I was 35 when WoW was released. I am 50 now. I was struggling to play EQ2 at the time…I was super excited for EQ2, but my PC could barely handle it. I had just come off from playing EQ since 1999, and was a big EQ proponent. One of the guys who used to work for me at Sony was one of the associate producers. I was invested in that world. Two weeks into EQ2, I was ready to give up. I could barely move in cities, and dungeons were worse.
Then, my wife bought two copies of WoW. I wasn’t familiar with it, but decided to give it a shot, just like I gave Asheron’s Call, Star Wars Galaxies, and Dark and Age of Camelot a shot. None of those three stacked up to EQ in my opinion, so I was skeptical. WoW was a breath of fresh air, and my PC was able to handle the game with ZERO problems. I was hooked.
I still play EQ on occasion, but not for more than a few hours every year for some nostalgia.
How old were you when you started playing WoW, and how old are you now? What were the circumstances around you deciding to play the game?
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It was WotLK. New year. The last day of the Winter’s Veil event, after midnight. I heard I needed level 20 to get a pet from the event. Stubborn as a mule, I refused to miss the pet and spent hours past sensible sleeping hours grinding levels to get to level 20 before the event was over.
I got the ugliest pet possible, the wrinkled old male Gnome lol
A few days later a fellow newbie asked my Voidwalker what he did to look like that. It was fun.
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I started playing WoW when I was 17. A coworker was talking about it, and I was a big fan of other Blizzard games (I played a ton of Diablo 2), so I decided to buy it. Got hooked from then on.
I’m 32 now. Not quite as hooked as I used to be, I’m afraid, but I’m still around.
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Idk I was a teen, now I’m in Grad School. Big oof.
Kotor and WC3 were my childhood games. Kotor being the preferred status one, but WoW launched before SWTOR, and I didn’t get into it until I was in my teens near the end of Wrath, and I remember also doing my research on the SWTOR stuff but idk they was too slow with it releasing so I just got into WoW.
I bounce between the two games. I’ve always played my mage, but I’m benching him in favor of this Priest I made in BFA, and then I’m leveling a BE warlock to take my Horde main spot, that’s all I’m doing currently (Loremaster on both characters)
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My account history goes back to when I was 13 years old. Back then I lived in California, and got into MoP with my mother and uncle, even getting that expansion’s CE. I am a big fan of games where you explore worlds and have your own customized character so of course I became quickly attached to WoW. I have taken long breaks but now I’m in it for the long run. I am currently 20 years old and live in New York.
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I started back around patch 1.6. I was 16 years old and hadn’t even played an RPG, let alone an MMORPG. One evening after class, one of my high school buddies loaned me his install discs and a two week trial code. Needless to say, I got hooked and have been playing ever since.
I’ll be turning 31 this month. Don’t play anywhere near as much as I used to because the game (and its players) have developed a bit too heavy of a tryhard/competitive leaning for my taste, but I don’t envision quitting entirely any time soon.
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I started when I was 33 and now I am just old…
I started on a warlock playing with a rl friend who wanted me to try it. I actually didn’t like it at all the first time. I tried it like 3 months later with my friend again and ended up getting hooked.
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Wow was released sometime in 2004, my birthday is November, 2003. I was introduced on December 7, 2010, The day cataclysm was released when I was 7 years old by my friends father who was in his 40’s. Been playing on and off since I was 7. Of course nothing serious, making characters and getting them to level 3 or whatever and just running across the world having no idea how much else there was to do. Now I am 16 and actually play. My friends dad quit though
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Out of high school, had nothing else to do. Paid for a computer to play it on and stayed up late for hours mining copper and leveling blacksmithing.
Good times.
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Started in 2006 when I was 53 and have never taken a break from the game. Before that played MechWarrior 3 and 4 online and briefly Gates to Heaven. All other games were single player.
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Looks like I was 23 years old when the game came out… wow. I definitely haven’t played the entire time. Was in the open beta and played through most of the original TBC, then my computer at the time just up and died upon arriving from outdoor activities. I took that as a sign to stop playing so many games.
Came back just as Timeless Isles for Pandaria was released, using an out-dated PC that was given to me – and was unable to play the upcoming WoD expansion. Took off for the entirety of the next two expansions.
Came back during BFA once I got settled in a career and was able to get everything sorted out. I was playing some console games, but wanted to see what WoW was all about these days, and picked up a slick laptop to ensure all those past problems wouldn’t occur again. Couldn’t be happier with it.
I always thought it would be great if Blizzard made an MMORPG, and was extremely hyped from its announcement to the release. Prior to that most of my MMO experience was with Ultima Online, which caused so much frustration that I see now as a lack of funding on their part. It’s nice that that Blizzard was able to create a big production game like this. A lot of the problems they had with the genre were concerns of mine as well – and I was surprised by what they were able to do with it.
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Started about two weeks before BC released, January 2007. I was 13 at the time and 26 now.
I was a big WC3 fan and had played that for a good while beforehand and my MMO back then was Runescape. Didn’t really have much interest in WoW at first, but I asked for it for Christmas just to try it out and see what it was all about. Sold my soul to it and I’ve been a steady player since. 
