Your Top 5 WoW Moments

[Paelos]

A post someone made in one of the other threads got me thinking about the best of things we've done in WoW, so I figured I'd toss together a Top 5 list that everyone could put their ideas in. Write down the stories behind your Top 5 most memorable/funny/best moments playing this game over the last few years. Mine are as follows, in no order:

1 - We had been running MC forever, and we were more than halfway through BWL when a secondary MC run started up to help out new raiders into the alliance. I was asked to help run the first few runs to get them off the ground since I was the original MT. However, due to the play boring me to tears I decided to make it interesting, so I tanked the entire run in my Fancy Pink Festival Dress on my human male warrior. It's still joked about in our alliance to this day.

2 - Our guild had events every now and then, and my favorite was Drunken DM nights. We would start in Dire Maul East, and work our way through all the wings in an evening, but you had to take a shot for every single boss you killed. This would ineviatably lead to large amounts of screwing around, giggling, and people basically just fucking up by the end in a hilarious fasion.

3 - We were in a Heroic Mechanar run. Our group overpulled the room right after the elevator and I died, so the others tried to make a run for the elevator. Most of them got gunned down except for the warlock who made it. We watched him from our positions on the floor go down the elevator, all the mobs surrounding the doorway. Then we hear, "Oh shit, I forgot to get off." We watch as the elevator comes back up, he appears right in the middle, and gets one shot by the two blood elf casters that light his ass up like a Christmas tree. We can't stop laughing for about 5 minutes, but then we try to rez him since his body is riding up and down on the elevator and we can't get a lock on him. Our priest rezzes him in the elevator, he appears at the top, and falls quickly to his death. At this point, tears are streaming down my face. The guy was home free, and just forgot the simple rule of stepping off.

4 - The first time I did the Deadmines Instance. It was just very cool and fun, and everyone was the same level because it was launch so it was decently challenging. It's never been the same since, nor has any other instance had that kind of "Wow this is neat" feeling after that.

5 - When my alliance first killed Onyxia. It was the first thing we'd ever killed long before we started MC. It sort of started the whole thing, and proved we could actually raid together successfully. Most of the same people that were on that kill almost 2 years ago are still around today raiding with us in the BC stuff, but a few aren't. It's kind of a reminder that the raiding game should be about the people you like, not about the fabulous loot.

[cmlancas]

1) Grunk
2) Grunk
3) Grunk
4) Grunk
5) Grunk


Well, actually:

1) Standing around (Dwarf Priest) with my rogue buddy in stealth and my hunter friend in shadowform as horde tried to gank the lone clothie. Disc/Shadow survivability ftw!

2) Getting drunk and doing the dance with the Ogre.

3) Getting drunk and firebombing people on Baron Geddon.

4) Killing Lucifron the first time due to the LoS bug. We were so disorganized, but we still got through MC.

5) Grunk's posts here that make me remember why I will never be a poopsocking catass ever again.

Edit: 6) Speedrunning UDStrat. Record time 10man? 46 minutes.

[Lt.Dan]

1. Entering IF for the first time.  Seeing the huge statue and the forge area.

2. Clean run of Blood Furnace in a random pug with no deaths.  That's some great feeling of satisfaction (and getting two blue drops)

3. Playing with RL mates who joined WoW after seeing the Leeroy video.  Nothing more fun than acting like a goose with noob buddies.

Ummmm, whay am I playing this game again?

[Merusk]

1)  Back in the days when Stratholme was actually a challenge and we hadn't started running MC yet, we had a 10 man group going through live side.   Things were chaos, and I was a healer struggling to keep our mage alive as we did mass pulls.  About 8 pulls in I looked at my damage meter and realized why that was.  The mage had 52% of damage TAKEN for the group.  I posted it in /raid and we all had a hell of a laugh.  He still uses it as his board sig.

2)  Same timeframe, I rolled against the other healer for that +healing trinket in UBRS.   He rolled a 1, I rolled a 99.  Can't really get a clearer victory than that!

3) Downing Ragnaros for the first time.  We'd been struggling for weeks against him and one night it just fucking CLICKED.  He went down and we were elated.  Even downing Nefarian wasn't as big a thrill as that first Ragnaros down.

