…when dwarves were the best priests
…when mind Soothe was a 100% aggro radius reduction
…when spirit was pretty useless
…that damn Tauren boss in Deadmines killing me every time
…when 100 gold was a LOT of money
…when seeing the blue undead horse was truly awe inspiring
…when getting your party buffs meant grinding the hell out of instances or spending a ton of gold
…when there was only one legendary weapon in the game
…being scared of dinosaurs in Un’Goro
…standing in front of those weird gates in Silithus and pondering
…staring in awe at my screen the first time I fell into that lake in Mauradon
…when shamans were horde and paladins were alliance
…having to land and pay at each flight point on the way to my destination
…actually paying attention to the various zones and quests of Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms
…Captain Placeholder
…casting Shackle Undead on Forsaken players and enjoying myself immensely
…when the only form of PvP was getting ganked in Stranglethorn or Hillsbrad while trying to quest
…when the only way to get a weapon with a graphic on it was to get an enchantment
…when it seemed like the Ashbringer story line might actually go somewhere
…when it seemed like the Discs of Norgannon story line might actually go somewhere
…marvelling at how fast a 60% speed bonus was and feeling like I was truly flying at 100%
…when the only flying mount you saw was the one you paid to ride
…having to wait while those slow ass paladins buffed everyone
…when everyone had to run to the instance
…when your faction’s auction house was either in Orgrimmar or Ironforge
…swearing I would never go horde
This bit of nostalgia brought to you by my epic case of writer’s block. What do you remember?
-Dueg
(un)Holy Dueg! 
lol, I’ve only been playing the game for the last year and a bit, but wow…I’ve heard of some of that stuff. Crazy to think where the game has gone. 😮
(Here’s my ‘memory secret’ – being a brand new player, getting really lost and getting really scared in the Barrens at night.) <– embarrassed
OMG you used to be Alliance? Begone with you! The Alliance is full of … (looks at my recent blog posts) … uh, nvm, carry on. >.>
I’m about with Cadistra … it’s been about 14 months for me. A friend and I were just looking at the quest chain and events that had to be completed to open AQ and I was absolutely astounded. Heck, mounts at 40 and 60 are about the only thing I can even say “remember when” to.
OH GOD NOT THE FLIGHT POINT THING
Remember when 5 mans took HOURS to do? (BRD i’m looking at you!)
or my favorites:
when there were High Warlords and Grand Marshals.
when Enhancement Shaman could tank (well… Off Tank)
oh… or what about Dishonorable Kills? 😀
What are you talking about? Dwarves are still the best priests. Everyone know that aggro is based on height. This makes Night Elves the first healers to get aggro (and thus the most likely to die in a tragic untanked-trash-mob accident). We Dwarves meanwhile can hide behind the plate- and mail-wearers, and if need be can use Stoneform to tank mods (briefly).
I’ve only been playing a year and a half, too, so no astounding game change nostalgia. I mean, I remember when 70 was the level cap, but by the time I hit 70, it no longer was.
When I get nostalgic I remember . . . well, I didn’t really do much to familiarize myself with the lore when I started. I remember walking out through a gap in the hills on the northern boundry of Teldrassil, finding myself standing on a branch and realizing, “OMG, this is a tree. A giant tree. And that sunset is beautiful”.
Or the first time I got quests sending me to Auberdine. I flew there. Like I was on the back of a magical beast flying . . . I was flying across the Great Sea to the shore of Kalimdor.
I remember there sense of awe, of wonder, of discovery that I felt as I explored the regions where my quests took me.
I remember when innervate was the 31-pt. talent in the druid resto tree.
I remember when a Krol Blade sold for 500g, and that was a LOT!
I remember when Warsong Gulch was the only battleground.
I remember when Molten Core was the only raid dungeon.
I remember when feral druids & BM hunters Just Weren’t Cool.
And I still remember walking out into the Barrens on my little level 12(?) druid, and feeling awed that there was a whole other zone that I could quest in, after all the time I had spent in Mulgore.
I remember hitting level 60 on that druid, grinding on the undead in Eastern Plaguelands. Then hitting 60 on my hunter in Winterspring, killing frostsabers so I could tame Shy-Rotam, back when she was still elite. (I still like to brag about how she killed me twice.)