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I was in college when WoW came out. Was so bad at the game that I got lost in Ashenvale and ended up killing swamp elementals for like an hour straight. So, basically same skill level now only things are much easier to find on the map.
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I started with daoc and loved every second of it. That was some real PvP. WoW has never been even remotely close to it. Mythic ran the game into the ground. A shame really.
I’ve been in EQ2 and it was actually not bad but it just didn’t sit well with me. Lotro same there. WoW of course has been with me since the start. There have been so many mmos out and so many failures.
If I ever quit wow which is very likely with how BfA has been and how Shadowlands turn out I’ll switch to ff14. That game seems fairly enjoyable.
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Aye. I’d say that was a huge incentive for a lot of us. They couldn’t have picked a better franchise or genre. But wow, you started at 13. I was still playing Mario at that age. lol
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My experience with the MMORPG genre prior to WoW was only Runescape. I played that when I was 10-11. Was never any good, didn’t really know what I was doing, but I loved it at the time. Free to Play. Never had membership. For those that never played – F2P Runescape’s world is TINY compared to WoW (and compared to Members Runescape). Or at least, this was the case when I was playing it way back then. It’s a little bigger now.
So when I was ~14, one of my friends showed me WoW when I was over at his house. Let me play some of the starter zone stuff on his account. That’s basically it. It was a whole lot bigger and more magical than anything Runescape had for me. I’d never been more immersed in a video game before. Still haven’t since, even with WoW. Anyway, got my parents to buy the game and pay for the sub for 4 months shortly after. Had to take over a year off when they stopped paying, but came back mid-WotLK and haven’t truly left since.
I’m 26 now. I wish I could feel the same way about WoW as I did when I was 14, but I know that’s not possible. I still enjoy the game for what it is, but in a different way, and with a lot more pet issues as a result that I would have glossed over back then.
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I started for a bit with Vanilla back when I was in grade 10 and just went on and off between WoW-vanilla and Final Fantasy XI online back then.
I was very thrilled with the odd features that I found compelling which were jumping physics, swimming in water, emotes, and more of an open world than what Final Fantasy XI didn’t had & lacked. Though Final Fantasy online always remained in my heart.
I was confused and disoriented as It was the MMO-type that you solo 90% of the content coming from a very-community-group reliant game (final fantasy) to which in order to level, farm etc it had to be done in groups…almost impossible to solo.
I am 30 now, and though my wonders for WoW has waned over time, I still come back every now and then, and though I am not highly pleased with the current state of the game, it is still enjoyable nevertheless and like every MMO has that life cycle, I will be saddened but ready when WoW would finally come to rest, and I plan to rest my avatar in Western Plaguelands as a final visit before the game shuts down like I did with FFXI in West Ronfaure.
PS: Maturity and RL sorts is natural and its great you can find so much dynamic in RL, after all, you come to realize it was all fun. Its rather sad some people can make it a serious “business” hardcore 24/7 gaming as it depletes the fun-ness of it in return for perfection of everything which to be frank its not my ideal of “fun” but grinding my butt off, knowing full and well that it will always be obsolete in every patch and expansion
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I watched my brother play through classic because I was fascinated with the different races and the world, of course. I was around 10 when Burning Crusade came out, my brother played it for a week before allowing me to create a character on another realm. I made a Blood Elf Hunter. I was really, really bad.
Wrath of the Lich King, I got my own account and played with my brother occasionally. I talked three friends from school into getting the game, we played a lot and talked about it all the time at school. Then, Cataclysm came out and then began my on and off relationship with the game. Longest break I took was, maybe 2 years?
Came back on a more permanent basis around the end of Legion, after having taking yet another break mid-way through the expansion. I’ve not stopped playing since, despite the lack of any real enjoyment from Battle for Azeroth. I’m just running old content for new transmog items.
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I was a lad of about twelve. Seduced around 2005 by the violence and fantasy of its commercials and cover art I could naught but beg my parent to grace me with a copy and an account, for they would not dare to let me out of the house to earn the money necessary to maintain it elsewise.
She did, and I never had so much fun letting my grades and scholarly engagement fail.
I didn’t have the patience to reach level cap until Wrath, but I had plenty of adventures through The Burning Crusade alongside my three in game friends, in particular the Protection Paladin that took me by the scruff of my neck after our first friendly encounter and dragged me out of the low thirties as a partner to two-man dungeons with on his merry way. We were inseparable, and tenacious beyond the telling when the Horde would come seeking our lives, one time just the two of us battling a five-man group outside of Scarlet Monastery for over an hour for the right to bring justice to the zealots.
If ever I met the man behind that screen in reality, I would give him a firm handshake and invite him to reminisce about days gone over a few drinks.
That would certainly be a pleasant break from the bitter twenty-six year old curmudgeon I have become.
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I was 21 or something. Been an avid Diablo II player at the time. My younger brother started playing some private BC server and I wanted to try, seeing that it’s also RPG. Several private servers, retail regions and realms later here I am.
Silverbolt was my first ever character created back on my first private server, and I kept using the same appearance and class through all my rerolls where I couldn’t transfer.
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