How did you discover World of Warcraft?
by Cari Cole 
Apr 13th 2011 at 8:00PM
A bit over two years ago, I read a book titled Daemon by Daniel Suarez (a great read, by the way). The plot of the book involves a computer genius mobilizing the players of a major MMORPG to take part in a "project." I became intrigued by the world of MMORPGs and, with a couple of mouse clicks, Wikipedia led me to WoW.
The words "free trial" meant I had nothing to lose by stepping into Azeroth, so few more mouse clicks and I was a fresh-minted mage killing kobolds for Marshal McBride. I died. A lot. I even got lost inside Northshire Abbey for 10 minutes or so. I also had a lot of fun.
I didn't know anyone who played WoW or any other MMORPG and had absolutely no idea how anything worked. I turned down the Gold Dust Exchange quest in Elwynn Forest because I thought it would be better for me to keep any gold I found than to give it to Remy "Two Times." I ran around Goldshire in awe of the god-like presence of level 80 players and had no idea why that little suit of armor was appearing on my screen, piece by piece.
I figured things out. Since those first days, I have leveled a main to 85, been in a guild, run a few instances and become somewhat of an altoholic. None of it would have happened if a novel hadn't made me curious.
How about you? Any interesting or unusual stories about what led you to WoW? I can't wait to hear them.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 11)
Angelo Apr 13th 2011 8:06PM
I had played WC2 and a little WC3 so I was a fan. However, I hated the concept of MMOs basically because I didn't want to pay a monthly fee, and like others, had accepted the stigma of MMO and their player base.
During the Christmas season of 2008, my friends invited me to a LAN party, and it happened to have been the first week Wrath came out. My friend was playing the Death Knight starter area and I thought it looked cool.
On Black Friday, I picked up the battle chest for $15, so I figrued I'd give it a shot since the game was cheap and first month was free. I was hooked.
I loved the game and all my close friends played. Me, my brother, my girlfriend, my childhood friends...all in the same guild.
But sooner or later we all come to a close, pretty much all my friends quit, and I quit a month after Cataclysm came out.
If it weren't for the Death Knight starter area, and the cheap battle chest price, I might have never discovered such an incredible game. But good things come to an end, so I had to quit.
mheatleyadams Apr 13th 2011 8:07PM
My friends got me into the game, and the first 'MMO' I had played was Runescape back in high school. I had played Warcraft 2, but hadn't really tried Warcraft 3 till later, after meeting up with some friends from high school again at the place I was working. We all sat together at lunch, they started talking about WoW and steadily drew me in.
They don't play as much anymore though, but that's alright, the guild I am in makes up for it lol.
Revnah Apr 14th 2011 3:09AM
My ex is one of those people who played WoW from day 1. And of course, because he played, I "couldn't". It was HIS thing and I had to have my OWN thing (not tell you what that was). But I did look over his shoulder a lot. He was a raid healer - in the old 40-man raid days - and it was fascinating to watch.
A couple months after we split up, a friend of mine and I decided we might as well get the 10-day trial. Doesn't hurt, right? I created my nelf druid and the rest, as they say, is history!
My ex was well surprised when I whispered him one day ;-) And my guild always wonder why I remember all these things from Vanilla and TBC days when I only started playing in Wrath!
Revnah Apr 14th 2011 3:11AM
Comment fail.... I meant to create a NEW comment, how did it end up as a reply? I thought you have to click the "Reply" thing for that? Sorry, guys :-(
Baba Apr 14th 2011 5:25AM
Same here, I first got into MMO's by playing Runescape with a friend of mine, at one point on of *his* friends left to go play WoW, but we stayed. Our ultimate triumph was engineering a scam-wave based on this new tradeable quest item that had a similar name to a really expensive item, so we said the two were equally powerful and made 15 million from flipping these (only worth 1000).
After RS implemented the new trade rules it totally killed that, and any other decent method of gold making, so I went to my friend's friend and asked him to show me WoW. The rest, as they say, is history.
Neyssa Apr 14th 2011 7:31AM
@Revna:
My story is pretty similar: my ex-boyfriend played from day 1. However, we wanted me to get into WoW - I was not really interested (I only played FPS games before and I liked those). Sometimes he let me ride his paladin to Onyxia's lair because he still needed the T2 headpiece (waited for that loot for almost a year!).
I started a NE druid on his account, abandoned it after lvl6. He leveled it to lvl14 and told me to do the aquatic form quest: he told me how to travel to Westfall from Darnassus and left me home alone. Thats when I got hooked: I took screenshots of my traveling, I was amazed by the deeprun tram, all that stuff. So I bought an account, transfered my NE druid and reached lvl60 when BC came out. We raided together until SSC and TK.
I guess I should have felt it was time to break up when I felt I need to do something alone in the game :) I went to another server and started to play horde. Turns out a good friend of mine was playing there too. I eventually broke up with my boyfriend, and not through wow, but I came together with that friend.
