Raider.IO Year in Review: 2023

By Hulahoops — Jan 19 17:00 CET

We are halfway through the first month of a new year, and things here at Raider.IO are already picking up speed. We have exciting new features, events, and content planned for the WoW Community over the next calendar year. However, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on everything we achieved and created last year.

2023 was a very big year, with multiple significant announcements, events, and even more products created for everyone. Come with us as we embark on this Raider.IO Year in Review: 2023!

2023 News and Announcements

We took some big strides in 2023, working hard to bring our services and features to an even broader playerbase, and to provide additional resources to our existing tools. We made a number of changes to make this happen!

ACQUISITION OF KEYSTONE.GURU

On July 21, Raider.IO was proud to announce the acquisition of Keystone.Guru. The site and its plethora of Mythic+ Routing and Mapping features have remained a separate entity, but bringing KSG under the Raider.IO umbrella, has enabled us to create new features and improve upon existing ones. KSG’s developer, Wotuu, is also a welcome addition to the Raider.IO family!

OFFICIAL BLIZZARD PARTNER

Raider.IO has been supporting the WoW Esports Team since the inception of the MDI, through hosting of the Time Trials and Leaderboards, as well as providing live brackets, match information and content. At the end of 2023, we were extremely proud to announce that this relationship has flourished as we became an Official Blizzard Partner, and the new home of the WoW Esports Tournament Platform! Registration and Administration for all WoW Esports events, including the AWC, MDI, TGP and Variety Show, now takes place on Raider.IO on our new Tournaments Page.

RAIDER.IO EXPANSION TO CLASSIC WOW

Our development team worked tirelessly last year to achieve a goal we have long been striving for: the expansion of the Raider.IO website into Classic WoW. With the release of the API for Classic and Classic Era, we were able to mark 2023 with two new versions of the site, providing Character and Guild information. 2024 will see the integration of even more of our features and services for the Classic Community!

If you’re a Classic Era, Hardcore or Season of Discovery player, check out the Raider.IO Classic Era site. Wrath (and soon Cataclysm) Classic players can find their information on Raider.IO Classic.

New Raider.IO Features

At its core, Raider.IO has always been about tracking data for Characters, Guilds, Mythic+ and Raiding. In 2023, we developed new features that took advantage of this data to improve your gameplay experience, including the above-mentioned expansion into Classic WoW and the introduction of the brand-new Raider.IO Tournament Platform as part of our partnership with Blizzard. Here are a couple of other Key Features we launched in 2023:

AUTO ROUTE CREATOR

The Auto Route Creator was a feature launched in collaboration with Keystone.Guru, and helped mark our acquisition of KSG. This exciting feature allows users to take any Mythic+ run that was Live Tracked and automatically generate that run into a KSG route that can then be imported directly into in-game addons. Found a successful run of a dungeon you’re trying to time and want to copy it? Create a route with each pull mapped out, all at the click of a button!

MYTHIC+ REPLAYS SYSTEM

The Mythic+ Replays System has been on our development wishlist for a long time, and in 2023 we were able to make it a reality! This innovative feature allows players to compare their Mythic+ runs, down to boss split timers, deaths, and trash count, in real-time. You can use it to improve upon your own runs, race against your friends and guildies, or as a tool to push your keystones higher and higher by replaying against the best!

Tournaments & Events

It’s pretty easy to see that we love esports here at Raider.IO. We have been a part of the MDI since its inception, and have supported a number of Community-hosted tournaments. We have also built out our own events program, creating and hosting a variety of competitions. In 2023 we supported or hosted more esports events than ever before!

RAIDER.IO EVENTS

In April, we hosted the 3rd Annual Mythic+ Charity Pro-Am alongside our friends at Team Liquid. This has been one of our favourite events since we first created it in 2021, where MDI Pros and Influencers get teamed up with Amateurs to compete on behalf of a charity. It’s fun, chaotic, and full of shenanigans! The 2023 Pro-Am raised over $50,000 for charity, putting us at a grand total of over $125,000 raised by this event since it began.