4) Seeing Ragnaros emerge, then pwning the Majordomo.  Few of us knew about that (I sure didn't) and it was a nice little bit of scripting that made the encounter a little more than just your usual 'boss kill'   It was pretty damn epic at the time.

5) Finally getting my Netherdrake. Yeah, having epic flight was cool and all but I wanted to ride the damn dragon!  A few weeks of straight faction grinding every day without fail and while i'm burnt out on the dailies, I'm damn happy with the mount.  It just looks so much cooler than the gryphon and it just feels more 'right' as a mount to me.  YOu could take all of my lootz away so long as I have my dragon and the cat I've had since level 10.

[Train Wreck]

2 - Our guild had events every now and then, and my favorite was Drunken DM nights. We would start in Dire Maul East, and work our way through all the wings in an evening, but you had to take a shot for every single boss you killed. This would ineviatably lead to large amounts of screwing around, giggling, and people basically just fucking up by the end in a hilarious fasion.

I used to drink a shot of rum every time somebody died in a run.  It's more fun when everybody is drunk though.

[Fabricated]

1) Speed Running Strat when we didn't take it seriously at all. Our best priest was good friends with my GL and his wife, and is a French fella who liked his wine. He'd heal falling down drunk half the time he played (and well I might add...it was odd, he got better the drunker he was) and actually loved it when we overpulled.

2) My first Tribute run. I thought it was pretty fucking cool to be rewarded for being kinda sneaky and clever, and trading a bunch of easy fights for a tough one at the end.

3) Raiding ZG with pugs and the alliance we had. That is easily the best designed raid in the whole game out of the ones I got to do (note I never tried naxx so I dunno if that was as awesome as people claimed it was). Fun, trash was quick but not stupidly easy, great loot, wasn't too long. AQ20 was a pretty good since it was pretty epic feeling.

4) Jumping off Thunder Bluff the first time.

5) The first competent group I ran Deadmines with. That 5-man was pretty much perfect.

I'd include my first Ramparts and BF runs in this too, as well as entering HFP with 50000000 people on opening day of BC. Ramparts made me love WoW all over again, and BF was epic.

[Lt.Dan]

4. The Tauren starting area and culture.  Some really amazing design and some new fantasy ideas were really brought to life there.

[Morat20]

1) All Cloth run through Blackfathom Deeps. One priest, two mages, two warlocks. Cleared every boss, not a single wipe. Was an absolute blast.
2) A Gath'llzog run with two mages and a paladin -- green to all of us, and we had a horribly bad pull. I tell the paladin "Keep me alive" and unleash absolute hell with every AoE trick I had. It was an orgy of fire and death. Also fun.
3) My first world PvP experience -- level 15 Hunter in Westfall. A group of 5 lvl 60 Horde was dicking around. (Including a rogue who would randomly sap someone just because he could). When the alliance 60s showed up and chased off the Horde, I was part of the pursuit on the Shaman in Ghost Wolf form. I was ahead of everyone (had Cheetah on) and he was badly damaged, with several DoTs ticking. He switched out of Wolf to heal and I pulled up and fired a single shot from a hill. He died to the DoTs and not by dinky 20 points of damage, but it looked cool as hell.
4) WSG game -- we had our flag runner heading up the tunnel for the cap with a 2-2 game. The entire Horde -- all ten of them -- are right behind him. I toss a mithril frag into the mix, and stun 10 Horde, which led to the win.
5) Reading the realm forums and reading a Horde warrior complaining about "A goddamn Hunter who keeps shrinking me" and as I read on -- realizing he was talking about me. Being noticed was fun, and I was new to PvP.

[KyanMehwulfe]

First thing that comes to mind was the Ahn'Qiraj war effort. It turned my server into a sort of massive Battlefield, vying to hold "farm territory" in Silithus and then points of interest in order to defend against enemy Alliance guilds when doing the Scepter quest or to prevent them from making progress. Holding spawn mobs, taking out flight vendors, etc. Basically a week of mass war.

Second, which I'll finish on since I don't have the time to write more (nor do I want to make a bigger post), is one fight from classic Tarren Mill. Quoted from a journal of mine elsewhere. Consider it as an illustration of the event shortly afterwards more than a piece of fiction (meaing, don't bitch).

