The Histories: The Beginning of Nastre

The Histories are a series of articles that recounts past periods of World of Warcraft, experienced from my point of view on Saurfang playing my mage Nastre.

First of all I'd like to apologise for the lack of content of late. With my break finished I am back at work and spare time is a luxury, but I am still very much invested in this little project. In thinking about what to write I decided to finally give an account of where it all began with Nastre. Not that anyone has been waiting for me to tell this story, but 'finally' in the sense that I've always wanted to tell it before the memory becomes too faded and gets assimilated into 7+ years of gameplay experience.

Forgive me if you will for not sticking to our native home of Saurfang, but my story began on Aman'thul, before the server of Saurfang was even a twinkle in the Oceanic eye. I had played World of Warcraft for sometime before Nastre was envisaged, but I was very much an amateur player who knew little and played badly. Not surprisingly some of my memories of awe and wonder stem from this period and I look back on them with fond nostalgia. However it is not a time I wish to recount at the moment. Instead I want to take you back to that character screen...

At the beginning of BC I rolled a Blood Elf Mage by the name of Sunphyr. If you played on Aman'thul in early BC days you may have known of me; I did not raid but I was the first person on the realm to achieve the level 1 weapons with a rating of 1850 (how many people still playing know the format of early season gear rewards I do wonder...) in 2v2 with a destruction warlock by the name of Crick, a wonderful player who has long since retired. It was probably an initial sign that I had a knack for arena; destruction warlocks were literally unheard off in the time of SL/SL. Pair that with a Mage and you had a combo nobody played; it made our achievement one I am still proud to claim to this day.

I went from a horrible player to a slightly above average one through sheer practice. I BG'ed extensively and had amassed 50,000 HK's halfway through BC. I learnt not only my own class, but the mechanics, cooldowns, strengths, weaknesses and abilities of every other class. This is probably where I feel most modern players don't work hard enough to improve; their approach is too selfish and not enough research is done on what other players can do and how to counter that. Term it old school if you will but I served an apprenticeship that laid the foundations for my play for years to come.

Soon after I passed the 50,000 HK mark, I fell in love with the Forsaken lore and in particular the casting animations. I reasoned, quite calmly at the time, that if I was to cast Fireball 10,000,000 times that I wanted to at least look great doing it. Of course, the racial Will of the Forsaken was a more advantageous perk of the race but the animations were a factor as well.

At the time the race change was not available, so I was looked upon as odd for re-rolling an Undead Mage when I already had a max level Mage on Horde. While I initially liked the name Nastre, I had no imagininings that over time it would grow on me as it did until it seemed synonymous with the Forsaken and the Mage class. Perhaps its because the name is so similar to the word 'nasty' and that does adequately describe some aspects of the Forsaken. Regardless, when I made him I had no idea that he and I would be in the position I find myself today.

So, when levelling was still interesting and much more difficult that it is today, I set out on the road to 70 once again, heirloom free and with a sense I had finally found my true avatar...

To be continued...