The first seed of joy was sown in me when my buddy introduced me to the game Warcraft III. I've been familiar with computer games before, but I was really sceptic about trying the fantasy genre. My game history was mostly composed of Red Alert 1 and Command & Conquer, lately followed by Red Alert 2. I also played a bunch of other games, and that was when I first stumbled upon Blizzard, by getting Starcraft for some birthday. And it addicted me instantly; sadly, I was way too young at that time to successfully finish the game without cheats, but I enjoyed and praised the story nevertheless. Until this day I still think it's awesome. Also, during that time (or a few years earlier) my world was turned upside down when I saw the first Lord of the Rings movie in the theatres - I then borrowed the book and read it - that book was my holy bible, my escape from reality. I acclaimed not only the Lord of the Rings, but The Hobbit and some other books from Tolkien very soon, and I read each of them probably more than 6 times. I was really sceptic about trying a new world, a new fantasy. But back to Warcraft III now (oh, I also had a brief encounter with Warcraft II before, but it was too complicated for me to play at that time).
Somewhere in 7th grade of primary school, my buddy introduced me to Warcraft III. I would go to his place and play the game (the campaign!), and so I finished about half of the game at his place. And it was addiction - the fantasy genre, the cutscenes and the story, plus the gameplay itself was pure fun. After that I somehow got it to work on my computer at home, and was able to finish it on my own computer. I probably finished that game like 3 times as well, and I'd probably do it again if I had time.
Then we got the Frozen Throne expansion, and it was also a joy to play through. Somewhat at that time, I really started to follow the Warcraft III world scene, and I envied and praised the clans such as 4Kings (now dead), and players like Grubby and Moon, Lucifer (all alive and kicking I think), and our own neighbour Zeus (from Croatia, I think he doesn't play any more).
However, during that time as well, Blizzard was starting to make its World of Warcraft. I've never before heard about MMORPGs, and I didn't even know World of Warcraft was one! All I knew from the trailers was that it was beyond awesome. Sadly, I didn't know about game cards at that time, and I was still too much of a child to imagine buying one. So, we were all playing on private servers for that time. And even on those cluggy, 30% working private servers, me and my mates enjoyed as never before - the whole world came alive. I was playing a melee night elf hunter with talents in survival of which none worked. But we really had loads of fun. The problem with private servers, though, was that every new patch they would support, your characters were gone and you had to start from scratch. Of course, on most private servers the XP rates are significantly higher than on official servers, but it was still annoying, and it became unbearable for me (but not for all of us!).
Then I also met a guy that was actually playing on the official servers, and he knew a bunch of people that did that as well. But I still said I wouldn't do it. Then I went to Finland as a part of youth exchange that year, and I met this Finnish guy that was playing on official servers - he was a 60 rogue; and when he showed me the game, I couldn't resist any more! As soon as I got home, I bought the game, and since then I've been paying via game cards.