As 2023 saw two full Seasons of Dragonflight, so too did it see two Break the Meta events! Break the Meta is an event we created in 2021 as a way to showcase the fact that high keys can in fact be successfully timed with a group made entirely out of “off-meta” specs. As the event has gained traction, we’ve had the privilege of teaming up with Blizzard to make it a secondary opportunity for players to earn each Season’s exclusive Esports Banner in-game toy. Between BTM Season 1 and BTM Season 2, we awarded over 30,000 Banners as well as other prizes, and saw almost 100,000 separate BTM-eligible dungeons completed in time.

OFFICIAL WOW ESPORTS

2023 was an exciting year for WoW Esports, as The Great Push – previously a “one-off” tournament – was expanded into a full-season competition. Dragonflight Season 1 had a traditional MDI format but Season 2 saw The Great Push in all its glory! Raider.IO has been supporting the MDI since it began in 2017, and last year was no exception. From video previews of teams on our YouTube Channel, to LIVE highlights, updates and analysis on our MDI Coverage Page, and of course hosting all of the Leaderboards… we spent a lot of the year knee-deep in WoW Esports!

We also saw the long-awaited return of WoW Esports to BlizzCon, with the Guild Clash showcase event. Blizzard brought in players from the top 4 guilds to compete in Arena and Mythic+ events, and we were honoured to support this event as well!

RWF: ABERRUS & AMIRDRASSIL

The Race to World First is one of our favourite events in all of Warcraft, and we are exceedingly proud to be the premiere hub for all things RWF in the Community!

2023 saw two different RWFs: Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible, and Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope. Both were immensely exciting, coming down to the wire with victory celebrations to match. Every RWF, Raider.IO is privileged to partner with the various production teams that create the incredible streams and shows for viewers. In 2023, we partnered with Echo, Team Liquid, Method, and the Dungeon Dojo during their first all-volunteer-run RWF production!

Our RWF Coverage continued to grow throughout 2023, providing viewers with LIVE updates, highlights, and analysis for everything happening worldwide during the Race, courtesy of our top-notch Coverage Team. We also maintained our Daily RWF Recap Videos, which is something we started doing in Vault of the Incarnates. Every morning we provide you with a short, informative, and entertaining recap of everything that took place the day prior.

We capped off both Aberrus and Amirdrassil with the Raider.IO RWF Awards, where the Community votes on their favourite productions, memes, nerd screams, and more!

Unfortunately, we won’t be seeing another RWF until The War Within launches later this year…but we’re certainly looking forward to it, and we’ll keep you in the know with our Coverage, Recaps, and more!

COMMUNITY TOURNAMENTS

One of our favourite things to do here at Raider.IO is to help Community organizations and groups put on their own tournaments and competitions! We support these events in a variety of ways, including registration, leaderboards/brackets, stream widgets, API data, social media promotion, and even articles announcing the event.

Here are all of the Community Tournaments we were proud to support in 2023:

EVENT NAME	COMMUNITY ORG/HOST
OTK Hardcore Mak’gora	OTK Network
Eve Ascension 2	Team Liquid
Eve Ascension 3	Team Liquid
Mythic+ Keystone Builders	Oasis
Ukraine Community Tournaments	Ukrainian WoW Community
Dungeon Dojo Invitational	Dungeon Dojo
AFDL Summer Clash	Armed Forces Dungeon League
AFDL Fall Clash	Armed Forces Dungeon League

Thinking of hosting your own tournament in 2024? We’ve expanded our features and are now also supporting Arena competitions with PVP brackets. Reach out to our Events and Community Manager, Picco (picco on Discord, or picco@raider.io by email), to inquire about how Raider.IO can help with your Dungeon or Arena tournament!

Raider.IO at BlizzCon

Did you see us at BlizzCon this year? We had a number of Raider.IO staff members at BlizzCon handing out Raider.IO merch and saying hello! It was an unforgettable experience to be able to meet so many members of the Warcraft Community.

THE MAELSTROM MIXER

We partnered up with our friends over at Wowhead, Warcraft Logs, and Raidbots to create The Maelstrom, a social Mixer that took place on Thursday, November 2nd – the night before BlizzCon 2023 began! This event was a tremendous way to kick off the first BlizzCon since 2019, and it was amazing to see so many members of the WoW Community. We hope everyone who attended had a great time!

Raider.IO and the WoW Community

We have always been proud of our ability to support the Warcraft Community through charitable contributions, logistical and event assistance, giveaways, and spotlights. We hope 2023 was a great example of how much being a part of this Community means to all of us!

