Roughly two weeks after launch. A friend of mine gave me a WoW 10-day trial key, which changed my life forever.
I was free of the MMO world since the late 90s when my recruiter got me playing EQ with him. . . Then in early 2004 I got pulled into DOAC by qacouple friends of mine. Well, that game sucked (for me) and didnt pull me in. But when WoW came out in Nov 04, I bought it the day of release, installed it, then went to language school for the afternoon-evening time slot. After that I proceeded to stay awake for months on end with minimal sleep.... grinding... raiding.... pvping...
I started in the end of vanilla and dinged just before TBC hits. So Im quite looking forward to enjoy full vanilla feeling. :)
TBC! been playing 12 years!
Vanilla and I didn't hit 60 before TBC came out
I started during mid TBC, on a private server with 100'ish peak time online players, yikes. Only came to retail when WoTLK came out.
Sit down an listen, old man FTH got a tale from a time far, far away.
I was there: the 'stresstest' while Alpha, the start of the closed EU Beta ( was part of the proud and few 2000 europeans that got in first phase ) and then WoW vanilla from EU start onwards.
The game changed ALOT: they made a cool arrangements of quests, kinda good solo and group experience and some pretty hard dungeons into something really big.
Left a couple if times but imo they lost their edge. For me with sunwell dailys, for others at other times. They had alot of bright and bold changes over the years, but never got back after a visit in cata and warlords.
Coming back to vanilla / classic sure feels like meeting an old friend again.
Whilst I started during vanilla, I only achieved level 26 (I believe) levelling a sword and board Warrior.
With hindsight, I'm not sure why I thought that was a good idea.
Anyway, the first expansion that I reached cap was WotLK. However, since then I've hit cap on all of the expansions. Even on Battle for Azeroth; however, I only lasted about 4 days before I stopped playing it.
A lot of unfinished business for me in vanilla. I guess you could say I've only experienced the easy levelling of WoW so far.
I first read about World of Warcraft in a game magazine during winter 2004/2005, when WoW wasn't released yet in Europe.
I knew that Blizzard was a quality game company (unlike today), but I had never played any MMORPG before.
Reading about people getting married in online RPGs left me... surprised to say the least.
But the more I read about WoW, the more I got excited - and when the release date had finally come (Friday, 11th. of February 2005) I cycled to our local electronics mart to wait outside for them to open.
I still remember how I was anxious I might not get a copy of the game, because I hadn't preordered it.
When the mart finally opened, I directly went to the games section and picked up "my" copy - I was so relieved!
Then I was waiting in line at the checkout.
Everyone in the line had purchased World of Warcraft - I still remember that crazy feeling of affinity between us bunch of nerds, imagining everyone of us heading home to play the game.
Well, I wasn't even able to play the game that day, because installation, patching and registration took hours to complete and I had to go to work (late shift).
At least I had the game manual, which I studied excessively during breaks.
Next day I was finally able to go online and "Melvin", my human paladin was "born".
To this day I still remember the char names of a guy ("Wothan", later "Zerberus") and a girl ("Mistrial", later "Feodora") I was soon to meet and level with...
I started in Vanilla, but I only got up to level 15-20. I didn't seriously get into the game until WotLK.
Started in Vanilla.
Cleared MC
All except Nefarian in BWL
All of AQ20
None AQ40
None Naxx
The guild I was in, fell apart after AQ20.
Have played every expansion since, quitting at some point during each of the last 3.
I missed the opening, which is a huge disappointment. One that I don't intend to replicate in Classic :)
Started in Vanilla.
Cleared MC
All except Nefarian in BWL
All of AQ20
None AQ40
None Naxx
Are you me?
Started in Vanilla.
Cleared MC
All except Nefarian in BWL
All of AQ20
None AQ40
None Naxx
Are you me?
Might be. I've done some interesting things while drunk. Cloning myself could be one.
Do you also intend to finish it all this time around?
Started in Vanilla.
Cleared MC
All except Nefarian in BWL
All of AQ20
None AQ40
None Naxx
Are you me?
Might be. I've done some interesting things while drunk. Cloning myself could be one.
Do you also intend to finish it all this time around?
Noble intentions, clone. I don't think I will be able to, unless I find myself in a guild that is perfect suited to play time/availability/flexibility.
Also, I think I did end up killing Nef before BC, but it was when I took my friends mage to play, joined a random guild who had him on farm, and went and cleared BWL. I don't count it though, cause it was probably patch 2.0.0 (Pre-TBC patch).
I actually started with my own account in 2.0 pre-patch... so I am not sure if that counts as vanilla or not. :lol:
I had made several characters during vanilla on a friend's account when I would come over and visit. Usually just random warriors and other classes and kill a few starting NPCs... sadly I never was able to really be apart of the real vanilla. My early days were the beginning of TBC, which, in the beginning really did echo a ton of vanilla in regards to minimal UI changes in 2.0 compared to the end of TBC at 2.4.3, and leveling rates not being reduced, mounts still at 40, etc. So when I played on Nostalrius (up to level 46 only), it did bring back a lot of memories since the leveling was the exact same as I remembered it.
Well, I wasn't even able to play the game that day, because installation, patching and registration took hours to complete and I had to go to work (late shift).
This brings back memories. I think my friend's install discs which he lent me were patch 1.6 when I installed the game. This was early 2007 and I proceeded to have to install all the way up to 2.0 which went in major patches to 1.10 -> 1.12 -> 2.0. I didn't even get to play that night because the downloads too so long.