WoW to get an official pride event, based on a community run that’s raised money for 12 years

World of Warcraft is getting its first official, proper pride event (via WoWhead)—and the neatest part? It’s based on a community-run event that’s been raising money for LGBT charities for years.

The Running of the Trolls is an event that’s been active on the US Feathermoon server for 12 years, helmed by the larger group WarcraftCares. It sees players rolling up with a troll to, traditionally, Silvermoon. The event raises money for The Trevor Project, which provides crisis services to LGBT youth, alongside research, advocacy, and education.

Given Silvermoon’s been remade for Midnight, the group’ll need to pick a new locale this year, as you need to have access to the expansion to get there—the Burning Crusade version’s still accessible, but it takes some doin’ that’d make logistics a nightmare.

Either way, there’ll be an alternative for folks who can’t make it to Feathermoon—Darkspear Dash, which’ll last from June 27 to June 29 and see players “[joining] the Darkspear trolls as they celebrate individuality and identity”.

In a thread on the r/WoW subreddit, run founder Dravvie writes: “Just for background, [the] Darkspear Dash microholiday is based on the Running of the Trolls, a yearly community event [run by] WarcraftCares, started in 2016, that is held every June to benefit the Trevor Project as the sibling event to the Gnome Run!

“I can’t comment on everything that’s still in the development stage that’s been datamined, but it’s been a long process since I first talked with the dev team about two years ago about possibly developing a Troll Run holiday.”

Datamining, shared by WoWHead, suggests that players will be able to get a tabard and a rainbow toy for participating in a special version of the run—but given we’re a few months out, it’s unclear what the specifics will be.

Either way, it’s a sweet gesture on Blizzard’s behalf. Especially when other MMOs, cough cough, have been seen winding down pride events. It’s also just something I like about the genre—MMOs thrive as a result of their communities, so to see a community event actually become integrated into the game as its own proper little holiday bash is genuinely heartwarming.

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