What was your first leveling experience like?

[AcidLillies]

June 2007, levelling as some freakishly confused elehancresto spec. Took me a month to reach 20; and didn't play after that for at least another month. After that it was a painfully agonising grind through TM and realised that night elf hunters fail; while losing any patience I had with BG's. Oh, and having to borrow 200+ gold for a mount was absurdly frigging ridiculous at 40. Twasn't enjoyable. :-[

[dsk792]

i leveled dwarf hunter to 18 without pet and with raptor strike only -.- LoL
ppl asked me where is my pet, but since i didnt know i could have one i would answer : i dont need it ! :P

[Deleted]

I started playing on the 8th of January 2009. I leveled for a hour or so to level 7 a warrior on a random server because none of the mates i actually started playing for where online.

When one finally logged in on msn i dropped that and went to Sunstrider EU. Being the FAQ-whore i am, once "we" established what class i was going to play (i basicly asked them what the guild needed) i just read everything i could on the matter.

Leveled in a little less than 20 /played days i hated EVERY SINGLE FUCKING MOMENT OF IT.

I hated being on a PVP server and getting ganked every fucking minute. I hated it so much that i swore i will never gank lowbies because no one deserve that shitty experience while they're still noobs.

I leveled as Boomkin druid, the most pointless exercise in masochism EVER. I had buddies waiting for me to 80 so i rushed it as fast as i could. It was awful.

I decided i wanted to be a moonkin when i saw a lvl42 one spamming Typhoon in Dead Mines acting so cool because he was 30 lvls above everyone else in the group.

I didn't get the priority right for boomkins until far into Naxx25. Nowadays i'm in a very good guild, among the top in the server but not quite there, and enjoying decent dps.

Spent struggling for dps for a good part of my time as 80 until i finally settled recently, at least for this tier of content :P

[Gazgul]

Played when vanilla launched in EU.

Didnt get my first (level 40 60% mount) till i was 60..... kept spending all my gold on ..crap what was that metal .....THORIUM!!!..lol i wanted the thorium set on my warrior to look like an orc alliance guard for some reason.... /facepalm.

5 years later i think i got it :P

i loved lvling back in the day

[Nikoll]

Ret 1-80 but played holy at 70. Didn't get a 100% mount until 70, and not right away either. Didn't get my epic flyer until isle dailies.

Leveling was boring and slow, but I felt acomplushed at 60 and 70.

[Spamaspell]

It started out the 7th or 8th of january 2006.

I created my warlock and got hooked as I did the imp quest. It felt epic ofcause, since everything was new and I don´t even know when I figured that there was a class trainer for spells above lvl 6, I do remember losing a duel to a lvl 8 warlock, while I was level 16 because he had fear, and I did not

After that it took me until about level 30s to find out that I had a spell called "Life Tap" and stacking spirit was just a waste of stats ( it was back then, spirit didn´t increase the effect of life tap at that time)


oh yeah, I new what talents was from lvl 1 actually, never missed that boat, I just didn´t knew that it was a good Idea to spent 31+ points in one tree. So I spent like a month or so in lvl 60(and all the way from 1-60) with the god awful specc of 17/17/17 untill someone told me that wasn´t all that great ;D

[Veyne]

My first character ever was a Human Warrior over on Moon Guard. Took my over a month to get him to level 27 (the level at which I stopped playing the game at the time). I remember hitting level 20 and it being a HUGE deal for me because I could dual wield. I leveled with a sword and shield until then. My talents were all over the place. I had a few in prot, a few in arms and a few in fury. I was used to playing Single Player RPGs, mostly Western single player RPGs, where your number one goals to focus on at first was survivability and efficiency, so I picked up all the talents that increased my survivability and reduced the rage cost of my skills. I really had no idea what I was doing. This was back in Vanilla. I didn't know anyone who played except for my brother, who started at the same time, and didn't know anyone else who played either. This was our first real MMO experience. We had messed around with some free MMOs like Knight Online, but never seriously played it.

I stopped playing because I didn't know what I was doing. I was mindlessly grinding Ogres in North-East Loch Modan because I couldn't figure out where to quest next.

It wasn't until several months later when I went to college that I started playing it again. I activated my account just because I had a lot of free time, but it wasn't until maybe half-way through the first semester when I met a few people from my dorm hall that played. One of them had a level 70 Alliance Prot Warrior ( I started playing at the ASS end of Vanilla and when I started back again, people had plenty of time to level their toons to 70 after TBC launched), and the other was a level 70 Horde Fire Mage.

I still didn't play any toons seriously. I leveled a Warlock and a Hunter to about 30 each and had a few other odd alts, but over Christmas break I was messing around on the server my brother played an alliance toon on (he quit about the same time as me), and he started a warrior and after seeing a Draenei Priest in one of Vanilla Tiers, I thought Priest armor looked cool, so I made a priest. When I got back from Christmas break, I started a Blood Elf Priest on the server my Fire Mage hall mate played on, and he got me in his guild as a friend. I was constantly being mentored by the guild's resident Shadow Priest 1-70, so he taught me the priestly ways. As soon as I hit 70 I went holy and was a healbitch up until the brickwall of Mother Sharaz and later Illidari Council in BT. When wrath dropped, I went Shadow and never looked back. I've got dual spec. But more often than not, I have my dual spec set to "Smite spec" since I am never asked to go heals.