CHARITY DRIVES & STREAMS

This past year, we partnered with other WoW Community organizations, including Wowhead, Warcraft Logs, and Raidbots, to raise awareness and funds for some great causes. We rallied to raise money for Earthquake Relief in Turkey and Syria, and for Pride Across Azeroth 2023, we joined the Community in raising funds for Trans Lifeline. For both of these charity drives, we and our partners titanforged the donations, matching contributions from the Community! With your help, we raised over $26,000 for Trans Lifeline and almost $7,000 for DirectRelief.

We were also honoured to support various Community-led charity events, including those held by Eternal Kingdom, the Oasis Spookathon, and efforts from the Ukrainian WoW Community to raise funds for war relief efforts in Ukraine through their Mythic+ competitions!

GIVEAWAYS & COMMUNITY EVENTS

The Warcraft Community is truly a special thing, and something we are proud to be a part of, and to support where possible. We are always on the lookout for ways to interact with our users more, and to help Community groups come together for fun and wonder!

Did you know that Thursdays are officially known as Transmog Thursday in the Raider.IO Discord? Each week we announce a new Transmog theme for players to put together their best looks! We pick a winner each weekend and award that person an in-game pet. Come join the #transmog channel in the Raider.IO Discord to join in on the fun!

2023 also gave us the opportunity to help promote various events hosted by the Starship Community, a great group of WoW players who promote inclusivity, trust, and support, and who routinely host fantastic events, tournaments, and giveaways! We recently published a Community Spotlight on Starship if you’d like to learn more about this incredible group!

Last but not least, we were overjoyed to help feature Plebcon 2023, an IRL meetup for WoW players in the UK hosted by RageDarling. Shenanigans were had, and we only wish we had been able to attend ourselves!

RAIDER.IO FEATURED STREAMER PROGRAM

A long-standing tradition at Raider.IO is to feature a new Warcraft streamer every week. This program initially began through a series of Spotlight articles and features, written by our very own Content Manager, VitaminP. From the roots of these Spotlights grew what is now our Featured Streamer program, where we promote and showcase incredible streamers, content creators, teams, and communities.

Check out the Featured Streamer Hall of Fame to see the amazing streamers we’ve featured in the past… and keep your eyes out for some great creators to come in 2024!

COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHTS

When a person, team, guild, or group is doing exceptional things in the Warcraft Community, we feel it is important to let the world know! Over the years we have tried our best to highlight and promote the wonderful people making a difference in and out of Azeroth, and 2023 was no different. Here are the Community Spotlights we were overjoyed to publish last year:

Black Mafia
Cruella
Honolulu
Emsy
Conspiracy
Baym
Overclock
Liquid
Echo
Method
Dungeon Dojo
RageDarling
Wolfdisco
Adeen

If you know of a group or person making a difference in the Community, reach out to our Events and Community Manager, Picco (picco on Discord or picco@raider.io by email), to let her know you think they’d be a good candidate for a Community Spotlight!

Raider.IO Content

Our Content Team has always strived to create original and high-quality content to entertain, educate, inspire, and connect. In 2023 we brought some more regular weekly series to our content lineup, and branched further into video content!

WEEKLY ROUTE & PLAY LIKE THE PROS

The Weekly Route has been a staple of Raider.IO since 2018, when Dratnos began curating the series. He did a fantastic job creating a weekly series of entry-level routes for Mythic+ Dungeons based on the rotating affix calendar. In 2023, Dratnos passed the Weekly Route mantle over to Bunten, who has stepped seamlessly into the role and continues producing easily-accessible and successful Mythic+ routes each week!

Building upon the success of the Weekly Route series, we decided to begin a new series – also produced weekly – geared towards players looking to push higher keys. This series, Play Like the Pros (PLTP) comes out every Thursday and serves as a quick shop of top Mythic+ routes being run in the current week by some of the highest keystone pushers in the game! Our intrepid PLTP curator, Biggerfish, spends every Tuesday and Wednesday finding top routes on the leaderboard, with that week’s affixes, and brings you importable routes with vods to help you climb those leaderboards over the weekend!

