#0 - Oct. 7, 2010, 2:15 a.m.
I played through classic beginning during the era of Blackwing Lair, and I was playing very casually at the time. I made many attempts to move to higher raiding, but it just wasn't happening during that period of the game. Regardless of that though, I had many good experiences in leveling and casual guilds which were very fun and filled with great people. Some of the nicest people I had ever met helped me learn how to play and taught me little aspects of the game that made me not totally horrible. The players in those guilds really made me love playing this game. It was great to talk to them, play with them, and in general I had a great time playing the game during classic.
The Burning Crusade came next, and with it I had started the content with a guild I had recently joined at the end of the regular game. I had a lot of great experiences involving raiding during the first expansion of World of Warcraft, and they all started in Karazhan. That was a great instance, and the small raid size made me feel even more close knit with the people I played with. It was a good start to what came next with Gruul's Lair, Serpentshrine, The Eye, and Magtheridon. The world boss races that I missed in the classic game were there again with Doomwalker and Kazzak version 2.0, and it was always exciting to see who could finally sabotage the other raid enough until someone got reported and kicked out. That said, this part of the game is where I actually learned about min/maxing my character and since then I had always strove to be great at the game and to have fun while doing that with other people that shared that kind of ideal. I unfortunately ended up jumping through three guilds though, and most of the friendships I had made were lost during that whole expansion. The last guild I had joined during it yielded some of the best friends I have even today. I loved all of the raids in the first content expansion, but I unfortunately missed out on pushing Black Temple, Hyjal, and The Sunwell with a guild; I had joined a guild already highly progressed in the raids. I can't say I loved it when I didn't really spend the time to learn everything.
The follow up to The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, is where we are today. It's also, quite unfortunately, where my fun ends in World of Warcraft. I had stayed with the guild that I ended Burning Crusade with until near the end of the expansion set, and the friends I had made are invaluable. I do more than just play WoW with them, and I hope to continue to stay in contact with them. While I won't be playing this game anymore; I plan to play other F2P games with those few people who I like to think of as some of the best people I know. I accomplished all of my goals for Wrath and the previous expansion set, and I would like to think that I'm quitting on a high note because of it.
Now that I've written all of that, I'd like to say that most people won't care about my experience playing the game. It's alright though, I just wanted to post it anyway! This thread was really something I wanted to post as a thank you to the community which has done so much for me in the form of CS forum help, modding and addons which I couldn't play without, and the nice people I've met during my time playing. I would like to say "See you all in Cataclysm!" as I was very excited for the new expansion, but I have to divert all of my money to paying for school now. I hope everyone who reads this has a great time moving forward with the game, and I hope that sometime I will make a bit of extra money to experience it as well!
