.
That was all a long, long time ago. In the meantime, many games have tried to outrank WoW – and have failed:
Grim still uploads videos today, but rarely, and he’s not particularly active on social media either. How intensively he still plays WoW cannot be said. He seems to be somewhat forgotten, much like the famous warrior Kungen:
Kungen was the most famous player in WoW – what became of him and his guild Nihilum?
Reference-mein-mmo.de