The Murloc sound from World of Warcraft is ancient. But there has been a long debate about where it actually comes from – a former Blizzard employee now remorsefully admits the mistake.
There are few creatures in World of Warcraft that are as feared as Murlocs. Especially in the vanilla era, the angry gurgling of these little creatures was often a sure sign that you were moving very quickly towards the nearest graveyard.
It is one of the most famous sounds from WoW and even today it will make some people look around in panic to see where the waddling monsters are coming from. But where the sound actually comes from has long been miscommunicated.
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Where does the false information come from? It has long been known that the Murloc sound is caused by a gurgling noise. But for a long time, no one knew who was actually responsible for it.
That changed a while ago when Jason T. Hall, a former Blizzard employee who many now know as the YouTube face of “Pirate Software,” talked about it.
Hall said in a stream that the iconic Murloc sound came from Blizzard employee Bob Fitch, who gargled with yogurt and that’s how the sound came about.
However, the information was wrong.
How did the misinformation come about? Hall had relied on his father, who also worked at Blizzard, for the information. Because the statement “Bob [Fitch] did it” was an internal joke at Blizzard. Whenever someone didn’t know who was responsible for something, they simply said it was Bob.
This was probably a similar joke to the ones you see in many raid groups in WoW. Because who is to blame for the wipe? That’s right: the hunter. Always.
Hall then shows the chat log with his father, in which he explains the joke.
Who is really responsible for this? In fact, the Murloc sound was recorded by Tracy Bush. After the false claim, he contacted Hall and asked why this work was attributed to someone else – so Hall was a little uncomfortable about that too.
But now we know for sure: The original Murloc sound comes from Tracy Bush, who was the sound designer for World of Warcraft at the time and also contributed a lot to the sound for Warcraft III.
If you’re wondering if he has other voices in the game: No. He “voices” the Murloc exclusively and solely.
Since 2007, however, Bush no longer works for Blizzard and has moved to NCSoft.
To which a cheerful: Grlgrlglrlrl!