Blizzard,
I'm sorry I didn't get around to saying this early, but I love you. You've been with me most of my life. Through the good and the bad, you've been there.
You were there when I was a wee little lad and I was terrified of aliens. My dad in his infinite wisdom or infinite cruelty (I still don't know which) purchased Starcraft for me on my birthday to help me get over this fear. I played through it and utterly fell in love with the story. Playing from the aliens perspective did the trick.
As the years progressed, I played other games like Diablo and Warcraft 3 (lots of fun LAN parties with those), but flash all the way forward to college years and I was going through a nasty break up with a long term girlfriend. When we finally ended it, my friends helped me celebrate with a party. When things were winding down the friend who hosted things, flipped on his computer and put it on the big tv screen. What I saw on that screen, I instantly fell in love. He logged on his Forsaken mage and was simply killing bears in the darkened woods of the Felwood. "What is this enchanting game?" I asked. "Dude, this is wow. I've been grinding the hell out of it. You should play it too."
I was intrigued and seeing as I had completely opened up the majority of my free time, I dived fast into the world of warcraft. It started by me making Abindia the troll priest because when I was purchasing the game my Forsaken friend said "whatever you do, don't pick the cutesy troll female. I'll disown you." So I did.
With world of warcraft, I eventually met many people in game. It even helped as an icebreaker with people around my university's campus. A lot of people I knew played it. But the most important person I've met, I'm currently living with now. She's been my girlfriend for the past year or so. Yes, because of Blizzard I've met the girl of my dreams and we're quite happy together.
So I wrote this to thank you Blizzard and tell you how much I appreciate how you've been there throughout my life as a source of entertainment and a source of bringing friends together. Happy belated Valentine's Day, Blizzard. I hope you're with me for a lot more.
