A tribute to PC Gamer’s first MMO characters—may they never be forgotten

World of Warcraft: Forever’s got me feeling nostalgic. In case you’ve been under a rock this week, Blizzard’s released the beta for its reimagining of “Classic”—or, if you’re at least 30 years old like me, “Vanilla”—World of Warcraft. It’s a trip and a half, seeing these old zones touched up with just the right amount of modernisation.

I’ve been feeling so nostalgic, in fact, that I decided to ask my fellow writers who their first MMO character was. Or, at least, the first one they could remember. In doing so, I have discovered two things: First, we’re all a bunch of mid-2000s kids. This much should not surprise you.

Secondly: It’s amazing how many details we can drum up about these games, especially from 20+ years ago. You always remember your first—and if you feel the warm rose-tinted fuzzies, I encourage you to share your own first MMO character in the comments down below.

One day, I just stopped playing. You don’t realise it’s the last time you’ll play, but it was—at least for a very long time. I always kept my account details, though. Not too long ago, in 2025, I decided to log back in after God knows how many years. I’m 34 now, but I was 33 then. I must’ve been 10 or under when I was playing RuneScape.

I was banned. My account had been banned for years. Some clown had stolen it and used it to do nefarious things in my name. I don’t know why, but I felt a real sadness for losing that account, even despite not logging in for years. So I sent Jagex an email. It read:

And, wouldn’t you know, someone at Jagex un-banned me. So I’d like to take this moment to say thank you to ‘Mod Frenzy’ at Jagex support. I don’t know if that’s a specific mod or just some collective name for the support team at the bottom of every email. Either way, they saved probably my longest running character in any videogame from near-certain banishment. Legend.