While I have been working through a massive pile of work to do (a twelve hour day yesterday, I kid thee not), Phil has been on holiday. All. Summer. Long. He works for a school, so he just had six full weeks of holiday.
I hate him, just a little bit. Hey, I kid, I kid…I think.
Anyway, along with working through a long “Honey Do” list, he’s been doing a lot of gaming and one of those games has been Warcraft. We have old friends who have been playing with him after being away from the game for a long time, and me when I can. It’s been wonderful.
Phil played Warcraft in beta over ten years ago; I didn’t play at launch, but probably began playing in 2005. I rolled a warlock (who I am still playing as a main today) and never looked back. This was the point where I truly became a real gamer. Oh, sure, I’d played before that, beginning with Quake and lan parties all the way to roleplay in Vampire the Masquerade, Mage, Changeling, etc. I was always a gamer, but Warcraft was the game in which I discovered a place to actually live in as a part of a band of adventurers, rather than a way to spend an evening. I watched the sun rise over the Barrens, hunted fabulous beasts to tame as my animal companions and stood shoulder-to-shoulder before Ragnaros and Nefarion.
As the years went by there were newer, shinier games to experience, but none that I’ve loved as much as I did Warcraft, and wherever I go I will always have that memory of sitting on a small hill in the Barrens, watching dawn slowly creep over the grass plains as a herd of gazelle bound past. It will always feel like home.
Yep. Me too – started playing in January 2006. So many great memories of inhabiting Azeroth. Slaying ogres with my best friends, helping run an incredible guild and the elation when we finally took down Gruul, first rainfall over the plains of Desolace, finding out how to get to the secret troll party outside Darkshore. :)
My daughter’s now endgame raiding and excited about the expansion. I think about going back, but I also have *no time* – still, Warcraft will always be my first love. (Ok, after Zork, lol)
God, Zork brings back memories. :D
I keep thinking now and then about going back and raiding, as I have such fond memories of that time…but then I think about raiding as a second fulltime job and I think “Nope!”. Good times, though.