Raccoonatics. coM 

     November of 2017 was the end of one era for me and the beginning of another. Marvel Heroes was an action RPG with MMO elements that was set in a version of the Marvel comics universe. From my joining its PC Closed Beta at the end of 2012, it had become a major part of my life. As a game, it was everything I wanted, but it also introduced me to an amazing community. A community that led me down a path to becoming a Rocket Raccoon superfan and helping find a place organizing his then small fanbase, which I named the Raccoonatics. But this is not about my role as Raccoonatic Commander or about the time I enjoyed with Marvel Heroes... it is about how November of 2017 closed the book on that era of my life. Following what had been a stumbled attempt to branch out to consoles and a near radio-silent October, the announcement fell that Marvel Heroes would be shutting down. It was a devastating time for me, for a game and community that had become so central to my life for five years. I floated around to different games following that sunset, but there was one game that had always remained in my orbit since my first magical steps into it during the summer of 2005, my true blue go-to... World of Warcraft.

 

     November of 2017 was the end of the Marvel Heroes era, yes, but it was also an important time for World of Warcraft for me. BlizzCon is the most exciting time of the year for most players of WoW (and other Blizzard games). As it was an odd year, 2017 was to be the announcement of WoW's next expansion. This time, it would be the Battle for Azeroth. The faction war is far from my favorite theme of the game, but there was plenty about the expansion to be excited about during that BlizzCon. During one of the panels that furthered examined what to expect with the upcoming expansion, they covered details about the various planned zones. When they reached the panel for the desert zone of Vol'dun and begun to bullet point what to expect there, little did I know it would introduce me to something that would bring me nearly as much hype as becoming a fan of Rocket Raccoon through Marvel Heroes had done five years prior...

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     Vulpera. Desert fennec fox people. They were first shown on that aforementioned Vol'dun slide and introduced as a race we would be helping (with the presenter pausing for the reaction from the crowd). I'd played World of Warcraft since Vanilla. I had seen scores of interesting non-playable races be introduced. But I'd never campaigned for, or expected, any of them to be playable, unless there was very good reason to believe that would happen. So it was, while I thought Vulpera looked cool and we had the upcoming Allied Race system, I thought of them as nothing but another set of NPC's... for a while. But that did not last long.

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     By January of 2018, just a few months later, buzz began to build. Early BfA testers and dataminers had begun finding hints here and there that pointed squarely in the direction of Vulpera being planned to become a playable race. I was not going to campaign for a race to be playable just because it existed but, when even Wowhead seemed to begin thinking this was something real, it was time for me to start hoping. And listening to any place that might give news. And waiting...

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     But waiting without doing anything, it's sometimes a bit much. I can be patient but waiting is more tolerable when you feel like you are doing something - even if you know it doesn't actually accomplish much. I began to let it know, whenever there was a proper opportunity, that I would like to see these little fox people become playable. In March, I even threw together a hashtag for the endeavor BattleForVulpera. It would carry me throw the many long months ahead. But this was not a battle I fought alone. The Vulpera Hype Caravan was a community of Vulpera fans, some of whom had been cheering on the foxies since BlizzCon 2017, itself. I would formally join the Vulpera Hype Caravan that summer and their official guild on Wyrmrest Accord. We also had a gathering at the close of BfA's Beta, taking Vulpera and Sethrak forms, using a combination of warlock portals, rogue Disguise, and prisms. I represented the Caravan at a streamed party Blizzard cinematics wiz Terran Gregroy hosted on the eve of BfA - using Pet Mirror to take the form of a dancing fox. In regards to the guild, I would end paying to move my boosted Horde Pandaren, my one endgame Horde character, to the server. I had been solidly Alliance for a decade. I had used my boost from pre-ordering BfA to boost that Horde character because of Vulpera hype - it was clear even then they'd be a Horde race. In the transfer, I renamed the Pandaren Hainiu (a name meant to sound like hyena, a favorite animal of the Vulpera). That name would not be permanent, because of something else that happened that summer...

