I’ve been thinking lately about moments in World of Warcraft that made me go all Keanu Reeves and say “…whoa”. There have been a lot of these moments. I decided to list them. When the list was threatening to become even longer than my blogroll, I had to make a rule that said “No boss kill/PvP/etc. moments”.
So without further ado…
Pike’s Five Most Epic WoW Moments (That Do Not Involve Boss Fights):
5. Like a Virgin… In Darnassus For the Very First Time
I know I’ve written about this before. I was level six on my very first character ever (who you may now know as “Tawyn”), in my very first MMORPG ever, and as far as I was concerned, my world was Teldrassil. This mysterious land of flowers and purple trees and boars and scary spider caves. And bunny critters that I kept accidentally shooting.
And then, somehow, I wandered into Darnassus, and I was floored. It felt like one of the biggest things I’d ever seen in a video game. The music helped to establish this impression. And suddenly there was a thing called “Trade Chat” which was filled with impossible-to-understand jargon like “WTS” and “LFG” and “DPS” and “My mats, your nether”. (haha, wow, who else remembers that one?)
This made a big impression on Wee Baby Pike, and to this day I am rather fond of Darnassus and I go there sometimes just to chill.
(…is that a summoning stone in the middle of Darnassus? WTB explanation.)
4. Blackrock Mountain: Wish I Knew How to Quit You
Blackrock Mountain, as a whole, is just the greatest thing ever. I mean… it’s a friggin’ volcano. With lava and giant crazy statues and stuff. I remember the first time I saw the Molten Core instance portal. It was one of those things where you just looked at it and you knew it was epic.
…Google Images is failing me here, but trust me, it was epic. Epic and huge. And you had to go through the longest (and one of the most awesomest) instances ever, BRD, to even get there and get “attuned”.
Also it just looks awesome from far away when you’re in Searing Gorge or Burning Steppes. So yeah.
3. Sparking Imaginations Since… Wait, it’s Frogger but with bombs?
When I went to fight Mimiron for the very first time I wasn’t expecting what I saw. I really wasn’t expecting it. So can you blame my jaw hitting the floor when an air-trolley-thing whisked me away to this?
Honestly I wish the picture did it justice. It really doesn’t. The place is huge. Huge and breathtaking and there are Frogger bombs at the bottom and a freaking Tesla coil in the center.
Okay, so, Tesla coils? Guys. Two reasons why Tesla coils are awesome.
First, this is the way Ghostbusters was meant to be played. (Don’t cross the streams!)
Secondly, there are three historical sciencey guys that I have a major crush on.* Those three guys are: Issac Newton, Charles Babbage, and Nikola freakin’ Tesla.
Therefore, anything involving a Tesla coil and/or PewPew Lasers is instant win.
Also, air-trolley ride? A+++++ would ride again.
2. Wrathgate: Bolvar is Not a Crook (But Arthas Is)
Obviously this one was going to be in here. I love Dragonblight. And I love this questline. And seriously… the chills down my back still happen:
Oh Bolvar. Come back to Stormwind and ditch the Wrynn guy. He doesn’t love you like I do!
1. The Dark Portal: Because The Outlands Is Not a Lie
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m not a big Hellfire Peninsula fan. I dunno, I know there’s some great quests and stuff there, but… but… ZANGARMARSH IS RIGHT THERE AND IT HAS GIANT MUSHROOMS. AND UNDERBOG.
However.
There is one thing in Hellfire Peninsula that kicks the pants off of pretty much anything else in this game.
And it’s not the Fel Reaver (anymore) and it’s not aggro’ing that one boss over and over and making him yell stuff.
…no, I want you to think back and remember when you first went through the Dark Portal. There, in front of you, was this war going on in front of your face and this giant level ?? demon thing who is waving his arms around and looking ready to turn you into his bedtime snack.
Every time… EVERY TIME I do it, it is just as epic.
Kudos, Blizz.
So, there ya have it.
I realize that I left out a lot of super epic stuff (for example, zombie invasion world event), but I was sort of trying to keep it down to… individual moments as best as I could, and the zombie invasion was more like an extended amount of awesome.
But what are some of your guys’ favorite epic moments?
—
* Don’t get me started on historical author/writery guys.
