Reminiscing.....

Gilneas is not known for having a significant Horde population any more which is unfortunate. I was trolling through the realm forum for Gilneas and something I noticed was the massive number of Horde players that have transfered to other servers. When I first started playing WoW I rolled a Horde toon along with an Ally toon. My Ally toon would become my main toon as that is the side many of my friends from work played on. But my Horde toon, an undead mage, is where I really cut my teeth on many aspects of the game that seemed esoteric in the beginning. In those days, prior to the release of Burning Crusades, my mage (who never advanced above level 19) was a PVP madman. On a weekly basis I would spend 2 or 3 hours in WSG thwarting Alliance PVP'ers and Twinks alike. Give me a good rogue at level 19 and my mage that was specced frost and no one could touch the flag if we were gaurding it. I remember also back then that the Horde had a significantly larger presence on the server.

While I can't remember the specific allocation of population accurately I believe in the fall of 2006 the Horde was at 30% or higher population wise. Now only 13% of the population of the server is Horde. This means that for the most part, questing as Horde means you will almost always be alone. I've done a fair amount of investigation regarding what has happened on the server to the Horde, including asking this question in trade chat, and the answer is pretty consistent. It seems of the veteran Horde players, some rerolled Alliance and now hardly ever play their Horde toons anymore, or they transfered off the server. From when I used to play my PVP mage and the original hunter I rolled on the Horde side, I see very few names of players that I recognize any more. Some of the names of the Horde players that regularly post in the Gilneas forum are unknown known to me as well, but there are a few that I remember seeing from back before BC.

A part of me misses the days when I would be in the barrens and see that the Crossroads was under attack, and the next thing you would know there would be 3 or 4 level 60 Horde guys there in full T3 to clean the Alliance players clocks. I miss dueling in Crossroads with players that were 5 to 10 levels lower than my level only to be beaten by people who really understood PVP combat and Dueling. I will miss the days of seeing RAID INC in Orgrimmar after a night of raiding. The part of these times that I won't miss are the City Raids, as these lag fests messed with many a weekend night when I was in the AH. Oh, well......

Looking at the Armory and WarCraftRealms one thing that kinda makes me happy is that my race is in the minority on the server. Why more people don't play trolls is beyond me, the racials have benefits that are good for both PVP and PVE. As I get closer to 80 I am beginning to think of what I would like to level next for the Horde. My bank toon is a Priest so all I'd have to do is just start questing with her, but I am also really thinking about rolling a rogue as well.

Zulu.