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     Mero. It was a name I had found available on the WrA server after trying different names (and having looked at Vulpera naming conventions). I had an idea of an engineer hunter (a type of character I'd often mained before, Hainiu was one). It feel especially cool for a scavenger Vulpera concept, though. Not only did Mero work as a good Vulpera name, I could pair it alliteratively with a nickname to fit my concept, "the Mechanic". So, Mero the Mechanic was then planned as my future Vulpera main. I thought up his backstory and created him in the Wowhead dressing room, I was excited to one day create this character as a main. And I waited.

 

     In the months leading up to BlizzCon 2018, many of us in the Vulpera Hype Caravan were hopeful. Even though anything resembling an official confirmation had remained completely elusive, there had been so many reasons to believe it would happen. In October, the Caravan arranged a mass gathering in Orgrimmar, members of the community taking Vulpera forms (using techniques we'd used during the Beta gathering). We called it Foxtober and it was a fun, hype-fueled parade around the orcish capital. BlizzCon was mere weeks away, surely we would at least get a hint whether playable Vulpera would happen, one way or the other...

 

     And then there was nothing. By most accounts, BlizzCon 2018 was not the best BlizzCon in history. For us in the Caravan, it was particularly disappointing. Not only were future Allied Race plans not even alluded to, Vulpera themselves were only mentioned in a side interview (not once in the main panels). Knowing the next BlizzCon would be a new expansion, it felt like maybe the plans had changed. It was one of the times I very nearly gave up on the battle permanently. But when I saw hope and hype still burned within the Caravan, I was re-inspired. Nevertheless, I did decided to maybe put a bit of focus back on the Alliance and my previous favorite Worgen race. I was inspired by this fun group of Worgen players who also were amazing artists. Worgen had always been cool to me. I've often felt like an outsider, so the idea of becoming a part of this big party of Worgen-ness, it was something of a dream. I made a character named Raccmoon in hopes of one day joining their community. And, after attending their Winter Veil caroling event, they invited me to their guild. But not all dreams fully materialize and it just wasn't a good fit, in the end. But Raccmoon ended up with a different legacy, or two...

 

     While I rapidly leveled Raccmoon, I had thought to listen to a podcast in the background, to ease up the tedium of leveling. I had chosen to work my way through one I had heard of recently. Halfhill Report. I quickly became a fan. A feature of the Halfhill Report is that people write in "letters" from their characters. I realized, I wanted to be a part of that. I had characters I could use. And I almost used Raccmoon, at the time I was still in the guild and I thought of writing one from him and mentioning those other Worgen friends. Given how things played out, it is fortunate I went a different route. Mero the Mechanic, he was this character I wasn't sure I would ever get to actually play in game but I knew him as a character enough to write a letter. Maybe that would also help make the wait to play him a bit more tolerable. So, I did. And the letter was used. It would not end up being the last communication Mero would have with the Halfhill Report. And when things didn't work out for Raccmoon, Halfhill Report's host Toshmifune even invited my other Worgen Leowyld, what had become my new Alliance main, to the guild he was in. But this is not a tale of Worgen, that said my Worgen Raccmoon's legacy had not quite finished...

 

     Raccmoon was a rogue. As such, he could use the Disguise glyph applied to his Pickpocket to temporarily take the form of an NPC. A couple minutes' flight from Boralus was a place called Krakenbane Cove. It had several Vulpera NPC's. By February, we still had not gotten any news of Allied Races beyond Kul Tiran Humans and Zandalari Trolls. I came back to the concept of doing something while waiting is better than nothing. I would show my dedication to the Vulpera campaign in a specific way, using my one endgame rogue Raccmoon. It would be called a Mask-In. For one week, every moment of my WoW playtime (and I tried to be on WoW as much as possible) I stayed on Raccmoon, keeping a Vulpera disguise active. Using my hearthstone set to Boralus, I split my time between fishing in the Cove and standing in the city (sometimes with a sign that read "Allied Required Ahead" - subtle, right?). Nothing came of the Mask-In of course, and I had a heckler tell me "they'll never be playable lol". But, at least, I had done something...