Tarren Mill. The poor location of this town in proximity to the orcish war machine is ever so evident as we battle here this morning. Where as Horde reinforcements from across the sea are few and sparse, the Alliance have a steady stream of fodder to throw at us from just across the bay at Ironforge.

In the early hours of the dawn, the defenders, barely a score strong, made our stand at Tarren Mill. And what a stand it was. In all my days, I've never seen a line held so adamantly. For nearly one hour, our force held off the overwhelming Alliance army. Inch by inch, the Alliance slowly pushed us back from the western road, as the slowly as the rising sun itself. By the end of that first hour, though, we were pushed into the town itself, and the humans made their first attempt on the Deathguard. Our combined charge drove back the raiders.

But they quickly rallied and pushed forth their march once again. Their force slowly bolstered as the morning passed with reinforcements from the south. Once again, for another hour, the Alliance pushed against our Horde cadre. Our line held strong; to the naked eye, it held sturdy too. But the Alliance were indeed gaining ground once again, ever so slowly. Eventually they reached the town again, but for a second time, we rallied with the Deathguard to drive back the Alliance.

They would not give up though. Once more they rallied and marched onto Tarren Mill. By now their force was an absolute behemoth, yet ours had only gained two new soldiers onto our original score. It felt hopeless staring out at their mass; though no one spoke it aloud, we knew we all thought it. What chance did we have? In truth, the answer to that question mattered little. Down to an man, we knew we'd rather fight and die, than retreat and live. All we could do is take down as much Alliance filth along with us.

The humans charged forth against our entrenched iron line once more. In hindsight, I'm left in awe at how solid our line was, and how slowly we were able to reduce their push to. Half an hour passed before we were finally forced back into Tarren Mill, and the Deathguard charged forth yet again. This time though, the guards would not save us. The Alliance mass destroyed them, and they lunged into the town.

We would not die that easily though. Like a badger, we backed ourselves into the upstairs of the tavern. There, for many minutes, we made our final stand. The walls were aflame with magic and ripped apart by our thrashing axes. The stairway itself became a gauntlet and Alliance fodder came at us to be slaughtered like sheep. With each small wave though, we took more wounds, and eventually deaths. And finally, the mass of the Alliance army swarmed into our last bastion and overwhelmed us. We were defeated.

Tarren Mill was lost.

[Zetor]

1. Doing a 4-hunter, 1-rogue romp into Gnomeregan at level 28-30. We had mend pet, bandages, and my (old main) rogue's jumper cables for healing. I don't think we actually made it to a boss, but it was crazy fun!

2. Taking out Eranikus in Sunken Temple for the first time at level 48-50 (my rogue and our tank were the lv50s).

3. My guild killing Lord Valthalak and completing our tier0.5 sets -- in retrospect, the entire questline was a horrible and costly grind for sub-par gear, but dang, it felt like a real accomplishment! Honestly, it felt better than clearing Kara with our raiding alliance.

4. Me and a druid guildie holding off a raid of about 10 epiced-out level60 horde zerging Lakeshire back in 2006 (using hit-and-runs to kill their healers/mages and having the NPC guards mop up after).

5. A lv67 undead warlock + lv67 tauren shaman tried to gank my lv69 dwarf shadowpriest alt while I was fighting an elite quest mob... a minute later both of them AND the elite were dead. Nerf shadowpriests.


-- Z.

[Xanthippe]

Shadowfang Keep for the first time.  Amazing.  Great storyline.

Deadmines for the first time.

First time I saw any zone - even the Barrens was cool.  I love the art in WoW.

[Train Wreck]

1 - Showing a lvl 50 Paladin where the entrance to the Defias hideout was when I was lvl 15, I didn't know it was the entrance to the Deadmines and didn't even know about instances in general.  He ran me through it and it was the first time I saw a player more than a couple levels higher than me in action.  I loved the Deadmines too for its obvious shout-out to The Goonies.  Pirate ship hidden in a cave -- nice!

2 - Doing SFK for the first time with the F13 Severence guild on Emerald Dream.  It was the first time I used Team Speak in a game and it was cool hearing and bantering with a lot of people I had seen on the board for years.  The instance was great too, especially since I hated Aragul so much from the quest line(s) in Silverpine Forest, it was great finally giving him some payback.  I liked the instance even more than the Deadmines.

