Why I'm a Warlock - Part 1

Originally this post was going to be a list of reasons why I love being a warlock, but then I realized my warlock love goes back in time to my pre-World of Warcraft days. The first RPG I ever played was a Mac game from the early nineties called Tarskmaker, and the sequel, Tomb of the Taskmaker. Both are top down pixilated games where your character accepts quests from a mysterious “taskmaker” figure. Tomb of the Taskmaker featured a choice of gender for your character and three class choices: fighter, thief, and magician. I knew right away that I wanted to be a magician, even though the game stated that it was the most difficult.

One of the things I really liked about the game was that dying was not the end of the world. In fact, I think these games had the most creative "death" I've ever seen. Once you died, you were sent to Hell. In the original Taskmaker you had to go through a maze lined by fires and demons (that you couldn’t really fight). In Tomb of the Taskmaker, Hell was different depending on how you died. When you made it out, you were left with only a butter knife. This might seem pretty low, but obtaining money in the game was easy since there was random free stuff all over the place you could pick up and sell or use. Mobs would drop all sorts of jewels that could be deposited in ATMs for cash. (Yes, there were ATMs lining a medieval-style castle!) Dying in games and having to start over again always really frustrated me, and I found the Hell feature rather amusing. 

This game lead to me wanting to be the magician/mage type in every RPG I played. Before WoW, the only MMORPG I’d played was Maple Story, in which, of course, I was a magician. My friend that I was playing with and I did not get very far in the game, so I was never introduced to the tank/DPS/healer concept, so when I decided to play WoW I didn’t consider it when choosing a class. 

Not that I’m sure it would have made a difference. What got me into WoW was watching the intro video on my friend’s laptop. I loved the Tauren shaman and the Dwarf hunter. My friend played Alliance and told me the Tauren was a “bad guy" and belonged to the Horde, thus instilling in my brain that the Horde was evil. I know different now! Really! 

Before I picked up WoW, I spent quite a bit of time researching what race and class I wanted to play. Since Tauren, and thus the Horde, were “bad” I chose Alliance. I was disappointed I couldn’t play a shaman, and a paladin had no interest to me. I wanted something darker. I thought about a rogue, but I really wanted to use magic. I thought about being a Night Elf hunter, since I enjoy archery in real life and liked the idea of having a pet. But I read a variety of places that this was the most popular class in the game. The mage seemed uninteresting in comparison to my last two choices: a warlock or a shadow priest. 

The shadow priest, I read, would be constantly pressured to heal. The warlock had pets (excuse me, minions). My choice was made. 

The next question was race, which turned out fairly simple. My friend said that Gnomes were “lame” and so I chose to be a human. I made Frijona look like me, and then entered the game. After appearing in Northshire Abbey in that blood red dress and obtaining the first Warlock quest, I was hooked.

Coming Soon: Part 2! Obviously.

[Warlock Image: www.profilebrand.com]