Little bit about my start:
I hate multiplayer games, but I was convinced to get into WoW in May 2005, quite literally against my will. I played a druid, Akraen of course, from that point right up until Patch 5.0. I wasn't interested in raiding until I went to a Molten Core run and was asked to heal. I realized I had a bit of a knack for raiding because on Lucifron I immediately noticed things other people did wrong and felt very comfortable with my healing.
I later realized I was healing "incorrectly" according to the forum posts about restoration druids. I decided to defend my approach to downranked Regrowth weaving with Rank 2-4 HT's. I had so much evidence for my claim but it was pretty well ignored mostly because few people even cared about theorycraft back then. Or if they did-- I could not find those people.
Then I went bear druid after a massive burnout on 4H in Naxx40. I more or less vowed to never raid again. In my retirement I created my guild, Natural Order (September 2006) just so people would stop asking why I was guildless. I tried to do some RP but people were more interested in ERP and tea parties than actual lore or emotive acting.
Burning Crusade came and I tried to use my small group of a dozen ex-hardcore raider friends as "consultants" to help other guilds. Basically mercenaries for hire, but for free. It worked for a time but we realized our efforts could just go towards our own progression so I gathered a dozen good players and some really awful (not even level 70 yet) people and went into Gruul's Lair. Got Maulgar down with a few level 68's in the group. Once again, fighting convention, I was a stamina-stacking bear. At the time it seemed nobody followed my strategy but Sejta. As the expansion progressed I started to get into theorycrafting but it seemed like everyone blindly followed the mitigation weights Astrylian put into Rawr without taking into consideration the value of survival stats and TTL. It really bugged me.
WotLK I got to go cat some, the height of my enjoyment in the game was cat form in Ulduar. I'm not sure it can ever get that fun again. It was definitely the only time I truly felt like the game was a challenge, pacing was tough-- it would be something like playing 2 frost mages simultaneously. It was glorious and I got amazing results. Once again, theorycraft-- I stacked agility over armor penetration because I calculated the DoT (not affected by armor) damage. Once again, rawr disagreed with me and I was not well known enough to take on Astrylian on forums so I just kept to myself and kept giving amazing results, some top ranks on WWS for Ulduar HMs.
Cataclysm came and it was back to bear, always tank issues and the guild just operated best when I tanked. I was burnt out from ICC though and constant role switching. Cata wasn't any easier. Cataclysm was a grindstone on my will to live for a number of reasons, many guild-related but also I was working 14 hour days. We still killed everything on heroic in good time but weren't in the top 100. I was okay with that, but I finally snapped when 5.0 hit and I felt they finally destroyed every aspect of the druid class I liked. I didn't make any emo posts or anything about it. Just what I wanted for druid (hybrid, jack of all trades, multi-roles, multi-stat) wasn't their vision. My AQ40 style Genesis druid dream would never come true, and Heart of the Wild wasn't enough recompense.
I had my mage since vanilla. I leveled my mage as a human named Jolear on US-Argent Dawn by stacking ... of Frozen Wrath gear and AoE-farming. Once I got to level 60 I was already exalted with the Argent Dawn and had a Talisman of Ascendance! I would regularly challenge myself by doing trash farming in Zul'gurub on my own. I remember watching the Forsaken Chinese frost mage's videos (he listened to Inez and Scooter lol) and trying to emulate his raw skill at never getting hit.
I loved my mage and always kept him geared up. In tier 6 I ignored hit rating entirely and devised my own strategy: haste. Yeeepppp I've been stacking haste since 2007 guys. We defeated Archimonde once and I was top damage by a mile while wearing Frozen Shadoweave gear and assorted haste pieces, including some blues. I recall missing like 20 frostbolts over the fight, but still having far more land than anyone else with a much higher active time. It truly worked to ignore +hit then.
Anyway I decided to write some RP about why Jolear died and Akraen became a mage (I have to be Akraen, too many years of being known as Akraen). It all went smoothly. As I got into Tier 14 though I realized I had no idea how to play a ranged caster. I died a lot with the really awful Invocation. Eventually I picked it up though and was proving frost was pretty powerful. Only one of our warlocks really beat me regularly.
By the time I got into Tier 15, Hanodar suggested I post in the community and get to know Kuni a bit more. I did, and since then Kuni has really been the example of a stand-up fella who knows his stuff and would never steer anyone wrong. I felt like I needed a way to communicate some of my controversial theorycraft ideas though so I went on to create an "image" for myself. I knew I'd never give up my own guild and its history to join a top guild (debated joining Midwinter when Cactipete gave me the invite, no regrets but I love those guys). So given all that, I had to create some sort of image in order to overcome the lack of significance among heroic raiders.
I did it and that's basically how we got here. My part in the mage community is this:
). I was lurking in mage IRC channels, when Akraen invited me to join these forums as a moderator. 
I'm looking to help build this into the definite site for mages, and make it into a community where the best mages gather, exchange ideas, and help out everyone out. I didn't participate in many of the popular mage forums before now, because I didn't feel like any of them really fit the bill for what I wanted in a community. 
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