I've Played WoW My Whole Life.
April 2nd, 2026
I started playing World of Warcraft around 7 years old. Believe it or not it was my Grandmother that let me try it out on her account. When my grandma played, she had a warrior and a shaman that she had leveled to max. She wasn't a hardcore raider or anything like that, but it was still pretty badass that my grandma was leveling a warrior back then. She stopped playing around Wrath. I think the game became too confusing for her at some point. I wish she kept playing though. It would have been much better for her brain than just scrolling on F*cebook all day. (With peace and love of course. haha She's still alive. Hi Gigi)
Where I lived out in the woods we were unable to get reliable internet, so I was only able to play it when I visited her. Most of my early WoW days consisted of once a month or so being able to visit and running around in the starting zones for the most part. I spent most of my time in Tirisfal Glades/Silverpine Forest and Durotar/The Barrens. I also spent a lot of time as a kid imagining I was my character when I played outside. That's where the real adventures were happening. xD All my characters in this time period have been lost to time.
📷 Photo coming soon!
For better or worse, I really didn't get to experience what WoW really is until around the Cataclysm expansion. I switched to the Alliance to play Worgen, and began to actually understand how to play the game with the help of a few kind strangers in my guild. My Worgen druid Dipseydoo and Night Elf hunter Doubleh were my first characters. I got a character to max level right before Mists of Pandaria dropped. Mists of Pandaria holds such a special place in my heart because of that. I was an edge lord kid so I was skeptical at first, but the setting and music captured my heart so fast. I also made a Pandaren monk named Chikachi just to try it out. I was so surprised how much I liked playing Pandaren. She was cute and badass. I think that's how I wanted to see myself at the time, but let's be real, I was still just a goofball kid in 2013. Another legacy character I made around that time and still have is my Draenei paladin Leksandr. She mostly remained an alt for the most part. Doubleh has a HUGE special place in my heart because I fell in love with hunter. It was my main for years. Through Shadowlands I believe. One thing that helped is I made it my goal to tame all the rarest pets. That time period of hunting pets and finally finding them was great. Hunter has some of the best class fantasy in the game. I had to change her name when I changed servers.
Picking their names was an interesting part of the process. The name Dipseydoo came from asking my grandpa what I should name my character. He said "I don't know. Name it Dipseydoo for all I care." It really stuck. "Double H" was a nickname I had based on my initials before I got married. Chikachi was just a name I cooked up off the dome. I tend to like fun/bouncy names with a nice ring to it. The name Leksandr was born from a YouTuber I liked at the time. His username was ImmortalHD. His real name was Aleksandr. I loved him so I used his name. Haha
Pandaria was also a special time for me, because it was when I first started making friends that played WoW. I actually started my WoW friend group on Ifunny. If you don't know, Ifunny is a cursed meme app that was popular in the early 2010s. I started posting about World of Warcraft there. The crazy thing is, I was one of the first people doing that on the app! So I became a popular WoW meme account. I say popular, but it was very small in terms of the Ifunny ecosystem. It was pretty specific to World of Warcraft players. From there formed a group chat. Some memories of it are good. Some memories from it are not so great. Either way, it was the first time I talked to people online. Little did I know, it would become a big part of my social life. There are a few people I loosely keep in touch with, but one of my friends from back then has become like a family member to me. We invited each other to our weddings! Back then I never would have guessed I was making a lifelong friend online. Turns out, much more common than I might have thought!
📷 Photo coming soon!
I did not get access to playing World of Warcraft at home until FUCKING BFA. UHG It's annoying how spotty internet coverage is in rural areas even to this day. People underestimate how big of a problem this is. In any case, I got into college around that time, so that was the first expansion where I was able to be a try hard/raider. I played WAY too much while I was in college. Another big part of that was my new boyfriend, who played WoW and had a whole friend group to do content with. I started doing lots of content with his friend group. Running hard content and laughing in Discord calls. It was a great time. In patch 8.3 I was raiding the early bosses on Mythic. Ny'alotha was so fun. I took Doubleh into Mythic so much trying to get my grubby hands on that bow that drops from Prophet Skittra. I think I killed over 90 bosses in Ny'alotha on that character. Honestly, it's where I peaked in content in WoW. I was playing WoW almost too much in college. I would be lying if I said the late night grinds did not affect my grades. After college, there is just not that much room for WoW time. I still hang out with that friend group to this day and that boyfriend is now my husband!
In Shadowlands I tried other MMORPGs for the first time. I think the boycott from the lawsuit was the first time I canceled my subscription. I'll talk more about other MMORPGs in the future I'm sure. I have been playing WoW since coming back at the end of Shadowlands.
Since The War Within, I've put all of my old characters on a bit of a shelf. I want to play with new animations and silhouettes, but did NOT want to change the characters from where they were. I also wanted to free myself from upkeep the tastes I had when I made these characters as a child. Idk if that makes sense. I'd rather have the time capsule characters and all the memories. IT MAKES SENSE TO ME, AND THAT'S WHAT MATTERS LOL.
📷 Photo coming soon!
What I can say is I'm loving this modern era of WoW. They're taking risks and trying new things and I love it! I love delves and I love collecting mounts and appearances. I'm working on my 500-600 mount achievement. It's very early, but so far Midnight has been a blast! I might write a longer review of it in the future. At the moment my main character is Hoxxie. She's a Draenei rogue and I'm a big fan. She is the character that inspired my name on this page! Rogue has felt very new and fresh. Honestly what I've noticed is it's hard to play anything BUT rogue now. It's just so fun.
I feel so incredibly lucky that I've managed to keep the same account this whole time. So many memories in one place. I have my grandparents' old abandoned characters from Pre Wrath. I have my sister's old character where I used to sit and watch her play while I waited for my turn. Best of all I still have my old characters that represent years of work, imagination, and play in my formative years. My account is one of my prized possessions.