Hello traveler, my name is Deckven and I am pleased to offer you the first part of the WoW Player Diary
In late December two thousand nine, the gaming website Gamasutra released its list of the best games of the first decade of the century, and World of Warcraft claimed the number one spot. Fresh off its fifth anniversary, the game was at its absolute peak, boasting an astonishing eleven million subscribers.
By twenty twenty four, WoW celebrated its twentieth anniversary since launch. For an online game that’s still going strong, that’s a remarkable achievement. Though its golden age may have faded and subscriber numbers have dipped, WoW remains a cornerstone of the MMO landscape.
Everyone’s got their own take on WoW, but its impact, both inside and outside the gaming world, can’t be denied. The fact that around a hundred million players worldwide have explored Azeroth speaks volumes – it’s clearly a major phenomena of gaming world, and one worth diving into deeper.
This journey is unique for every player. Each of us discovered Azeroth in our own way, feeling the highs of victory and the lows of defeat. The rush of taking down a first raid boss, the joy of finally getting a rare mount, or the thrill of that epic item dropping – these are moments that stick with you. We made new friends, had a few disagreements, and, sadly, lost touch with some of the old gang. It might be just a game, but it’s given us some really powerful and lasting experiences.
My own adventure with the Warcraft universe started back to the mid-90s, and I’ve been playing World of Warcraft on and off since 2008. In 2009, I started the “Casual Gamer Blog” – a place where I shared my gameplay stories, rated the game new patches and features, chatted with other players, and reviewed both the latest and classic content. That blog has basically become a detailed record of my own time in Azeroth, and it’s the main inspiration for this video series.
Before I start telling you about my Warcraft universe adventures, a little about what gaming was like in Ukraine in the 90s
PC Gaming in post USSR country
My first experience with computer games was at summer camp in the mid-80s. It was a simple setup: a game console hooked up to a black-and-white TV. The game itself was equally basic, called “Tennis,” where two lines batted a ball back and forth. A little later, in ninth grade, our school got a computer lab with “Agat” PCs. These had heavy, cast-iron keyboards, but also color monitors. We played “Sabotage,” controlling an anti-aircraft gun to shoot down paratroopers jumping from a helicopter.
Computers became more widespread in the early 90s after the fall of the USSR. My first personal computer was a “Poisk,” (“Search”). It was an IBM clone with an 8088 processor. It’s where I truly learned about computing. I wrote my school papers using the “Lexicon” word processor, dabbled in programming with Basic, and of course, played games. These were mostly simple games like Arkanoid and Tetris. More demanding games, like the “F-15 Eagle” flight simulator, were too slow, more like a slideshow.
The first piece of hardware I owned that could be called a real computer was an IBM-clone 386 DX-40 with four megabytes of memory and an SVGA monitor. I have vivid memories of mastering Excel on it, even before it was widely used at my scientific institute. And, naturally, I started diving into new games.
It’s interesting to know about how we got games back in 90s. The internet was still in its infancy. I connected through a modem over a phone line. The connection was barely enough for email, some slow web browsing, and reading newsboards. Downloading games was out of the question – it was too expensive and too slow. That’s why most games were exchanged on 3.5-inch floppy disks.
A small revolution came with the rise of affordable CD-ROM drives. Suddenly, places selling CDs, popped up all over Kyiv, like mushrooms after rain. These weren’t just music discs or movies – they were full of digital encyclopedias and game collections. I knew at least six places on Khreshchatyk, the main street. And then, of course, there was the central media market at Petrovka, where dozens of such vendors had set up shops.
Of course, all of that was pirated. In the “wild 90s,” buying a licensed game for $30 or $40 was just not possible for most people. And, to be honest, most shops rarely stocked these licensed stuff anyway, because there was little to no demand.
That is why large game collections were the most popular. These discs might have three or four dozen compressed games, often by removing heavy things like in-game videos. They came with “cracks”—hacking software. But actually launching these games was an experience! Often half of what you installed wouldn’t run at all, or would crash seemingly without reason. It was a reminder, pirated stuff was…well, pirated.
Introduction to Warcraft
Warcraft: Orcs vs Humans arrived on three or four floppy disks, that was in mid nineteen ninety five. By then, I had already conquered Dune II, one of the pioneering games in the Real-Time Strategy (RTS) genre. The first Warcraft, I must admit, didn’t make a huge splash with me. The plot was rather simple, and Dune II, with its classic sci-fi setting, felt more compelling. I do recall the amusing “zug-zug” orc sounds and the fact that these green characters hailed from another world. To be fair, I did enjoy the game, and when the Warcraft II hit the market, I bought it immediately— well, I actually got it as part of a game collection. And that’s when things really took off.
What struck me first was the atmosphere, mainly thanks to the music. “Your sound card works perfectly,” the game proclaimed, and the simple, catchy tunes were a perfect match for the action on screen. The gameplay was, of course, more refined, and the graphics were noticeably better, but most importantly, the game now had a proper story. For some reason, Alleria Windrunner and Uther the Lightbringer were the characters who stood out the most for me. And then there were the flying creatures and ships – the game was utterly captivating. The energetic gameplay combined with those powerful melodies really drew me into the plot. I played both, human and orc campaigns, having an absolute blast.
In the spring of nineteen ninety six, I traveled to Europe for an internship, landing in quiet Denmark, where I spent several months. Local stores mostly sold licensed games. I remember seeing a collection of maps for DOOM once, but me and m fellow interns couldn’t figure out if it was a legitimate product or not.
We explored quite a lot on the weekends, venturing to different cities and towns of Denmark. In Thisted, I stumbled upon a copy of Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal. This was before the Euro came into being, and the game cost one hundred and twenty Danish kroner (about twenty dollars). After some deliberation, I decided to buy it. This was the first licensed computer game in my personal collection. And you know what? I still have it. It’s a regular compact disc, without even a jewel case, with a small art book and plot description serving as the cover.