3 - My first time in Alterac Valley.  It was brand new, had the original map, complete with goblin mines that spawned in the bases.  People were still new to PvP and most of us were effectively noobs. 

4 - The first time I hit lvl 40 and got a mount.  I thought it was a big deal at the time.

5  - My first griffin ride.  I was amazed when I first saw it, although now it's nothing more than a good time to grab a beer out of the fridge.

[Montague]

The first time I came upon the Tarren Mill-Southshore slugfest on Cenarion Circle. This was about two-three months after launch, and every day there was glorious mass PVP. Tier 0 blues were considered uber gear. Most fun I've ever had in online gaming.

Then the BG's were released...

[ajax34i]

I've mostly played healers, so, the 2 (separate) times where the others in the party said "How the hell did we survive that?!?!?!"  Also Deadmines the first time, and then a year later Deadmines at level 14 as the healer.  Scholomance the first time, took initiative and dove in, shackling and healing, without them having to ask.  Onyxia phase 2 the first time.  Ragnaros the first time.  Suppression Room the first time.

Best extended period was the 6 months with this guild that was really really good, full of good people.  Raided a lot, won a lot of the encounters on the first try.  I'd say that was as good as my EQ guild, back in the old days, similar excellent experience and friendships made.

Both of them just disintegrated to drama and then people just dropped off the face of the earth.  Well, no, actually.  I kept RL contact with 4 of the EQ guild buddies, and 1 of the WoW.  But yeah, out of 40 people each.

[Morat20]

I've mostly played healers, so, the 2 (separate) times where the others in the party said "How the hell did we survive that?!?!?!"  Also Deadmines the first time, and then a year later Deadmines at level 14 as the healer.  Scholomance the first time, took initiative and dove in, shackling and healing, without them having to ask.  Onyxia phase 2 the first time.  Ragnaros the first time.  Suppression Room the first time.

Best extended period was the 6 months with this guild that was really really good, full of good people.  Raided a lot, won a lot of the encounters on the first try.  I'd say that was as good as my EQ guild, back in the old days, similar excellent experience and friendships made.

Both of them just disintegrated to drama and then people just dropped off the face of the earth.  Well, no, actually.  I kept RL contact with 4 of the EQ guild buddies, and 1 of the WoW.  But yeah, out of 40 people each.

I ran Deadmines with a level-appropriate group (no twinks). We beat it, and our only healer was a level 14 druid. She claimed she could handle it. No wipes, only two deaths. I was quite impressed. (Turns out her main was a level 60 priest -- this was prior to TBC of coursE)

[Prospero]

1) The first time I played. I just remember thinking "OMG this game isn't trying to fuck me in the ear!" ( I had recently left SWG ) The combination of great art and decent combat was a shock.

2) PvP in STV. Jumping out of the bushes with my rogue to give pallies a heart attack was great fun.

3) My first griffon ride. I still don't think there is a more visually interesting game on the market.

4) Skulking around to nab quest items with my rogue. It wasn't a perfect stealth game, but it was pretty good.

5) Being chased down by a bouncing gnomish warlock with a hat twice his size.

[schild]

Paelos made this thread to make me cry.

[Xerapis]

1-5)  When Schild stopped playing.

[Morat20]

3) My first griffon ride. I still don't think there is a more visually interesting game on the market.

You know, that was another big one for me. Just as good is the entrance video when you create your character, and it moves from cut-scene to swooping camera and you see other players running around as it's still narrating until it  zooms in on your character and into it's point of view.

[Selby]

I was glad to be done with the 14 part Onyxia chain to get keyed.  It was very rewarding the first time a group of 40 n00bs took her out though.

My favorite moment ever was when I first logged in and realized the little exclamation point was a quest and that quests gave experience, just for killing the same monsters you would normally grind up on.  It was like I was being rewarded for playing!

[Tale]

I honestly never got any wow factor from the raid bosses. I was an EQ raider from the early days so "big dragon with special moves" and "ragnaros the rooted graphical effect" was a bit meh. The WoW bosses feel choreographed and I never got enough adrenaline from PvP either. I enjoyed it all, it's really well done, but it's hard to come up with top moments out of those - so I'll have to go esoteric.

