For the Horde

The Burning Crusade trailer came out and it was genuinely great. Not the hype kind, actually great. The servers had been in freefall for months, the battlefields were completely broken since that last patch, everything felt like it was collapsing. The trailer was the reminder that there was still something under all that mess worth the time.

I’d quit playing seriously half a year before, but friends wouldn’t let it go: start fresh on a new realm, guild up, Horde this time, actually commit. The Blood Elves were the hook. They move with this dangerous grace, beautiful in a way that feels deliberate—designed to make you want to be one. Silvermoon, the new capital, would be an absolute nightmare at launch, but those hordes of tourists clear out. The serious players push through the chaos.

WoW works as a substitute when there’s nothing else going on. The acceptable way to spend your time on something that doesn’t matter. You know it’s not great, but you go anyway because something about it holds. I actually believed this expansion would bring real people back, not just the ones who show up for five minutes.

If Horde wasn’t your thing, there were the Draenei—weird blue creatures, I don’t know, whatever.

Late January, I was back in there with everyone, loading into Azeroth.