What made you decide to play WOW?

[Arwyn]

For me it was X-Play and their review of Guild Wars. At one time X-Play was totally dedicated to reviewing games and on the night I caught the show they were reviewing Guild Wars. They were oohing and aahing the game but they kept comparing it to WOW that had come out before it. At the end they gave Guild Wars a 4 out of 5 rating and wished that they could have given it a 5 out of 5 like they had did WOW.

Since 5 out of 5 from that show to me means that when your paying alot for a game you are getting your money's worth plus more of guaranteed entertainment, I went out that weekend and picked up a copy of WOW to play.

So..what made you decide to play?

[Striv]

Warcraft 3. Nuff said.

[GethlarNomudac]

I stumbled upon the free trail, then i was hooked (even before i learned about pets)

[Sochi]

I was in between games when WoW came along. For a long time I had played Final Fantasy 11. I was in a good linkshell, loved my ranger class and really enjoyed the game when I got to play. My then boyfriend now husband played as well and it was a very good way to talk without running up a phone bill. But as the game progressed into Aht'Urgan, and my play-time decreased (full time job), I found myself between a rock and a hard place. In that game it was very hard to do anything on your own. Grouping was the single best and most efficient way to gain levels. If you left a town to go out solo, you were asking for very long fights with little reward.

My playtime, which was often only an hour or an hour and a half of time, looked like this; Log in, check mail, greet linkshell folks. Flag for party and wait. Sometimes, that was it. If I got a party, I often had to get to them. They'd hopefully have a camp and have all the needed components. With luck, the party would last and I would get some exp. But invariably, I would arrive and some player would have to go. We'd look/hope/wait for a replacement. If the whitemage left, the party was pretty much over. No whitemage, no heals, no group.

It got frustrating to say the least. I got tired of waiting and getting a group only to have it break up. I couldn't level as fast as my linkshell mates, so I couldn't group with them. I was stuck, I was bored. Slowly, I broke off the game until I wasn't playing at all. And for a while, I had no game at all and this lasted for a couple of months. At the end of those months, I noticed I was very grouchy. I was getting crazy about small things. I realized, I had no outlet. Gaming is a great stress reliever and I needed something. I needed a game.

A friend from FFXII was playing WoW now. I had heard of the game, had shrugged off the game before. But now, I was curious. Curious enough to try it for myself. I bought a bundle of both vanilla and BC. I downloaded it, chose the server my friend played on, saw the hunter option, thought "oooooh, bows!" and rolled my main. I knew nothing about what I doing save for my friend's name. After being shown the ropes, I was hooked.

[Sarayana]

My department at the university has a research centre dedicated to game studies. One of the games studied quite a bit is WoW, and with several friends dedicating both work and study hours to the centre, I got to have a look at the game, both from a gaming and a social research perspective.

I was totally like "nuh uh, I'll just get addicted" - then my husband came home with the damn thing. I resisted for about three days. Then I rolled a nelf hunter on his account and played for five hours. The next day he came home with my box + TBC! (I love him so. ) Sarayana was the first character I created on my own account, and she's still my main girl.

[Ryno]

A friend from FFXI was playing WoW now.

Same thing here. I used to play FFXI, but then a friend switched to WoW. Then I jumped with him.

[Saturo]

All my friends were playing, and I'd had a go at the beta a year earlier. (Beta was the bad thing, friends the good one). As it turns out, they changed quite a bit from the beta to a year after the release if the game. I was playing my pally and my priest back then tough, I started with hunters much later.

[Nikrosnil]

I started playing guildwars at first, and then a friend of mine kept saying that WoW was better. I decided to have a go, and got totally addicted.

[Karathyriel]

I had my first touch with this world when I installed "Orcs VS Humans" on my PC. (That's now probably referred to as Warcraft I)
I did like it very much, so Warcraft II, the expansion (Rising Tide, I think, was it's name) and after that, Starcraft (which I like but didn't love like WC). Right, I couldn't resist Warcraft III when it came out.

One day, I thumbed through my favorite games mag and a tiny little newsblock caught my attention. It said that Blizzard wants to create a type of game where you play just one little character of all these tiny units you commanded around the screen in Warcraft. You go down to eyelevel with all of them and all the other units were players too.

I knew instantly that I had to play this game, no matter what. Been playing since 2006 and never really regretted any cent I have paid for it.

World of Warcraft = 24.99€
Burning Crusade = 29.99€
Wrath of the Lich King = 34.99€
41 one months (one of them free) = 40 x 12.99€ = 519,60 €
---------------------------------------------------------
a total of 609.57€ (or 861,83 $)

Plus the amount of money spent on books and magazines, t-shirts and whatnot any fan can't resist to buy. But still...

NO REGRETS!

[Sonata]

Ah, sit down lad's and lasse's as I shall tell a tale, of horror..and..mystery!

But anyway, actualy, I was...let's just say, to play Wow is to instantly be called bad things in my past friend circle.
I had the "if it's popular, hate it"-illness about Wow, anyway one of my male friends played the game since vanilla, he plays no longer unless his brother forces him to (not part of this story), but he is my mentor and still continues to teach me about Wow...I shall refer him to as my Druid mentor always.

