Introduction

World of Warcraft is not the only MMO that I play. It is, however, the first one I played.

I never wanted to play an online game. I was convinced that only lonely people and perverts actually bothered. Granted, I have since then found this often to be true, but not always. Regardless, a friend of mine spent months trying to convince me to play World of Warcraft.

I do not remember what finally convinced me, maybe it was simply his own excitement over the game that eventually infected me.

One defining factor, however, was something that I had been desperately searching for in games for years. I had always lamented when a game ended. Especially fantasy games. I would become attached to my characters and it was sad to see their stories come to an end after only a few days or couple weeks of playing. Furthermore, the games never seemed large enough.

The Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale PC games were close to what I wanted in my games. They just had the unfortunate tendancy to come to an abrupt end. Their expansions were great, just far too few were produced.

I told my friend what I was looking for: a game that would offer an expandable world that would grow with dozens of expansions. The expansions could be anything from gear and monsters, to cities and zones. A player should be able to use his first character in every expansion and that character should continue to grow.

My friend assured me that World of Warcraft most definately was the game I had been looking for.

When I finally purchased World of Warcraft and spent the next nine months or so playing on my dial-up connection (oh the horror!) I had no problem telling my friend that he had been right.

I began playing World of Warcraft right around the time Naxxramas went live. I managed to snag a collector's edition of The Burning Crusade at midnight of its release day. And now, I am slowly exploring Northrend. I've played a dozen or more online games since then.

I have no regrets.