I started playing during WotLK because I got into Lord of the Rings around that time and my dad told me WoW was basically Lord of the Rings as a video game. I wonder if anyone else has any similar stories?
If you got into WoW from playing the RTS games, this isn’t applicable to you, though if you convinced someone else to play WoW with a comparison I’d like to hear it.
My ex-husband told me it was better than EverQuest.
He was right.
When did you start playing?
29 Nov 2004.
I started MMOs playing Ultima Online, but the game had been dying out for awhile when I decided to follow several of my other friends who quit UO for WoW. This guy, my main, is a more-or-less direct translation of my UO main. Unfortunately that was a couple weeks before the launch of WotLK and I picked a hell of a time to start as the prepatch had hordes of ghouls attacking all the major cities, turning players into ghouls which after a minute or so exploded and died. Made learning the basic mechanics of the game a bit trickier.
Heard about it from a co-worker’s husband at a company Christmas party. If I remember correctly, he told me TBC was coming out in a few weeks. This was Christmas of 2006.
I told him I played neverwinter nights I think it was neverwinter 2. He told me warcraft was a much better game and I would not want to play any other game at that time. I tried it and loved it.
I stopped plating neverwinter and started playing wow with 7 co-workers.
I was playing Everquest when I read that Blizzard, the guys who made Diablo and stuff, were making an MMORPG:
“Everquest is over, Blizzard throws their gauntlet into the MMORPG ring”, I posted on the forums for Everquest; they laughed at me.
When I got into Beta Phase 3 of World of Warcraft I never logged into Everquest again. I actually forgot to cancel EQ for 3 months. I never looked at the EQ forums again or bothered to post there saying goodbye.
Then EQ was part of that company that buys dead MMORPGS, along with Ultima Online and Dark Ages of Camelot.
i started playing mostly because of the South park episode. i did not know anyone that played WoW at the time besides kids from my school but it’s not like we were close or anything we had mutual friends and hung around every day but thats about it.
i played mmorpg’s all my life starting in middle school though from RS to maplestory to WoW. was never really good either like i just played to have fun and socialize but thats pretty much it. eventually quit early on though because i come from a family that doesn’t like video games in general they are kind of against it at least my dad and at the time i had no income/job my parents even my mom wasn’t into paying for subs so i could only play when i had money from like my bday presents or xmas presents.
mostly started playing during cata as that is when i had my first real job despite i worked majority of my life with my dad but non paying. this is why when people ask when i started i say cata but reality i started during BC.
It was no one person. There was a guild made up of members of my church. They convinced me to join. I began shortly after AQ opened (2006)
I was playing Everquest Online Adventures (EQOA) on PS2 when WoW came out.
I didnt have a PC of my own at that time. So all I knew is people were leaving
my game to play this WoW that I knew nothing about. At the time, I didnt even
know what “WoW” stood for.
One day, I recieved my monthly gaming magazine in the mail.
One of the articles was talking about the upcoming WoW expansion The
Burning Crusade.
I read the article multiple times, and each time, wanted to try WoW even more.
I asked my friend mark who I played EQOA with about it. He said it was great
and suggested that I give it a try. So, about the time TBC was hitting stores.
I went out and bought a cheap HP PC and WoW.
Even with everything turned down as low as possible. I was getting 20fps.
But, I loved evey minute of it. I would of course move on to better PCs
so I could play on ultra.
I remember being in Target with a friend looking at computer games one night. He had been interested in getting an MMO and was deciding between WoW and the Dungeons and Dragons MMO. Despite both of us having played tabletop D&D I suggested WoW because it had a really big following and I liked the art style. Oh, and dwarves. 
Up until then I had never seen the game played. Just screen shots and artwork from Blizzard. Between him and another friend getting into the game, I went ahead and bought it a short time later. Up until then I primarily played on console and one or two computer games.