Best blog post ever. EVAR. IN THE HISTORY OF EVAR. So much epicness here.
Lets see, for me.
Teldrassil/Darnassus were my first experiences in the game, too. Stunning. And, to me honest, Darnassus still takes my breath away and is one of my fav places in the game. Even if no one else goes there. I don’t care. It’s…home.
Wrathgate is another, much like you. And for the same reasons, really.
GIANT F’ING CAN OPENER. Yes, also in Spark of Imagination. But, come on, EPIC CAN OPENER. Total win. Yeah, it was a source of great amusement to my guild when we realized. 😀
Newer, but… Halls of Reflection. OMG THE LORGASM THAT PLACE IS. So much <3 for it.
Like Pike and Teldrassil, OC was happy in the snow-covered world of Anvilmar and Kharanos. When he finally came up the road to Ironforge and saw the entrance, literally craning his neck up….and entering the city and the clang of the forges and such….
Also, I played exclusively at night at first….and the first time I saw Elwynn in the DAYTIME, I was amazed at the color and realized WoW scenery takes the TIME OF DAY into account!
And I agree with Blackrock Mountain…maybe it’s all the orangy fiery stuff, but I’m almost as at home there as Ironforge.
Leveling on SwC, and RP server, my first PvP was Warsong at level 20. It took several BGS before I even ventured out of the flagroom….but the thrill of actually dying to another player!!….I still vividly remember a Tauren shaman, the first Tauren OR shaman I ever saw, charging into the flagroom and OC crapping his pants….
Another Whoa moment was zoning into Kara…after the patch that put music in there. The whole raid was silent, ready to go, but not daring to breath lest we miss a note…we sat there for a good 5 minutes marveling at how much more we suddenly wanted to be there.
The Drak Portal/HFP/Outland gave the a headache when I first saw it. Everything was “AMG HUEG”.
My first character was a Human Warrior, and I was trying to do the quest where you ahve to get the bandanas. And I was killing these Defias outside of the starter area, because I thought they were the ones I had to kill. I got to level 10 off those guys before I discovered the location of the right ones. For a second it was “…” while I ran over to them, but it quickly became epic “WOOOOO KILLING SPREE” and epic fun was had.
Also meeting the faction leaders for the first time. I still turn walk on and then kneel before them if I have business with them.
It would be hard to boil down all the epicness of wow into a top 5 list, but If i could, wrathgate, and Kara would be at the top of it.
On the other paw, in the epic flail side, what’s with all the poop quests? nagrand for the water breathing cherries, the bat guano, the oil covered wolves and the microfilm, i know there are probably more, but…. ewww.. just ewwww
One of my favorite “Whoa” moments was during my first Deadmines run when our party downed VanCleef and the realization set in that we did this amazing thing together and everone played/had a part.
That whoa keeps happening when a party/raid runs smoothly and everyone gets into the groove together.
So far, nothing has topped my first experience with Ragnaros in Molten Core. He’s the only boss to give me mouse-scroll head-crane whiplash. I muffled an “oh sh*t” when Majordomo summoned him.
I know its against your list rules here, but my first Illidan kill I was the only one standing at the end. That was personally epic.
As I said in a blog post of mine not long ago, I think the first time you entered the home city of your choice in WoW is an epic moment that nobody ever forgets. For me it was Stormwind.
The Wrathgate was kind of ruined for me initially because I was suffering from a bug that wouldn’t let me play the video in-game! So I just saw the phase around me change to the area being all burnt and with dragons sitting around, and my questing partner suddenly stopped responding to me (since he WAS seeing the video), and I was just like WTF IS GOING ON.
Once I saw the video however, I had to agree that it’s very cool. Putress’ lines are amazing and still give me chills. As a Horde player that bit was particularly emotional for me, as I was cheering for the Forsaken one moment – “Yeah, you kick Arthas’ ass!” – and then he says “… and death to the living!” and I was like OH SHIT! That was epic alright.
As a wee dwarf I was actually afraid to go inside Ironforge because I figured that it had to be the home of some big demon or something. I just kept creeping closer and closer to the gate. Then this level 20 ( holy crap level 20 !! ) guy walks in and OMFG a level 40 guy comes out !! so I figured it must be Ok.
