(I resisted the urge to title this as “No king rules forever” but I can’t let my ego do it.)
As of December 30th 2021, my game time will expire, and I have no plans of renewing it. No you can’t have my stuff.
I’ve been putting off making this post because I have no idea what to say. It’s been so long since I started playing, it’s unlikely there are even that many people still around who will remember me. But I do hope there will be a few, and maybe they can pass this post along to the other old timers who would appreciate seeing it.
I’ve always been bad with names, so I won’t call anyone out in specific for all the good times that I’ve had, it wouldn’t do justice to all the people I would forget. But in my defense, there aren’t too many people that have played a single character since release. I made it easy to be memorable sticking to one character and loud-mouthing in Trade and other misc. channels far too often, lol. Still never changed my character btw, no “Shave and Haircut” achievement.
For those that may not know me, I’ve played since release, collectors edition, zergling FTW (even if it’s a terrible battle pet). I played a lot of video games when I was younger, some friends of my older brother played Starcraft which I got into, that eventually led me to Diablo and Warcraft. WC3 I really enjoyed, it was the first RTS I played through the campaign and beat without using cheats (I was a kid). So when I heard they were making WoW, I was stoked.
I’ve played WoW as a completionist, it’s how I’ve always played video games. I’ve always wanted to hear all the stories, collect all the things, do all the stuff. And while there are certainly many others that have done it better, I think I’ve managed to do a pretty good job, especially considering I’ve never used any add-ons. From mounts, to pets, achievements, and rare items that don’t have any outward facing glory attached to them, even extending into appearances, I’ve spent so much time playing WoW trying to enjoy all it has to offer. In the end, I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished. I don’t regret it because I enjoy doing what I do, and I did it very well.
You can look through my armory and see the many achievements, mounts, and pets I’ve collected, but probably the rarest thing I have is my Dark Iron Tankard. Just an off-hand with an alcohol on use effect, but it was only available for the first 6~ or so hours of the first day of the very first Brewfest. It was a reward for completing the Dark Iron invasion event, which was disabled after only a few hours. I remember getting home from school, logging in and rushing to the Brewfest grounds, and the quest giving cog laying on the ground in the center. I almost didn’t take it because I wanted to accept it after doing the event myself, but I figured I could accept it now and turn it in after I did do it. It never started again, until next year when the reward was changed, and the tankard wasn’t obtainable.
I have loads of fond memories like that while playing WoW. From the quests, to interactions with players, to the story it told expanding on the WC3 plot, its been so great. But of course over the years they have made changes I haven’t liked. To this day I’ve never understood why they changed (ages ago) the Undead racial language from Gutterspeak to just plain “Forsaken”. /shrug
Getting to the point. Some time ago they changed the Warlock’s “Enslave Demon” to “Subjugate Demon”. I didn’t like it, but… whatever. Now however, I can’t stand all the recent censoring they’ve been doing, how politically correct everything must be. And what’s worse, while I won’t take the time to find the direct quote, one of the Blizzard high-ups went on record saying how the 9.1.5 changes are just the beginning. Paraphrasing to bring the Arthas theme full circle, I see only darkness ahead, and I want nothing to do with it.
All things said and done, I do want to end this on a happy note, because I don’t want this to seem bitter. From all the things I’ve experienced and collected, I’m glad there is something I can share with everyone. You take a lot of screenshots over 17 years…
Of the over 900 I have in my WoW folder, I pulled out some that I really enjoy. Memorable, funny, perhaps bragging, but most of all - nostalgic. Pardon the watermark on some of the oldest, oddly in the early days screenshots didn’t automatically save as .jpegs, and that was some free converter I used years ago. The first two pics in the album are the oldest screenshot (that I still have) and what I think will be my final screenshot. Beyond that, they start at the AQ gate opening event and hit a lot of major events, interspersed with completely random and interesting pics. Oh and bugs lol, lots and lots of bugs.
Enjoy everyone! It’s been nice knowing you all!
https://imgur.com/a/BK85Mts