#oneaday Day 250: Azeroth

Apparently World of Warcraft Classic is launching soon. I have no intention of playing it, but I do have some very fond memories of playing World of Warcraft at various points throughout its relatively early lifetime: specifically, up through Wrath of the Lich King.

My first encounter with World of Warcraft was when my friend Tim invited me to try and get in on the beta he'd applied for. He was a big fan of the Warcraft series in general, though I wasn't particularly familiar with it the time (and still am not, really; real-time strategy has never been "my" genre) but the concept sounded interesting. I'd also had some good times with Final Fantasy XI previously, so I knew that MMOs could be a cool experience.

During the beta, we both played some Tauren characters and explored around the Thunder Bluff area, completing quests and fighting monsters. It was an enjoyable experience, and I have fond memories of just being part of that world at the time.

I don't recall if we actually started playing immediately when the game launched, but I do remember having a packaged copy of it, complete with a manual (remember them?) and an incredibly lengthy install procedure. Tim and I would play together and kept rough pace with one another because we tended to "role-play" our characters; we were playing on an RP server, and thus we tended to spend more time acting out scenes and exploring our characters' backstories than actually playing the game. Consequently, it took a very long time for either of us to reach the original level cap, and the majority of our gameplay was in the open world rather than in the instanced dungeons and raids.

At various other points, I revisited the game during both the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King days. In the latter, I took the experience quite seriously and made some good progress, finally making it to the level cap though never actually participating in any true endgame content. One thing I was particularly pleased with, though, was the fact that I successfully managed to map the entire world as it existed in Wrath of the Lich King era well before I was "supposed" to be in places like Icecrown; I proudly displayed the title I attained as a result because it was actually quite a significant achievement to have done that.

Interestingly, a lot of my enjoyment of World of Warcraft came from the fact I didn't really understand the conventions of MMO structure despite having played Final Fantasy XI and a lot of WoW up until that point. I'd just been sort of exploring my way around, fighting enemies and completing quests rather than trying to grind out instances or anything like that… and I can't help but feel I had a much more fun experience than I would have had if I'd played "properly".

Of course, modern World of Warcraft is a very different game from what it once was, and World of Warcraft Classic is an option to deliberately go back to those good(?) old days… but I think my time with that type of game has passed. I'm not ruling out a return to Final Fantasy XIV at some point — indeed, it'll be part of my Final Fantasy Marathon on YouTube at some point in the distant future, as will Final Fantasy XI — but I think World of Warcraft, for me, now best exists as a happy memory that I don't try and return to.