Changes: There is no cow level

Revision as of 06:32, 20 January 2010

This is a silly article.
The content of this article is not part of official Warcraft lore, but has nevertheless become part of the World of Warcraft culture or community.

There is no cow level. Or is there?

As a saying

Blizzard has, for years, been denying allegations of hiding secret "cow levels" in their games, especially the original Diablo, where the rumors first began. (If you clicked a mysteriously-spawned cow several times, it opened a portal that led to a secret area, hence the name.) Descriptions vary from report to report of what exactly a "cow level" is, but they are generally accepted to be secret areas that contain significant numbers of bovines (sometimes including powerful, magic-wielding bovines) and little else. So prevalent were claims by fans to have found the "secret cow level" in any number of Blizzard's games that their repeated, pithy response became a common utterance for fans:

There is no cow level.

The fact that, taken out of context, this comment just sounds bizarre and practically invites one to look for a cow level because someone felt it was important enough to deny something so bizarre has probably contributed a large part to its spreading as a saying among fans. And it's just damn funny to blurt out.

Not helping rumors is the fact that there actually was a Cow Level in Diablo II, and there have also been numerous other cow jokes and "there is no cow level" jokes hidden in Blizzard's other games. For example, it was the cheat code in StarCraft used to skip the current level. The line lives on in the hearts of long-time Blizzard fans and as an occasional loading screen tip in World of Warcraft. In Warcraft III, players were able to access a secret level by locating a number of flaming sheep and killing them.

Curiously, the phrase bears resemblance to a famous quote in the movie The Matrix. When the protagonist of the movie, Neo, meets a young boy with telekinetic abilities bending a spoon with his mind, the boy explains "There is no spoon." This is also a cheat in Warcraft III. This phrase in turn has been interpreted as a reference to the Buddhist concept of dependent origination. There is no spoon: what exists is only Neo's idea of the spoon.

In the hit PC shooter games Call of Duty and Call of Duty 2, to enable cheats one must use the command console to set the value of the variable 'ThereIsACow' to 1337.

The Blizzard Entertainment-only band L80ETC has composed a Diablo-inspired song named "Raise Some Hell", which features the phrase "There's no cow level".

Despite Blizzard's continued insistence that there is no cow level, it only seems to have increased the incidence of rumors, as seen below.

Tributes to the cow level in WoW

World of Warcraft contains several tributes and references to the cow level:

A rare BoE mace is named [Southsea Lamp].
A rare BoE leather chest is named [Cow King's Hide].
Mulgore, Thunder Bluff, and the entire tauren species can be interpreted as a tribute.
One of Techbot's quotes in Gnomeregan is "There is no COW level... really! I repeat: there is no COW level. Well, maybe there is..."