Said druid is now level 73 and my oldest toon /played-wise (even tho my hunter was my first 80).
Been playing since Nov. ’04, release date, and this post has brought back some memories. Thanks! 🙂
I’m with tartdarling on the old PvP rankings and dishonorable kills (hmm.. what DK meant then and what it means now….)
I remember the epicness the night before TBC “went live” … party in Blasted Lands!
I remember WC taking hours, oh goodness.
I remember the opening of AQ on my old RP-PvP server… both sides waited and fought. The scepter carrier kept getting killed on the way to the gong.
I remember having to get a group together in order to get through the elite Trolls in Jinath’Alor to create the mallet for ZF.
I remember the ZF stair fight feeling epic.
Fantastic post!
I started playing in the twilight of vanilla, as an Arms warrior who tanked for my 4-man group.
I remember the Zul’Farrak stair fight being fantastic. I kept shouting down the hall to my college buddies as we were trying to fight through it.
I remember tanking as a warrior, where all I could really do was tab+sunder spam.
I remember worrying to much about CC, and being thankful when our Boomkin got his Boomkin form so that he could “tank” the main target while I had all the others corralled somewhere (we also never ran with a healer – it made things somewhat difficult).
I remember staying up all night with my baby warrior trying to kill the trolls off the coast of Sen’jin Village.
I remember exploring the Ghostlands for the first time. Tranquillen was such a cool place.
I remember the first time a guy hit on me when I was on a female alt. It took me a while to even figure out what was going on, and then I was terrified.
I remember questing in Hellfire for the first time (maybe a month or two after TBC’s launch). Also terrifying.
I remember the first time I stumbled onto a Wow blog. I was trying to learn about Priests, since I wanted to try healing. It was The Egotistical Priest. And it opened my eyes to a fantastic new way to play the game (that is, playing well). And to a great community.
I remember when there were a large number of elites outside instances!
-When shaman PvP meant you were a blacksmith for invulnerable mail.
-When the unstoppable force knocked back people.
-Doing AV for 4 hours, going to bed, waking up and logging into… the same AV.
-When raid schedules included UBRS, with 15 people.
-Arcanite reaper being best in slot.
– When you knew nearly every level capped player on your server, including alliance.
– Upgrading computer hardware to handle Tarren Mill.
– Stirring up shit at the AQ gate event, then having the ensuing PvP battle crash the server, dropping every person to stonetalon mountains, followed by everyone spirit rezzing and continuing the battle.
-World PvP before the honor system.
I’ve got more, I just don’t wanna type anymore lol
I remember getting home, clicking “login”, going to eat and take a shower and then coming back to wait in the queue a little longer.
I also remember teabagging dueg’s dwarf in a little, out of the way, stormwind shop while the proprietor was out picking flowers.
If I was at home right now, I’d link some old OLD screenshots. Maybe even a confooshus camping Fungi tunic picture or 2.
“I remember the Zul’Farrak stair fight being fantastic.”
QFT
I remember each and every one of those.
God damn, we are old, dude.
I started a few weeks after TBC came out so there is much i don’t remember, but some of it is fun (though a bunch of them are me being total nubkins):
: the thrill of getting a mount at 40, the joy in it being an easy spell (ISA Paladin)
:Being the noob that didn’t realize that the rez spell for pallys needed a quest… until he noticed he couldn’t train rank 2
:roflstomping the rez spell quest because i now outleveled it
:Grinding in EP and WP for the argent dawn because “I liked their purpose”
:starting to finally raid Kara in a “shortbus” raid (hey they named the raid shortbus, not me…. though the name is accurate)
:leaving that to become a healer for a T5 guild
:comming back to the shortbus raid for some fun in kara, and “heal tanking” in the hallway towards the big angry lady when we got three packs at once, popping RF, CON, and just letting my self healing aggro from HL keep a bunch on me… eventually calling over vent “Hey guys want to get these things OFF ME!!” after the RL said “ok trouble is over lets take that sheep out” (they had one mob cc’ed )
:doing Kara farm runs for badges, and ALWAYS loosing our aggro [beep] of a Mage because he couldn’t let me get threat (i was holy tanking the groups again)