The most epic event ever though was the lvl 1 hunter raid organized by Frostheim of WHU. I don’t see how anything can ever top that.
note to self. work on my horde deathknoob so i can see the horde version of the clip.
No, that’s not a summoning stone in Darnassus exactly…
What you have there is a very old screenshot (from beta by the looks of things). These “summoning stones” were actually called something like “binding stones”.
In order to change the location of your hearthstone, you had to click on the “binding stone” in the town you wanted. This is what it looked like.
They ditched that in favour of innkeepers and reused the “binding stones” later as “meeting stones”. The meeting stones stood outside all dungeons and raids. Using them would queue you up to the LFG matchmaking system of the time to find a group for that particular dungeon. It was a huge failure, and so eventually, their functionality was changed to become summoning stones.
Man that was a long time ago.
Stormwind – Home city for any first character will hold true for most, and this is mine.
I rolled a human on this new game that was kinda fun, but I didn’t know much about it, having not played any of the Warcraft games (although I did play Starcraft and Diablo.) So, I’m running around northshire abbey killing stuff and getting aggro and dieing way too quickly while wearing really bad gray level gear (not that I knew that at the time).
Then I’m running around Ellwyn Forest, can’t figure out why the pitch on my camera is making me stare at the ground, how the hell do I fix this. Dieing to more kobolds in the mines, stumbling thru quests and … yes… dieing. Oh boy, another ghost run again. Yeah me.
Get a quest to deliver some supplies to the blacksmith in Stormwind, so up the road I go, running and stopping, trying to avoid those evil Defias guys that are pathing by the fence, oh crap there’s a wolf…. hey, that guy has armor. What is that stone thing ahead?
And you cross the zone, enter Stormwind and you have the Bridge and the Statues, and Marcus Jonathan and the soldiers, and THE MUSIC for Stormwind that just wells up out of the speakers… yeah, game over. I was hooked.
Of the three capitals (I don’t count Exodar) I think IF is more convenient to use, and Darnasus is nicer to just chill out in. I never go to SW unless it’s to Champ Hall.
But every time I do, I still remember that first time. And I still watch the opening sequence on Craft of War: Blind, for exactly that reason. It’s Stormwind.
::blink::
::reads again::
::giggles and high-fives Pike for the Tesla love:: Isn’t his brain dreaaaamy? 😀
Yup, Ironforge was my first city, and it’s still magic, even if it was already Lagforge when I started. Also, there’s
The first time you go through the Majordomo / Rags script (and MC in general)
When the portal turned green on the Dark Portal, after being dark in Azeroth for so, so long.
The time I ended up in the middle of Lord Kazzack running rampant through Stormwind.
The Ony quest in Stormwind — OMG
Actually, it’s new, but I think HoL is going to stand the test of time.
As a Horde player I never saw the Stormwind/Onyxia questline except for one time, the final night that the quest would be available. So I rolled up an alt to watch the event, it was pretty cool, but then when Onyxia appeared she glitched and just stood there. So it turned into a photo party. 🙂
For my first char the wonderment began with the ancient protector strolling through dolanaar. Man that thing was cool and i was quickly getting overwhelmed. My buddy was diving in and grabbing quests and all i wanted to do was stand back and drink it all in.
@ Kattrinsaa: There is no “Horde version” of the Wrathgate. We get to see the same video.
It’s funny how much bigger the Dark Portal is on the Hellfire side. Lucky thing for the orcs they didn’t march in a column the full width of the portal. Or maybe they did, and lost 2/3 of their force in the process? I imagine the first thing Medivh/Sargeras said when they saw the other side of the Portal was “WTF, Gul’dan? The plans were in feet, not meters!”
I agree with you, Darnassus IS pretty awesome.
Hm… I’ll have to think about what my five are! *think think think*
The first time 1 Aimed Shot killed Mr. Smite before he could stun me. That… Was a good day.
I’m a Dwarf, so Ironforge is my Darnassus.
I was running an underpowered PC with insufficient Ram and I got all the way inside Ironforge before the Lag hit. Try to imagine entering an empty Ironforge. Literally empty. No guards, no NPCs, no players, just you and the vast, emptiness of Ironforge.