Template:Injokes

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 {{silly}}
+'''There is no cow level'''.  Or is there?
-==As a Saying==
-Blizzard has, for years, been denying allegations of hiding secret "cow levels" in their games, especially the original ''[[Diablo]]'', where the rumours first began. Descriptions vary from report to report of what exactly a "cow level" is, but they are generally accepted to be secret areas that contain significant numbers of bovines (sometimes including powerful, magic-wielding bovines) and little else.  So prevalent were claims by fans to have found the "secret cow level" in any number of Blizz's games that their repeated, pithy response became a common utterance for fans:
+== As a saying ==
+[[Blizzard Entertainment|Blizzard]] has, for years, been denying allegations of hiding secret "cow levels" in their games, especially the original ''[[Diablo]]'', where the rumors first began. (If you clicked a mysteriously-spawned cow several times, it opened a portal that led to a secret area, hence the name.) Descriptions vary from report to report of what exactly a "cow level" is, but they are generally accepted to be secret areas that contain significant numbers of bovines (sometimes including powerful, magic-wielding bovines) and little else.  So prevalent were claims by fans to have found the "secret cow level" in any number of Blizzard's games that their repeated, pithy response became a common utterance for fans:
 ''There is no cow level.''
@@ Line 7: / Line 9: @@
 The fact that, taken out of context, this comment just sounds bizarre and practically invites one to look for a cow level because someone felt it was important enough to deny something so bizarre has probably contributed a large part to its spreading as a saying among fans.  And it's just damn funny to blurt out.
-Not helping rumors is the fact that there was, actually, a Cow Level in Diablo II, and there have also been numerous other cow jokes and "there is no cow level" jokes hidden in Blizzard's other games. For example, it was the cheat code in [[StarCraft]] used to skip the current level. The line lives on in the hearts of long-time Blizzard fans and as an occasional "loading screen tip" in World of Warcraft.
+Not helping rumors is the fact that there actually ''was'' a Cow Level in [[Diablo II]], and there have also been numerous other cow jokes and "there is no cow level" jokes hidden in Blizzard's other games. For example, it was the cheat code in [[StarCraft]] used to skip the current level. The line lives on in the hearts of long-time Blizzard fans and as an occasional [[loading screen tips|loading screen tip]] in [[World of Warcraft]]. In [[Warcraft III]], players were able to access a secret level by locating a number of flaming sheep and killing them.
-Curiously, the phrase bears resemblance to the perhaps most famous quote of a later movie, ''The Matrix''. When the protagonist of the movie, Neo, meet a young boy with telekinetic abilities bending a spoon with his mind, the boy explains "There is no spoon." This phrase in turn has been interpreted as a reference to the Buddhist concept of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependent_origination dependent origination]. There is no spoon, only Neo's idea of the spoon. Likewise, there is no cow level, only our imagination of it and maybe, by extension, of the game.
+Curiously, the phrase bears resemblance to a famous quote in the movie ''The Matrix''. When the protagonist of the movie, Neo, meets a young boy with telekinetic abilities bending a spoon with his mind, the boy explains "There is no spoon." This is also a cheat in [[Warcraft III]]. This phrase in turn has been interpreted as a reference to the Buddhist concept of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependent_origination dependent origination]. There is no spoon: what exists is only Neo's idea of the spoon.
 In the hit PC shooter games [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_duty Call of Duty] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty_2 Call of Duty 2], to enable cheats one must use the command console to set the value of the variable 'ThereIsACow' to 1337.
+The [[Blizzard Entertainment]]-only band [[L80ETC]] has composed a [[Diablo]]-inspired song named "[[Raise Some Hell]]", which features the phrase "There's no cow level".
 Despite Blizzard's continued insistence that there is no cow level, it only seems to have increased the incidence of rumors, as seen below.
+== Tributes to the cow level in WoW ==
-==The Silver Cow Rumor==
+[[World of Warcraft]] contains several tributes and references to the cow level:
-'''Side-Note: The following is the record of a ''rumor'' somebody made up.  Blizzard denied it immediately with their patent saying. (See above)  So please, don't waste any time actually hunting for this elusive cow.'''
+* A {{quality|rare}} [[BoE]] mace is named {{item|Wirt's Third Leg}}.
+* A {{quality|rare}} [[BoE]] leather chest is named {{item|Cow King's Hide}}.
-There is a silver elite cow (rare spawn) that wanders around Elwynn forest east of Goldshire that when you spam /moo to (just like the chickens in Westfall with /chicken) gives you an escort quest.
+* [[Mulgore]], [[Thunder Bluff]], and the entire [[tauren]] species can be interpreted as a tribute.
+* One of {{NPC||Techbot}}'s quotes in [[Gnomeregan]] is "There is no COW level... really!  I repeat: there is no COW level.  Well, maybe there is..."
-It may only work with Tauren ... I have only managed to find this silver elite cow once as an alliance toon and some lame human rogue ganked it thinking it might drop l33t loot !
-The escort is to guide the cow along the road eastwards through the crossroads section in west Redridge then turning down towards Darkshire. The road is still followed until a turnoff past a farmlet with undead and into a garden area with a waterfall. Once safely there the cow speaks and opens up a portal behind the waterfall. Entering the portal takes you to an area similar in appearance to Westfall but is un-named on the mini-map and pressing M to bring up the main map just brings up a world map (just like in an instance)
-There are wandering groups of three cows, two lvl 63 elites (one that seems to have healing ability) and a lvl 64-66 elite that has a nature AoE.
-The escort is reasonably hard to do as because the silver cow is such a low level it pulls aggro all along the path.
-There are three ambushes with 4-6 lvl 45+ gnoll poachers along the path.
-May have been introduced in patch 1.10 ... not seen that silver cow before then.
-Enjoy !
-==The Burning Crusade==
-Rumors have surfaced regarding the possibility of a portal to the Cow Level being opened on Outland. Given that all portals (save the Dark Portal) are currently disabled and have no given destination yet, this is a very distinct possibility. More remains to be seen.
-==Hidden Tributes to the Cow Level in Wow?==
-There seems to be tributes to the cow level in the World of Warcraft.
-*There is a BoE rare mace named Wirt's Third Leg.
-*There is a BoE rare leather chest named Cow King's Hide.
-*There is also an area in Elwynn Forest called Stone Cairn Lake. Similar to the stones that open a portal to Tristram (the town from Diablo I) do save Cain.
-Note: The following speculation is incorrect when saying that you had to create the portal in Diablo II at the stones.  You could create the portal anywhere within the town of the first act (The Rogue Encampment).
+{{Injokes}}
-Say, you have a hearthstone and Wirt's Third Leg in a bag together, and go to Stone Cairn Lake, in the center of the island is a large stone with inscriptions on it. This is Similar to Diablo 2, for the fact that you need Wirt's Leg, A Book of Town Portal both in your Horadric Cube and then you need to go to Stone Cairn area around the big circle of boulders and use your Town Portal Book to make the portal to The Cow Level. This is all Speculation and Interesting Facts for Entertainment purposes only (because there is no cow level)
 [[Category:Rumors]]
 [[Category:Silly]]