1. The sense of place created by sound, light and art in certain outdoor zones, e.g. Ashenvale, Stormwind, Tirisfal.

2. Coming across a Target Dummy in beta.

3. Exploring a virgin Nagrand in first week of Burning Crusade.

4. Bird form. Elf form. Bird form inches from the ground.

5. First DM tribute run.

[Morat20]

5. First DM tribute run.

Oddly enough, I've yet to run either DM or Scholo. Never did it on my main, and my alts still aren't high enough.

[Tale]

5. First DM tribute run.

Oddly enough, I've yet to run either DM or Scholo. Never did it on my main, and my alts still aren't high enough.

DM is blah, but I'm saying I liked the tribute run - a different and more rewarding way to do a wing of DM, with extra rewards and laughs.

[Morat20]

DM is blah, but I'm saying I liked the tribute run - a different and more rewarding way to do a wing of DM, with extra rewards and laughs.

I see. I believe it must be done with my tailor/mage.

[Ratadm]

Hard to say what my top five were.

Some things that come to mind:  The corrupted ashbringer event in SM.  One wipe on Kel'thuzad where we had gotten past stage one but were totally clueless as to how to do stage 2 and he started slaughtering people and had this cackle that played whenever somebody would die, he spent a good 2 minutes cackling and, also our first kill of Kel'thuzad which ended up being the US Horde's second kill. 

Interestingly though what I remember the most is the people I played wow with.  The events were pretty cool but the people were what kept me play for as long and as hardcore as I did.

[Ironwood]

There's no prizes for Second place, Spud.

Well, 'cept the Epix.

[Selby]

Interestingly though what I remember the most is the people I played wow with.  The events were pretty cool but the people were what kept me play for as long and as hardcore as I did.

Exactly.  Out of all the games I have played, even soloing with guildchat\TeamSpeak was more fun.  Going all the way back to UO.  Of course once guild politics and drama occurred it all went to shit, but the same can be said of any organisation.  Douchebags just seem to come along every now and again to fuck it up for the rest of us who were getting along.  I just enjoyed logging in and hearing the occasional drunken ramblings of these two guys, the pot heads that got stoned while playing (funny as shit as long as you weren't in the group they were fucking up), and making fun of various people for various aspects.  We actually almost had more females than males in our guild that talked, which was kind of odd.

[Ratadm]

There's no prizes for Second place, Spud.

Well, 'cept the Epix.

First place got banned for cheating

[Ironwood]

hahahhahahahhahahhahahhaha.


Man, that's gold right there.  Thanks.

[Tebonas]

I racked my brain but couldn't find any one moment of WoW that stood out in my head. I enjoyed the game while I played it, but abuse and all, MMO moments I still remember are all Everquest. WoW always had the overall better experience for me, but had no exceptional moments that really hit home. I was kind of a well done blandness. The people were basically the same as well, so even those I connect with the older game.

[pxib]

WoW always had the overall better experience for me, but had no exceptional moments that really hit home.

Back when I played DAoC, we always used to say that the best moments were wipes in dungeons. They were unproductive wastes of time, and uniformly negative in every way... but the tedious process of gathering a group of people to help us get back to our corpses, and struggling through with a smaller group and the healer in order to prevent experience loss... and dying again...

It was real community-building stuff. Unlike the basic experience grind, it was actually fun. It felt like an adventure and, if we succeeded, we actually felt like heroes. That "well done blandness" just makes a game easy to play. Crisis builds, uh, character.

[Morat20]

WoW always had the overall better experience for me, but had no exceptional moments that really hit home.

Back when I played DAoC, we always used to say that the best moments were wipes in dungeons. They were unproductive wastes of time, and uniformly negative in every way... but the tedious process of gathering a group of people to help us get back to our corpses, and struggling through with a smaller group and the healer in order to prevent experience loss... and dying again...

It was real community-building stuff. Unlike the basic experience grind, it was actually fun. It felt like an adventure and, if we succeeded, we actually felt like heroes. That "well done blandness" just makes a game easy to play. Crisis builds, uh, character.

Wow. That's like how I have really vivid memories of the time I dislocated my knee playing raquetball, but really don't have firm memories of any other raquetball game. Something about the excruiciating pain really locked in that memory.  All that fun is just dust in my memory, which is why I still play raquetball -- I go to have fun, not to form fucking lifelong memories.