I got all the way in and was standing between the AH and the Bank when my Dwarf froze and I thought the game crashed. No, it didn’t crash, because I could still move, but…only…a little…bit…at a…time. WTF is going on?!?!
Then people began appearing out of midair. Lots of people! Am I being attacked? I tried clicking people but my mouse was frozen and the cursor wouldn’t move.
I started banging my hotkeys trying to defend myself against what I was sure was an attack…but nothing happened.
Finally the game returned to normal and suddenly all those people were running all over the place, but most of all they were running across that little bridge…and into that one room, over there. Why? What’s in there?
I walked over and looked inside and being a complete and utter Nub I was over whelmed by the sheer chaos of what was really nothing but players accessing their bank, leaping around, running into the Bank and back out of it.
I decided I wanted no part of this place so I ran back out, around the AH and down the steps, and as I exited the front gate, as if to rub it in, two players flew out overhead on Gryphons and disappeared up into the sky. Remember I was having Ram Lag so I hadn’t seen them when I came in.
That was my first time being Wowed by WoW.
Oh, no no no… not Isaac Newton.
(Read Bill Bryson’s “A Short History Of Nearly Everything”. According to him, Newton was somewhat of an a-hole.)
Save your love for Tesla!
The capital-city unveiling is spectacular for most races, at least in vanilla Wow.
As a low-level troll hunter, I approached Orgrimmar in the middle of what turned out to be Brewfest, and I simply couldn’t believe my eyes. All this, this huge city and all its activity had been going on all this time while I’d been running away from crabs? And for YEARS? And what the hell is Ram Racing?
It’s really hard to top that experience, but other high points include:
1. Walking through Blackrock Mountain at too low a level, STARING AT THAT HUGE CHAIN and totally certain that something equally big is going to come and eat me and I won’t be able to recover my body because I’ll be under a pit of lava.
2. Being chased through half of Ashenvale by that Wandering Protector that was 15 levels higher than me, throwing down every feeble trick I knew and getting plastered. Then having it happen again after 15 minutes.
3. Forty levels later, riding through Ashenvale on my way to Winterspring and seeing another poor Level 20 Hordie being chased by said protector and nearly dead, and screaming “Payback!” as I burned that tree down.
4. Sitting in a Barrens tree for two days, waiting for Humar the Pridelord to spawn, while I plotted how to best tame him.
5. Running Scarlet Monastery as a Druid Healer alt — first time in the instance, first time healing a group, and getting “Nice heals” comments. (Nobody ever talks to the DPS unless they’re yelling, so compliments were a new thing). Gravy was avoiding a wipe by dinging, to full health and mana, right as things were looking grim.
And in the honorable-mention category — this is really an Epic Fail thing — finally comprehending, after my main had leveled nearly to 60, how the AH worked and that you could make money at it. “You mean I wasn’t supposed to vendor all that Wool Cloth?”
@ Jeursey – No worries, most of my love is actually going to Babbage.
@ Nightravyn – *high five*
Mentioning Darnassus brings back this rather embarrassing memory. It reminds me how much of a noob I really was in some areas of the game when I first started.
I play a Night Elf Hunter. That’s it. Always only had the one toon. (I’ve gotten be a passably good one as time has gone on, though.) So I started out in Teldrassil, and as I progressed in the initial quests, I eventually found my way into Darnassus.
[Quick aside]: My actual “first” view of Darnassus was the entrance of it when I’d die and respawn in the graveyard there. But it was gray and foggy, so I don’t count it.
I remember how awesome it felt to be in this huge city. I remember how huge my bank space looked at first before I bought extra slots and I only had three or four things to put in there. I remember looking at the Mount trainer and vendor and knowing that I’d NEVER have that much money and I’d never be able to get a mount.
But the emarrassing part?
You know that red portal/tent thing that takes you to the little village where the Flight Path and boat are?
