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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: How did you create your first character?
by Jason Christ 
Dec 8th 2011 at 8:00AM
When a buddy asked me to consider coming back to Warcraft after a failed attempt shortly after the original release, I reluctantly decided to create a new account. When he asked me what faction and class I wanted to play, I settled on an Alliance paladin after researching classes online. I wasn't entirely sure what exactly a tank, healer and DPS meant in practice, but the paladin could do all three, so that's what I'd be. Plus, they sounded like defenders of all that was right and true.
It turns out, that was the easy part of creating my character. Next, I spent time agonizing over the name. I'd look for ones I liked from the randomly generated suggestions. Then I'd try combining elements of one name with another. I tried using simple words from foreign languages. Finally, I found the perfect name that would define my character for life, a Greek word representing one of the core values of a paladin: Truth.
Having picked a class and name, it was finally time to tinker with the races that could be paladins and see which ones fit the new name. After probably about 100 permutations across classes, from random appearances to manually matching features, I settled on a human, and my journey began.
How did you create your first character? Did someone recommend a class for you? Did the flavor text on the creation screen influence you? Or have you always known what you'd be?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 5)
Chineselegolas Dec 8th 2011 8:46AM
My first character was a Worgen Rogue called Canisstabis, time was spent picking facial features and hair that implied he had been in a knife fight just moments ago and the winner wasn't decided.
Only made it to 70 with him before I tired of playing a rogue.
My main is a gnome priest named Compensator. Class choice was merely picking a ranged class, and shadow priesting sounded cool. Name, well what else do I call a gnome whom until level 76 only used staffs, and the bigger the better.
Oddly his primary spec became holy very early on. Never had interest in playing healers in games before, Holy Priesting changed that.
Annalietta Dec 8th 2011 8:48AM
My first choice in any game is a paladin. D&D/AD&D, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Icewind Dale: I've played through them all first time as a paladin. Don't know why I'm so attracted to that class - it might have something to do with the fact that IRL I like things to be black/white, right/wrong, precise and consistent, or it might be that IRL I'm an atheist and the paladin channels the small part of my soul that longs for religion to lean on.
Anyway: when I started WoW the name was the only part left to choose. I had 2 possible names, but none of them were available on my server so I thought of swordsmen in literature and came up with a name that is an offshot of one of them.
Annalietta Dec 8th 2011 8:57AM
*My first choice in any game is a human, female paladin*
Note to self: In future do not post while having phone conversation with mom.
razion Dec 8th 2011 8:54AM
I had already known quite a bit about the game before I got it, but the instruction manual helped make things harder in my decision-making.
It detailed every class for me. But the two classes that I remember the descriptions the best were the priest and paladins. This was, notably, back in Vanilla. The paladin description wrote:
Paladins are the champions of the Alliance. Warriors who wield the Light. They slay evil and heal their enemies while protecting them.
Priests noted they controlled both Light AND shadow, which I found incredibly interesting. It said it could deal damage AND heal, so I assumed I could do either which whatever energy type I wanted. I read on and discovered that this was not the case. Sads were had, and I gave up on priests and reverted to paladins...
... Only to discover there were racial limitations, and that Night Elves and Gnomes could not be paladins. This didn't make sense to me. "But can't Night Elves and Gnomes, as members of the Alliance, champion its cause? What makes them not wield the Light?" Looking down at Priests, there was an obvious female night elf priest. "This elf can use it, why can't they be Paladins?"
Later I'd learn that the faiths were different, but that only encouraged me. "So then were are the Champions of Elune? Where are her defenders, her crusaders? Why does Elune not have an army of virtue and justice? Would she not want evil drove out of her lands, such as, in their eyes, these orcs and Forsaken?"
With my favorite options soured to me due to limitations, I reverted to night elf druid (something I had, arguably, already decided on), because the manual had stated they were the hardest to pick up and master. I believe I would try a gnome mage second, due to the influence of the opening cinematic's mage.
Lloren Dec 8th 2011 8:56AM
I decided on a name before I decided on a class or race, and that kind of formed everything else for me. I chose the name Llorenothe from a story I had begun to write (and one day may return to). She was the evil goddess of the underworld and so she became an undead warlock in wow. Of course, being a total noob I never had the common sense to ask my friends what server/faction they played on until after I became attached to her... Upon which I found out they were alliance. So, she eventually became a human and now a worgen. Since then I've moved on and have a different main, but she'll always be the toon that made me fall in love with the game. :)
brain314 Dec 8th 2011 8:57AM
After seeing the dances in beta, the first character I made was an orc named Mchammer.
Orrine Dec 8th 2011 8:58AM
I was fan of Warcraft and wanted to play WoW for a while but didn't have unlimited internet. My friend told me about private server in local network, and when I asked about some casting class, she told that shamans are casters. I started to play shaman but his mace and only one spell disappointed me and I deleted this toon to become Mage.
My first character on official servers was also Druid since I wanted to play something different. But now Mage is my main once again and Druid is most loved alt :)
wow Dec 8th 2011 9:00AM
My first toon was a nelf druid I named Ildera. Though not the first toon I got to L.85, that would be Clawnanji, my Worgen Hunter (as if you couldn't guess by the name. lol.)
