Every character in World of Warcraft is allowed to learn two tradeskills, things like blacksmithing or alchemy, though in WoW they’re called professions. Professions are like college educations; they put you deep into debt in order to complete, and they’re near-worthless until you finally do. Once you’ve learned all that you can, you want to put that knowledge to good use, namely to work off those training expenses. Some people tersely advertise “300 engi/alch,” “port to darn/if/sw 1g,” or “arc transmute 5g.” I chose to advertise a little more flamboyantly.

“Like vibrating mechanical objects, but can’t tell the difference between a Mechanical Squirrel and a Sniper Scope? Want to get back at that mage with an exploding sheep? Let Iskar the Incredible Inventor with his 300 Engineering handle all your engineering needs!”

“Have slippery fingers and keep dropping your vials? Whether it’s Swiftness potions or Rocket Fuel, let Iskar the Incredible Imbiber with his 300 Alchemy handle all your substance-related needs!”

“Parents never talk to you about the birds and the bees? I can reenact the story with your Thorium Bar and Arcanite Crystal for just 5g! Come see the Miracle of Life…arcanite bar style!”

“Tired of Aragon the paladin and Gimlii the warrior begging for money? Change it up and have Llegolaz the hunter beg instead! Take a portal to Darnassus for just 99s! Friends ride free!”

“Tired of the contaminated canals of Lagwind and the soot-filled air of Lagforge? Take a trip to the clean, cool, tree-hugging wonderland that is Darnassus for just 99s! Friends ride free!”

I programmed all of these messages into individual “macros” that so I could advertise a particular service to all three major cities with the click of a button. The biggest rewards would be when people would LOL in the trade channel after my advertisement spam. The racier ones often provoke a LMAO or a WTF. Sometimes people would send me a private message saying that they didn’t need a transmute, but if they did, they’d buy one from me. Whatever the reaction, I enjoyed eliciting them and making money in the process, and it’s something that I’ve missed since I stopped playing WoW. I miss the people in my guild, their quirks, their voices, their talents, their generosity and companionship. I miss completely annihilating players that think I’m an easy target. I miss manipulating the economy, perfecting methods of killing a dozen monsters at a time when other people have to slog through them individually. I miss being good at something. The feeling of success is what I look for in a good game, and I stuck with WoW because it provided it so well.

The game has since changed drastically, and made itself dead to me in the process. I was in love with what it had been, not what it now is. I’m sure that I’ve changed in the interim just as the people who I played it with have changed. Even if they don’t remember me as fondly as I remember them, the least I can hope for is for my guildmaster’s words to ring true: “Iskar, no one will forget your macros.”