To every WoW player.

[Rogue 9]

I first got the game in early 06. The AQ War Effort was under way on the server I randomly chose, from memory. I rolled a gnome rogue, but I didn't know anyone that played at the time, and I guess I didn't play long enough to really get into it. Anyway, I let my account run out and didn't pick it up again til over a year later.

At that time, my girlfriend's brother started playing, and so did she, so I decided I'd give the game another try, rolling a new character (which remains my main to this day) on the server they were on, and the rest is history. I zoomed past my girlfriend's character in levelling, I got right into running dungeons, joined a guild and had a grand old time stealthing around on my troll rogue. I've taken a few breaks from WoW, sometimes of several months, but I always go back to it eventually.

 

[Zarthek]

Oooh that involves remembering.... I got it in the middle of June about 4 and a half years ago.
At the time, Wandering clueless, a fresh, non-horde human paladin running around getting eaten by wolves... Then Burning Crusade came out, went to horde, started an orc hunter and got him up to 70 then just PvPed. Wrath came out and I remembered how much I missed playing a pally, so my current main would be a Blood Elf who's getting race changed to Tauren as soon as I get my grubby little fingers on Cataclysm.

Sad thing is that's at about half detail, didn't even mention my alts or anything like that...

Point is it's been a good 4 years

 

[Kryzantine]

I started... oh, I don't remember. It was before AQ. I leveled up a bit on multiple characters, learned the ins and outs of the game and a good number of class facets (tanking, healing, melee DPS, ranged DPS, casters, etc), and I had a blast with some of my guilds, but I never really made any progress. I just fucked around. Then I quit because I didn't have the time to play it. Then I rejoined... around the midpoint between when BC came out and when WOTLK came out. Focused on a tauren shammy. Loved that guy. I wasn't a fan of totems at all, but I loved the enhancement melee combat and his healing enough to get him up. Had some fun times with him. But I quit again before WOTLK came out (because again, I didn't have the time, and the game was starting to wear on me a bit; I can never play one class for a long while and shammy was an unfortunate main because it was a hybrid, so playing anything else just felt like more of the same for the first 20 or so levels). I don't think I'm going back to it.

 

[nub the samurai]

I started sometime in April or May of 2008 with a trial account. Since then I have 3 lvl 80's (one 80 pally, one 80 shammy, one 80 DK). Quit about 10 months ago though, just didnt have the time to get better gear or raid. Also i kept getting bad raids whenever i actually did raid (took us maybe 4-5 hours just to clear all 4 of the wings in Naxx, not including the final 2 bosses)

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

I started WoW on the Christmas of its release and continued to play up until the release of WoTLK. I might pick it up again sometime, but I have no concrete plans on doing so.

 

[technoted]

Since release, my first thoughts were "It's better than Runescape visually!" and I still play it to this day, but I have been playing the Warcraft series since Orcs and Humans so I'll admit to being a bit of a fanboy.

 

[LogicNProportion]

I started close to launch, with my sister following not even a day later. We had been trying to fill the void of Star Wars Galaxies.

It was really fun and addicting, but the grind and such turned me off after I got to around level 40 and I took a hiatus. I came back and tried an RP/PVP server with a paladin. Had wonderful times, probably some of my favorites in gaming. Reached 80...and then I found the game pointless.

My sister, however, thrived on it, playing every day forever until just recently. She has more 80's than fingers.

 

[ThaBenMan]

I actually just started playing about a week ago. My sister and her husband have been playing since pretty much the beginning - they each have multiple level 80 characters, and playing is pretty much all they do in their free time.

They finally convinced me to try it, so we've been power-leveling my Troll Shaman (and a Blood Elf Paladin that my sister made) so I can start raiding with them once I get to 80 (I'm 52 right now). It's been kind of boring, honestly - I just tag along for the XP while my brother-in-law's level 80 Tauren Warrior destroys everything single-handedly. And I'm not sure how much I'll enjoy raiding - I've seen them on raids plenty of times before. My bro-in-law (who's also the guild leader) will often end up yelling at the others for fucking up and get frustrated. I like to play games, y'know, for fun.

What I've been enjoying much more is playing as my Orc Warrior, which I'm actually playing with, questing and exploring at my own pace. He's only level 9 right now, so there'll be plenty more adventure for him.

 

[Ascarus]

i played from the January following the US release until about 2 months after WotLK came out.

after that the player base (can you say gear obsessed?), the near impossibility of finding a group as a DPS player and the repetitive quests and incessant grinding just wore on me, so i quit.

i have no intention of ever going back. not that i regret playing ... i had some of my best gaming moments in WoW.

 

[Zamn]

I started playing in August 2005, that was about four or five months after European launch. It was about the point they cleared up most of worst bugs and unfinished bits of the early game, so it was a good time to start (although I didn't know any of that at the time, some of my friends just started playing it). It was the size and openness of the world that I loved, no other game had ever given me the feeling that I could really go anywhere and do anything I wanted, there was this wide open world waiting for me to go play in it.