 

     More time passed. Blizzard had been doing these Q&A's relatively frequently. I would always submit questions about Vulpera and, even though I knew they would not likely be answered, I would watch to see. I believe it was a Q&A in April, a general question about allied races was answered... it was not inspiring. I do not recall exactly what all was said, but they said they were still not ready to discuss any Allied Race plans and that such an announcement would be saved for something like... BlizzCon. This was another blow, we had still not had any official news. I needed another break. So... I actually ended up checking out Final Fantasy XIV for my first time. WoW seemed hesitant to add new Allied Races, anymore, and right after that mentioned Q&A, a new awesome-looking race, the Hrothgar, was announced as planned for FFXIV - it might have been one day later, it was some crazy timing. I had a lot of fun on FFXIV and, for weeks, didn't think much about the Vulpera campaign or WoW, in general. But hope doesn't die easy and the wait for Hrothgar had begun feeling longer than I liked, so I made my way back into WoW, even doing another Mask-In.

 

     Months and months passed with nothing of note on the Vulpera front. We had hope when a Vulpera-themed brew showed up in files for new Brewfest data on PTR (it had been the sort of thing previously reserved for playable races)... only to have that hope dashed when a bunch of definitely non-playable races also got brews added in the next build (that was another near-quit and pushed me into another bout of FFXIV focus. Heh). Somewhere during a period when my hope was fueled, I decided I could not wait longer to play Mero. As far as I knew, it might not even happen anymore. So, I settled for playing him in Pandaren form (it even could fit his story). The inevitable happened and Hainiu was renamed to Mero - if we ever got Vulpera, he would be race changed. So, I would play Mero. Logging in practically every evening, doing a Vol'dun patrol of every world quest available in my homeland desert. The guild was largely inactive, at that time. There were entire months I'd be the only one to log in. Lonely nights, flying around Vol'dun, fueled on nothing but waning hope. BlizzCon was the only possibility left, since Blizzard had announced they were not attending Gamescom. November was far away...

 

     November was not the factor, this time. BlizzCon would not be the time of our answers. But it was tied to what happened next, for me. I would often use the Wowhead Dressing Room to conceptualize Mero, to get the only screenshots I could (outside of Raccmoon Vulpera disguising). When the Wendigo costume was announced as a BlizzCon 2019 bonus, I knew what to look for - the moment that wendigo set was usable in the Wowhead Dressing Room, I tried it on my future Vulpera main Mero. It was awesome and adorable, but that wasn't quite enough for a good screenshot, I had him do a little wave. It was one of dozens of such Mero Dressing Room screenshots I had shared on Twitter since early 2018... and this one would go without notice like all those others, falling down into the forgotten abyss of my tweet history like... no, it had an awesome fate, Obviously. I had recently begun following Taliesin & Evitel on Twitter and attending a few of Tali's Twitch streams. I knew what a big deal T&E were, so imagine my amazement and delight when I see a Weekly Reset tweet on my feed and there, in the middle of the thumbnail, is my Mero in wendigo costume waving. I wasn't credited or anything, but I didn't care. This was a huge honor, not just for having any screenshot of mine used by legends but specifically my Vulpera. I literally got to fulfill my dream of being a face for this Vulpera campaign I had battled so very hard for since early 2018...

 

     And that alone would have made that one of the best WoW-related days for me. But... that had not just been any day. That had been October 7th. Mere hours later, I saw that tweet from WoW. Visions of N'zoth content preview. I clicked the video but I couldn't wait... I moused along the timeline to preview, I saw Allied Races pop up... I saw Vulpera! This. Was. It. I tried to watch video as best as I could, excited as I was. We'd get to play them, finally. In a few weeks, when the Public Test Realm for the patch went up, I wasn't paying attention... and then noticed someone say... the PTR was going live later that day! What?! Sure enough, it was true. Another wait for the servers that afternoon. But those first moments after those servers went live, actually creating a Vulpera - I was so hyped I was literally light-headed. It was surreal. .

 

     As it so happened, Visions of N'zoth would end up becoming one of the longest PTR's in recent history. But, as of this writing, we are just one week away from it finally going live. Rocket Raccoon and the Raccoonatics fandom are still parts of my life. But, without Marvel Heroes, they have no ties to an MMO anymore. Vulpera and the Vulpera Hype Caravan gave me something similar. It was a long time through a desert of dark silence - with highs and lows, soaring hope and crushing despair, taking me places I didn't expect to go and to places I needed to be. It was a long time, but the Battle For Vulpera was won...

 

     Let's celebrate, my fellow Caravaneers, we've earned it!

 

(If you are interested, you can find the biography/info page of Mero the Mechanic here)