The world I inhabited as a teen was one where everyone who had internet talked about how amazing World of Warcraft was. I was never really interested, or at least that's what I said. I'd say I believed it too. However now I'm not entirely sure. I played warcraft II a great deal, but warcraft 3 never once was interesting to me. I saw the box art, the spec requirements at a big box store and just felt like it was a massive step backwards. I liked warcraft II and diablo. I later loved diablo II. I wanted out of a warcraft III something that leaned more into the diablo direction. Something darker. Something gritty. Something with ambiance and mood. Warcraft II was good, but a bit cartoony. Polymorph was a really strange spell that took me out of the game in ways, for example. It made me think about how truly overpowered a spell it was, to transform a giant demon into a sheep. That's not exactly a good thought in terms of what it does to the immersion. Diablo had more balance in that regard. You could become strong enough to destroy hordes of demons sure, but that had to be earned. You don't spend just 500gold and a stack of food or whatever. Comparing these games is incredibly meaningless and I know it. It's just to provide a bit of context. When world of warcraft released then, it could have gone one of two ways. More in the same direction as the overly cartoony warcraft 3 I already didn't want to play, or back towards a diablo style mood. I never had played warcraft or I would have known without even needing evidence. I tried world of warcraft at one point in 2006 or 2007. At a friend's house them trying to convince me I should get a sub (now that I had internet at home). I can't remember which race or class. I just remember the first quest was to kill rats. RATS. I remember also the graphics. Yes this design was the exceptionally cartoony nightmare I dreaded it would be. I never finished that rat quest. My experience with MMOs however wasn't just not playing wow, but also not playing Runescape. I played adventure quest. Such a broken game. I used memory editors to make my HP fixed so I could tank bosses at a much weaker state. But mostly it was for that reason only that I played it. Runescape was on all the lab computers, all the library computers. I didn't ever even want to give it a chance. It seemed like such a waste of time. I'm sure it's the "Hipster" in me as well. I'm more likely to ignore something if the vast majority of people I know are into it. Never mind that there might be something to the experience I'm missing, The fact that that experience was a near universal meant it would be redundant to experience it myself. I'm not sure this view is really very helpful for being a happy person. I had never heard of guild wars. I'm sure if I had I would have played it. The fact that it lacked a subscription model alone would have been enough to lean me into that direction. That is later what I think pulled me into guild wars II. Actually I'm not entirely sure what got me into guild wars II. Looking at my history it seems that guild wars first entered my world in august 2011. Then my own consciousness about august 2012 by way of boogie 2988. I apparently didn't get an account in the game until January 2015. This seems rather insane to me looking back. It must have been because the price drop in anticipation to the heart of thorns release. This purchase at this time was massive value. Apparently according to my chats it was because a friend of mine got the game. .