In chronological order, these were my five favorite stories from 2006 — all from World of Warcraft, three from Le Guild (nothing like a raiding guild for putting out drama and angst!) and two from my travels near and far.
1. January 2006 – The Gates of Ahn’Qiraj are opened for the first time anywhere on the Medivh realm. Hundreds of well-wishers and curious observers from other realms flooded Medivh with level 1+ alts, created specifically to observe the gate-opening scripts — largest gathering of cows (tauren) anywhere, with bovine names such as Milkme, Gotmilk, and Mooyou. (Warcraft tutorial: the tauren starting area is the closest to the Ahn’Qiraj instance.) GMs eventually got involved and ported the cowlings to other areas so the natives could enjoy their gate party without being trampled.
I took some heat for running around AQ/Silithus with my own noob cow tourist, but there’s nothing like being there for mass chaos. I only wish there were more such events during the year, hopefully on my home server for once. Would save me the trouble of making a noob character and running him all the way out to the anarchy.
The series:
- A Party Atmosphere
- The Ahn’Qiraj Tailgate
- The AQ Hangover
- Bonus! Are All Cow Druids Lying Douchebags?
2. August 2006 – The “I Hate People” series. Notice how quiet my guild was for the first 8 months of the year? Ya, I notice it too. What in the hell happened Summer 2006 because it was just one shitstorm after the other.
Too many players involved in this shitstorm to name, but I enjoyed writing this series because I got a rare chance to toast someone’s ass who thought he got away with a lie. I didn’t necessarily enjoy LIVING through this drama, but all’s well that ends well.
The series:
- I Hate People — here’s a fun fact: if you search for “I hate people” on the blog, you get pages and pages of results.
- I Still Hate People
- I Am The Master
3. September 2006 – THE EMO TANK!! I know you miss him. I’d say I do too, but that would be a lie. He’s trying his darndest to get back into our happy family so you might get your wish.
I’m voting “NO!” because I want to publish his tattoo pics and gang hand signs pic that I copied from our guild site a few months ago.
The series:
4. October 2006 – If This is Wednesday, This Must Be Naxxramas. I had wanted to try a live-blog chat-log type post of a guild raid for a while. Unless you are an online-gaming raider or have been one, you cannot know the craziness involved in organizing more than five people. Even thinking about it now, these are all adults, who can all follow directions (I used to think), why is meeting at a pre-arranged location at the pre-arranged time so difficult??
I still don’t know the answer to that, but maybe the log makes it clearer why “guild” is just another word for “nuthouse”.
5. October 2006 – No, I Won’t Dance Naked with You in Ironforge. I love these two nutballs (aka future guild members) I met in Westfall and Redridge Mountains; they taught me the true meaning of irony. I’m hiding from my nutcase guildmates on an anonymous alt, enjoying the peace and quiet, and somehow, like I’m a vortex for crazy, they found me.
The one guy did teach me an important technique for avoiding people. Whenever I don’t feel like talking, “SCUBA!!”
Bonuses after the jump, Other Favorites and My Five Favorite Screenshots of 2006