My Introduction: The 10-day Trial Account (It all starts here!)

My first experience with WoW was back in December, 2006. I had purposely put off trying the game until I was nearly finished with my Bachelor's Degree, because I knew myself well enough to know that it would consume me once I got into it. From that standpoint, I was 100% correct. What I didn't know much about was the game, but I figured that wouldn't be too much of a learning curve for me since I had a long history of RPG games to my credit. From games like "Wizardry" back in the day, through "Bard's Tale" and other luminaries like the "Fallout" series and "Dungeon Siege" (with several stops in between), I'd played a lot in my time... but never a MMORPG. WoW was to be my first. So, I downloaded the game from Blizz and got all set to roll my first toon.

This is the part where I feel shame.

I rolled a Paladin. A Human. Based somehow on the screwball rationale that (Best Armor+Healing Spells) * (Big Swords+Offensive Buffs) would equal a surefire way to Azeroth domination, I made my little toon. You can only imagine my disappointment when I found myself stuck with a goofy looking hammer. I spent a little time killing wolves and taking candles (under duress from the owners, admittedly) before realizing that, while the game was certainly intriguing for me, Pallies weren't gonna be my particular cup of tea, so I bagged out on the Pally and proceeded to compound my mistakes.

I rolled a Mage this time. A Gnome. A female Gnome, with poofy blue anime hair. I was so noobish, even, that I didn't know what server to put her on, so I chose... Gnomergon. after all, wouldn't all of the cool Gnomes be hanging out there? I spent a solid day and a half playing her, running all over the frozen tundra and getting housed by just about every mob I engaged because, well.... I had no skill at this WoW thing. Eventually, I found my way to Ironforge and realized a more relevant equation... the number of people present in Ironforge at any given time plus the amount of memory available in my computer equals hideous lag. Beyond that was a greater revelation, though. I didn't like my Alliance toon so much. I'm a Taurus myself, and so is my wife. I even have a Taurus dog, so there was a natural progression here... I had to roll a Tauren. It was, like, my destiny or something. Totally.