The Early Days

(Having recently upgraded to some +int gear, our legendary tank Blackheathen has learnt to write, and put pen to paper to create a brilliant early history of his WoW experience...)

First words that come to mind are L2P NOOB. We were the epitome of noobs when we first started WOW all those months ago. After many lunchroom discussions Michelle and Wayne (Dierdron) eventually managed to convince Fugg and Myself to enter into our first MMORPG. I must admit to taking more convincing than the others to join up lol, what did I do with all my time back then???

My first night on was unfortunately a Tuesday, server shutdown FTL. I still managed to get out and ding a few lvls, get pwned in a duel by a mage 2 lvls below lol and start gearing up with a few fantastic white, unsoulbound items WOOOT. At the end of my second night online I reached the dizzying heights of lvl 6 thanks to the help of our other mighty warrior, Fugg.

Thursday night, our first night meeting up the tavern at Brill, all the excitement during the workday building up to it (some of which even started viscous office rumours as I yelled out to Michelle before heading home, "Hey, see at the tavern at Brill at about 8:00 ok?")

Finally we all meet up, just the 4 of us at that stage, Fugg, Blacky, Helouise (Niet's mage main in the early days) and Dierdron. This was the first time I had ever ventured out of Deathnell and seeing Helouise at lvl 10, a full 4 lvls above, I must admit to being more than a little intimidated. Finally we managed to group up, hours later I learned how to use party chat, FTL.

So, off for our first little adventure as a party. Murlocs were on the menu as we continued on our first of many many many apocothery quest chains. As you can imagine, party tactics, any tactics, aggro etc, were all things we would learn about much later. Needless to say, Blacky and Fugg made their way back from the graveyard in good time. Not something that would always be the case. Fugg had one particularly humorous episode where he was running around lost as a ghost for a considerable length of time before learning how to use the minimap and the arrow to guide you back to your corpse. Starting an alt much later I can't quite figure out some of the paths we used to take getting back to our beaten corpses at the infamous Agamand Mills. They really aren't very far but somehow we managed to make it into a 5 min round trip lol.

We slowly progressed through the Tirisfall glades, moving with WASD and mouse clicking lol FTL. We also began finding bits and pieces of info on the net and learnt a little about how to play our classes and roles in groups etc. We also started hearing rumours of the mighty RFC, an instance??

It was around this point that our Mage, the mighty Paxmortis arrived on the scene and Helouse left us to be replaced by Neitzsche, the ugliest, deadest, baldest headed priest ever. Now with a full party of 5 we were ready for an assault on the Scarlet Monastary, at lvl 12 lol. Sure we were getting one or two shotted but hey come on guys, one more try?

After a few weeks came our first trips into Silverpine Forest, "man you have to go check out Silverpine, have you been? there are like lvl 12 Wolves in there LVL 12!!!!!!!!!". So began our progression away from our birthplace of the Deathnell. Somehow we managed to get ourselves up to the Sepulchre and wtf there are bats? There is some quest to go to a place called Undercity, where the hell is that? So off we go on our first bat ride, WOOOOOT what a rad experience. But then hey what is this place?, how am I ever going to find my way out of here? Ok don't wander too far, just hand quest in and jump on the bat back to the safety of the Sepulchre, phew.

Silverpine was also the home to our first nemsis, Son of Arugal. A roaming lvl 24 elite (nerfed to 20 elite in patch 2.3, this game used to be hard lol) that killed us all, over and over, as a group or individually.

A few memorable moments in Silverpine include Dierdron, down at the wreck, drowning inside the wrecked boat unable to figure out how to swim up. Paxmortis blowing up Moonrage Whitescalps (werewolf type mobs) with exploding sheep, oh the irony lol. As well as action packed group fishing sessions. After finishing up a few quests at the Sepulchre one night we all jumped on a bat to head to UC much to the dismay of Fugg who was left standing at the bat handler unable to fork out the 10 copper for the bat ride.

Around this time that we also began to get rolling with our professions and skinning, mining and making dynamite, armour, bags out of all the copper, stones, cloth and beasties we came across. Helouise and Paxmortis even started making gold, GOLD!!!!!!!!!!

Some of us, Dierdron was the first I believe, discovered Zeppelins and a whole new continent. Soon enough we began to venture into the infamous Barrens, the land of CHUCK NORRIS. This was the scene of my first meeting with the mighty Beastheart, until about lvl 60, always this almighty being of godly power, sooo many lvls above.

Apart from a little adventuring into the Barrens we continued to work our way through Silverpine and edge ever closer to the magic lvl 20. We soon began talking up our chances of getting some revenge on Son of Arugal. Our first few attempts ended in dismal failure but finally, after a few more lvls we got him. Ok guys, lets take him out, buffed, everyone ready, CHARGE. It still took us a while and I think I may have even died the first kill but he was down and we got to feast on his bloodied flesh. WOOOOOT, what a moment. Maybe not to be surpassed until Nazan in Hellfire Ramparts.

Finishing all the group quests in Silverpine was a great moment and one that would very rarely be repeated. We were soon to learn that there are just too many areas and too many quests to do them all. This was also the end of questing in Horde territory. A whole new world of getting ganked by ?? allies awaited us, especially as we took our first few innocent steps into the notorius Killsbrad I mean Hillsbrad Hills.

More to follow.

Blackheathen