Why did you start playing this game?

[Redlokyldoreifanggore]

Why? My sister's nerd ex-boyfriend gave me a little 10-day trial slip he'd gotten in the game box and I decided to try it out. I liked it and eventually bought the full classic a few weeks later.

Race? Nigh Elf male. My very first character and still my main. Never gonna give him up, never gonna let him down, never gonna reroll or delete him. I just thought that the night elf males were much better looking than other male race variants and didn't really think rolling a female character as a male would be appropriate for my first character (and I thought the females were weirdly disproportionate at the time).

Class? Warrior. I've also always liked warriors in other games (extremely simple to play, hit like a truck, and hard to kill... usually).

Faction? I preferred the Alliance because they seemed less monstrous and evil. But, after I got BC, I liked the look of the blood elves, despite their maniacal lust for power and destruction. Guess aesthetics play a large part, though I do enjoy goblins and draenei. But only certain race-class combos work for me. I like goblin casters, especially locks (dem red and yellow eyes). I like draenei tanks and shaman. I like night elves and worgen as anything, but females fit caster armors a bit better.

[Deleted]

why?
Because I got a 7 day free trial cd in the post (before it was downloadable and before there were starter editions)

Which Race?
Tauren because it was the only option at the time for shaman.

Which Class?
Shaman because it sounded cool

Why Horde/Alliance?
Horde because it was the only option for shaman... so it all comes down to me thinking shaman looked cool!

[Rorillane]

I started goofing around in Diablo when I was like 8 years old (18 now) with my brother when he got it for his birthday. After awhile (like 2 years later) we got bored of it and decided to take a leap to a better game. My dad worked with Intel at the time and gave us a new computer and I think my brother went out and got the game. It looked really awesome and was miles different than D2 and I watched him play it all the time. I started by getting on and playing while he was making food, or when he went to the bathroom id hop on and run around xD
When he got his first job, he taught me the basic mechanics of his class. I started doing parts of AQ with Death and Taxes while he was at work, and when he got home, he took over and I watched the rest. After awhile he made an account for me because I didnt even grasp the whole account idea, didnt understand it. Then he told me about paladins and their cool mounts and thats what I went with. He helped me level it to like 50 then let me do the rest, and I started raiding/bging from there :>
To follow format:
Why?
Because my father had gotten us a new computer, he worked for intel, and my brothers birthday was coming up. Brother went out and go it. I started by playing D2, and was watching him play WoW. It was worlds apart different and captivated my young inexperienced gamer mind.

Which Race?
Human paladin. I was always like NAH MAN I DONT WANNA BE THE BAD GUYS. Plus my brother played alliance, and at the time was raiding with Death and Taxes, with me playing his toon while he was at work. So kinda rolled with it

Which Class?
Paladin, my brother told me/showed me the awesome mount and I was like yeaaaa buddy.

Why Horde/Alliance?
Kinda answered already, hated the thought of being the "bad guys" and brothers guild was alliance.

[Sznaapz]

I was interduced, to wow back in the vanilla time, by my friend, and from first look and try i have been playing ever since...like 6-8 years, started with a NE priest then a Human mage, now im on the Horde side with my Rogue. Still like the game.

[rnbwtrout]

I started playing after i started soloing Uber Tristram on my smite-a-din in diablo II, i needed something more and was immediately taken in by the scope of the world, its huge, i think we take that for granted these days with so many top level characters and flying mounts. i still remember trekking on foot until level 40 and the pains of trying to level my first toon as a paladin. good memories

i jumped shipped from D2 as well. my main was a godly summon necro, but i always liked playing my druid better cause it wasn't as faceroll. so i started looking into WoW and saw that they had a druid class. but what really got me to try was a video of some lock in the tanaris desert with his mechanical dragonling. when i learned you could craft it, i was sold.

race = NE, didn't like taurens
class = druid
faction = NE were alliance

[Deleted]

I probably would have done the GM grind, had I started playing in time.

rank 14 'grind', yeah, if u did it before AQ ie in 2005
if u did it in 2006 meh, a couple hours a day did the trick ;D

Edit: just my personal experience. Anyone that got it in the early days, I bow to u

[Luko]

why?
The guys I was living with at the time were all into it. I was an avid FFXI player at the time so I got it at release, tinkered with it a bit. Never got above 30. Couldn't stand how meaningless it felt to level. (See in comparison to FFXI of old, leveling WAS the game, rather than speed leveling to endgame.) Anyway, I didn't actually pick it up off the shelf and get seriously into it until right before TBC.

