The Road to WoW

Triv of Raid Naked: Game in the Buffs suggested this one for Blog Azeroth’s shared topic.  While I’d love to give you a list of all the contributors again, I’ve found that people just keep tacking themselves on, so go check out the contribution thread!

Every gamer has a different viewpoint, a different history that led them to World of Warcraft.  For some, WoW was their first taste of gaming — not only their first MMO experience, but their first RPG experience as well.  For others, like myself, WoW was just another MMORPG that we picked up to give a whirl… and years later, we’re still here.

My gaming life began early: I started on an Intellivision that my Dad owned.  We played hoops and baseball, and occasionally, an awesome cops and robbers game that I can’t remember the name of; however, part of the allure is that you were the robber eluding the bevy of cops.

From there I jumped into the world of Nintendo.  I will unabashedly admit that I have owned every Nintendo console to date: from the original to Wii — I am a seriously loyal customer.  I had a friend across the street who owned a Genesis, but all she owned was Sonic — while colorful, more artfully drawn, and surely kid appealing, Sonic just was not the fun of Mario, or even … Zelda.

Zelda was my first and most beloved RPG.  Part of the reason I own every Nintendo system is for this game — while we won’t get into Zelda II for the NES — A Link to the Past for SNES remains one of the best console RPG’s I have ever had the pleasure of playing.  Yes, I’m a fan girl — I love my hearts, the puzzles, the castles and the bosses.  Zelda got me hooked on RPG’s.

From there, the standard and not so standard partaking kept me interested in RPG’s — The Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy, Gaia, Breath of Fire — mixtures of fabled stories and heroes with shiny weapons kept me locked firmly in this genre until this day.

And then one day, we owned a computer.  Purportedly bought for work purposes (my poor mother) the allure of all that blistering digital whatchamacalits called my name, and I quickly discovered Sierra Games.  Quest for Glory was the first computer game I played, and the series remains one of my favorites despite the pre-VGA graphics and e-mote commands.

– So you want to be a hero?

– Yes, yes indeed I do, tyvm.

Now (just to date myself a bit) at the time, we did not have a gaming store in our area.  Traveling the hour or so to Houston to go buy a video game was an outing for me, and since the computer was for “work” I had to rely on good ‘ol Sierra mailers to keep me informed of new games to highlight and place artfully on the computer desk to tempt my parents into spoiling me rotten.  Sometimes it worked, and sometimes not, but gradually, computer gaming became a reality in our household — enough so, that by 15 I actually had my very own computer.

Time continued to march on with console games as well — by that time Playstation was big, and my RPG collection continued to grow.  A couple of years later, Sierra (those wonderful people were still sending me catalogs) was touting a new game: The Realm Online.  Now, the internet was a big deal for backwoods people like us.  Service providers were out of town, and you actually had to pay long-distance in our area to even get a connection — not to mention that the fees for said modem connection were a bit steep for a past-time.

So… I waited.  I continued to play my console and computer RPG’s until we received local internet access — and then a MMORPG baby was born.

I loved it!  I got to create a unique character — I got to create a female character!  Most of my experiences in RPG is “standard male dude saves world” so this was pretty much a first for me.  There was leveling, there was crafting, I discovered guilds, I discovered (and ran) various internet forums for my guild — this was a whole new deal!  I won’t lie, if anyone from WoW went to the Realm Online now they’d probably die laughing — it’s a 2d game with no quest goals.  A chunk of the community stands outside the major capital with their avatars chatting.  It’s very medieval, there is no end-game, and the crafting system is actually quite, quite horrid.

The point is — I didn’t know you could game with other people in an RPG before this… RPG’s are not to be played with your cousins at holidays — you pull out the Call of Duty or Gauntlet or Mario Crash Cars for that.  However, MMORPG’s — well, you get to enjoy other people’s company WHILE gaming.  How novel!  What a great idea!  I’ve actually discovered it’s hard to go back to “regular” games because of that very feature.

When WoW came out there was some debate in our household about this particular MMO; however, I prevailed and my husband and I began our journey.

My road to WoW — what a long, strange trip its been, but I don’t regret a single step!