I recently wrote up a post over at my LiveJournal where I listed and posted movies of the top ten video game moments that gave me goosebumps. Anyways, I had a lot of fun writing that post, and I figured I’d go ahead and make a similar post, except focusing on World of Warcraft, which would let me get away with posting it here! I also figured I’d make it more of a “Top Ten WoW Memories” post to broaden the criteria a bit… oh, and add commentary in lieu of having a video for everything.

And so, I present Pike’s Personal Top Ten WoW Moments…

10. The Gnome Rogue: You can read the full story here if you haven’t already; this is one of my favorite memories of PvP, period. To this day, I swear to you that you could see the shock on the poor guy’s face.

9. Ice Barbed Spear: For days I lived in Alterac Valley. For days we lost. For days I would push back dinner if it looked like we were in a winning game, which always turned out to be false, of course. And, then, one day… we won. I went from completely Neutral with Stormpike to halfway through Friendly by the time it happened. But we won. I have never seen a battleground chat so filled with shock and cheers. And I, at long last, had My Shiny.

8. The Safety Dance: Most of you who have been reading my blog in its WotLK incarnation for a while know about how Heigan was my Ultimate Nemesis for weeks. Every time I would go doggedly into Heigan, and every time, I would die on pretty much the first glimpse of green fire. Dead. Kaput. Tawyn Flatbread. It got worse as before long, most people I knew were talking about how easy it was. Not for me. And to add insult to injury, “The Safety Dance” is seriously one of my favorite songs of all time. How embarrassing.

Then, one day, in there with a PuG, a friend of mine gave me some brief last minute advice before I headed in. “Just keep moving.” Five minutes later…

The achievement. And the first time I survived. At the same time. I was on a high for days.

Since then I’ve only died on that fight if the disease on me isn’t cleansed fast enough. My druid even got the achievement on her first sojourn into Naxx. What was once my Fail Fight has become my speciality. Miracles can happen.

7. “We’re Going For the Epics. Epiiiiiiics!”: The boy and I were level 40ish, questing in Hinterlands, when my comrade-in-arms let out a gasp. I asked him what had happened, and he said, “I just got my first purple drop… and… I think… I am going to give it to you.”

It was called Bow of Searing Arrows, and it was my very first purple. I used it with pride for a very long time.

6. Home Sweet Home: I know I’ve written before about the feeling of flying into Elwynn and immediately feeling that very cozy “home” feeling so I’ll keep it brief; suffice to say it was one of the major motivators behind upgrading my Trial Account to a full-blown paid account. Because no video game had ever made me feel like that before.

5. My Kingdom for a Horse: The other big motivator behind upgrading my Trial Account was access to a mount. I decided early on that I wanted a horse rather than the typical Night Elf Cat, largely because of Tawyn’s RP backstory but also partially because I just really dislike the look of the cat mount. And so I began my long climb up the mountain that is Stormwind rep. Fortunately for me, Stormwind is arguably the easiest faction OF ALL TIME to gain rep for, so I was exalted at level 37– this was back when mounts were at 40, remember.

The boy and I were smack in the middle of Stranglethorn Vale quests when the big 4-0 happened for both of us; he got his special fiery warlock mount and I got my Chestnut Mare, which I promptly “named” Buckles. Then, the two of us rode up and down the entire southern half of Eastern Kingdoms together, simply out of the sheer joy of being able to do so.

4. Healing Naxx: This PuG Naxx10 was basically the culmination of a project involving my only non-hunter character to ever get anywhere near endgame– the final exam, so to speak, of my decision to doggedly level a druid as 100%-pure-Resto. I’d never healed a raid before (that wasn’t “Kara with 80s”, anyway) so I was ridiculously nervous, and then I found out that this group wanted to do it with only two healers: a trade of faster boss kills at the cost of less room for healer error, which absolutely terrified me.

And yet, one by one, all the bosses that I was afraid of as a healer… Patchwerk, Razuvious, Loatheb… went down to the healy might of a scrub tree druid in blues and the nice holy paladin who coached her and whispered her tips. At the climax of it all was a Kel’Thuzad kill during which, after a few false starts, not a single person died to one of my worst fears: Ice Blocks.

Most of the memories in this post are of my hunter(s), and naturally and understandably so, however, my healing alter-ego is very proud of what thus far is probably her finest hour.

3. “ENTELECHY GLORIAM!”: I have no doubt my fellow Silver Handers will recognize the guild that is involved in this story: a Paladins-only super-hardcore RP guild that focuses on, well– zealous paladins. They’re pretty well-known on our server, and as frequently happens with really well-known RP guilds, everybody starts tying in their RP with them. Our guild was really no different at the time; although we made a pretty conscious effort to have “our own RP” it was hard to not have tie-ins with the biggest RP guild on the server.

So it was that we held our weekly in-character guild meeting on the steps of the Stormwind Cathedral, against the in-character wishes of the Paladin guild. It wasn’t long before several members of said guild showed up and demanded that our little group of ragamuffins left; we countered that the Cathedral was for everybody. Now our guild meeting had had a rather impressive turnout that day, and it wasn’t long before, a good fifteen- or twenty- strong, we all marched right into that Cathedral. Paladins were yelling at us left and right to get out, and we were /yelling “ENTELECHY GLORIAM” which was actually sort of a spoof of the paladins themselves (hey, you can have some fun when you RP!) and we had a little gnome making “Myek!” noises and Trade Chat was hating on us and it was all around one of the greatest things of all time.

ENTELECHY GLORIAM, NEVER FORGET.

2. The Gift: This one was the mastermind of one of my bestest-WoW-friends. He had a level 80 hunter long before I did, and I idolized him for it, but he eventually perma-switched mains to Tanky Warrior and that’s how we all leveled up together. Anyways, one day, when I was level 65 or so, he asked me to meet him out in Blasted Lands. Mystified, I did, and when I got there, he traded me a present, all wrapped up. I opened it and inside was The Gunblade— it would be Tawyn’s very first gun.

He proceeded to show me how to level up my gun skill (from zero) on those mobs that never die, and as I did this, he performed a little mini-ceremony that was half-RP and half-not, about how he was proud to present to me the same ranged weapon he’d used to get his hunter to 70 (and how he liked to pretend it was the same gun), and how I was the best hunter he’d ever played with.

That gun is in my bank, and it is never going anywhere. <3 1. Karazhan: I’m sure you all saw this coming. The raid that is all at once the mystical awesome-land that I only heard about in hushed whispers on Trade Chat as a nubling, and the setting for my favorite Warcraft novel of all time, and the weekly watering hole and training grounds of a bunch of friends who were having the time of their lives in Ventrilo.

Not long after that guild gave up the ghost, I pulled together a montage of the things we did in there together and made a eulogy video of sorts, one I can’t watch without my eyes getting misty…

And that, well, sums that up better than any words I say ever could.

Well, that and the Outtakes, of course…

Phew! That was a tough list to write. Seriously, I had so many things I wanted to put on this list, and trimming down to what would make the final ten was tough. And ya know what, that’s really the point. I dare you all to think about your top ten best memories in game– write ’em down if that’s your thing, or just think about them otherwise. I sorta hate to be the stereotypical “count your blessings” guy, but really, I think you’ll find that there’s more of those memories than you thought there were. Don’t forget that…