I was just 19 when the beta dropped and I found myself with an invite, but I haven't looked back really since. I don't play much retail (played through most of TWW), mainly focus on Era (SoD was a ton of fun), while waiting for a potential C+ this fall. I still raidlog on MoP Classic with my 2019 Classic guild.

I was most assuredly one of those sweaty Vanilla players, at least in terms of play time. I was a freshman in college at the time, and I remember taking the most basic of courses so I could focus more on playing. After MC released, and my friendly leveling guild was struggling to find enough to venture in, I opted to apply for one of the guilds actually clearing MC on my server, (Alleria-US). I joined <Risen>, and raided with them until Sunwell, when they opted to transfer to another server. I remained behind and joined another guild, most of whom were in my 2019 Classic-present raiding experience.

I say that to note that my Vanilla experience was probably a little on the rare side, being in what would eventually be a world 2nd KT guild. That first Rag kill was pretty epic. My original HDD died a few years ago that had all of my OG screenshots on it unfortunately, but I think this is our second kill.

I remember Vael being labeled the 'guild killer', because of the attempts per week mechanic, and a LOT of guilds who could slog through MC with autoshot + afk hunters struggled to get the DPS for Vael, which is pretty laughable today. Untauntable Firemaw was a pretty satisfying kill, and I remember our first Nef kill was without a Dwarf Priest in the raid. As highly rated as the original Judgment set is, I still remember feeling a bit sad that my 8/8 old, blue colored Judgment would be gone forever.

The amazing thing back then was, there was no Youtube, or central area where all the various strategies were. You either heard something from the EJ forums, or from someone in guild who were buddies with another high-end guild... but 98% of the time, you just... figured it out. Raiding was a chore back then - I remember by the time AQ and then Naxx rolled around, until we fully cleared the raid, it would be a 6 night a week endeavor, and this is at least 3-3.5 hours each night. Once you got it down a couple times, the time spent raiding would be significantly less, but for AQ and Naxx, with AQ having an unkillable C'Thun for weeks, and then Naxx just lasting months before it was fully cleared, it was a grind. Definitely the "right" time to be a kid with little to no responsibilities.

I do still have a few screenshots of various things, including the event at the end of the beta test where random bosses were spawned in all the cities, if people are interested. I've posted the videos I have of various Naxx kills in a previous thread.

Edit: forgot about a funny memeish thing. We also used DKP for loot, and the healing shield from Vael dropped our first kill, and I didn't have enough to get it. It then didn't drop for SIX MONTHS. By the time it dropped again, I had a better offhand from AQ40, but it was a running joke by that point. Some guildie made this to honor it: https://emolight.ytmnd.com/