Memories

It was WoW's 5th Anniversary yesterday and people on Blogs everywhere are posting about the memories through the years. I figured I'd put up my own, foggy as they might be. I will try to remember the course of events, though I know going into it that I have forgotten a lot. We'll see how well I do.

I started playing WoW in February of '08. I had been playing Neverwinter Nights and Diablo (all versions) for years. Friends from NWN and coworkers had been telling me about WoW for a long time, but I was acting in my typical manner -- not allowing myself to get caught up in they hype of the day. (I mentioned this in a past post regarding my reluctance to enjoy World Events in WoW.)

So, how did it start? I was at home sick with bronchitis. I was well enough to sit up for a few hours at a time but not well enough to go back to work. I had a long week or two ahead of me of sitting home bored out of my mind. I looked at the WoW installation disks and shrugged.

A few hours later the installation was complete and all the updates were downloaded and installed. I logged in and created my first character (yes, I called them "characters" back then, not "toons"). If I remember correctly, my first toon was my druid. She's currently at the top of the character selection screen, which is a good indication, and I don't remember having a toon before her that I deleted. So, I feel confident saying she was my first.

I remember standing there looking around, wondering what in the world I should do. I hadn't read anything about how to play, so I was winging it. I had played enough games to have a general idea. I spoke with the guy with the ! over his head. And so it began.

I remember being overwhelmed by the beauty of the Night Elf starting area. I also remember distinctly being afraid of approaching Darnassus. I thought big cities were dangerous and that, if I got too close, I'd be murdered instantly. So, I didn't go to it until someone told me about the bag vendor just outside of it. Hoping for the best, I approached it and found out that Alliance cities, especially on PVE servers, are safe zones. :-)

Later, I was in Auberdine and I was running by a group of people. I can't remember what our interaction was, but the next thing I knew I was invited to join a guild. My very first guild. (The cool thing is that my druid, mage and hunter are in the off-shoot of that guild, almost two years later.)

I remember one rogue in the guild needed elixirs. Since I was an Alchemist, I created them for him. But, I remember thinking how difficult and expensive it was to level alchemy, especially since I couldn't find the herbs I needed anymore. (I didn't know about looking for nodes on WoWhead and I didn't know about selling stuff on the AH.) I was still very very poor.

I remember getting the Aquatic form quest and having no idea how to get to Wetlands. A much higher level player passed by me and I asked him about it. He actually escorted me all the way on foot. I even died a couple times to the Wetland alligators (or whatever they're called) along the way. I was blown away by how friendly that guy was. I meant to remember him, but I sadly didn't know about the Friends list so I didn't add him to it.

Another memory I have of that trip to Wetlands was stepping into Ironforge for the first time. I was blown away at the enormity. The guy lead me straight to the flight path and I remember asking, "How in the world do you remember how to get there?" Honestly...Ironforge was amazing. I remember turning to my husband and saying, "Honey, you HAVE to see this." He was equally impressed.

I remember finding a shadowgem and wondering if I had found one of the most valuable items in the game. It was a green item, not a white or gray one. I went to work the next day and asked a coworker if I should keep it. He, of course, had been playing WoW for years, so he was long past finding shadowgems. He gave me a strange look and asked, "Do you need it for anything?" That was the day I learned about WowHead.com.

I remember drowning in the canals of Stormwind on one of my toons because I didn't know how to swim and I couldn't figure out where the exit points were.

I remember running along the path in Ashenvale, heading to the Eastern end. I encountered my first horde character. We both stopped on the road and checked each other out. I, not fully understanding the difference between PvE and PvP servers, was convinced he would kill me any second. But, it didn't happen.

Then later I remember witnessing my first PvP raid in Goldshire. All of these high level hordies on mounts! stood at the edge, taunting all us alliance lowbies. Then a full-scale battle ensued.

At some point I created a human Paladin, because I wanted more survivability. That toon, however, is long gone.

I created a gnome warlock. I hated the gnome/dwarf starting area so much that I didn't get him past lvl 8. I parked him in Ironforge and he became my bank toon for a very long time.

I created a night elf rogue and leveled him to 29. But, I got terribly bored with him. It took forever to stealth in and position correctly before attacking a mob. And I never really could figure out which ability worked best under which circumstances.