Which Race?
In my early vanilla days, I was Horde. I had a Tauren druid and a Troll hunter. We can probably skip right over that as there wasn't much to it other than realizing how annoying PVP servers were. When I got to the Alliance, I went with a Human warrior and NE Druid.

Which Class?
Warrior was always a pull for me in every game. At the time, I absolutely loved tanking on it. Druid was another simply because I've always been about shapeshifting when available. I didn't realize you'd be shifted 90% of the time which sort of kills the purpose for me, however.

Why Horde/Alliance?
Horde was my first choice because I've always been a fan of non-human races and I loved the Thrall lines in WC. However, the community was what drove me away. Everyone who was slightly interested in PVP also thought you had to roll horde which made the community on the few servers I tried nothing but "LOL NEWB" "WTF FAG" which coming from FFXI, was just not something I was used to seeing. Eventually I went alliance because that's where my friends were and I regret it every day.

[Rowlga]

why?
Saw significant other playing, it looked fun. Had been avoiding MMOs for years due to previous UO addiction, and my fears were confirmed. Oops.

Why Horde/Alliance?
He'd just switched to playing Horde, so I joined up there.

Which Race?
Tauren. Some people play female toons to have something nice to look at. I'm a big homo and like the big and beefy. Also with the changing backgrounds on character creation screen, Mulgore looked like the only non-depressing starting zone besides Silvermoon (in the days before goblins and pandas), and belfs are ew.

Which Class?
Hunter, because I was like "omg guns AND pets?!" And then proceeded to, in hindsight, be a big bad baddie all while leveling.

[Herkaleez]

Why?
I was playing FFXI with a bunch of friends but they started logging on less and less there and I'd heard a lot of people who stopped playing FFXI were going to WoW

Which Race?
Dwarf. I like playing tiny races if at all possible. (don't know why I'm 6'2 225 lbs)

Which Class?
Was going to try a paladin, but people who I knew said that paladins were only healers at the time (end of Vanilla early BC) so I went Hunter. In FFXI there is no real soloing past level 10 unless youre a beastmaster and hunters looked like a beastmaster/ranger combined into one.

Why Horde/Alliance?
I chose Alliance after I saw the "crest". It looked so noble and I wanted to play the "good guys". Fast Forward to beginning of Cata when i Fac Changed almost all my toons to horde.

[Itisamuh]

Why?

Two reasons. One, my best friend played it and swore up and down it was the greatest game ever. And I must admit, at the time I had never played such a free roaming game, so it was pretty amazing to me. Two, though he was already raiding and unwilling to level with me, a girl I was pretty close to was interested in trying out the game too, so we just started together. Leveling was a great experience, and all the ganking I was involved in one way or the other made me pumped up to get to max level and become feared on the server, which I did.

Which race and why?

Undead. I have always been a zombie fanatic, so it was a no brainer for me. I looked up some of the lore too, and it seemed the most interesting even without my bias.

Which class and why?

Warlock. Mainly because my friend who already played was a mage, and I wanted to be the evil equivalent. A Sith to Jedi thing, so to speak. Though of course, that seems like silly reasoning now that I am older.

Why Horde?

One, because my friend was already Horde. Two, because I wanted to be undead. Three, because the girl I was playing with wanted to be the hot race, which is obviously blood elf. And four, I love playing the bad guy whenever I get a chance, and while not necessarily evil, Horde comes much closer to crossing the line than Alliance.

[Justignoreme]

Why?
Never much of a gamer, a few of my family were playing it casually, looked like it'd be a good way to relieve some stress from an exceptionally hectic time in my life.
Which race?
Night Elf, they looked very mystical and it was a race where women bucked traditional gender roles and were respected warriors so it appealed greatly to me.
Which class?
Warrior, and while that toon is one I stopped playing several years ago (because it wasn't on the same server my family played), the Night Elf warrior I made on that server is still around as an awesome level 90.
Why Horde/Alliance?
Didn't really care which faction I was on, I picked races I thought were neat. Night Elves were Alliance so I was Alliance. My Huntress started life as a Blood Elf and my Warlock started like as Undead.

[GeordieMagpie]

Why?

I loved WarCraft 3 and saw my bro play it, then started to play it.

