I blame Heart1lly for this post!

In my Twitter timeline it is full-on WoW Classic Mania this week. While it’s fun to see everyone taking delight in retro-gaming, I haven’t joined in.

Part of the reason is that while I played and enjoyed WoW, it wasn’t, y’know, life-changing for me from a gameplay point of view. MMOs that were life-changing for me personally: MegaWars III (my 1st MMO) and Ultima Online (the one MMO that I played to a point where it started having a negative impact on my real life). WoW was just another in a LONG line of MMOs that I played and enjoyed.

It did happen to land in a weird time in my life. I had gotten laid off and decided to chill for a few months; do some freelancing and live off savings for a bit. Because of that I could devote massive amounts of time to WoW. I joined a guild, became friends with a lot of those people and often spent upwards of 8 hours a day online with them. I knew them, knew their partners and kids, new about their real lives. We were very much a family.

But once I started working again I couldn’t maintain that lifestyle and I drifted away. By the time The Burning Crusade came out, I was ready to move on from WoW. I’ve re-subbed a few times since but without my “family” it just felt kind of empty. Which is strange since I mostly solo in MMOs and am not much of a guild joiner. But in my head, WoW = these friends I’ve lost touch with.

My favorite WoW memories have little to do with gameplay. One thing I love about WoW is how time mirrors real life and, back then, people sought out servers in their time zone. It would be 3 am, the world would be pretty quiet as most players would’ve gone to bed. A friend and I would head out to Westfall and sit near the lighthouse and watch the light play across the sea and talk about life and troubles and whatever and just enjoy the night.

Other fond memories involve silly roleplay in Stormwind, or the time friends stuck with me for 6 hours helping me get a rare pet for my hunter.

Going back to WoW, visiting those zones… it would just be sad for me. Those friends are gone and even if I could find them, it’d be like that awkwardness you feel at a school reunion. People change over time.

I’d rather keep these fond memories as they are. I don’t remember any of the pain points that there must have been. I just have wonderful memories of a good time in my life, and going back could only taint them. So no WoW Classic for me.

But I hope everyone else has a blast!