My Azerothian days

Grizzly Hills soundtrack

My first post!

Some precious years ago, in 2008, I was a journalist and editor for a Dutch girly magazine called Yes. The magazine flourished for 25 years but has recently perished. May she rest in well-deserved piece. One day when Yes was still around, I was to edit an article which was written by my lovely colleague Petra. It was about ‘gaming girls’; two topics: girls and gaming, much in fashion at the start of this decade. As I had always been a gaming nerd, at the time still X-Boxing away on games like Oblivion and Gears of War, and playing PC-games like Myst and Riven, I was highly interested in the topic. Hell yeah, I already messed with my father’s ZX-Spectrum (Sinclair, remember Basic-commands like BEEP, BORDER and GO SUB?! ) at the age of 14, so I guess you can call me a true grl nerd.

One of the girls interviewed in the aforementioned Yes-article talked about a game called World of Warcraft. She talked about an online game in which, for the first time in gaming history (maybe not so accurate, but at least the first big MMORPG – massive multiplayer online roleplaying game – at the time) you could walk around freely, to discover the endless epic worlds, ride mounts, fly on the back of drakes and be part of a beautiful fantasy world. This world was called Azeroth, and in it she was a priest, healing her allies in combatting players of the other faction or fighting gruesome beasts in exciting dungeons. 

That sounded just like heaven to me. I contacted the girl and she introduced me into the World of Warcraft. I created my first character, a female Dwarven paladin named Dmalaa. Yeah sure, I got my share of laughs along the way, because female Dwarven chars weren’t thought of as very sexy these days. But what the hell did I know. And what the hell did I care. I was a total noob and having the time of my life.

How I long for these days…

As I started playing, I discovered one beautiful area after another. I met people from all over Europe, wandering the colorful plains of Azeroth as mages, warriors, druids and more. I remember clearly leaving the icy planes of Coldridge Valley, the Alliance starting point for Dwarves and Gnomes, as I leveled up. My jaw dropping in awe at the sight of Loch Modan. Ingame I whispered my tutor the priest (that took me a while though, understanding all the gibberish in the chat screen!), how beautiful I thought these lands were and this game was. She replied me a smiley, and invited me in her group . Was I ready for something cool? Minutes later she landed before my character on the back of a giant drake. I was exhilarated. And determent to get me that flying mount.  

Many years passed as I played this beautiful, diverse and challenging game. I got my drakes. I learned not to enter dungeons with grey gear, and the importance of STATS. I learned professions, hooked up with new Alliance friends in a guild on the Dunemaul server and spent many many waking hours in this world I just couldn’t get enough from. I remember nights of exploring new area’s with new friends, having fun and talking about our real lives in the meantime on Skype, and later on Ventrilo and Teamspeak. I remember the epic moments of defeating epic bosses together for the first time. Going on achievement runs and exploring the lovely story of the game. I started buying the books and got sucked into the lore. I fell in love with NPC’s (non playing characters) like Arthas Menethil, Jaina Proudmoore, Uther the Lightbringer, the Stormrage brothers, Tyrande Whisperwind, warchief Thrall and his racy wife Aggra, the young mage Khadgar and his troubled master Medivh, the Windrunner sisters and many more. It was like I had discovered a brand new series on HBO, and I was playing a part in it.

O yes. The epic nights with several dozen of my Alliance brothers and sisters, rampaging the Horde cities to get the achievement For The Alliance! I smoked and drank my way through endless nights of fun, talking to and kidding around with my fresh friends from Belgium. I still talk to them sometimes. They remember me as the Dwarf whom needed GPS, as I could never find my way back into the Blackrock Mountains, after I had died in the Blackrock Depths. Those were the days.

