Naturally, World of Warcraft had some voice acting that evolved as the years went on, with the voice actors giving more and more lines... that didn't mean there wasn't some bumps along the way.
- The vrykul in Wrath of the Lich King sounded very funny with how they all sounded like The Heavy, while the females had smoker voices. Svala Sorrowgrave, however, takes the cake since it sounds like she throws up
instead of dying. - Cataclysm featured some rather... questionable voice acting. Several characters sounded like they were constantly shouting, and a few lines made one wonder if the voice actors weren't stifling laughter in the recording studio, with lines such as "Behold the power of PURE WATER!", "AL'AKIR! YOUR SERVANT CALLS FOR AID!", "Witness the power bestowed upon me by DEATHWING... feel the FURY, of EARTH!!"
- Special mention goes to Ozruk — BREAK YOURSELVES UPON MY BODY! Feel the strength, of the EARTH!. This would easily be Narm Charm... if he didn't repeat it every couple of seconds. (And if this didn't announce a very annoying mechanic.)
- To say nothing of some of the quests themselves — one quest chain involves you attempting to save a massive deepsea creature demigod, but it's too late so he says that it dies... and you receive a raid warning saying that he dies. No, really?
- General Husam from Lost City of the Tol'Vir says almost every line longer than two words as if it is Punctuated! For! Emphasis!.
"Invaders! You! Shall! Go! No! Further""Siamat must not be freed! Turn back! Before! It is! Too! Late!" - The Vocal Dissonance from Drahga Shadowburner, who sounds like an old woman with a hoarse voice. Given that this boss is an obviously male orc with a muscle body... suffice to say players thought this was either quite amusing, or quite annoying... or both, given that players initially had a problem with the mechanics.
- From Mists of Pandaria, the watchers of the vale are corrupted. "Brawl.... with ROOK!" and "you will suffer for our failure!" became very maligned sounds to hear because they were said all the time.
- As the last phase of the battle with Master Snowdrift begins, he'll say, "When I was but a cub I could scarcely throw a punch, but after years of training I can do so much more!" It's clearly an attempt at a Badass Boast, but it's too vague to be impressive, especially since Snowdrift is a fairly easy boss. It doesn't help that it's the last thing you'll hear from Snowdrift unless he manages to kill a player.
- The August Celestials' battle quotes on the Timeless Isle — they sound like they are reading chapters from a self-help booklet.
- This could be invoked by players during the "Opening of the Dark Portal" questline. One part requires the player to create a powder trail to a building so that it could be ignited and blown up. However, there's no set amount of powder in the keg, it's only one objective out of that area — and the powder keg essentially drops a long black line wherever you went. Cue players saving it for last just so they could create hilariously improbable powder keg lines such as trying to cover the entire area in black, running around in circles to cause a spiral, spelling words out in cursive, or drawing symbols with the powder. The best part was the game even remembers the way you walked so you could create a huge endless line of powder and it will still travel in the direction you walked, even when it should ignite the nearby powder lines. It wasn't uncommon to see players running around in circles, wondering why they were doing it, until you saw your own powder-lines and could create silly things. Unfortunately they removed it in a patch for an unknown reason.
- Legion introduced tiered recipes for all professions with players learning how to create items with less materials (production professions) or gather more materials from one source (gathering professions) as they trained their skills. But some of the advice from profession trainers is obvious to the point of being outright silly, such as telling skinners to skin the entire animal, rather than just the torso.
- The demon hunter cinematic has a demon hunter asks Illidan what makes them different than the demons they fight. Unfortunately, her accent makes it sound as if she is saying that demon blood courses through their very fart.
- Malfurion's voice acting in Val'sharah quests is... interesting. He has one Darth Vader-esque Big "NO!", in particular, that has caused some mockery.
- In the same vein is Tyrande's lines when you're helping her find Malfurion when he's captured by Xavius. Her lines when you click on her like "We've got them cornered!" and "They defile everything they touch!" unintentionally make her sound like a lunatic.
- Anduin Wrynn's new model in Legion was supposed to show his maturity and how much he unconsciously resembles his father. What ended up looking is that his new model bears almost no resemblances to the rather nice MoP and Cataclysm model and came off as Blizzard trying way too hard to push the narrative.
