Memories Of Firsts

Sitting down today, I thought I'd blog a bit more about the beginnings of an Altoholic.  No, I'm not some Gold Farmer that's chained to his desk trying to level and sell toons (if they even do that anymore?)  I'm just a guy who loves the art of Levelling in World of Warcraft... and had the time to spend on it.

My First Max Level Toon

About 2 months before Burning Crusade was launched, I had my first max level toon.  Nifeweaver, my rogue, dinged 60 after a few day's push.  I'd not really focused on one toon, instead working on all 10 toons as I went.  It's hard to remember all the details after all these years, but I do remember having 6 toons in the 40's at one time.  The surprise I'd get when talking to someone in game about how many toons each of us had, that really never went away.  Even today I'll still get a 'holy shit' out of someone I talk to about my alts.

I also remember the first night I went into Silithus after Nife hit 60.  The quests there were tough, and the aggro you'd get from riding around there was insane.  I'd bounce from one mob to another while trying to navigate through my quest goals.  One goal was on my mind:  gathering enough gold to buy my very first epic mount.  Yes, it was quite different back then.  You bought your first riding mount skill at Level 40, and it went 60% faster than your toon could run. The next level of riding, 100%, was achievable at Level 60.  The one major catch, of course, was that it cost 100 gold for the mount.  Again, back then it was reversed.  The training cost was minor.  The mount cost was a fortune in Vanilla.

Nowadays, in Mists of Pandaria, 100 gold is only a matter of minutes to farm, if you're at level 90.  Do a few quests and vendor the stuff you picked up from looting during those quests, and it's easy.  During Vanilla, however, I spent that first night in Silithus, I slogged my way through and accumulated 40 gold for about 5 hours work.  A pittance compared to MoP, but it was incredible.  I'd -maybe- collected 50 gold total in levelling all my toons at that point.  Still 10 gold shy I headed back to Silithus the next night and was able to get enough to purchase my epic mount.  The fun part of that was logging onto each of my alts and sending Nife their hard won gold.  Leaving each toon with maybe 1 gold, that was tough, but I knew there'd be a fortune ahead, now that I had my level 60 AND an epic mount.

Kelletar

Sometime during those last months of Vanilla I came across a Level 40-something rogue in Westfall while on one of my lower toons.  A measure of your skill back then was being able to solo The Deadmines, the first instance that Alliance characters could group up and test their mettle.  You'd often see level 40ish toons advertising in General chat that they were willing to run a group through the Deadmines.  I quickly sent a message to the rogue, and received an invite from this nice stranger, named Kelletar.

Kelletar ran us through the instance without much trouble, we actually had 3 other lowbie toons much like myself, who knew to just stay back, avoid drawing body aggro, and loot corpses while sucking up the free xp.  Sometimes it was fun just to let someone else drive.  Kelletar was very skilled and moved through the mobs with ease, gathering them up and knocking them down.  He sapped where he needed to, waited for pats and knew the instance like the back of his hand.  I'd solo'd The Deadmines on my own characters a few times by then, but never with the grace and confidence that this rogue had.  It was impressive, to say the least.

After the run, he offered to run us through again, and some of us took him up on the offer.  I knew I'd found a good guy, when Kelletar again advertised in General, just to fill up the party.  He didn't need the help, he just wanted to help others even if it meant taking that extra effort and getting more people into the party.  The second run was a little more difficult, with an inexperienced hunter drawing aggro from Kelletar by running ahead, or starting the pull before Kelletar did.  We paused for a moment while Kelletar patiently advised the hunter to let him pull the mobs, and stay well back.  He was polite about it, and eventually the hunter got into the swing of it and the run went a lot smoother.

When the last boss died, we all thanked Kelletar, and people started dropping group.  I stayed in group and chatted with him for a while.  I told him that I found his runs very impressive, and that I too had a rogue around his level, but I had nowhere near the skill that he'd shown.  Kelletar suggested I add him as a friend (I already had, perhaps a social faux pas, but wanted to keep this guy on my radar).  He offered to help me learn to play my rogue better, and I was grateful for the advice.  Pretty soon Kelletar and I were logging many hours together, running through quest areas, zipping through instances, and having a blast.  We quickly became comfortable with each other's play styles and personalities, and I looked forward to seeing him log in so we could continue on from where we left off.

