For the Alliance: the night I killed the Horde's leaders
I was Alliance down to the bone. So when Wrath of the Lich King launched and the game let me fight into the enemy's cities and put their leaders on the floor, including Sylvanas herself, I went.
I have said in a few of these that I was Alliance down to the bone, and that it would matter more than you would think. Here is one of the places it mattered.
In World of Warcraft you pick a side, Alliance or Horde, and you cannot fight your own. For most of the game the two sides barely touch. But the world has a handful of enemy capital cities, each one guarded by a famous leader with a giant health bar, and if you gather enough people and fight your way through an entire hostile city to reach them, you can kill them. It is the closest the game comes to letting you walk into the other team’s house.
When Wrath of the Lich King launched, I went. The two on the screenshot up top are the ones I am proudest of. “Downing the Dark Lady” is for killing Lady Sylvanas Windrunner, the banshee queen and about the most beloved character the Horde has. “Bleeding Bloodhoof” is for killing the leader of the tauren. Both are stamped December 2, 2008, which means I spent an early Wrath night not gearing up or raiding, but in a war party shoving its way into Horde cities to put their heroes on the floor.
There was no real reward for it. A little credit, a line in a log nobody would ever read. I did it because I meant it. Trihedron was a healer, the kindest job in the game, the one where your whole purpose is keeping other people alive. But he was a healer for the Alliance, and once in a while that meant helping a mob of my friends drag the Dark Lady down and stand on her. I have never once regretted picking my side. I told a girl in a math class the same thing, years later, and it cost me, and I would do it again.