Been a little bit busy the past week, deadlines to meet, groups to work with, things to get stressed over so I thought, after handing everything in on time (just...) and having the day off tomorrow due to cancelled lectures I'll do a bit more of this crackin' meme!
The title says it all and I remember my first playthrough as if it were yesterday, but first, some backstory! Because everyone loves a bit of backstory!
I'd played Guild Wars for years before I got Warcraft. I was a young 'un back then and my parents didn't really like it, so it being free to play made it easier - as they didn't have to fork up any cash.
I was 16 when I got Warcraft, my girlfriend at the time bought it me one christmas because she thought it was something to do with Guild Wars. All I'll say is, that Warcraft was the best thing to come outta that relationship.
I remember installing it eagerly and then doing all the stuff that comes with starting a new game. My mum was happy because I was sat gleefully, chatting to her while she was cooking Christmas dinner and I was literally excited about it and was chatting about what some of the guys I knew via Guild Wars had said about it. My dad on the other hand, didn't quite understand how excited one could get over a game.
The login page was amazing. I remember shouting to my mum to come and look, to which she just smiled and nodded in agreement to everything I said - poor soul didn't have a clue what the Guild Wars login page looked like and how it looked so much better than that but bless her, she humoured me.
I was logged in and creating a character within seconds, I had a look through all the races and was intrigued by the Horde - they looked like the bad guys and the description on the creation page painted them out to be brutal and merciless. I was a bit put off by that, I've always been a fan of the good guy but after playing the same looking character for so long in Guild Wars and always wondering why you couldn't be the angrylioncatpeople (called Charr in game...) I decided I was going to see what all the fuss was about and rolled an Orc warrior.
I tried to get the name Jorg. I had a thing back then where all my character names had to start with a J and that was when Jakkru was created. However, Jorg was taken and I didn't want a different name. Luckily, I had some algerba homework next to me and decided that Jorgx was decent enough - I'm not even kidding.
I logged into Durotar and my god...it was orange. Amazingly beautiful but wildly orange. I decide to take a look at all the stuff I could do in the manual but got bored after about 20 seconds and just went about my ways. I got to level 5 soonish - I wasn't an "MMO noob" but I wasn't prepared for WoW, the starter area, I could handle but I thought that was it, I thought that I'd be zoned somewhere else. It was only when I was asked to go to Razor Hill I realised that the starter area was only, well...for starters.
I was amazed by the size of the world, the colours...everything. I was amazed by the amount of people playing and I tried to get into a guild, seeing as that's what I knew from Guild Wars - guilds mean help, help means levels and levels means more stuff to see and do.
I asked in trade and this is where I made friends with my oldest online buddy, I have him on Real ID now and I chat to him nearly everyday still. He answered my noobish question, told me to hit R to reply to a whisper and then boosted me through Ragefire Chasm - which then and there got me hooked. I remained guildless until level 25, where I found Absolution. My home.
My first playthrough was amazing and it got me hooked. I loved the differences from guild wars. I especially liked the difficulty and I'm quite annoyed they made everything a cake-walk now because the first 10 levels really did seperate those that continue to play and enjoy the game for those that will just give up.
Looking back on it and it's been 4, nearly 5 years since I started playing and, even though some aspects of the game bore me, some still make me feel like a 16 year old, who wants his mum to take a look at how awesome this green guy looks. Oh and I still love shoulder items more than anything in the game.
"Looking back on it and it's been 4, nearly 5 years since I started playing and, even though some aspects of the game bore me, some still make me feel like a 16 year old, who wants his mum to take a look at how awesome this green guy looks." - Aww bless your cotton socks Jak *hugs*
ReplyDeleteI still feel like that often though - when I make a new character, or find a new outfit - I grab someone (usually Himself or Youngest) and go 'oh oh - looook!' One of the (many) things I love about WoW is after, ahem, 6 (I think) years of playing, I'm STILL discovering 'new' stuff - whether its characters, or quest text, or flavour text or places. It goes a long way to keeping the game feeling fresh.
Your wide-eyed amazement reminds me much of my own experience, which was in TBC. My friend made a Troll and I, a Blood Elf. He met up with our mutual friend in Org and told me to come join them (at level 6). I looked at the map, looked at the ocean, and said no way. Our friend told me to go to Undercity (which I envisioned as some sprawling, epic city going under the entire ocean - how else would they connect?). I looked at the map again. At the path through Eversong, Ghostlands, Eastern & Western Plaguelands...and said again, NO WAY.
ReplyDeleteFun times. :)
Oh, the good ol' days when we were all new and fresh to the game. I came from text based MUDs myself so seeing graphics at all was amazing to me - but then the WoW graphics were pretty kick-ass on their own as well!
ReplyDeleteI know a lot of people complain these days that the graphics need to be updated, and while I would like some more pixels on the older races I quite like the cartoon-style of the game compared to more realistic looking games. Maybe that's just me - but it seems fitting somehow.
Also, no wonder you love shoulders - they always look so much bigger and better on orcs! :)