#snarfner

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Guild Portraits: This is what I was taking these screenshots for. I think I eventually switched to using WoW Model Viewer, which is why I don't have the originals for everyone. But I cut them all out and composited them onto a screenshot of Org (I think I posted this background image by itself early on this blog).

With a key and everything! So, we ended up using Aranni instead of Sukati. I think she became the main character, actually. Braxalo was another guy from the message board. And according the notes I found, Kelissel was Velina's friend. I have no idea who that is, and I suspect he was only in the guild for a couple weeks, but it was these couple weeks, so there he is. Weird how that works. Hayborym was yet another message board guy. And Snarfner is the most constant member of the guild, even more than me. There's been a lot of times the guild was just me and him, and a few times I'd get distracted by some other game for a few weeks and it was really just him. But, anyway, in April 2008, this was the gang.

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Dance Off!, Stratholme, October 23, 2008.

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Family Dinner, Karazhan, August 21, 2010.

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Tis The Spooky Season, Magister's Terrace, October 20, 2008.

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Are You Mad At Us, Kalec?, Sunwell Plateau, September 29, 2010.

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Big Business, Halls of Stone, February 2, 2009.

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Celebrity Impersonator, Zuldazar, May 27, 2019.

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The Scouring Of Stratholme, January 8, 2009.

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The Traditional Cower of Victory, Onyxia's Lair, November 5, 2008.

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Does Anyone Hear A Duck?, Karazhan, March 13, 2008.

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Secret Origin

I'm just an old time Warcraft nerd who's too dumb to quit. My first WC game was Warcraft II, when I was in high school. I gravitated toward the Horde because they were funnier. I liked the game, but wasn't too good at it. Jump ahead to the release of Warcraft III, it's a whole other thing. I read all the lore in the huge manual. I was completely taken with the concept of orcs as once noble, tragic victims trying to make their way in the world and atone for their crimes. A friend of mine had me read some of the novels. I was suddenly way, way into the setting. Plus, I knew a lot of people who played WC3. I enjoyed the Orgrimmar campaign in Frozen Throne with no idea it was more or less a test run for WoW.

But I didn't like MMOs. I wasn't sure about WoW. Then I got into the beta. I hauled my whole-ass desktop over to the house of the same friend who loaned me those books, and we were up til 4am downloading the client and then getting started. Gormorash the orc warrior was born that night (And so was Skarsnik the troll hunter, but he lost interest after BC). I was immediately sold. Running around Azeroth at ground level, full of detail from the RTS games, was a ton of fun. Gormorash went on many strange adventures in beta, like a hilariously inept "raid" on Westfall where half our group died before we got there and none of us were even level 60.

Then Gormorash was rebooted on Argent Dawn US when the game launched, a member of <Flaming Skull Clan> with several other friends of mine.

By middle 2005, almost literally everyone I knew played WoW. My oldest friends, friends from college, friends from the internet, relatives. Basically 2 friends and my parents were the only people not playing. Friends of mine who didn't know each other met and bonded through WoW. It was a glorious time.

By the end of 2006, I'd been through 2 guild collapses and one server move, as they opened up free transfers to Eitrigg and my friends all took it. I wasn't sure I'd keep playing. The novelty had worn off for most of my friends. I wasn't that into raiding, and doing Arathi Basin over and over was only so interesting (Gormorash just lived in Hammerfall for like a year). I was maybe gonna quit. And then, in early 2007, my brother found 2 Collector's Editions of BC just sitting on a shelf in a store, and asked if I wanted one. I had the vanilla CE, but I'd missed BC when they were released, and didn't buy BC at all. He bought them and shipped me one, and we leveled 60-70 together. It was a lot of fun.

Along the way, I started a new guild with some online friends, and Gormorash is still in it. He's never missed an expansion. Most people have fallen off the wagon. Our guild typically only has 3 active members at any given time these days, but that's fine with me. Sometimes a couple people come back for major content. It was lore that got me into all this, and that remains my primary motivator for playing. My endgame is more PvP and leveling alts than raiding, but the game has literally never supported those 2 things better than right now (2023), so that's pretty good. I still have a good time. And that's why I have hundreds of screenshots to choose from stretching from the 2004 open beta to just a few days ago to post on this blog. With the sad exception of most of 2006, lost in a hard drive failure, I have a comprehensive collection of every screenshot I ever took, and that's what this blog is all about.

I've made a few other Gormorashes on other servers, but rarely leveled them very far. Someone out there made a Gormorash that isn't me, a fact that shocked me when I found out. Who stole my name? Was it you? I have characters of every race on both factions, but still tend to prefer Horde. If you see me, say hello!

Gormorash is an orc warrior who came of age in the camps. With his brother, Rugurrash, he's led a guild of adventures for many years, with trusty allies Snarfner, Vallkillmore and Canon rounding out the core group. His hair's started to gray after saving the world 8 or 9 times, traveling through space and time and the realms of death, but he's still out there, still exploring, still getting into trouble and mostly getting back out of it. He's an alchemist and herbalist in his spare time, and has a completely unmanageable collection of pets. He is really, really tired of being forced to fight his own Warchief, and really hopes the gods don't lean on that already very tired trope again in the future.

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Pumpkin Pals, Orgrimmar, Durotar, October 23, 2007.

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Bring It, Zul'Drak, December 9, 2008.

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Halloween Costumes, October 20, 2020.

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The traditional cower of victory for Prince Tenris Mirkblood, Karazhan, October 27, 2008.

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Vegeance On Zul'jin, Ghostlands, February 9, 2011.