I came home in mid-summer, but I didn’t actually go through the Dark Portal until the fall. Nineteen ninety six was a year of exciting game releases, with the first Quake appearing at the end of June. I got completely absorbed in X-COM at the time, and it wasn’t until my vacation that I finally got around to installing Warcraft II. By then, I had upgraded to a 486 DX-66 which handled the game reasonably well.
Things didn’t go smoothly at first: the licensed add-on refused to work with a previous, pirated copy I had. I ended up having to buy a different version, also pirated, but less broken. This one was on a separate disc, with all the cinematics intact. It might seem funny, but seeing intro of Warcrat II gave me goosebumps.
That autumn was all about Warcraft. I devoured both campaigns, felt a pang of disappointment when they were over, and even tried my hand at creating some maps. Those map-making attempts didn’t go anywhere, so I said farewell to Warcraft for several years. But those years were far from dull – the first Diablo arrived at the end of that year, followed by the first StarCraft in the spring of Nineteen ninety eight. Blizzard had firmly cemented itself as my number one game studio, and I eagerly awaited the releases of Warcraft III and Diablo II as a truly devoted fan.
In the early 2000s, the game scene started to improve. The days of haphazard game collections were fading, and shelves were increasingly stocked with individual games on compact discs. Licensed copies were finally becoming a common sight. Another major development was the rise of Russian-language gaming journalism. One day in the spring of Nineteen ninety eight, while browsing a CD-ROM store, I stumbled upon the magazine Navigator of the Game World. After flipping through it, I realized the writers knew their stuff, and from that point on, I became a regular reader of NIM. I primarily got my gaming news from magazines, with Navigator and Igromania being my go-to publications. There were also FIDO conferences where games were discussed, but I still put more stock in what the gaming magazines had to say.
Diablo II arrived in the summer of 2000, the year I dove headfirst into the world of RPGs. Baldur’s Gate, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale – amidst this lineup of true role-playing experiences, Diablo II felt like a bit of an outlier. I lasted just three weeks in that whirlwind of hack ‘n’ slash with minimal text and maximum loot.
The long-awaited Warcraft III finally launched in the summer of 2002. The game disc included a PDF manual that devoted a lot of space to the game’s lore. I vividly remember reading the history of Sargeras, the Burning Legion, and the Lich King, which completely opened up a new world for me. The first two wars between orcs and humans in Azeroth now seemed like small skirmishes against the backdrop of a cosmic-scale power struggle. The boundaries of the universe expanded significantly. The story of Sargeras’s fall and the emergence of the Burning Legion took the game to another level. It felt like the developers had put a lot of care into foundation for the series’ future. The game did not disappoint in other aspects either.
That was a time marked another significant leap for the computer games industry. The era of sprites and isometry was passing, and 3D engines were becoming the new norm, radically changing both graphics and hardware demands. Warcraft III was developed in parallel with World of Warcraft, and it was Blizzard’s first game to use a 3D engine.
In early RTS games, most races were almost identical, often differing only in unit color. With StarCraft, Blizzard managed to balance three unique races, a major step forward for the genre. Warcraft III took it even further, offering four distinct races, among which the night elves were my personal favorite.
Just like the previous games, I completed the Warcraft III campaign and its expansion, The Frozen Throne, with great enthusiasm. The setting cemented its place as a favorite fantasy universe, right alongside Middle-earth and Dune.
Pirated WoW and the licensed Battle Chest
In December 2007, I was shopping media market Petrovka. I can’t quite recall what I was looking for, but I vividly remember what I ended up buying: a pirated copy of World of Warcraft. The seller, I recall, warned me that it was a poorly “cracked” version and likely wouldn’t be playable. As an experienced gamer, I scoffed at his words, though I must admit—he was right.
The disc contained last vanilla version. After managing to install it, I launched the game and created a human warrior. What followed was a string of broken quests, a missing skill trainer, and a desperate run from Elwynn Forest to Stormwind. After wandering around the deserted capital, I decided to check out other locations and created a new warrior—this time a dwarf. In his starting area, there were human quest givers! Scratching my head, I quit the game, realizing that this pirated version was a no-go. But I had made up my mind; I had to try the real game.
After the New Year, I browsed the internet to understand where to start. The result? I needed to get my hands on the Battle Chest. Back in early 2008, this set included the original game, The Burning Crusade expansion, and two manuals. So, at the end of January, I headed back to the market and bought the box, along with a sixty-day time card. From my research, I understood that you needed an active subscription to even launch the game, after which you could unlock an additional thirty days of play time.
That time card deserves a moment of its own. I already had a credit card, but it didn’t allow for international transactions, and Blizzard wasn’t accepting Webmoney at the time. From the sellers at Petrovka, I discovered a convenient payment method: time cards. They were sold right there at the market without issue. It was essentially a scratch card, similar to those used for topping up mobile phone accounts, with a picture of a night elf on the front and a code hidden under a protective film on the back. The card was even packaged in a jewel case.
Looking back, it all makes me smile. Later, after I started playing, I always kept a couple of time cards in reserve, just in case of exchange rate fluctuations. Remember, this was 2008, when the only servers available were in Europe. The game wasn’t localized until August, but even then I didn’t convert my account and continued paying the “European” price.
Despite buying the game in January, I stuck with EverQuest 2 for another month and a half. The game was paid for, and I was enjoying it well enough, so I wasn’t in any particular rush. Another month and a half passed before I finally stepped into Azeroth.
Next: WoW Player Dairy. Part 2. Hills of Dun Morogh
