The Bliss Of Noobility

Or something. Sometimes I think back to when I first started playing my character. It was truly as if I had been just born into that virtual world. Everything was so fantastically fantastic, in the truest form of the word. At level 1 I was the noobiest of noobs, waking up at the spawn point of every new Night Elven character. Surrounded by shades of purple, pink, and dark blues. And the music. Calming, relaxing music punctuated by chimes that only added to the magical fantasy of the whole thing.

Yeah, okay, so I can remember venturing outside of the protective shelter of the Night Elf starting point and following the path west to Darnassus. All of a sudden I see a gigantic tree-thing stomping its way towards me. "Oh, shit!" I thought as I started running away. So eventually I found out that it was a guardian that was a friendly. God, what a fuckin' noob, right?

Then there's my first flight off the island into Darkshore; more specifically, Auberdine. Level 10. And my introduction to the murlocs. Those goddamn murlocs. Fish-people capable of pissing off even the most calm of players with those gargly sounds coming from them. Being overrun by a pack and cursing the hell out of those little shits as they killed you and then flip-flapped back with a smug self-satisfaction that only made you want to reach into your monitor and strangle those abusive little fucks. (Sometimes, when I come back to Darkshore, I will go to a murloc village and slaughter every last one of those things. "Remember me, motherfuckers? Not so fucking smug anymore are you? Die! Fucking die, all of you!")

Once I got to a high enough level I decided I wanted to train in swords. Because swords are awesome. Unfortunately I did not know where to go to do this. Another friendly player offered to guide me to some place called Stormwind where I was told was somebody who could teach me how to pwn with swords. So I followed him onto a boat and across the ocean to a wholely new continent, landing in The Wetlands. I had heard many a story about lowbies trying to get to Stormwind on foot, about how many times you could expect to die to the vicious mobs that littered the area. But we were off, the two of us in our mid-teens with shitty gear but of intrepid spirit, running along the long, long road to our first destination of Ironforge.

We ran, and ran, and ran, and ran. And then we ran some more. The road wound itself disorientingly and we took fork after fork and I thought that I would never find my way back. The land rose and we snuck through Dwarven-built tunnels through the mountains and snow started appearing as we ascended until we reached the snowy land of Dun Morogh and, eventually, the great city of Ironforge. Carved into a mountain with two great stone doors at its entrance, it was quite a sight to behold for somebody who just fell off the turnip truck.

Up until this point I had not met many other players, but upon entering Ironforge, I saw hundreds upon hundreds of other players milling about, some with mounts, and a lot of them with awesome looking gear and weapons glowing red, white, purple, and blue. No time for that as my guide led me through this vast underground metropolis to the underground tram. We both boarded and rode it to Stormwind, where the other player guided me to the weapons trainer. He even gave me the 10 silver that I needed to buy the training.

So long ago. I have been there and done that. I have killed thousands upon thousands of enemy Horde players. I have seen some monsters that require forty players to bring down. I've become the grizzled old war veteran who has become cynical and somewhat jaded with the world. My rules of engagement were to attack only for defense back then. Now I take bored pleasure in sending my pet after a level 40 and grinning with mild amusement as he gets taken down by my cat. Either that or I may fire a concussive shot at a lowbie Horde who is desperately trying to run away from a mob that's about to kill him. Or I may just level my unarmed weapon skill by punching lowbies to death.

I once went back to where my life as a hunter began. It reminded me of how things used to be, but it just wasn't the same.

It's kind of weird. My character has evolved, but so has my way of thinking about my experiences in-game. Character development not only in stats or levels or gear, but also in attitude.