T.W.C.

Kelletar belonged to a guild named TWC, The White Company.  Yes, it sounds racist, but the guild founder was a fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and espcially the book called 'The White Company'.  Kelletar offered to get me a guild invite, as my toon at the time was unguilded.  I happily accepted, and found myself immersed in the first truly organized guild.  These guys were raiding, hitting Molten Core on a weekly basis, and pushing into AQ-40.  My highest toon at that time was in his 40's, still a ways away from raiding, but it was a great place to learn more about the game.

I still remember the guild's first 'Get To Know The New Members' night.  Everyone online at the time was gathered into level appropriate groups, and run through an instance by one of the long-term members.  My team leader that night was Junius, again a rogue that had helped Kelletar learn when he was first starting out.  Junius spoke to us in Vent as he led us through that night, and I mentioned that I had a few more toons, and would they be able to get invited to the guild.  His response was music to my ears:  "Sure, bring any and all you'd like, we invite the player, not the toon".   After the run, I proceeded to log one toon after another and got them all invited to the guild.  The 'Welcomes' that rang out in guild chat were overwhelming, especially when someone noted that Junius was doing one hell of a job recruiting, to get that many new players into the guild.  Of course, that soon turned into laughter when Junius admitted that it was actually one player, not a full raid team invading from another guild.  This was the first time I'd experienced (or forced the experience onto a guild) of mass inviting all my toons.  It wasn't the last, and always fun to do.

Molten Core

I've raided on many, many toons. The most raiding I've done was during Burning Crusade, where I had all 10 toons (the max on a server at the time) going through Karazahn.  It was an amazing experience, always being able to join a pug looking for...anything.  I could tank, off-tank, melee dps, range dps, heal, CC, whatever they needed.  I'd run with a dedicated toon on my guild's run, then their alt run.  After that I'd keep my eye on trade chat and join up with a group looking to fill their run.  Eventually most of my toons were committed to running with specific groups, usually other guilds, who would be happy that the pug they needed to bring in was not only competent, but could bring whatever class/role that they were short on.

However, that was my heyday, not my introduction to raiding.  At the time I didn't understand the entire scope of it, but Kelletar started pushing me towards getting attuned for Molten Core.  Basically my friend led me by the nose, going through the appropriate steps in getting attuned.  To this day I still don't remember much of the attunement, other than that first night when Kelletar advised the raid leader that I'd be ready to go.

The nervousness I felt about not wanting to let my guild down was quickly pushed aside when one of the healers, and Kelletar's real life friend, Opus shot me a tell:  "Don't worry Nife, I've got your ass covered, just have fun and assist Junius with your Focus macro."  Kelletar had shown me the brilliance of that little macro, allowing me to quickly switch to the proper target each time.  The biggest memory I had of that night was seeing 40 people in our raid, charging in after the tanks, and beating on the two enormous molten giants that guarded the entrance.  I was too excited to take it all in, even to the point of paying no attention to my health as I ran in after the tanks and started stabbing for all my worth.  I tried to remember to get behind them, not knowing the reason why, but knowing that was what I was supposed to do as a rogue.

I don't remember which bosses we killed, if any, that night.  I don't remember getting any loot beyond trash drops.  I do, however, remember the excitement that lasted well into the night, beyond the end of the run, knowing that this game was absolutely incredible, beyond what I'd already experienced while levelling my toons.

I didn't raid that much during Vanilla, I was still focused on getting the rest of my toons to max level.  I had 9 left to level, and Kelletar kept me advised on the upcoming expansion, The Burning Crusade.  Back then, I didn't pay much attention to the wealth of information that was available.  I focused mainly on sites like Allakazam, and Thottbot, in order to figure out quests that I was stuck on.  I rarely looked up things like loot tables, happy just to get whatever dropped.  Compared to today, I was a total innocent, happy to react to things that happened rather than being proactive.  It was certainly a time of innocence.