At the pinnacle of my WoW experience, when the expansion Wrath of the Lich King had just kicked in, I joined a guild on the Dunemaul server called Ryfari. By then I had replaced my paladin for a new main character, a Gnome mage called Gnomez, and I was really getting to know the game and understanding all its mechanics. I started raiding. Not easily can I describe the exhilaration of earning the title Champion of the Frozen Wastes. And later on: The Kingslayer. After all the effort. The fun. The tries. The whipes. We did it! I did it! These were – and yup I’m serious – epic moments in my life; game-wise, friends-wise, fun-wise. I went to Belgium to meet with my game mates, went to real life guild meetings and organized LAN (local area network) parties at my home with my WoW friends. Sure. Real life was good. But WoW-life was at times even better. And yes, both lives merged pretty well.

Then the Cataclysm expansion kicked in. Somehow in that period many of my female gaming friends got kids, or their personal lives evolved to an extend that they had to quit WoW. Many of my male WoW friends did not like what Blizzard had done to the game, to our much loved lands, and they also quit playing the game. The hardcore players took weeks off from work and real life, to be on schedule and level their chars as quick as possible to level 85. I had a pretty busy work schedule so I could not keep up with my hardcore guildies. Also, game mechanics and talent changes were so severe, that it almost seemed that we were playing a different game. Still a nice game, in my opinion. The new areas were cool and again beautiful and they fit in nicely with the lore. However. Much of us just couldn’t keep up with the fast leveling, the huge changes of gear, talents, abilities and professions. By that time I was getting bored with my mage and was ready for something new: healing. I quick-leveled my holy Elven priest. The Dunemaul server fell apart, players leaving like it was a haunted place, and nearly all of my WoW friends stopped playing WoW. They started focusing on playing League of Legends, picked up on Rift or Guild Wars 2 or Diablo or stopped playing altogether. My own life was evolving also, to a point that I couldn’t find the time for raiding anymore. And before I even could get track of Cataclysm, the Mists of Pandaria expansion changed the surface of Azeroth, and with it the lore, the game mechanics and everything, forever.

We tried to pick up where we got left. The few of us that were left. In our opinion, we had not even begun to grasp all of Cataclysm. But okay. Mists of Pandaria had some nice new elements, so we gave it a chance. Although we didn’t quite like the Pandaren shizzle. It just didn’t seem right; Panda’s in our world of dragons, elves, dwarves and epic Titans. The endless dailies grind killed off the few remaining fellow players I knew. On a dark day, I found myself without friends in Azeroth. Rinse and repeat? I found a new guild and worked as hard as I could to get by the awfully boring and seemingly endless reputation dailies grind. I even started raiding again. Got myself a little piece of Farmville in Pandaria. But things never were the same again. To meet with the new raid stat expectations, I had to consult sites like Ask MR. Robot. Gear stats and game mechanics had become math wizardry. Patch after patch was released and I just couldn’t keep up. For sure, my life had also changed to the point that playing WoW every night was not an option anymore. I longed for a slower pace, longed for the WOTLK days, where endgame was achievable for all whom would work up to it and there was enough fun stuff to do after killing the End Boss.

Long story short: I quit playing WoW. I picked up on Guild Wars 2 with an old WoW friend. Yes, it looks great and it has some awesome game mechanics. But there’s something amiss. And I suddenly had some time left. So I started going to the gym. Good for me and mine, you got me there. But I missed Azeroth. I missed the soothing music in the Grilly Hills and Howling Fjord areas. I even started dreaming about it. My Azeroth wandering years.

I realized that saying goodbye to Azeroth is saying goodbye to an old friend. It’s saying goodbye to a place that can be a place of refuge and solitude in our harsh facebookian times. A place that you can forever wander because of its memories an beauty.

So. I logged back in. Got my chars out of the wastelands of Dunemaul and transferred them to Aerie Peak. I decided to level some new chars to rediscover the Azerothian lands. Without the stress of having to level fast, meet guild or raiding requirements, keep pace with friends and guildies… I’m alone with my chars and while I level at utmost ease, I discover beauties, places, achievements and curiosities I've not had the change to discover before. I walk the lands of Azeroth without any needs or goals. And I’m loving it.

Please excuse my bad grammar. English is not my native language. I enjoy comments and tales of all fellow travelers.  
May the light always shine upon you. 

Howling Fjord soundtrack