The View Through The Branches

Topic proposed by the awesome Jaedia of The Lazy Sniper this week. Other responses can of course be found on Blog Azeroth!

Wrath has been my first WoW expansion. I started playing in January 2008, 10 and a half months before the expansion hit. It took me about 8 months to get from level 1 to level 70, where I pootled about doing the odd heroic and I twice went into Karazhan – very exciting for me. I remember fighting the Curator – having no mic but sitting on vent, listening to barked instructions and just being amazed by the whole experience, amazed and slightly speechless.

Wrath hit, and I had this awfully needy, clingy boyfriend. He only last 6 weeks or so before I kicked him to the curb, but those 6 weeks were essentially from Lich King release until the end of December. So, my levelling process was slow. I remember doing bits and pieces in Dragonblight. I remember being totally in awe of the Wrathgate questline and the incredible cutscene afterwards. I remember questing in Grizzly Hills and MOST of all I remember dinging level 80 i Storm Peaks, just a couple of quests into K3.

A couple of days after, I got an invite to Naxx 25 man – we were very short on healers at the time. It was…amazing. I had a mic and vent, I chatted to people and I was experiencing all these bosses with this team of people for the first time with them too – they’d been on ten man but 25 man was new for all of us. I was part of the first guild clear of every bit of Naxxramas on 25 man. First kill of Kel’Thuzad in March was with me as part of the healing team. Four nights a week I threw my body and soul into raiding with Justice League. Raiding was, in my eyes, the real start of Wrath for me – not the levelling part. That was very much a solo activity for me, as levels 1 – 70 had been. What stands out for me in Wrath is the group work.

Heroics with all guildies. Raids, ten man and twenty five. Running old content with guildies. A real life guild meet up. Moving guilds but keeping people on my friends list and still, 6 months after, wanting to know how they’re doing, what’s up with them. Having people and friends on my MSN after meeting them in game and wanting them to be in my life even if they play on a different server. Meeting people who mean the world to me now, the absolute world. Starting to blog, coming across bloggers and making friends with them.

This expansion has truly allowed me to become a social creature in ways I simply wouldn’t have done otherwise. I don’t like crowded rooms full of people I don’t know. But I like a crowded raid. I like a crowded vent channel. I like a crowded guild full of people I can laugh with and enjoy my time with. And the friendships I’ve made, the people I’ve met. Ideally I want some of them around me for good.

All I can hope for both 2010 and Cataclysm is that my life continually gets better with WoW and therefore my friends, my guildies and my hobby there too.