World of Warcraft

I spent many, many months of my life playing this game on the EU Dragonblight server.  I started playing within a month of the game being released in the UK and apart from taking a month or two break, I had been playing it right up until near the end of 2006.

Originally my first character was an Alliance Paladin (Paladin's back then were only available to the Alliance, same as Shaman's were unique to the Horde).  It was under a friend of mine's advice that I play a Paladin, he created a Mage and thought the two of us would make a good team - having a damage dealer and a healer.  I levelled my Paladin (Bachino) all the way to level 60, and thought the gameplay was great, it wasn't until I created a Shadow Priest (Kellos - this is the first time I'd ever used that name and it's stuck ever since) that I realised I'd been missing out on so much!

This was the 2nd MMORPG I'd ever played, the first being Eve Online.  This was totally different, and although I'd played Warcraft before, it was so much more fun to feel as though you are immersed in that world.

I have always liked the style the Blizzard art department has; it's kind of cartoony, yet still very detailed.  Some of the places you can visit are really quite beautiful if you take the time to look around (which is something I used to do a lot of in-between raids.  I used to explore places that you weren't able to travel to by "wall-climbing".

I enjoyed playing in raids as our guild's main healer (I had to switch back to a healing build, shadow wasn't going to cut it unfortunately).  I had lots of experience as a healer because both of my main characters were capable of healing, so it was second nature.

I even made my own video of our guild raids.  It was really fun to record the footage then edit it alongside some music and turn it into something good.  You can watch it at the bottom of this page, it's fairly lengthy, but pretty good all the same.

Eventually raiding became too much for me to handle, I had no spare time, I was having to rush home for work, just in time to start a raid, having to skip dinner, because being the main healer in charge of keeping the Main Tank alive wasn't something you could just skip AFK for a few minutes.  If the tank dies, normally so do the other 40 people in the raid...  I was also an officer of the guild, I designed the guild web site, managed the forums, sorted the DKP out - it was almost a 2nd full time job - not a game where you can unwind.

I stopped playing again for a while, only to start a few months later with another Kellos but this time on a PVP server playing as Undead Horde Shadow Priest.  I levelled up to 63 but I'd been there, and seen it all before and I was finally completely fed up with the 'grinding' to get better equipment and gold.  So I've left and I know it's for good.

What I can say is though, I thoroughly enjoyed playing this game, it's fun, there's a good community if you get yourself into a good guild.  If you've not played the game before, try it, it can appeal to quite a range of people.

 

Evøl Guild - Dragonblight (EU)
Kellos (Priest)