DEVELOPER INTERVIEWS

We were given the enormous opportunity by Blizzard to interview a handful of Developers working on World of Warcraft and WoW Classic this past year. With interview questions spearheaded by the bright mind of Seliathan and a full-team collaboration, we were able to sit down with Morgan Day and George Velev at BlizzCon to discuss a number of our most burning questions and topics, including Raiding and the RWF, Mythic+, and how they approach Design and Development. Morgan is the Associate Game Director for World of Warcraft, and George is one of the Game Producers.

Additionally, in preparation for the launch of Season of Discovery in WoW Classic, we got an exclusive interview opportunity with Ana Resendez and Clayton Stone, Lead Software Developer and Associate Production Director of the WoW Classic Team, respectively. We loved being able to discuss this brand new gameplay approach to WoW Classic Era.

It was exciting to get a peek behind the curtain, as it were, to learn more about how the games we love are created and some of the motivations behind Developer decisions!

ARTICLES & GUIDES

In 2023, we welcomed a new member of our Content Team, Gogogadgetkat, who took the lead on a series called Raiding 101. Under Kat’s vision and direction, this series has provided some incredible pieces that aim to help educate and support players and guild leaders across the board. Most of Raiding 101 is aimed towards guild and raid leadership, channeling Kat’s many years of successful experience running a guild as inspiration. Some of the Raiding 101 guides we’ve published in 2023 include Performance Management, Choosing Your Officers, Is Loot Council Right for Us?, and the ins and outs of Guild Recruitment.

An older series – Mythic+ 101 – was given a recharge in 2023, with updated information, data, and a fresh coat of paint. This series is geared towards players new to the Mythic+ system, starting out with a primer on What Is Mythic+ and Why Should YOU Do it?, a guide on What to Know for your First Keystone, and other topics such as Understanding Your Role in Mythic+.

Lastly for guides, we created an easy-to-follow step-by-step on How to Use the Tournament Realm. With the increasing numbers of players using the Tournament Realm each Season for both official WoW Esports and community events, we compiled all the necessary info in one place for a smoother learning curve on the setup and steps required. Happy TR’ing!

As we make our way through 2024, our Content Team aims to continue providing thought-provoking editorials and analyses on relevant topics. Last year we published a slew of such articles, including An Inside Look at Private Auras, Mythic+ Hero: What Does it Really Take, and RWF Retrospective: Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope.

VIDEO CONTENT

The Content Team at Raider.IO is ever-evolving, and 2023 saw a big push into Video content! We try our best to keep our finger on the pulse of what the WoW Community wants, and we know that some people much prefer to digest Video content as opposed to – or in conjunction with – written content. We put our team – and especially our Social Media Manager, Aesyric – to the task of creating fun, informative, and engaging video content, and we hope you’ve enjoyed it so far!

All of our Video content can be found on the Raider.IO YouTube Channel, including our RIO Snapshots, which is a series of short (30 second) videos giving you tips and tricks for Mythic+ Dungeons!

Special Thanks

What can we say…2023 was a great year for Raider.IO, and for World of Warcraft! Looking back at everything we achieved and had the privilege to be a part of, we are nothing but grateful. Thank you to everyone for making 2023 a remarkable year, and a special shoutout to all of our Patrons for their continued support. We would not be able to continue to innovate and bring you new features and services without your help.

Lastly, we’d like to extend a special thanks to our staff for their hard work and immeasurable contributions in making Raider.IO what it is today.

We cannot wait to share so much more with you all in 2024. Cheers!

DEVELOPMENT TEAM

Isak • Vlad • Arteml • ArtemK • Pelinal • Wakwak • Wotuu

OUR FEARLESS FOUNDERS

Jah • Ulsoga

About the Author

Hulahoops is the General Manager of Raider.IO and has been playing WoW since Vanilla. She has recently shelved Retail to go back and re-experience WotLK in all its glory, but will one day make her way back to the Dragon Isles. In her hey-day, Hulahoops could be found raid-leading in Mythic Progression, or competing in the MDI with her team Angry Toast. Hulahoops is a Holy Paladin in every sense of the term: she moderates the Hammer of Wrath Paladin Class Discord, and she was a practicing Lawyer for 7 years. Judgment isn't just a spell! Hulahoops decided to put the law books away and follow her passion for gaming and esports by joining the team at Raider.IO. In her capacity as General Manager, Hulahoops oversees events, content, and more!