Our guild Overkill was led by a special guy named Snazzy. Back then Snazzy was just a voice on vent, a personality to interpret based on the conversations that transpired and in my mind, he always appeared as The Dude from The Big Lebowski, mainly because he was one hell of a chill guy, a little bit of a hippy and just an all-around happy dude who chuckled his way into your heart as you heard the ice clinks from his Scotch on the rocks through Ventrilo. Back then, on our server, Snazzy was somewhat of a celebrity because Overkill was far and away the most successful guild our little realm had. I was first introduced to Snazzy by my real-life friend who’d been playing with him since beta and I remember how in awe I was of his full epic gear and how quickly he melted the Horde during late night Tarren Mill & Southshore battles. Back then, running into players with epic gear in every slot didn’t happen often.
As I moved up the chain within the guild, I got to experience many things with Snazzy including opening the gates of AQ and watching him complete the Scarab Lord achievement. When the guild finally went on hiatus in 2008 Snazzy managed to keep a few of us loyal members to stick around, by then we didn’t really care much for raiding anyway and preferred smaller scale stuff like arenas and battle grounds. This smaller group became even closer friends and our little merry band of miscreant old farts chugged along as filthy casuals through every expansion. Although all of us would take breaks from the game from time to time, we’d always find our way back to Overkill, to our vent server and to each other.
I’ve considered Snazzy a friend for over a decade and a little over a week ago I and the rest of our online group of friends were shocked and heartbroken to learn he had tragically passed away. It’s a weird feeling to mourn for a person you’ve never met in the flesh yet share a bond of friendship with. I’ll never get to talk to Snazzy again but I will never forget him. Over the last week I’ve worked on this drawing of his character as tribute and to help with my own feelings of sadness. This is how I will always remember Snazzy; during the peak of Vanilla WoW, rocking a full set of Mage Tier 2, melting Horde with a barrage of fireballs. Rest in Peace Scarab Lord Snazzy, Azeroth will never be the same without you.
Edit: Thanks for the positive response everyone. I knew this story would resonate with this community because we've all made long lasting friendships within this game and many other games. Snazzy was indeed a special person, as news of his passing reached old guidlies, many of them came to pay their respects in our Overkill discord, it was touching to see old WoW friends I hadn't spoken to since as far back as TBC reconnect, share old screen shots and even some videos of the good ol' vanilla days.
Here's some bonus stuff:
Overkill opening the gates of AQ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYm47cwskrQ (very dated clip lol)
An immortalized sound bite of Snazzy on YTMND: http://snazzystime.ytmnd.com/ (if a YTMND link doesn't give you early 2000s nostaliga, I don't know what will! Volume Warning)
Edit 2: Holy shit, a handful of people in this thread specifically remembered Snazzy and our guild from the early days on Warsong and then Garithos. I was not expecting that at all, it's crazy the small world of this community. So fucking cool, I know Snazz would be totally happy to know people still look back at that time fondly. WoW will never be as awesome as it was during those magical years of 2005-2007. I'm tripping out and thanks again to the sub for the awesome kinds words, and just for the love in general. You guys are fuckin' awesome!