But he continuesly nagged me to try it when he was high on Wow fandom gas, talking about lore and stuff but I resisted...to be honest I played Wow for the first time at BC time for a few seconds tops.
He let me do a Tauren (Named Lehti, he actualy leveled it not to full but still) and a Blood elf.

I didn't get hooked, I play alot of console games on the sidelines and I am horrible at social games, but this game actualy a little bit helps me get over it. (Still have Dungeon/Raid-fear D:)

The thing that triggered me to playing is.....Safrienaer, this was actualy about two years after my friend stopped playing Wow. (I don't remember a accurate date or time)
She just one day, I think she phoned me and asked, do I wanna try Wow with her and level together, she said it was fun. Thus I downloaded a ten day trial, we both hit the ten day trials level limit...it annoyed us beyond beliefs.

I was the first one to crumble, I went to the store and bought the treasure chest-edition with the booklets. She got her own game later on, but I leveled ahead in the meanwhile.
My Druid mentor found out about it, you should have seen how he laughed and was facepalming at me.

Been playing about three years now since then (how long have I been playing). But the main reason why I play is for her company, she's the best, our roleplays are awesome.
And has been supporting me for years and continues to do so, I try to do so in return. Even thought I think my main druid is dying more often because of her stunts! (Not saying I don't do anything dumb)

I think I made someones ego grow now. (hoping typo freedom now, grammar freedom cannot be obtained!)

[Charlie]

Back when it came out
I was a little kid back then
my uncle and my cousin got me hooked
first toon I rolled?
Dwarf Hunter named Gimlin

[Vephriel]

Well, let's see...

My boyfriend had been a long-time player of the original Warcraft strategy games. Now, I myself have never been good at RTS. It's just not my playstyle, so technically I didn't have the familiarity that he did. However, with him playing them so often (especially WC 3), I couldn't help but get to know the characters and story through hearing them so much. I was always interested in the cut scenes, and there were many times I'd just sort of stop and watch him play to see the story unfold.

Anyways, years ago one of his friends told us about World of Warcraft. I'd vaguely heard of it, but never really knew too much. One summer when this friend came out to visit us, he bought my boyfriend the game and paid for the first year of his account.

Being the gamer-girl that I am, I was instantly hooked watching my boyfriend and him play, and sorely wanted a copy of my own. Next morning I made him go buy it for me. xD

We both rolled female Night Elf hunters (since his friends were Alliance we were sort of forced to go that way). We played until our late 20's I believe before his friends lost some interest in the game. After that we decided to create Horde characters (that's what I had wanted to create in the first place). After that, we've never looked back.

[Ungoro]

I made some good friends on Runescape and we played RS with eachother pretty much everyday for years and years. Suddenly they started logging in less and less and then they both sent me a essage saying i should play this game and linked the free trial and i got hooked with 'em. Problem at first though was that i thought you played like Runescpe, so at first i was clicking in places infront of me and on the map. Using the arrow keys, for some reason, didn't come to mind...

[Vephriel]

WoW was my first MMO, so I didn't have the problem of getting used to controls.

However, I now have the opposite...I can't play any other PC games now! I'm so used to the controls in World of Warcraft that anything else is just too strange and different for me. xD

[VelkynKarma]

A friend of mine bought the game and kept talking excitedly about the different pets she kept getting. I remember her describing the infamous OWL RUN on her troll hunter. I loved the stories, but resisted the game for the longest time; I knew once I started playing, I'd be hooked.

My roomie had gotten addicted to the game around the same time and played for long hours into the night. Let me tell you, the troll female laugh at 3AM when you're trying to sleep is obnoxious.

Well, eventually my friend sent me a trial over my school break, and I figured--"why not?" I installed the game, on a computer that could barely run it, and rolled a tauren druid....and couldn't stop playing.

Two years later, here I am

~VelkynKarma

[Gala]

I have always played RPG's. Just kinda the first real games i ever got my hands on, and they just stuck. BTW--im willing to bet all of us here freaking loved pokemon. That thought just occurred to me. Anyways.

While i was in Argentina for 15 months, me and my ex-fiance where attempting to figure out an MMO to play when i got back. We narrowed it down between FFXI and WoW. After careful consideration, we decided to go with WoW. I have no idea if she still plays (we broke up around a year and half-two years ago), but im still here. Only reason i might leave WoW is for Star Wars: The Old Republic.

[Ryno]

im willing to bet all of us here freaking loved pokemon. That thought just occurred to me.

Gold and silver for the gameboy color took hours of my life off when I was young. I had those games down to a goddamned science.

[Vephriel]

I collected Pokemon cards when I was in elementary school. We also watched the anime after school.

I never actually learned how to play the card game. I just liked collecting them. I still have a huge stack of them somewhere...I'll have to find them one day for nostalgia's sake.

I've yet to play any of the gameboy games or anything though.

[Gala]

ryno. i think i love you. i started on red, then got blue, yellow and silver. Hell, i went out and bought platinum a while back. Hence my badass icon.

[Ryno]

I collected Pokemon cards when I was in elementary school.

Same here. I gave all my replicas to my brother, I have a binder somewhere with all of mine still...

They'll be collector's items someday, I tell you!!