[Borakh]

Old content is old. I would have liked to experience the old days but I only joint mid BC. What can you do? Time moves only one direction. Personally I think quests in the old world were boring and repetitive as compared to Outland and Northrend. Horde quest line in Blade’s Edge? Epic. Dragonblight? Zul’Drak? Storm Peaks? Icecrown? More epic still. I for one am looking very forward to Cata. I always take my time levelling content for the first time, but find it rather convenient that I can do quicker on alts. I don’t think the OP is entirely rational, it’s like saying, “Crap, I watched LOST for the third time and the revelations just weren’t as exciting.”

My very first levelling experience was making up a Troll Rogue on a server where several friends of mine were already playing, and they made new characters too to play with me. Everything went way too fast, I was basically just running after them. Then I decided I needed to play some time for myself first. Of course I was fail but I can’t say being fail was particularly fun, as opposed to, well, not being fail.

[Nerph-]

My first character was back in March 2005, a paladin, I can't believe I managed to get it to 60, only took me 17 days played time... -_-

[Yoshimoto]

I leveled when leveling was actually part of the game, you could find groups, pvp, and have a fun time, leveling was slow back then and content was harder and epics were... well epic.
I leveled my warrior prot, though I dpsed later went to fury and learned what I was doing.
It was the good old days not a race to max level and get free epics.

Time played on my warrior till 60: 28 days
time played on my paladin till 80: 3 days

I miss old wow.

And I hate Death Knights

[cookiekrysp]

I was a complete noob when I first started up right at Wrath's release. I remember questing in Redridge, and I had a quest to go to Loch Modon.

Loch Modon? Where is that? I looked at the world map on wow's site to find out where Loch Modon was. Alright.. looks like if I pass through Burning Steppes & Searing Gorge I can get to it!

Ha. ha. ha.

That didn't end well. Later, a friend told me about the tram.

I was amazed by the environment back then though. I did a lot of exploring to begin with. =o

[Scahrossar]

My leveling experience was okay. Pre bc was the shit. If you were like, level 30 you were a GOD. I remember in darkshire when stiches came, like EVERYONE would gather up and try to kill him and if he wasnt stopped he would destroy the town. But before that...just getting to higher levels was really something.
When i first started leveling i would quit playing everytime i died XD

The good old days were great honestly. There were no summoning stones so doing an instance was really a big deal. No changing room so you would have to hope whatever you bought off the AH looked cool

Oh and mounts...you didnt get your first till 40. That made things interesting. Most people didnt have the gold yet either they would have to save. I remember i didnt get the warlock mount till i was like 67 because the quest sucked so bad =[ Overall I am happy i leveled in the old days because I can appreciate how easy it is to level now. Mounts at lower levels, easy to find instance groups, and the heirloom gear.

[letstalklikepirates]

I beg to differ here.. lfg has revived old world dungeons big time. I've leveled a new alt mage entirely from 15-50 through random 5 mans and no one really cares if you wipe because most people are having fun. As for back in classic days your luck was entirely based upon server population.. my first server was total fail and i should have transferred off but i stuck it out and drudged on.. had x-realm lfg existed back then the failure of my server wouldn't have been such a drag on leveling and having fun in 5 mans.

there were more people lvling in the sense of enjoying the process of lvling back then for sure, but that too seems to have a slight revival today.

It revived old world dungeons, but killed the old world. As you said you leveled a mage from 15-50 only on instances. But does anyone actually care about anything other than the levels from those instances, other than the people who only LFG to pull large groups of mobs and ninja loot?

[letstalklikepirates]

And you talk about back in Vanilla ?

From what I've read, watched and heard about from friends I'd say I have a pretty good idea of what vanilla was like, and at the beggining of BC the experience was pretty much the same.

[letstalklikepirates]

Went holy on my paladin back in vanilla. Just so I could get Holy Shock (The only way you could pull back then!)
And worked 3 hours to get enough materials to make a "green" 2h axe from blacksmithing! hoping it would make my weapon glow! ;D (obviously this was at level 10)
And I remember being thrilled when I finally reached level 40, just so I could get a mount!

Back in the days where you only dreamt of all the cool looking items! (And later being acknowledged as a pro drood for having the epic staff from ZG panther boss!)

I had the same glowing weapon experience on my paladin. After that failed I ended up buying a terrible enchanted 2h sword for 10g which I gathered by farming mobs for a day, all day I was hoping noone would buy it out. I ended up using that sword until the 40s when I joined a guild that was giving out free fiery enchantments.

[Cpttrips]

My advice, tell your friends who are starting to play to play on a high population server, and tell them not to read anything about the game. It just ruins everything.

cause then they can hit 80 and get all epic'd out and gem int as a warrior and enchant greater spellpower power on their two handed quel' sword and do 800 dps in a heroic :P no thanks we got plenty of those already.

[Fireheart]

When I leveled my first 2 characters mage/priest in vanilla I got like 8 ingame friends and 4 that I played with for years to come. It felt like you actually met people while leveling to me. When I leveled my rogue around season 2 in tbc I didn't really meet anyone along the way for more than a couple of hours and wotlk leveling only felt like a lonely grind.

The world in general feels more empty indeed, I mean I meet more people through dueling and playing arena now. That's not bad either, I'm just saying.

[letstalklikepirates]

cause then they can hit 80 and get all epic'd out and gem int as a warrior and enchant greater spellpower power on their two handed quel' sword and do 800 dps in a heroic :P no thanks we got plenty of those already.

No because they get to experience the old-world adventure. They will learn in time.