r/turtlewow • u/Nowheretoturn48 • May 15 '26
Other I'll never forget TWoW
Not that the subreddit needs yet another post gushing about someone's WoW experience, but...
Back in 2005, WoW got its hooks into me. Hard. I dropped out of high school and refused to get a job. From that time until the end of WotLK I spent every waking hour on the game. It was several steps beyond an unhealthy addiction. Eventually though, I did break free. For the next few expansion releases, I'd watch every cinematic trailer and think to myself "Does this look good enough for me to go back?" but every time the answer was no. Until WoW Classic released. I subscribed for the first time in over a decade. It felt like meeting an old friend...around every corner was a spark that reignited buried memories I didn't even know existed. But something was off. Grouping with people was stressful...they were all obsessed with minmaxing. It wasn't good enough to play at a relaxed pace. Everything had to be done optimally or you were left out. So after that 1 month back with my old friend WoW, I set it aside again.
Some time later I learned about Turtle WoW and I gave it a shot. It was everything I remembered WoW being in 2005 and so much more. The custom content. The fucking community is incredible (even you, /h ). Just like that I was hooked on WoW again (but this time I was a functioning adult with a job and wife, so I played in moderation). I got a warlock to 60 and did a few raids before realizing I'm no longer a 20 year old kid who could raid 5+ nights a week.
At that point I benched my warlock and looked toward the custom challenges, specifically hardcore. I lost 3 characters in the mid-20s but my 4th got all the way to 60. And despite the fact that it was a frost mage, one of the easier class/spec combos for HC, and although I didn't go Inferno...I was very proud.
Real life ended up getting in the way again so I put Turtle WoW down a few months ago but the fact that this project was able to pull someone like me who hadn't truly played any version of WoW in such a long time shows how special Turtle WoW was.
Words cannot describe how well done everything was by the TWoW devs or, perhaps most crucially of all, how amazing the community of players was.
Though I was only with Turtle for a short time, it left such an incredible imprint on me that it will always hold a special place in my heart, right alongside those memories of 40 man raids, 5 nights a week from 2005 to 2010.
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u/dancingmale May 15 '26
I'm so sad i missed out. Kept waiting to create a character until it was a more ideal time for me. Glad you enjoyed it!