If you haven’t logged in to get the 5th anniversary achievement and your very own Onyxian Whelpling (shown here), make sure you log in now! The achievement is still available, and all you have to do to get it is log in to the game – the whelpling will be waiting for you in your mailbox. Each character logged in will get one, and the little guy is bind-to-account, so you’ll get one on any character you create.

Perhaps more importantly though, this weekend marked the 5th birthday of World of Warcraft – five years ago the beta was ending and the game was going live; it’s hard to believe it’s really been that long, and it’s been just over a year since Wrath of the Lich King went live as well.

I remember the end of the beta of vanilla WoW, when GMs and monsters alike ran rampant through the beta realms just to give all of the players a suitably epic send-off into live play. I remember my first ever character, a poor Tauren Druid, back when I was so new to the game and there were no resources to help that I actually had to ask people where quest items could be found (there was no Wowhead or WoW Wiki back then) and there was no looking for group channel. Back when I thought professions were optional and not required to really experience the game.

Sheesh – it’s been a long long road. What about you? How long have you been playing, and what are some of your earliest memories of the World of Warcraft? How are you celebrating, aside from picking up your whelpling and diving into the Pilgrim’s Bounty quests? Shout it out in the comments.