Now we are playing together as hordies (for more than 2 years now), as a tank-healer pair.
Noyou Apr 13th 2011 8:10PM
Played a lot of RPGs on many systems. D&D back in the old old days. So when a good friend of mine sent me the free trial thing I did it. I didn't really like it a lot at first. Took maybe 3-4 days and then I was hooked. Also couldn't trade anything :p I remember how epic it was to actually get to 1g from killing things. Fun times indeed. I am one of the few who actually read most of that little book that comes with the game as it was installing. But I have had my share of "noobness" including but not limited to not realizing hunter pets had their own talents until around lvl 50 ;) Yeah.
Harvoc Apr 13th 2011 11:30PM
Same here! My laptop didn't have enough space to install WoW and its expansions so while I was waiting for stuff to be deleted and installed, I read the manual.
Jarvish Apr 14th 2011 6:48AM
I didn't realise my HUNTER had talents until level 40ish, when my little brother came to visit. He was the one who introduced me to the game, btw.
- Jar
Bluelightning Apr 14th 2011 10:11AM
Haha I remember when I was leveling my first toon, a warrior (a warrior is what I always roll first in any rpg game), I didn't realize there was more than just that arms talent tree until I was almost 30.
Rimar Apr 14th 2011 6:17PM
In 1977 a guy I knew at my junior Highschool sold me this grey book titled "Gamma World" and that introduced me to RPGs in general. I had never seen or heard of anything like this before but it was incredibly addictive. This led to just about all the other mainstream RPGs (like D&D).
When computers became popular with being able to call a BBS (bulletin board system) and play an online rpg, I started with a game called Tele Arena. I also did a little MajorMud but always kept going back to Tele Arena.
When Wow came out, I avoided it like the plague. I had learned while playing Tele Arena how addicted I could get to these type of games. So a few years passed and I met a Russian woman online thru a chat prg and we fell in love. I eventually moved there to marry her.
At first, there wasn't much for me to do as I could not legally work in the Ukraine so I started looking on the city's network for games. That is where I discovered a city private server running the BC version of Wow.
My first toon was a holy priest and because I was new to teh game, I leveled 1 to 70 basically only using my STAFF as my offensive weapon and using heals and a bubble. I'd use Shadow word: pain as my mob puller.
It wasn't until I moved back to America and discovered live servers (and how they actually WORKED correctly :)) that I also started learning that things like just using a staff to level a caster was pretty awful.
Now, I have multiple 85's and have played every class. :-)
Gäbriel - Warsong Apr 13th 2011 8:38PM
well, i was doing nothing on the middle of 2009 so a friend sayd me to play it with him, i didnt like the idea of paying even beacuse its even more expensive in brazil but its worth it
namethe Apr 13th 2011 8:12PM
I played Ultima Online back in the day, skipped Everquest, friends beta'd WoW and got me to play wih them back in Vanilla. Stopped playing. Started again in Cata.
Josho Apr 14th 2011 6:28AM
Is the sole reason this got downvoted because it wasn't 'exciting' enough, or am I missing something?
Xevius Apr 13th 2011 8:12PM
Well, One day I was in a game shop and I just decided what the heck, I just bought the game outright despite what I had heard of being addictive.
No real reason other than "why not".
Foto Apr 13th 2011 8:14PM
Long ago I saw the wow ad on the final page of wc3 strategy guide, thats how I know such game existed.
I was playing D2X until my highschool finishes, brought wow straight after christmas 2004. Addicted ever since.
Iirdan Apr 13th 2011 8:12PM
I went over to a friends house to work on a school project. He was watching G4 when I walked in, and it was an episode of Cheat about WoW. It looked pretty decent, so I figured I'd try the trial.
It's been five years and I've thought about quitting only once. Fortunately, thanks to Pox on Shadow Council, my interest has been renewed.
Haden Apr 13th 2011 8:48PM
oh my god same story here man. i remember seeing BC and vanilla on Cheats back in 07 and was like "oh that looks like fun" was not until July of 07 that i finally picked up a copy and have never looked back. Kristin Holt i don't know whether i should yell at you or thank you.
jasonfelliott Apr 13th 2011 8:14PM
Girlfriend was playing Runequest/Runescape(?) and was considering the paid option. I bought WoW for her and said "if you're going to pay, this is the one, or so I've heard."
This was a few months before BC. She became addicted, then I did, even though I'm not a gamer at heart. Mid-way through BC, I got my own account too since we wanted to play together. We've both been playing ever since. We split up a year ago, but still play together, although she's not on as often as I am these days.
jasonfelliott Apr 13th 2011 8:17PM
Now if only I could get my new lady love to stop all her Zynga nonsense and come to the dark side. Working on it.