I've played pretty much ever since, with the odd off period, including now. I've gone through phases of playing the game in a lot of different ways, from medium-level raiding in vanilla to fairly hardcore raiding and mid-level arena in Burning Crusade, to quite casual, mostly levelling and dungeons with the occasional raid in Wrath. Who knows where Cataclysm will take me.

 

[SteveeVader]

Played from Day one European release and last 2 years been in an active raiding guild. I was on and off only playing in holidays and one of my guildies painted an elaborate plan for cataclysm that we should all quest together etc etc. Now I'm a literature and language student so I am pretty full and with the release being November 18th (most likely or the 16th) being smack in the middle of my term. He is the vice of the guild and because I am a healer he said we will need you for 7 days from the release 24/7. I frankly said my studies are far too important as he and most of the guild are jobless. It got me very angry and offended that a margin of a gaming community acts like that so I called it quits because I do not want ot be like that.

I am kind of digging cataclysm but I am very anti becoming addicted as I find the Wow community kind of like Pandora's box. I am sad to leave but the community has utterly degenerated on the realms I used to play and I am talking worse than COD kids bad.

 

[slipknot4]

I friend showed it to me and i was blown away. It was epic, huge and the concept of multiplayer online rpg games was something i could not comprehend. It was love at first sight and it was just a week later that i created my first character.
Alexia, night elf priest. Didn't last too long. Nice thing though that you could more or less type in whatever name you liked without having it taken. Ahh... i miss 1.5...
Yes, that was 6 years ago. I played on my Hunter and warrior during summer break but it seems like all the money is gone once again. Let's just hope that I can get a hold of some before cata is released.

 

[strum4h]

Release. Warcraft3 was fun. Thought I would try it out.

 

[DYin01]

I'm an on and off player, currently at an off moment until nearer Cataclysm. I started on release day, after months and months of anticipation.

Same here, pretty much. Started playing a few months after the release but quit because none of my real friends played. Later started playing again around the release of WOTLK because my girlfriend was playing and now I'm off again till Cataclysm.

I'm not that much of a raider. I mostly just like the Warcraft lore and world and I like strolling around in the WoW world, doing quests and leveling up. I'll most likely stick with Cataclysm for a few months before moving on and playing another game more extensively.

 

[Taern]

Shortly after Blackwing Lair came out.

So much money wasted.

 

[Infinatex]

I started around 4 months ago. My PS3 died, so I booted up my old PC to see what games I could play for the week or so while it got repaired. The only thing I had in my room was a WoW trial cd (actually I had about 5 of them, there must be more WoW trial discs out there then people!)

I started it up and gave a Night Elf Druid a go and did not really like it at all. Certain things were cool but I just couldn't get into it. (Having to run on min. specs didn't help either). When I found out my PS3 would be taking at least a month for repairs, I pimped out my PC and gave it another go - this time as an Undead mage.
30 mins in (and now running at max specs) I decided I loved and went out and got a full version that evening.

A few months on I have a 75 Blood Elf Warlock, 20 Undead Mage and a 20 Blood Elf Hunter. Bring on the Cataclysm!!!

 

[Serenegoose]

I started playing a few years ago (4?) and was fairly impressed - I think stopped after a while for about 1 year, but picked it up again later. I played out of the hope that the warcraft 1-3 story would be continued in a meaningful sense, but I found that the story was all too quickly forgotten and just occasionally referenced to - I enjoy the game, but I only play it occasionally when I just want a game to distract me whilst I listen to music or talk on MSN. I think my highest level character is a level 73 Draenei Shaman. When cataclysm rolls around I'll try my hand at it again, and hopefully the story will be more of a driving factor this time, but I doubt it will change to any real extent. Mainly I like just making alternate characters and playing with the different styles, as well as getting loot and going 'ooh, pretty'. Well, up until you get to outland, where the only real response is 'I look like a jester'.

 

[Deathkingo]

The thing that really got me hooked was when I learned my Prof. I loved it! It really seemed to breathe life into the game, making it seem like an actual WORLD. Plus, I got to use all those fancy things I learned in AP econ. Good stuff!

 

[Theninja'skatana]

Few weeks ago, Up to lvl ten pretty good.
Lvl 30 on the other hand a soul draining grind.
like any mmo it gets better with friends.

 

[AfterAscon]

I started at the launch of The Burning Crusade on a new server and it was amazing. I was very fortunate to fall into a great group of people, which we all later went on and formed an epic guild together. From about level 15 to 60ish I was almost always in a minimum group, usually consisting of the same 2 or 3 people. I've solo levelled characters since then and it makes the world of difference. I'm going to start again at the launch of cataclysm with a new alt and hope I meet a few like minded people who are doing the same.

Also I levelled as a Protection Paladin and during TBC where you could see on the forums that they were a useless class (especially retribution; how times have changed).