I’ve never considered myself a hardcore gamer.
I’ve played video games since I was a kid, sure, but I can’t exactly say that I ever took them too seriously. I didn’t have dreams of becoming a developer, I wasn’t interested in posting gameplay to YouTube, and I’m not even sure I knew it was possible to make money on the competitive scene at the time — nor would I have been willing to commit to a life of PVP even if I had.
Instead, I was pretty much just along for the ride: I played games because I loved the stories.
The only problem is that loving a story meant I tended to get lost in the weeds along the way. At a certain point, typically long before the endgame, I’d always kind of… Stop playing. It wasn’t ever intentional, though, and it wasn’t always a matter of losing interest. To be honest, I think it was my way of making sure it never ended.
And in retrospect, I can admit that it’s probably an absurd bit of logic. Why buy a game in the first place if you’re not going to finish it? Can you even claim to appreciate a story without wanting to know its ending?
Maybe the answers to those questions are obvious to some of you out there, but I’m not yet convinced myself.
So, that’s why I’m here.
I’ve played World of Warcraft since launch back in November 2004. At the time, I was committed, and I played pretty heavily — albeit inconsistently — through the first three expansions (The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and part of Cataclysm). I fell off pretty sharply when I went to college, but returned for a few solid months at the height of Legion and then happened to be lucky (or unlucky) enough to catch that awkward period at the tail end of Battle for Azeroth.
Along the way, and as you might imagine, I didn’t achieve very much.
I haven’t maxed a primary profession, for example. I’ve never fished anywhere other than the fountain in Dalaran. I missed Operation: Gnomeregan and the burning of Teldrassil. My last serious guild splintered during Wrath. And while I remember the opening of the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj, I never raided the Temple — in fact, I haven’t actually completed a live raid at all.
My goal in starting this series is to fill in some of these gaps and, hopefully, find an end to some of the old stories I’ve left unresolved and unexplored for so long.
Of course, I also don’t want to lie to you. I won’t pretend to believe that Warcraft is particularly well written, just as I won’t presume to think that I can tell a particularly moving narrative of my own. Rather, I expect to find flaws and I expect to make mistakes… Because, really, what story is ever perfect?
This is my return to Azeroth.
Let’s see where it takes me.