#10years10questions

The mistress of faffing herself, Alternative Chat, has asked for the community's help in her 10 Years :: 10 Questions project. Essentially, she's asking as many WoW players as possible to answer 10 simple questions about the game and their time playing it. Of course, I felt the need to throw my 2 copper in.

1. Why did you start playing Warcraft?
10 years ago, World of Warcraft launched about a week or so after my birthday. One of my cousins had picked it up for himself and decided to get me a copy as a present.... not realizing that he would spawn an addiction that has so far lasted a decade. :P

2. What was the first ever character you rolled?
The first character I ever rolled was an undead rogue. I hated it. I moved on to a night elf druid and then eventually an undead warrior, which I kept playing into Burning Crusade.

3. Which factors determined your faction choice in game?
At the time, I went Horde on Blackrock because that was where my cousin was. I have mainly stuck with Horde over the past ten years, although now I do have two max level Alliance characters in addition to my army of Horde.

4. What has been your most memorable moment in Warcraft and why?
It's very hard to narrow it down to one or even a couple of events that took my breath away. Being in Sunwell and seeing Kil'Jaeden come up for the first time is definitely one of them. Seeing Icecrown Citadel looming over Northrend for the first time, protected by armies and walls is certainly another. Karazhan is also very memorable to me as it was the first raid I ever did as current content.

5. What is your favourite aspect of the game and has this always been the case?
Honestly, for me, it's the people. I love raiding and I love PvP, but they're nothing without great people to enjoy it with. I would rather spend my night shooting the shit and killing things with my friends than anything else.

6. Do you have an area in game that you always return to?
In terms of raid zones, I've always called Karazhan and Ulduar my "happy places." I always go back, be it for transmog or just to run them for fun. In the world, I love sitting atop the mushrooms in Zangarmarsh.

7. How long have you /played and has that been continuous?
The account that I play on now was started during Cataclysm, so it's not that high. Across my 11 level 90 characters, I have roughly 500 days played.

8. Admit it: do you read quest text or not?
Now.... not so much. After leveling so many times, I have started to remember everything. I do read quests that I have never done or I've only done once or twice!

9. Are there any regrets from your time in game?
Not really, no. I do regret some friendships I have severed in-game but everything happens for a reason.

10. What effect has Warcraft had on your life outside gaming?
WoW has truly had a huge impact on my life. Spending a lot of time communicating with people in game has given me more confidence in my interactions in real life. I used to have a fear of public speaking and I have always been fairly socially awkward, but spending so much time in Mumble with people or podcasting has given me a lot of practice! I've also made long-lasting friendships with people who I would have never met if it weren't for WoW. That's definitely the biggest and most important effect. :)

You can find the answers to #10years10questions from many other WoW community members over at Alternative Chat's blog!

Alphas & Chat & News, Oh My!

Sure, it's old news by now... because, come on, it happened five minutes ago and the internet moves fast!
Blizzard announced that they're starting Warlords of Draenor alpha testing. Invites are slated to start going out soon(™), but don't get too excited - as with any other alpha, I'm sure that the first batch will be going to fansites like Wowhead before anyone else. Apparently there is a ton of content that is ready for testing. Blizzard's official post about alpha can be found here.

In addition, another wave of Heroes of the Storm alpha invites have been spotted lurking about mailboxes. I'm crossing my fingers that I'll get one... eventually.

Blizzard also sneakily rolled out chat functionality on the Battle.net desktop client. Now you can chat with your online friends from the client without logging into a game. :)

[How To Strain Your Dragon]

Well, well, well. I've been extraordinarily neglectful of my blog as of late. In the time that I've been absent, I've moved across the country (for the second time in a year!) and started university. A whole lot of news related to Blizzard franchises has come and gone. I've missed a lot of opportunities to blog!
Recently, I've been playing a lot of D3 and, as always, a whole lot of WoW. I've dabbled in the WildStar and ESO betas, played a bit of Rift here and there and messed around with a bunch of console games as well.
I'm back with a vengeance. I think. I'm sure I'll be posting something of substance eventually. ;)