Monday, August 6, 2012

Creation

I can’t recall the exact time I started playing WoW, but I estimated November/December of 2005. Truth be told, I had no intention of playing WoW, and was strongly set in my ways of refusing to play. At the time I was into another game on Xbox360 – Final Fantasy XI, an online MMO of the Final Fantasy series. Being stubborn, I refused to play despite FFXI’s slow decline in popularity in my circle of friends. It wasn’t until WoW was presented to me as a Christmas Gift that I caved.

Both WoW, and Burning Crusade were gifts, and my group of friends that played had even thrown in a pre-paid time card. Boy, were they persistent, but they did get their way with that. I couldn’t refuse such a generous gift. It also helped their case that FFXI had cursed me with an extremely difficult leveling system, and very little entertainment since none of my friends played it anymore. So, onto WoW I went.

Before even loading the game, I was given some details about WoW. My friend had described to me in detail the races, classes, and even different aspects of the games like parties, dungeons, and mounts. So, before the game was even put onto my computer, I had an idea what I wanted to play; A Night Elf Hunter.

So, why a Hunter?
I was told the hunter was one of the easier classes to play, but what truly won me over was the fact a hunter gets to have a tamed animal fight with it. Pretty much any animal I could imagine my hunter could tame it, and make it fight with me. I instantly asked about tigers (my favorite animal since I was two, as well as my Chinese Zodiac), and when the answer was yes, I was sold. I was going to be a hunter with a tiger. A very specific tiger that I’ll tell more about later.

And so, why a Night Elf?
Because we get to ride tigers! Duh!
Honestly, that was my main reason for picking a night elf… see the pattern here? Dranie were rather pretty, and were my runner up race, but overall the Night elf won because of their mounts (and blue hair!). Not to mention at the time I was still entranced by the handsome Legolas from Lord of the Rings, and the idea of a fare elf fighting with a deadly beast... It sounded awesome.

So, that’s when Astratia was created.
Her name may have not always been Astratia in game, but that’s how I’ve envisioned her. I won’t go into details of her old name before she was given a name change since for the life of me I can’t recall the proper spelling. I do know she will never undergo any such alterations again as currently she’s developed into a character of her own being J

From the start of the game, I was pretty clueless, but slowly learned through help of my friends. It wasn’t until around level 35-40 did I really start understanding that questing was the quickest way to level rather than killing beast after beast (ruminants of FFX1). I also learned around that time that there was specific gear intended to help a hunter be more powerful. So, I dropped my pretty blue and purple cloth dress intended for mages, and picked up some sasquatch fur gear that I complained made me look like bigfoot with blue hair. I look back at those times and think how funny I must have seemed, but thanks to some awesome guild mates, I was able to really start to play the part of a hunter.

Now as a powerful DPS, running through raids, killing Old Gods and Insane Dragon Aspects, I think back to remember these days and appreciate the help given, and continue to enjoy my Amazing Night Elf Huntress with no regrets.

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