World of Warcraft and personal revelations

I wanted to sit down and write something that wasn't about death or killing (as Alex Ziebart, the editor-in-chief of WoW Insider, has pointed out I do a lot). Not even about killing off a role or an aspect of the game, something I've done my fair share of over the years. That's when I stumbled upon this post over at MMO Melting Pot about WoW bloggers stepping out from behind their in-game personae and talking about themselves.

I thought about doing the same and then realized that since I not only write using my real name but I once posted an About the Bloggers that featured a picture of me without a shirt on, there wasn't a whole lot of mystery left to reveal about me. Heck, if you follow my Twitter, you know that I pretty much blather about myself constantly and, if anything, I am probably the Ah Pook of Too Much Information. Even I don't want to know some of the things I say about me.

But it hit me: I don't really talk about my characters all that much. Part of that is a paradoxical desire for privacy, especially while playing the game. But in the spirit of participation, I feel like I want to reveal a few things about my time playing WoW and my characters that I generally haven't discussed. Consider these like Shatner Secrets, only involving World of Warcraft and a lot less cool.

• I tanked as fury until The Burning Crusade. Pretty much everyone else tanked as arms with the 31/5/15 build. I tanked as fury because I had a Sulfuras and I used it as DPS with a two-handed fury spec just to be stubborn. It actually worked OK; we killed bosses and progressed through BWL and AQ and even into Naxx just fine, but I did it out of pure stubbornness.

• I proposed to my wife during a Molten Core run we were both in. The way she tells it, I walked into the room while she was pet pulling Baron Geddon to Garr's room and said "Hey, I think we should get married." I'm a suave devil.

• I deleted Baron Rivendare's mount back in BC. It dropped, I got it, I didn't even notice. Later when cleaning out my bags, I deleted the skull, thinking it was vendor trash. I was so tired from a stressful week with little sleep that I ignored the delete confirmation and only realized what I'd done afterwards.

• I didn't intend to have so many warriors. Not only was my first character a paladin, but the whole reason I ended up with so many warriors is entirely due to meeting people in real life who played on different realms and factions. I would roll a warrior to play with them; this was before realm and faction transfers even existed. I probably would have shelled out the $25 if it had been an option back then.

• I've enjoyed every paladin I've ever rolled and yet could never get them to max level. I've never felt like paladins were boring, whenever I played them. I just never seem to be able to keep playing one to max level. It's almost like a compulsion to stop. I look up one day, and it's been months since I played one of my paladins.

• I argued long and hard against any transmogrification like service being added to WoW. I laugh about this now. It's the bitter laughter of a man who has shelled out tens of thousands of gold to transmog his gear and has roped friends into running Trial of the Crusader on the off chance the two-handed sword will drop.

• I did not own a shield until level 60. My first time tanking was a Scarlet Monastery run, at level 35, that I tanked with a two-hander. I tanked every instance I ran until level 57 with a two-hander or dual wielding because I didn't like using a shield. I drove healers insane, and it was only once a healer friend actively begged me to take a shield that dropped in an instance that I finally did.

• I killed Lupos. I was mid-20s, wandering through Darkshire, and a dire wolf attacked me, so I killed it. It dropped a spiffy-looking cloak, so I linked it in guild. My friend Tyr, a hunter who also knew my wife, said "Oh man, don't let her know you did that" just as she logged on. It turned out she'd been trying to tame him for the past month. This has never been completely forgiven.

• I thought we'd wiped the first time we killed the Lich King. Yup. I had so completely avoided spoilers that I thought we'd wiped and I released. That was awkward. The raid leader made fun of me for about a month on that one.

• I liked the Plagueworks. Sorry, but while I accept that it was a bad Futurama tribute, I freaking love Futurama and especially Professor Farnsworth. I was in heaven for every single corny joke. I even loved tanking Putricide.

• Every single one of my warriors has an entirely different UI layout. Every single one of them. Bars, buttons, keybindings -- it's all completely different. I sometimes tell myself I do this to force myself to stay familiar with the abilities themselves, but to be honest, I have absolutely no idea why I do this.

• I played a shaman entirely because I loved fist weapons. The class itself is my second favorite in WoW and I'd love to raid on one again, but the initial reason for playing a shaman was to use fist weapons. And of course, there are almost no fist weapons in the 1-to-60 game, so leveling was brutal before Maraudon. I still keep a Claw of Celebras/Vilerend Slicer in my bags just in case.

• I have a huge weapon collection. How huge? More than half of my bank is weapons. I put armor in void storage, but I keep weapons where I can get to them. Other people collect pets or mounts, but I'm all about weapons.

• I roleplay in 5-mans. If you've ever run a dungeon with a worgen warrior who said things like "Oh no, not now, not the curse!" every time he entered combat and who constantly tried to talk the bosses out of fighting, that was me. Similarly, if you've done a retro raid with a tauren who used only small words and who complained that there were too many kinds of shoes and not enough made for hooves, that was also me.

• I love titles. Oh my, yes. Love them to death. I have a few realm-first titles that I absolutely adore, and even ones I have that other people have I really like. I just find it fun to be Dragonslayer or Death's Demise or Ambassador from time to time.

• I secretly wish I had a female undead warrior. Seriously, have you seen their combat animations? So badass, I'm not even kidding. It's the one race I've never managed to play past 20, and the only thing I like about them is how badass the women look as warriors.

There we go. That should be more than enough about me. How about you? Share something with us.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.