One of my best friends, however, played nothing but PC games as a kid (aside from the Gameboy Color I "borrowed" from him, and later on ended up paying for because I felt bad). He was a prodigy at strategy games like Warcraft 3 and Age of Empires 2 (I still can't beat him, I just like watching the troops run around), he used to speedrun Diablo 2 at 12 years old, and he was the first kid in my school to play the new and mysterious game known as World of Warcraft.
As a kid who was groomed into being a fantasy enjoyer for life by stuff like Zelda and the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, World of Warcraft seemed like the next natural evolution for me.
My friend's older brother was a raider in the early days of the game, but my friend had convinced him to let him borrow the account from time to time, so that he could check the game out too. I still vividly remember the first time he showed the game off to me. We made an orc, he showed me the secret path to get to the Barrens from the starting area, and we ended up getting massacred by threshers and zhevras and lions the entire evening.
I was utterly blown away.
Never in my life had I seen a game with such boundless freedom and adventure. I was hooked immediately, and once I told my younger brother of the game, we pestered our mom like Bart and Lisa wanting to go to Mt. Splashmore for an entire summer, until she eventually caved, and in September 2006, we bought our own copy of World of Warcraft.
It was a huge event for us and our friend group, because me and my brother were the first ones to actually buy the game for ourselves, unlike my friend who merely borrowed his brother's account. Classmates followed us to the videogame store as we picked it up (the clerk warned my mother about the subscription which made my heart skip a beat, but thankfully she was open-minded and I had already told her about it), and they followed us home and waited patiently as I carefully switched out the eighty thousand discs to install the gigantic game.
For the first few days, me and my brother did nothing but create characters. The choices seemed endless, and each of the eight distinct playable races with their individual classes made the game feel vast and wondrous right from the character creation screen. You could clearly tell that tauren, humans, night elves and dwarves each had their own homeland and culture they represented. There was a uniqueness and clear vibe to all of them which made my 11-year old imagination go wild, because all I knew so far was my little excursion with my friend, the cool artwork from inside the box, and the selection screen.
My very first character was a dwarf Paladin, but I didn't get far, because I found the game to be incredibly difficult. Wherever I went, I got butchered by trolls or troggs and I was frustrated.
What adventures loomed in the dark forest beyond the Night Elf selection screen?
My first REAL character, was an orc Hunter with the (to 11-year old me) badass-sounding name Rustaxe. Together with Rustaxe and his pet boar Razortusk, I adventured up and down the scorching starting area of Durotar. Reaching Level 10 took me over two weeks, because I was so busy talking to all the NPCs, checking every nook and cranny for secrets, and just exploring in general.
I wasn't concerned with leveling up, aquiring new gear and furthering my power. I had grown up on open-ended adventure games like Zelda and Morrowind, so the vertical power progression was alien to me.
Simply put; I was playing the game wrong.
I knew that in order to defeat stronger creatures and explore new areas, I had to level up, and I knew that in order to level up, I had to complete quests, but quests were scary and often difficult, so I tended to avoid them, especially if they didn't reward me with a cool new bow or a pair of comfortable boots (not because of the increase in power, but because they made ol' Rustaxe look that much cooler).
I didn't mind much, though, because there were so many different races and classes to try, and starting areas to explore. I was an altoholic without even knowing what the term meant. I didn't have a "main" I focused my efforts on. I just ran around this massive world going on adventures, and I loved every second of it.
Years later, when I was slightly older and 'Wrath of the Lich King' launched, the "recruit-a-friend" feature premiered, where a new player can group with a friend for an experience boost, making the journey faster and safer. This was a good opportunity for me to get my own account (so that I didn't have to compete with my brother for access) and to play together with a friend who could teach me the ropes. I created a Dwarf Warrior (who ended up becoming my true main character, and the one I still keep around to this day, though he is an orc now), and together with my friend we explored the corners of Azeroth.
I was slow and not very good at the game, though, and somewhere along the level 50 bracket he ditched me because he wanted to power level all the way up to level 80 to raid with his buddies.