Race
Orc, I loved the Thrall/Grom story and liked orcs + their racials were good.

Faction
During Vanilla, I felt the horde races to be more tribal and fierce on honor, and liked them more than the alliance, besides we had Shamans!

[PBitt]

My CS clan was breaking up and I just got worn out from it, so I wanted to try something different. A friend from the clan had already quit and started playing WoW a few months before I did, and I'd never played an MMO before WoW so I was hooked quite quickly.

[Kraenen]

To escape from real life.

Race: Night Elf. Not sure why, but I think it was the combination with hunters making it cool
Class: Hunter, Druid. I liked being independent and having some kind of loyal companion with me all the time. I liked being able to not have to be dependent on others.
Faction: Alliance. I guess I thought the horde was going to be evil, though I liked trolls, I thought the alliance felt stronger.

[Colmadero]

Wow, a lot of great stories. I should mention that wow was my 2nd MMO right after Runescape

[Sildor]

Why?
Friends talked me into it. I was initially quite sceptic but after trying it for 30 min on a friends account I was hooked and went out to buy it for myself.

Which race?
Troll. My friends were on horde so that's where I went and I thoight trolls were cool and I wanted something that wasn't too cliché.

Which class?
Mage. I liked the idea of a troll mage and I liked the mage class from just hearing briefly about it. It was also a very strong and useful class back in vanilla (and still is today, even though I switched classes since).

Why Horde/Alliance?
I went with horde because that's where my friends were. I still really like the horde story in the areas around barrens and so, if nothing else for nostalgic reasons.
I do however play alliance today, I switched with a few friends in early TBC and been here since, I'm not opposed to playing horde and have some horde alts, but alliance is simply more like "home" for me.

[Taurenburger]

Why?
Because my brother played WoW.
Which race
Human
Which class
Warrior
Why alliance?
Because my brother played alliance.

[Zaelsino]

Why?
Friend of mine got me into it. I wasn't that interested back in vanilla, but the buzz surrounding TBC got me hyped.

Which Race?
Blood elf. Their blurb looked the most interesting, and they're the most aesthetically pleasing race besides.

Which Class?
Paladin. I had been a ranger back in Guild Wars and wanted a melee class.

Why Horde/Alliance?
Both my friend and the race I wanted to play were Horde.

[Mercadi]

Why?
Some of my colleagues played it back then, and invited me to join them. I did not think I'd enjoy it, so it took them several months of convincing Loved the game, afterwards, up to Cata.

Which Race?
Started out as Draenei (a race that was most unlike all the other Alliance races).
Then when I went Horde, it was Troll that I chose. For racial abilities, but then grew into loving the race.

Which Class?
Mage. I play DD casters in games where they are available as a personal preference.

Why Horde/Alliance?
Started out as Alliance to play with colleagues. Then I figured I'd like raiding (and they weren't interested), so I transferred to join a Horde progression-oriented guild. That was a right thing to do. Loved Horde, and stayed there until "retirement".

[MoanaLisa]

Why?
The spouse got me into it. After watching over the shoulder for a few weeks, I decided it was time to move on from Diablo and try something new. WoW was my first MMO.

Which Race?
Started with a human warrior. Second toon was a Draenei and after the starting area I was hooked. Very noble race with a tragic story and aesthetically the female model struck me as very attractive and easy to live with over the long run. Little did I know at the time how true that was with everyone else /waggle

Which Class?
Started at first with a warrior. Just because. I found out that I didn't much care for it and wasn't particularly good at it and hated staring at the shoes and ankles of the larger mob/boss models in the game. So, our tiny little guild was in need of some healing and I started my second toon: a priest. Eschaton in fact. Leveled as a healer which I didn't much find to my liking so changed my build to the old Surge of Light build and at the first opportunity, changed to shadow. Been there ever since and is still my main. I've tried all of the ranged classes and pretty much like them all. One of my goals for MoP is to pull my frost mage off the shelf where it's been since the start of WotLK and bring it up to 90. Same for an elemental shaman I've had sitting for a long time. Some day I'll raise up a BE warlock.

Why Horde/Alliance?
Mostly Alliance because that's where my friends are. I do have a couple of Blood Elf alts: one shadow priest and one frost mage. I haven't paid a lot of attention to my Horde alts since they're sort of isolated from the people I've played with for a few years now. Lately I feel like I've been missing a major piece of the game and story because of this so that's another MoP project, to get one of them to end game.