I also have a Tauren Druid I have currently at L.74.
I also have a Goblin Hunter at L.23. I also have a Forsaken Hunter just to see the rest of the Worgen Story so far.
Shinanji / Jinanji
Bloodfurnace Dalvengyr Dec 8th 2011 9:08AM
My cousin came over one night and was very excited about this new game he bought for his new computer. He arrived with World of Warcraft and began playing it. He made an Undead Warlock and he was running shadowfang keep, I was enthralled (lol). So later I started up my old POS computer and got the trial going, I made an Undead Priest named Denthanis, which stands for Demonic Chaos, and I ended up being a shadow/disc priest. Since then I haven't looked back, only for short spells have I quit.
dmitry.brezhnev Dec 8th 2011 9:11AM
I remember my thought process entirely for creating my first character. I started playing about half-way through BC on a 10-day trial. First, I looked over the races on both sides and decided that you would have to be insane to roll anything other than Tauren. From the description of the classes, I liked the 'Jack of all trades, master of none' (I believe those exact words caught my eye) style of the shaman, so I picked that. After picking the look of my bull, I took a second to examine my creation and thought to myself - 'This is complete nonsense'. So I picked the Russian word for nonsense 'Bred'.
Pitch Dec 8th 2011 9:11AM
I came to WoW from EverQuest. I'd played a monk and then a beastlord there. Saw that hunters could tame pets, fight with ranged weapons and that sounded "right" to me. I used a character name I'd been using since the original Diablo. My buddy went horde, and I followed.
I've benched that poor hunter to play alts so many times I'm sure he'd aimed shot me if he could. However, I find myself always coming back to him. I've switched raid mains a few times, and usually to play a role that was "needed" - heals, tanking. When I play the hunter, I know it's for me, so here I am still playing the character I created on day 1 and I look forward to MoP and all the changes that are coming.
originalnad Dec 8th 2011 9:18AM
My first toon was a mage which was an extension of my wizard from EQ. The original idea of my wizard came from an old D&D campaign I had run years prior., which was of course a wizard. :)
Prystus Dec 8th 2011 10:19AM
This, sums me up as well.
My first was a Mage named Prystus. He was directly named for a Mage I played in a Table Top Ars Magica game.
Everyone I knew was playing Alliance, Prystus had been human so, I made him a human mage.
I'd had him also in EQ as a High Elf Wizard for years before WoW.
I really want to play a class similar to my EQ Bard though. there;s just no place for a pure utility class in WoW apparently. (I miss Selo's Accelerando mostly..)
militarymind84 Dec 8th 2011 9:27AM
Back during vanilla I had a friend that played a shaman and since ally didn't have shams on there side until bc he rolled horde, well I officially started playing wow during bc and found out that the dranaei could be shams and i have always been the healing, helping type. As far as the name its unusual but none the less I thought it was fitting for my shammy. Mirnus. I have had him for a while and still to this day enjoy my shaman more then my other toons.
shomechely Dec 8th 2011 9:31AM
My husband had been playing WoW for several months. One day I sat down at my computer next to his and said, "Okay, show me what's so great about this?" He was a warrior, so I created a shaman since it could allow me to heal. We still use a screenshot of those characters in front of the Orgrimmar Christmas tree as our Christmas card.
sinceritystar Dec 8th 2011 9:29AM
My friend played an undead priest at the time, so I pretty much had to roll Horde. I wanted to be a blood elf, I thought the background on their character creation screen was just gorgeous. So I clicked the blood elf female button, and then had to choose a class. I knew I wanted to be a caster from previous RPG experience, so I eventually picked a warlock after my friend told me they had demon pets. I named her after a girl in my drawing 101 class in art school. She still has that name, although she's had two server transfers.
Now I play a troll resto shaman, whose name I got from my dad. He asked what type of character it was, and gave me a name for her.
Tbah Dec 8th 2011 9:36AM
I first saw WoW when my nephew showed it to me. I created a char on his account to try, then later getting my own copy and made the exact same character.
I first picked a race that I found appealing, ending with human. Then picked from the classes the one that sounded best, which would be rogue due to stealth. Name I had picked way before in single-player MMO's, so it was just play after that.
When I progressed into Karazhan I became fond of the Torment of the Worgen buff that DPSers got there. Since then I always wanted to play worgen and my delight was overflowing when it became possible in Cata.
So this is how I made Tbah, the worgen rogue.
neder Dec 8th 2011 9:39AM
I have always wanted to be biggest, bada**, melle dps, so I picked warrior, without much hesitation.
The name I stole form another player in another game, far far away :D
RedMosquito Dec 8th 2011 9:40AM
I came from Diablo II, and I wanted to recreate my Frozen Orb Sorceress. So I made a female human Frost Mage, who was my main during all of BC, and later became, and still is, an "important alt".
loli.gigis Dec 8th 2011 9:58AM
My first character and my main (Belf Pally) I picked because I wanted to play a paladin (for the noble defender of what is right type thing) my name.... well I just picked something random and now I kinda regret that it's not a 'real' name like all my subsequent toons but at least it's not another 'Bubbles' or something similar.