The adventures I've been had together with this guy will be told by the roaring fireplace to my great-grandchildren. And I'll NOT let them wanting to open their Christmas gifts shut me up!
Once again, I didn't mind much. Playing with him had taught me how to actually play, and I did so at my own pace and actually progressed, albeit slowly.
Sometimes I used to get teased for playing the game this way, and sometimes they went too far by dogpiling me in-game to mock me for being slow and, again, playing the wrong way. I was upset because I didn't understand why they felt the need to bother with mocking me, when I had fun on my own all the time. I didn't mind not being able to raid or get phat epic loot. I liked the adventure.
Around that time, in the middle of Wrath, I discovered the roleplaying community, which further helped cement the idea to me that there were more than one way to play WoW. I got very invested in making characters with thought-out personalities and biographies. I joined in server-wide roleplaying campaigns spanning months, and it was a new kind of social experience I had never encountered before in a game, but I've always had a pretty romantic view of the internet (which I still sort of do, I can still get wowed by realizing that all these little orcs and elves running around are actual people with their own lives beyond Azeroth), so being able to interact with people like this was just the coolest. The roleplaying community didn't discriminate if you were high level or not, they wanted to immerse themselves in the world, just like I always had. It was magical.
Sadly, the roleplaying community ended up becoming a shell of its former open-minded self down the line due to bad actors trying, and succeeding, at maintaining a "realm canon" that excluded players who didn't like that approach, and a large part of the scene just sort of imploded, and never healed (thank you, Perroy, and rest in piss), and I stopped interacting with it much because it wasn't fun in the same way anymore. There are still efforts being made, but Horde is still highly regulated by remnants of the "canon" I mentioned above, and Alliance is more of a fantasy 'Second Life' nowadays, which isn't as fun because, to me, it's not taking the unique world and its rules into account as much, which is like half the fun.
There are still silly moments to be had while Roleplaying from time to time. Here I encountered a man who was convinced he WAS the late King, and I played along as his trusted advisor. Note his bloody meat cleaver.
However, my stint in the roleplaying community just confirmed to me the idea that World of Warcraft could be enjoyed in a million different ways. As long as you felt that you were getting your money's worth, it was probably for the best. Nowadays, I'm the only one from my childhood who continues to play (occasionally). I'm very much a solo player these days, but when I think back at it, I feel like I always was. I never liked scheduling raids, and I could never be trusted to be an "active" guild member, because I always played whenever I felt like it. Perhaps this is what kept the sense of excitement and enjoyment going for me well into adulthood, since I never had to deal with many of the frustrations I see many people talk about when reminiscing about WoW. I still have my problems with it from time to time, but I've never really taken the game that seriously. Thankfully I've also discovered a wonderful community of completely ordinary people, from teenagers and like-minded gamers, to wine-aunts and grandmothers, who also like playing the game solo, which helps you not feel like a black sheep for your playstyle.
In the middle of (my country's equivalent to) high-school, at around 17 years old, I started having anxiety problems, coupled with physical ailments and mystery illnesses which would end up staying with me for my entire life. At this time I had to spend a large amount of time away from school, because I was simply too weak to function properly, and almost an entire semester of school is just memory-holed because of this.
However, this was just around the time when the expansion pack ‘Mists of Pandaria’ released. Being able to play that game when I was sick helped me escape my troubles and let me be a hero, and I loved that expansion. I had an absolute blast exploring the new, mysterious land of Pandaria while listening to the incredible music. This was the first time I allowed myself to not feel like I was the odd one out for playing the “wrong” way. I was completely enraptured, and the sense of wonder and escapism the game offered me helped me stay sane during this troublesome period of my life.
It’s easy to be dismissive of others’ deeply personal interpretations of video games because the ones you don’t care for are often just another toy, so believe me when this sappy anecdote, while slightly embarrassing to recollect, is one-hundred percent genuine. If I had played the game the “right” way, I’d probably have quit long before this, or I might’ve had a much more jaded opinion in general, but by playing the wrong way and just immersing myself in the world, it sort of saved me in a way.
If playing the wrong way was is what makes the game fun and meaningful, then I'm not sure I want to play it the right way at all.
