Blog Azeroth has come up with another shared topic: you're supposed to list the ten most memorable moments of your time in Azeroth. While I refuse to actually rank them from 1 to 10 - I find it too hard - I'll make a short list of what comes to my mind right now, not pretending that I've put any deeper thoughts into it. If you'd ask me about 10 moments to remember next week I'd probably give you an entirely different answer, depending on my mood and the shape of my memory resources on my mental hard disk. (unfortunately I've got a quite bad memory in RL as well - you could say that I prefer to live in the present to put it nicely).

Here we go:

• Seeing the movies that come along with the game after successfully installing it. I had no idea what to expect and I was thrilled! When I then zoomed in, sort of flying towards my char and then found myself standing there, not having a clue about what the whole thing was about... I was totally confused but in my heart I knew that very moment that this was a brand new world opening up for me.
• Entering Ironforge for the first time. The huge building, the guards standing there...the glory! The mystic river of fire, the people and creatures walking around. It gave me a true Sense of wonder-feeling! I began to realize this game was huge and offered so much more than I could grasp at the moment. I had only seen a tiny little corner of what was awaiting me.
• Getting my first mount. I was sick and tired of the slow walking, especially since the guys I played with at that time all had mounts. I hated running behind them and at last I could keep up pace with them. It was the end of the era of painfully making my way through the entire of STV. I rode around merrily, amazed at the incredible speed.
• Entering Un'Goro Crater for the first time. It was teaming with life, it was beautiful and mystic at the same time. Everywhere those crystals and seeds which I had no idea how to use. And still it wasn't bigger than that you could explore it without getting lost. I was so enthusiastic that I told a game friend of mine that he really had to join me, this was such a great place to explore. We did a crazy exploration ride, getting ganked by mean dinos all the time, still just laughing at it, it was such a great place to see.
• Entering a Teamspeak server for the first time. I had just joined my first bigger guild, based in Scotland, and they patiently helped me to make it work and cheered when they heard my voice. Until then I had never ever even used Skype... Just imagine the feeling of actually speaking to players from other countries! It gave me access to the game in another way than I had had before. It was the end of the walking-around-on-my-own-era and the beginning of my view on the game as a social teambuilding activity.
• Going through The Dark Portal to Outlands. An ex guildie of mine was my guide, dragging me through it and then running me through several areas of Outlands in order to get me some valuable fps a bit faster. It wasn't just out of kindness, I think he enjoyed hearing all those enthusiastic Oooohhh exclamations from me!
• My first run on my flying mount at level 70. It gave the game a new dimension - I just flew happily around over SMV for half an hour, thrilled by the feeling. The only thing that could compare to it is getting my epic flying mount the other week. The change of the game experience was just as big - another truly epic that will share this spot on the list.
• The first time the guild I was in at that time downed the Prince - and I got my dagger. A guild first kill in combination with getting a nice drop - how much better can it get?
• The night when The Suneater dropped for one of my game friends. We had run Mechanar a hundred times for it - or at least that was how I felt it. It was like if it was meant never to happen. But miracles do happen. It was an epic moment, the last one I brought with me before leaving that server.
• My first 25 man raid on the Stormrage server, which I wrote a blog post about. We didn't only clear Gruul easily, we also went to SSC just to clear some trash and have a look. Suddenly I was staring Hydross in the face (or whatever he has). I realized that a world of new adventures was awaiting me. I had just switched server, taking a huge risk, leaving friends and everything I'd fought for behind, not knowing if I'd taken the right decision. Now I knew in my heart that I had.

This list is quite predictable I guess. I think you'll probably find Entering Ironforge (or Stormwind, depending on your starting area) on most of those lists that the BA community now is producing, as well as Going through The Dark Portal. But I think I divert a little bit from others, since I actually don't have "dinging 70" on the list. I don't even know where or when it happened! Which is something a friend of mine just can't understand, she's even got herself an addon to help her keep track of xp and to ding exactly at the spot and in the manner she had planned. I didn't even take a screenshot from the event. On the other hand I remember my first flight on the flying mount which followed very clear - that was the glory of dinging 70 in my eyes.

Well worth mentioning are also a bunch of first meetings with people who became my friends in the game. You're not on the 10 top list, since I couldn't really chose between you. So no one mentioned, no one forgotten. Those random meetings actually have meant almost everything for how I enjoy this game. Maybe I didn't always know at the time for the meeting how important it would turn out to be. But many times I think I did. Sometimes it just "clicks" with people you meet out there and you know instantly that you've actually made a friend. You have just found a truly epic gem - and added a top WoW moment to your bank of memories.