I thought at first that if I went through that into the next part of the game, I’d never be able to go back. >.<
1. Figuring out that there is a tram from IF to SW … after dying like 20 times while trying to walk there … lvl10ish
2. Getting my first frostsaber after weeks of rep-grinding – I made 4 levels doing this, then went to outland replacing all my gear within 3 to 4 hours; on my second hunter (now main) I did it the other way around (first questing in outland than repgrind and it was way faster)
3. Doing the ony-chain on my paladin – I still get wet eyes remembering all the people that walked with me through stormwind
4. Getting Deathcharger’s Reins on my deathknight the first time he went there (had to go like 60 times with my hunter)
5. The Wrathgate-Event (6 times by now)
6. Getting Rhok’delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers on my lvl80 hunter including the onyxia-feat of strength-achievement … after onyxia got buffed to 80
7. Using the Ulduar-train for the first time and when it turned around I had that “Back to the future III”-flashback
8. Getting the last peace for the t4-set on my druid after months of trying
9. Seeing the message that some deathknight hit 80 2 days after wotlk-release
10. Flying on a netherwing drake for the first time (that questline in nagrand) dreaming that, one day, I will have one, after doing the first repquests I thought to myself, noway I’m doing this – took me only a year to finally hit exalted.
I would totally put out for John Keats (in reference to your historicaly authory type chaps).
Also, awesome post.
Thanks
Elsen
Wow, no Kara, Pike?
For me, the most epic WoW moment was logging in for the very first time on my very first character: A female Night Elf Rogue. Watching the intro skimming through that beautiful purple forest, not knowing I was on top of a FREAKING TREE. Once the intro was over I looked around and marveled! I spent a good five minutes with my character static looking at the beautiful vistas! Then I saw a golden exclamation mark which my quest partner told me was a quest giver. And I pressed W and gave my first running baby steps into this world that still has me hooked.
That character was traded to a hunter at level 5. This because my questing partner had met a level 52 hunter and brought him over so I could see him and I was MARVELED at him and his PET. Insta reroll. x)
Arriving to Darnassus…whoa, big town. But not quite as epic as stepping into the world for the first time.
Another epic moment… I was in IF, trying to conduct business in SW, but I had no idea how to get there! So I ask in chat and this nice druid girl offers to show me the way. Once we arrive from the deeprun tram I was floored! The city was HUGE and so CONFUSING and SCARY that I turned follow on and didn’t touch my keyboard until we were in the trade district and had to part ways. Wow.
I feel nostalgic now. I doubt any game has given me such feelings of amazement.
@ Dragonrose – I sort of consider Karazhan to be a “continuing awesome” sort of like the Zombie Invasion Event and other things that happened over a long period of time, thus I disqualified it from this particular list…
I’m supposed to be doing homework right now, though I had to leave one comment:
Like others mentioned, seeing my race’s capital was awesome; I started on my beloved Tauren hunter (Watermist) that I often spoke about, and I was around level 10 (on the final step of pet taming quest chain), and I remember the long run to Thunder Bluff – my uncle had told me to follow the road (he was about level 22 at the time): “Follow the yellow brick road!”
And so I did, and I’m slightly OCD about the angle of the camera; I continually tweak it whether Watermist runs uphill or downhill, and just as she hit that final uphill stretch – slightly by the Well (forgot its name), where the pink tallstrider normally patrols – and I happened to accidentally move the camera to the lowest angle, and behold! That exact second, Thunder Bluff appeared before me.
I believe I was slack-jawed for a whole moment as I slowly ran uphill towards the elevator; I keep moving my camera lower and lower, trying to see the top of Thunder Bluff (I didn’t; that thing was tall!). Then I embarked the elevator and rode for an eternity and arrived upon the lowest mesa.
I still love Thunder Bluff. 🙂
(Amusing note: Watermist’s guild is Thunder Bluff Assassins, which I joined in 2005 and never left. Her current title, one I got as soon as possible, is “Watermist of Thunder Bluff.” It amuses me to see “Watermist of Thunder Bluff ” XD)
Errr, the last sentence was supposed to say, “Watermist of Thunder Bluff of Thunder Bluff Assassins.”
When I were just a wee orcling, the Blood Elves had just joined the Horde, so I wen off to help some young belfs. We’s clearing out some scourgies and trolls gone bad and whatnot, and all is good and smooth sailing, and then OMFG just ahead of us from around the corner steps this glubbernugger Knucklerot and the bugger is fuhggin HUGE with extra arms and guts hanging out and everything. And everybody in the group is like, you’s the warrior – go get his attention and let him hit you. And I’s like, well, screw that. But I did, and then we killed him.
Were me first tanking job, and it were epic.