She's Got Game

So, World of Warcraft is easily the most popular game to hit the market in quite some time, reaching millions of gamers from the US to Europe to the Asian regions.  I’ve been playing since right after release (November 23, 2004).  I think I got the game at the end of December, so you can say I’ve been playing for 5-6 years now, give or take some breaks, etc.  If you’ve played since the beginning, you know the game has drastically changed, some for the better, some for the worse.  I decided to write this post as just a little taste of what the game used to be like and through the perspective of someone who has literally experienced just about everything there was to experience (except for a few current HM’s).



I started playing WoW in ’04 as a Night Elf Hunter on an RP server with my real life friend, Brad. He had a Night Elf Warrior and we got to about level 25 before we decided to switch servers to one that his brother Jonathan and our other friend Dylan was playing.  One of the first servers created, Warsong, was our destination.  I created a Dwarf Warrior named Auracc, and started the long, long grind to 60.  At this point of the game, no one was yet level 60 and high level instances were considered Scarlet Monastery and Maraudon was a mere dream.  Gradually, people started learning the game, and the first level 60, A night elf Hunter named Avatar dinged on our server.  This was huge for the game, as Avatar would gradually go on to define hardcore raiding and set the standard for raiders.  I was around level 30-35 at this time IIRC and was gradually making my way through STV, grinding away at the seemingly endless grind.  I would get level 40, struggle to buy my regular mount, and keep grinding away. Finally, after what seemed like years, I got to level 60, which back then – was a feat within itself.  The first battlegrounds started coming out.  First WSG, then AB, and the anticipated release of AV followed.  AV really sparked the first “rep grind” BG teams, led hardcore on Warsong by a little Gnome Warlock who’s name is avoiding my memory at the moment.  Back then, you could still earn the PVP titles, so on top of grinding AV rep for The Unstoppable Force and Mount, you had to grind over 100k honor per week to gain a steady advancement in rank.  100k is doable in a day now. However, back then – 100k in a week was huge.  You were playing atleast 6-7 hours per day, with a lot of people getting multiple people to play their account at every hour of the day.  You almost had to to get Grand Marshal or High Warlord.

Another thing that most of the modern day WoW players have no recollection of, or will ever know of , is 15 man UBRS and LBRS runs. They are now 5 mannable easy, but back then it was 15 man, and could take up to 2 hours or so.  The pulls were intensive, there was hardcore CC involved, and there was a big fight for the loot that dropped, especially my favorite – Dal’Rend’s Swords.  I went on quite a few of these on my warrior, just trying to get any kind of gear where I could join a raiding guild.  By now, Avatar and were well into Molten Core and his clan of 40 “elite” raiders were sporting all kinds of new gear that made me long to raid.  Onyxia came out next, and hell followed.  Noone could figure out the Deep Breath mechanic, but Avatar and his gang finally pulled through and downed him, sporting their new Tier 2 helms before BWL and Tier 2 even came out.  Gear was extremely hard to come by back then, mostly because of fail groups and people all competing for the same gear, so I became very discouraged by my warrior.  I couldn’t afford to buy the mats to make myself an Arcanite Reaper, and I couldn’t get into any of the AV rep farming groups to grind for an Unstoppable Force, so life sucked as a warrior.

By this time, Dylan and Jonathan had rolled horde on a server by the name of Dentarg, I believe. I rolled a troll hunter, and started the grind again.  By this time, I knew the way to go, and I knew a lot more about the game.  I instantly LOVED hunter, every aspect about it.  I quickly leveled to 60, not even stopping to take all the newfound Horde zones in, just trying to get to 60 as fast as I could.  Luck would quickly turn my way in a PUG 10 man Scholomance run at level 57.  I found a group in trade, and learned that I was the only true non-guildie in a group full of the members of a small guild called .  They quickly asked me if I would be interested in joining their guild, and I promptly said yes.  Altimate was run by 2 french canadians from Ontario, Canada and there I would find my first raiding experiences, and my first puzzle to solve.  I excelled at hunter.  Altimate quickly grew.  We were on the same server as one of the Worlds best guilds in but we were able to find 40 members of our own to start blasting through Molten Core.  We downed Rag within a few weeks, and started the trek into the newly released Blackwing Lair.  

By this time, I had completed the single handedly best quest in the game, the Hunter quest for Lok’Delar and Rhok’Delar, the epic bow/staff combo that was insane to get.  The quest was truly a test to how well you knew your class, and was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done in game.  Only a few people on our server had it, I believe I was around the 5th or 6th and I sported it into BWL.  I was now the Hunter class leader over about 5 other hunters and it was clear why.  I blew them away on every fight, and quickly advanced my way up to officer of Altimate.  We were blowing through Blackwing Lair, quickly advancing our way to being one of the top guilds of the server, behind Ropetown.  BWL was quite possibly my favorite instance ever released in WoW.  To me, the boss fights were truly FUN.  And it took commitment.  You had to farm for your Fire Resistance gear, farm for your potions, and work hard to enchant your gear to maximum benefit.  Guild enchanters and alchemists were not uncommon, and many guilds worked hard as a group everyday to reap the benefits of high level enchants available only by certain reps or drops.

This made the game fun to me, but Blizzard was getting a lot of negative feedback from the “casual” players. This would quickly ruin the game for the rest of us that enjoyed these aspects, as you’ll soon see.  We downed Nefarion, which was a true test to a guild.  This fight was insane, and involved the utmost coordination from every aspect, healing, dps, and tanking.  By this time we were the 2nd ranked guild on the server, and we quickly conquered Zul’Gurub, the first released 15 man raid instance.  It was well designed and planned out, and the fights were perfectly challenging for a 15 man, thus – another one I really enjoyed every week.  AQ 15 and 40 were released soon after, and we quickly conquered 15, but 40 was another story.  By this time people were starting to get burnt out a little bit on raiding 2-3 nights a week and we were having trouble filling a 40 man raid.  We easily downed the first 3 or 4 bosses in AQ40 with 35 or less people, but it just couldn’t be done without a full raid after that.  No cross server transfers back then really made recruiting tough, but we did the best we could to progress to boss 6 or 7 in AQ40, enough for me to get my bow off Huhran.  Nature resist was the new thing now, and the guild spent all it’s free time collecting recipes and materials to bulk up our Nature Resist.  We wouldn’t get too far into AQ40 before recruits started running high and dry on Dentarg.  We were forced to go back to 2 15 man groups and do all the ZG and AQ15 we could stomach.

By this time, I was one of the top hunters on Dentarg, only behind 2 or 3 of Ropetown’s guys. I was a frequent member of 15 man premade BG groups and made my way up to rank 10 in the pvp world.  I had just about every piece of PVE gear a hunter would want, and it showed in PVP.  I could easily 1v3 people and left alone with a healer, could demolish groups of 4 and 5.  I was having a blast, and made some good friends within the guild.  However, I still really wanted to play with my RL friends, and they were still playing alliance on Warsong.  My first real WoW predicament, along with the newly announced first expansion, the Burning Crusade.

Hope you enjoyed part I, stay tuned for the rest later when I have time!

-Brooks