Where were you when you first learned about the existence of WoW?

I had been playing counter-strike competitively and 2 of my highschool friends talked about WoW all the time. They would always stop talking when I was around because they didnt think I would like it. I expressed some interest and both refused to say anything about the game insisting that I would hate it. This fueled me to get the game because NO ONE TELLS ME WHAT I DONT LIKE! Needless to say, I hated the game... Wizards and magic... This was dumb. But alas, I paid my 15$ sub and I was damn well going to get my monies worth. I forced myself to play on and off and my character slowly grew as did my attachment to the game. Eventually I was an addict.

Hah what an unconventional beginning, with hate and pride! Alls well that ends well though

Saw people playing it at an internet café, this was in the CS 1.6 & DotA Allstars days, so it was rare to see kids my age playing it. Tried it out when I got the chance but couldn't be bothered to fight over a seat every time, wasn't THAT impressed by it in the little time I got to play.

Later on my older brother picked up a copy at the start of Wrath, that's when the addiction kicked in.
I still remember when I had the account all to myself for an entire month in summer due to him going on vacation, don't think I showered for over a week when he left.

Showers are cleansing for the soul AND the body! But I've been there haha.

Krunk I've always been interested in the internet cafe culture as it wasn't a big thing where I'm from. Have you made more friends in-game or in-cafe??

Found forum of an unknown game called "Art Of War" on my internet provider site and decided to give it a try. Lately I realized that the game actually called World of Warcraft.
In time I learned about WoW I had very shitty internet connection and horrible PC and could play only on my internet provider servers in my country. So, first WoW experience i had on non-official server at my home. There was only around 30 people online at the time in whole world, server was crashing maybe once in 20-30 minutes with a rollback of 10, almost nothing was working, only simplest spells, like 2-3 talents in each talent tree. On top of all that my computer at that time was so shit that it could run the game at maximum of 12 (!) FPS with minimum settings and camera turned all the way to the ground. But holy cow, I enjoyed the game so much, was literally almost crying out of excitement leveling my first character. I even remember him to this day - it was Night Elf Warrior. Those days was truly some of the best in my life.

Romsia It's incredible how much this game has impacted all of our lives! Where are you from?

I'm from Belarus, Minsk.

A friend told me about a game he had seen while playing Diablo 2 LOD at a local internet café. We had a look at the World of Warcraft website and i decided to give it a try, we rushed to the local gameshop at bought a copy of the game. We played all day and the day after i told all my irl friends that was playing Diablo about this wonderful game. Within a week we where all exploring Azeroth together having the time of our lives.

Showers are cleansing for the soul AND the body! But I've been there haha.

@Krunk I've always been interested in the internet cafe culture as it wasn't a big thing where I'm from. Have you made more friends in-game or in-cafe??

Well, pretty much every person in the neighbourhood and school played there, so I'd say in-cafe. Games played there at the time were super rarely online, everyone would scrim against each other on LAN, only the really good players would play ladder matches for competitive games.
It's a stark contrast to modern day internet cafés, if they're still around seeing as how the barrier to entry for computers & internet is so low now.
Back then it was a tight-knit community of sorts, everyone knew each other, kind of like Classic. Could draw a parallel between the two.

But, things started shifting majorly when we got internet at home; I learned English from TV & video games so I started communicating more with people online, around the same time I got into WoW, so now the majority of my decade old friendships are with people I've met on the internet.

Krunk your post makes me almost nostalgic for something I never even had the privilege to experience! Sounds like we need to start a petition for classic internet cafes

Back in 2005 when I was still in highschool, I had a couple of friends who wouldn't shut up about the game. I would overhear their conversations and became curious and started asking questions. One day I just decided to buy the game and give it a shot, I instantly became hooked, best decision of my life. I miss what the game used to be compared to today, the game just doesn't have as much soul put into it anymore. I can't wait to play Classic.

Back in 2004 I was reading gaming magazine at home and there was a small article stub about WoW beta (or alpha?) leak, discouraging people from trying it and recommending to wait. There was also small screenshot that looked really wonky after playing W3 (I think some disproportionate orc standing next to tree stump?). Until then I have never heard about WoW before. Later I found out that my Warcraft 3 disc had WoW trailer on it. Ever since then I started frequenting WoW forums with anticipation.

The preorders were very limited in numbers (for prepaids as well!) and I didn't get my copy. The news said Blizzard would supply more copies a few months after release. I was so hyped I decided to get it off local auction house, similar to eBay (so far I had good run with them). People were selling WoW for ridiculous amounts: 200%, 300% of price. I found one offer with just small margin which should have been suspicious. Long story short, I got scammed. Surprisingly, years later Police traced the guy despite his use of fake credentials.

So I had to wait for next batch of copies. Until then I played W3 ladder a lot and often asked people in chat if anybody tried WoW. Nobody answered, nobody said yes. I was so shocked, this game was so anticipated. Certainly somebody must have tried it?! I didn't realize that whoever tried WoW, wouldn't turn on W3 for a long time.

When the next batch of copies came, I started my adventure as human mage. For weeks I was so stoked I couldn't sleep. And so the addiction began. :D

I was always an RTS baby. I loved the warcraft franchise and I loved the starcraft franchise. I played these games to death.

Fast forward to the release of WoW. I knew it existed but I had been playing blizzard games forever and I wanted to give something else a try, and because some of my friends were playing it. Instead of buying WoW, I decided to join my friends in City of Heroes/Villians. And I have to say, it was a very enjoyable game for my very first MMO. The customization options in the game blew my mind. But that was about the best part of the game for me. Just messing around with the character creator and making whatever hero or villain I could think of. The actual gameplay portion of the game left a lot to be desired.

After a bit of time with the game I thought, you know what... it's time to return to my roots. I gave another game developer a shot and it didn't really scratch the itch I was feeling, so I made the switch and started playing WoW.

Oof... big mistake. That game showed me what I was actually missing in an MMO. CoH/V had this thing where pretty much every quest took place in an instanced zone where you were alone, almost like a mini dungeon, except you don't go in with a group. So you have the open world and then quest locations that are instanced, but solo. WoW was ALL world with some instanced zones, but those were dungeons. Pretty damn bad ass.

I must have spent all of vanilla not even playing the game to 60 but instead rolling alts of every single class because I wanted to experience everything the game had to offer in terms of zones, races, doodads, and just overall feeling. I was hooked man. I played WoW from vanilla to the beginning of Cata. I tried really hard to like the game in Cata but the game that I came to love was a shadow of its former self and I just didn't love it as much as I did back in WotLK. Perhaps it was also because I didn't really leave myself a gap of time between WotLK and Cata and I just kept playing and playing and probably burned myself out by the time Cata released. Needless to say, I am insanely stoked for Classic!

At the mall checking out new RTS games and saw a lot of posters about it.

I reserved a copy there and then!