Shit, that hurt. Don't dislocate your kneecap.

[Train Wreck]

I see. I believe it must be done with my tailor/mage.

You used to have to go there to get your Crystal Water spell but now it's on the trainers.

[Tale]

WoW always had the overall better experience for me, but had no exceptional moments that really hit home.

Back when I played DAoC, we always used to say that the best moments were wipes in dungeons. They were unproductive wastes of time, and uniformly negative in every way... but the tedious process of gathering a group of people to help us get back to our corpses, and struggling through with a smaller group and the healer in order to prevent experience loss... and dying again...

It was real community-building stuff. Unlike the basic experience grind, it was actually fun. It felt like an adventure and, if we succeeded, we actually felt like heroes. That "well done blandness" just makes a game easy to play. Crisis builds, uh, character.

Good descriptions of the blandness. I had the same problem as Tebonas in coming up with a "top 5", there's really nothing that stands out.

It's about the definition of risk vs reward. WoW has huge, satisfying rewards, but no actual risk to your character or equipment. In DAoC or EverQuest, you risked damage to your character (experience loss), or perhaps the permanent loss of every item on your character, for the possibility of reward.

Plane of Fear in EverQuest is the classic example. Many people didn't like it and considered its risks to be more a function of bugs, pathing and server disconnections than the design. But as a blind zone-in into a risky area full of powerful mobs, requiring you to "break" it (clear a survival space), most of the risk was designed in.

At some point most people experienced the utter pain of defeat in PoF - your corpse with all your best items was stuck in a non-instanced place where it could not be retrieved. A timer to permanent loss was ticking. So unless another full raid of people risked everything and succeeded where you failed, you were utterly fucked.

"The tedious process of gathering a group of people to help us get back to our corpses" was the social aspect of solving that, too. There was NOTHING as heroic and good for relationships as breaking PoF for the humbled lower-tier guild that had wiped there, dragging their corpses into a heap, rezzing them into your midst and perhaps letting them loot what your own guild did not need. Also, helping someone who had met with a corpse rot disaster to re-equip their character was a real friendship builder and a lot of fun.

After that, nothing in WoW was scary.

[Jayce]

I can see both sides.  I have long had a theory that we play competitive games because of a need to keep ourselves sharp.  Today most people don't need to fight for their survival every day, but for the vast majority of our history, we've had to.  I think that taking on difficult tasks with a big group reassures us that we and our friends can overcome challenges, be they of the boring grindy variety or the react quickly, think on your feet variety. 

That's why people tackle PvE content even though the only reward is better gear to tackle even more difficult PvE content.  It's also why "hardcore" PvP games like early UO and Eve are so gripping and polarizing, where the people who excel in the game swear by it and those who are burned by them think they're a blight.

Given that, it's more meaningful if you have something to lose or get into a horrible situation and are saved by your close or extended friend group.  Your mind is saying "pay attention, you're learning something" and whether the outcome was good or bad, you really remember it.  The good outcome really cements you to the game because you remember it as fun, but the flipside is that too many bad outcomes really turn you off to it.  We don't like to think we weren't up to the challenge.

Anyway, theoretical rambling off.  My top 5 in WoW:

1 - The intro swoop for the first time.  I've seen countless intros, but I like how this one takes you from 15-second history to your actual character's POV.

2 - My first run of the deadmines.  It was my first time exploring this "instanced" thing, as well as the design that people have already commented on.

3 - Hitting 60.  Before WoW, I never made max level in any MMOG.  Too casual.

4 - My first raid (ZG) and my first purple (halberd off Bloodlord Mandokir).  I had never thought I'd be the kind of person who would hit max level in a game, much less have a purple item.  I later had a dream that I had to duel someone and win before I left the instance or I couldn't keep it.  In the dream, I didn't believe it, and left the instance, and I watched the item fade away.

5 - Hellfire peninsula for the first time.  Everyone was there since BC had just opened, but I took a day off work, so it wasn't super crowded.  The ambiance is pretty cool normally, but it was especially cool on opening day, as it felt like we had really just re-found Khadgar's expedition after however many years.