I also created my hunter. She quickly replaced my druid as my main when I figured out how much easier it was to survive as a hunter. For months I played her almost exclusively, ignoring my druid and the other alts I had. (As is always the case with me, I created an alt of every class, just to experience the game play.) She was in the same guild as my druid until one fateful day. We had done a naked run from Auberdine to Astranaar. It was good clean fun -- one of the most enjoyable events I've experienced in the game. But then it degenerated into something ugly. The officers started putting dirty/suggestive comments in the Notes on people's toons. Many of them offended me. I kept removing mine, but someone would put something disgusting in it soon thereafter. I complained to the guild leader and he just called me an uptight prude. I /gquit soon thereafter on my hunter (though I left my druid alt in the guild).

I joined a different guild with my hunter and befriended an officer quite quickly. He was a lvl 70 mage with raid-level gear. He ran me through instances and helped me gear up. He was a very nice guy, but I never connected with anyone else in the guild.

Meanwhile, one person from my druid's guild became the closest friend I've had so far in the game. He taught me a lot about the game that I hadn't previously understood and helped me with countless quests, profession leveling, etc. I had some of my alts in his guild (not the same guild as my druid). For most of BC and into much of Wrath, his was my main guild. There was a core group of members that leveled together and did instances together. We had a blast.

Somewhere near the end of BC I finally got my first invite to a raid -- Kara. Before then, I had no interest in raiding. Or better said, I was intimidated by the idea of entering a raid, which was enough deterrent for me. I was content leveling my alts and having fun with my hunter.

Kara was an amazing experience. It seemed like the designers of 5-man instances were not the same people as those who designed raid instances. The details were stunning. And the encounters...holy moly! That first one when you step into Kara was deadly. By that time I had learned the importance of focusing on the assigned mobs. But, I still it felt like chaos to me. I was so worried about making huntard mistakes that I barely did anything at the beginning of each pull. At least that meant I made no mistakes. I remember how complicated the strategy was for Moroes and wondering how anyone could ever remember it. I remember loving the Opera event, thinking it was the epitome of creativity on the part of the designers. It was an eye opening experience for me. My hunter still dons some Kara gear -- she's still only lvl 71.

Oh and...to this day I still get lost in Kara. I never fully understood how to get around in there.

On that first trip into Kara I learned two life-changing things. (1) There is something important called Hit Rating. :-) And (2) I love raids! My hunter was still in the guild with whose members I had no connection. The people running this raid were incredibly nice, supportive and fun. During our second day in Kara they asked me to join their guild. Having no real ties to my guild, I /gquit and joined the Kara raiding guild. I had high hopes for weekly raids, but that didn't end up happening. The raid leaders were distracted with real life stuff. Within a couple weeks of inviting me to their guild, they announced their need to take a few months off from the game. So I sat there all alone in a guild.

With nothing else to do, I spent much of my time questing and farming on my Hunter. I became very good at using the Auction House and made quite a bit of money at the end of BC. Enough to be the first of my friends to have epic flying. They were constantly spending money on the AH buying gear for the alts. I learned quickly that alts can level in any gear. Why waste money buying new stuff for them when they'd outgrow it within a few days? So my alts leveled in quest gear and drops, and my main earned and horded money.

Side note: Meanwhile, I would occasionally get bored and would go to another server on which I created Horde toons. I have a few of them at this point. The highest level one is a level 26 BE Paladin on Proudmoore. (Once it's possible to pass BoA items to opposite factions, I think I'll delete one of my alliance toons and raise a hordie on my server.) But, I'm too lazy to spend much time on them. The money grind takes too long. I'd rather stick with my main toons and fund alts with them.

At some point during all of this my focus shifted to my priest alt. One of the problems with my main guild was lack of healers. Creating a priest was my solution to that. I leveled her to 58 as shadow, then switched to Holy. I've healed with her ever since. I can't remember when I hit lvl 70 on her, but I think it must have been right before Wrath was released. I remember being excited about the possibility of raiding with her when I hit 70. But, I quickly found out I was too far behind to ever have a chance. I was still in quest blues while everyone else was in purples from the high-end raids. There was no way they wanted a new lvl 70 priest in their raids. Kara runs were almost non-existent. And I couldn't get into the higher ones. I was so disappointed.

Then Wrath hit. I leveled my priest to 80...and that is around the time that I started writing this Blog, so the rest is already here.

It has been a fun year and 9 months. A roller coaster ride in some respects. But there's no denying it, I've had a lot of fun!