My first Vanilla adventure that showed me what an experience W0W would become for me. So I've been reading others Vanilla stories about great times they had while experiencing Vanilla, and feel compelled to share my first experience that got me hooked on W0W and what a great thing it would be for me.

So when I started playing W0W I was about 12, almost 13 living with both my parents. My first original character was a human paladin that I made on my dads account to try the game out, which was his idea before he allowed me to get my own account. I leveled the paladin to level 14, and absolutely loved it. I begged my dad to let me get my own account to play, and after agreeing on some chores for me to do every week, I got my own account.

Now at this time, Lord of the Rings was huge- I believe was around the time Return of the King, was released. Now bear with me, I was 12 and loved Lord of the Rings, so I made a night elf hunter... can you guess what I named him? If you couldn't, surprise surprise- it was Leggollas. (Now I know that not how you spell it, but 12 year old me thought it sounded right).

Now with that said, I leveled up my hunter and got to about level 14. At this time, I think I was needing to switch zones to level in, but I wasn't sure where to go, and didn't want to piss my dad off asking dumb questions ( at this time he was a raging alcoholic). So what did I do? Decided it was time to head to Westfall, because that's where I knew I had to go on my paladin before I quit playing him on my dads account.

So I was at the boat outside Darnassus and opened the map, and found Westfall, and saw where I was. It was about 4PM on a Saturday, and I realized I was about to be in for a journey, but it was exciting to 12 year old me. I was about to embark on an adventure across two continents and a whole ocean! So I took the boat to Darkshore, saw that menethil harbor was a sailing destination and jumped on the boat. While on the boat I befriended another night elf hunter, who was making the journey to Stormwind.

One the boat, he said hello, and I replied. He asked where I was headed and I said Westfall to quest, but wasn't sure how to get there. To which he said he was going to Stormwind and would gladly show me the way.

And just like that I had a traveling partner! We started our journey from the docks in Wetlands and began the long run through the wetlands to get to the mountains of Loch Moran, and Dun Morogh. While we were both level 14, the mobs in

Wetlands hover in the 20s. The run began rough, lots of aggro'ing mobs- lots of deaths. All-in-all we still stayed together for every death- and neither of us were mad. We were having a blast. It was a true adventure. In fact, 14 years later, this memory is still imprinted into my mind as one of most fun times I had in Vanilla.

We eventually made it to Loch Modan, to our relief the mobs were much lower level, resulting in a much quicker pass through. At this time it was about 8PM. Just to recap, that's 4 HOURS, we spent running and dying from the docks in wetlands to the Loch Modan pass. After passing through Loch Modan, we entered Dun Morogh. I was astounded at how cool it looked- the mountains, the snow, and IRONFORGE!!! Wow how cool it was to see from a distance, and seeing it up close as you make that slow run up the hill, seeing it slowly crest over the hill.

Newbie me, thought we were just passing through like the previous two places, but I was about to be enlightened to one of the handiest things of the time, the Deeprun Tram. I asked my traveling companion where we were headed here, and he told me it was a "secret shortcut". Obviously looking back, it wasn't secret, but I thought it was being let in on the inner circle of this awesome game.

So we entered the tram, and waited for it to arrive, and once we did we jumped onto the tram, and off we went. I was in complete amazement at watching this tram pass through it's passage. And the underwater part literally made me go "woah" irl.

So we got to Stormwind, and I thought my traveling partner was about to park for the night, as it was about 10PM. But he offered to run me to Westfall to make sure I got there alright, so he helped me get to Westfall and we parted ways, players were different back then- we all helped each other out through everything. All in all it was about 11PM when we finished up, a 7 hour journey. And one I still remember vividly to this day.

Now, I'm 26, married, a father of two beautiful children, own my own house, have a college degree, watched loved ones die, watched parents divorce and much more. W0W has been with me through it all, my escape from life, the thing that helped me learn how to make friends, and to keep trying when things don't work. I couldn't be happier with all of my experiences I've had in this game.

I might post some more experiences tonight I had in Vanilla, I really enjoyed writing this and reliving this through memories. I have tons of stories of progressing through MC, BWL, AQ (nature resist farming FML), Naxx, lots of PVP, and a GM of mine that was involved with selling drugs with the Hells Angels that I found about after joining a Vent channel unannounced.

Would love to hear others inputs, W0W classic gold experiences and if anyone else would like to hear about progression or guild stories from back then. I truly love this game, and Classic has me more excited than anything!