I’ve been playing WoW since release. I was 27 years old when I got into the beta. Prior to WoW, Everquest Online Adventures was my first foray into an mmo territory. I never hit max level in that game.

WoW came along and I played it mostly solo on my very first toon. I didn’t know about quests really, and I didn’t know about Thottbot (No Wowhead back then!) so I mostly ground out levels by killing mobs. I hit level 60 and didn’t do anything. There was nothing to do. I was WoW shy. That poor character still lives on the Blackhand server as a level 60 in farmed greens.

My wife left me, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. Two pretty harsh things to happen at the same time. I knew my mom didn’t have much time left so I took a leave of absence from work so I’d have no regrets of not spending time with her. It was at this time my friend wanted to quit playing Silk Road and try WoW, so I let him use my second account (shhhh!) and I resubbed my first. We both rolled Warlocks. This is when Doobjanka was born on the Scilla server.

The game was different playing it with another person. It was fun. Suddenly there was someone to laugh at me when I pulled a Son of Arugal in Silverpine and died suddenly. Someone helped me quest and find mobs. It wasn’t as boring as the first time around. We met other people playing, a Shaman and Priest whose names escape me and a Warrior named Viiking. We could take on the world. We joined a guild called beta house and went on fun dungeon ing adventures.

This was all before level 60.

I dinged level 60 before my friends and got recruited to a bigger guild. Just my luck, the day I dinged was the day we opened the gates of Ahn Qiraj. It was a terrible time on a PvP server, undergearing everyone else and having giant Anubisath killing everyone. I died a lot. I don’t remember the event that well anymore, but it was epic.

Next came raiding. My first experience was in Zul Gurub. There was so much stuff going on and 20 people to coordinate. I’m glad I wasn’t the raid leader. We also went into Molten Core. I didn’t really understand the loot rules, but I was made an officer of the guild. As time went on, I didn’t like the way the other officers treated members. People asking for simple advice were completely ignored while they chatted in officer chat. I found a few friends that were willing to faction off with me and we staged a coup, taking the raiders we considered the best. Our new guild was called Aint Neva Scared and that was our motto. We attacked anything and anyone and to hell with the consequences. You couldn’t fly back then. Took forever for reinforcements to arrive.

We had upwards of 300 people in the guild but couldn’t field a 40 man for MC so we teamed up with another guild. Fun was had by all, until an officer snafu reset the other guilds dkp and we parted bitterly.

We spent the rest of Vanilla raiding ZG and killing the first boss in AQ20. The second boss was always bugged. I went into BC with the full ZG and AQ set, minus the trinket.

To be continued…