- "Prophet Velen has left the instance group." This text is displayed during the climactic battle against Rakeesh during the Fallen Star questline. What should be a tragic and terrifying moment in which Velen realizes his son is about to be killed and is powerless to stop it is portrayed with the same interface dialogue as a player Rage Quitting a bad dungeon group.
- With the advent of the allied races, this happened with some of the older quest texts. While some of the written lines would refer to the player by name, sometimes they would refer to them as their class or race. However, the allied races are merely modifiers of existing races, so this results in some questgivers referring to the characters as "Highmountain tauren" or "Lightforged draenei" casually, making it seem oddly specific. This was mostly corrected in 8.0.
- Even when characters are referred to by name, it can often sound fairly silly if the player's name is out of place in a fantasy setting. (ie, something like "Spoon" or "Staburneck") Furthermore, when some characters yell another player's name, it may show their server if they're from another realm.
- Can be invoked by the players themselves. While rare, there are some cinematics that show the players wearing their current gear and equipment. Such as, for example, a rather climactic scene where Aggramar tries to flatten your character and your character takes out their weapon anyway can be ruined by transmogging your character's armor to something extremely ill-fitting, skimpy, or hideous. Bonus points for if you transmog your artifact to look really simplistic or like one of the joke items. Nothing says what should be a climactic last stand like a rogue taking out broken glass bottles!
- Almost every server (and probably guild for that matter) has at least one raider who gets the single most hideous set of transmogs or decides to make the most improbable weapon ever. Nothing says "Main Tank" or "DPS" like fighting off the Legion or the Scourge with a pitchfork! Bonus points if it's enchanted.
- Was also Played for Laughs in the "Trial of Style". Some players would take it seriously and make beautiful sets, sometimes out of mismatching expansion sets... while others tried to make the most ridiculous looking gear on their characters ever.
- In Legion and Battle for Azeroth, Nathanos Blightcaller is a condescending Smug Snake who barely tolerates the Player Character and only ever praises Sylvanas. As a result, his dismissiveness of King Rastakhan naming the player as "Speaker of the Horde" makes it seem like he's sulking over them being considered more important than him.
- It gets even better when you speak to him before he leaves the Great Seal, where he says "So the King named you Speaker for the Horde? Good. My diplomacy skills mostly involve arrows."
- Sylvanas's flashback to her death at Arthas's hands is very dramatic at first, but then she appears to power slide chest first into Frostmourne. More than one fan compared it to a raider who didn't move away from a boss's mechanic and got one-shotted for it.
- In the Visions of N'Zoth cinematic, Anduin's immediate reaction to seeing Wrathion is to punch him in the face. This is shortly afterwards treated as a shocking case of O.O.C. Is Serious Business to show that N'Zoth is already influencing Anduin, but comes across as rather silly given his anger at Wrathion is due to the the dragon being partially responsible for the death of Anduin's father. As forgiving as Anduin is, that would make anyone upset, Wrathion even admits he probably deserved the punch.
- Shadowlands Prepatch Cinematic, when the death metal Valkyries swoop down to kidnap Anduin but the way it is shot, it looks like Genn simply stood there dumbfounded and watched it happen rather than try to do anything to help. Not to mention his Skyward Scream of "Sylvanas", while correct here, evokes the Old man yells at cloud meme
- In the Shadowlands intro cinematic, the subtitles now name various sound effects in all caps, such as "#OMINOUS ORCHESTRAL MUSIC", "SCRAPING", or "BOLVAR GROANS".
- The revelation by Elune that she tried to send the souls who died at Teldrassil to aid the anima drought in Ardenweald gets a comical :O face and an "Oh" from the otherwise unflappable Winter Queen.
- Sylvanas's defiant "I will never serve!" moment when she turns against Zovaal was clearly intended to be a dramatic Heel–Face Turn. Given that Zovaal is one of the most blatantly Obviously Evil villains in the franchise and Sylvanas has been serving him for nearly a decade in-universe, many fans just ended up laughing or rolling their eyes, especially as her defiance is punctuated by... shooting a single arrow at a being allegedly stronger than the Titans.
- One quest in the Emerald Dream involve players finding which Primalists have standards and convincing them to leave. You do this by talking to them, except sometimes they might turn hostile. What makes it into narm territory is that they will be in conversation with another Primalist, turn hostile, and that other primalist would stand by and watch.
