Well it finally happened.
I have left my guild.
Well it’s not MY guild any more. Honor. That was the name of the guild. I’m not sire if I have ever talked about it on here before. Prolly have in passing but not specifically. Now I will.
I joined a guild some few months after I started playing wow. That guild was called Kaos. It was a guild on Duskwood server. I joined because my wife was in it and she recommended it to me. Besides I wanted to play with the wife and being in the same guild would facilitate that easier. Now Kaos had a lot of good people and players. Those 2 things not being mutually inclusive either. Yet enough of them in the guild were both to make it a nice place to hang. Or so I thought. A few months (or days, can’t remember) after I joined that guild it imploded.
Several of the good ones started another guild for the other good ones. This guild was named Honor. I joined them around the 3rd day of Honor’s life. The GM was an older guy named Ressager. This guy really knew how to treat people. He was a GM people would defend and listen to. Yet he wasn’t a domineering kind of guy. He led us by example and it seemed to work. People differed to him when disputes arose over anything. He made it clear that Honor was a casual guild that was looking to raid, but not jam ass into hardcore.
So we didn’t advance as fast as the other guilds. Yet we advanced at a steady pace. The guild did all the pre-bc raids and were quite successful. We never had a guild only Rag kill, mostly due to the pre-reqs, but we could go in there and smash it up pretty good. We advanced enough to tackle ZG, AQ20, and even dipped into BWL and Ony. I think a few even made it into Naxx. All this was pre-BC of course. When BC was about to hit we lost a lot of members due to the fact that we were laying off raids and only doin impromptu attempts at the higher dungeons. Most came back after BC and joined the run to 70.
It then came to pass that our leader, Ressager, had to take some indefinite off time to do some moving and house building. We all understood and wished him well. Most assumed he would be back after a few months. During the time he was away, many left the guild due to having no direction or solid leadership. The guild deteriorated into almost a feeder guild or a guild just for alts. A lot of the key players took their “mains” out to join raiding guilds for gear and experience. No one seemed willing to make the big decisions that would turn around the guild and bring it back to the Pre-Ressager’sleaveofabsence. The attitude of the guild slumped and many rules that were enforced before were let slide. The guild became, in my opinion, a swampy shadow of its former self.
After a period of time when we didn’t hear from him, he was contacted by other means. It was decided by him and his Vice GM that he would give up control of the guild to the Vice GM, Borvoh. This guy was the right hand and a proper choice for a replacement GM. So no one thought anything of it. In fact most heartily endorsed it. Now Bor set about returning the guild to its former glory, hell at one time people were clamoring to get into Honor since our rep for fairness and fun were renown across the server. He re-enforced the rules and listened to the officers to institute others. Oh yeah did I mention that at some point I became an officer or equivalent. Hell I was up for Class leader just before those positions were removed. Since I was an officer and interested in the guilds long life, I helped out where I could. With pride and fairness I helped police the guild for idiots. Never abusing my powers, and I had some decent ones too. There was plenty of friction when we started to raid Kara. We lost a few more due to misunderstandings and friction.
The guild weathered the trials that Kara presented. After a period of unsettling conflict we pulled through and became a guild that could field a successful Kara group. It wasn’t long after we started having weekly success in Kara that a lot of the old guard returned from their wanderings. Soon we suddenly had enough members to realistically run 2 Kara groups and expect them to perform well. And they did, and it was good. Well not so much for me.
Due to time differences and actually having a life (yeah kids do need tending sometimes) I was unable to run with group 1. Also at the time my only 70 was my Rogue. Dps wasn’t a big need so he was very rarely needed; besides there were plenty of DPS that hit harder then him. So I started a pally just to see how it plays. I loved it of course. It wasn’t long after I got to around 40 on Gawds that I decided that he would be a raider, DPS of course as I cant stand to be in the background healing. I should have realized at it was a pipe dream. Not only is DPS not hard to come by, it is in overabundance. While healers and tanks are still scarce.
Soon after Gawds reached 70 there was a call for a second group for Kara. I was excited. Here was my chance to break in and do some damage in Kara. I didn’t know at the time that there really isn’t all that much gear in there for a ret pally. (Turns out that heroics is prolly the best place for decent ret pally gear, if you can stomach wearing mail. Ick!) Yeah I say. I was still willing to go an help other get some goodies. My first attempt to get into group to failed miserable. The time it was set to go was almost an hour before I could realistically get home from work. Dayam. Next attempt was tolerable better only because it was delayed until key players logged on to give the group a chance to work. I watched as the group slammed through the first few bosses and then failed to get past Curator. Why? DPS wasn’t high enough. Since ret pallys don’t have fast ass DPS, I bowed out and let a mage come wail. That was the last time Gawds went into Kara. That was prolly 3 weeks ago, maybe more, I’d have to check.
After ZA was introduced the guild set up a progression group, whether it was set I don’t know, I was never asked for participation. So I have yet to see the inside of ZA. Shrugs.
I left Honor for various reasons. Some I have yet to state some I may never state, but the bottom line is: I no longer felt my presence in the guild amounted to anything. I couldn’t raid, wasn’t included in heroics when I expressed interest(mostly due to preplanned excursions), was flat out ignored when I asked to get in on a ZA run and generally left to twiddle my thumbs. I was excluded from playing with the people I had come to love playing with. I rarely saw any of the people I enjoyed playing with face to face (in game). All I have had for the past few weeks is reading in /gchat all the guilds exploits in Kara and ZA. Yeah. I’m happy. Shit. I will miss the guild a lot. Hell Honor, for me, was my only guild. Nothing will come close to it I think. No. I know nothing will come close to it. Yet I find that leaving wasn’t as hard as it should have been, coupled with the fact that when I left I got all of 2 people asking why I left. So yeah I quietly disappeared from everyone it seemed. I considered goin to the wife’s guild, but the chance even though the chance to raid is there, the chance at gear is slim to none based on the rules they have about raiding/loot.
There have been slim opportunities for me to raid, shit, same thing happened pre-bc. I have been tinkering with a prot warrior. After 2.3 it has become disgustingly easy to level, and with 2 high level characters to finance, I can afford the best gear to make it even easier. I started this game solo, so it seems I have come full circle. I’m solo again. I don’t know how long I will stomach playing solo or whether I will keep playing till WoTK graces us with its presence.
So with a heavy heart, yeah it does hurt a bit, I bid farewell to Honor. I will miss alot of people. Can’t say if I’ll ever go back. Future is uncertain.
Mindkiller
Gawdsicon
Darstar
Friday, December 21, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
More Altism, I have it in spades.
I was a little premature in thinking that I would be raid lots and lots on Gawds. Seems even though Ret pallys have increased in utility, they are not all that wanted in raids. Or perhaps its just this persons pally that is not welcome. I’m being bitter, the one time I have gone to Kara on Gawds we can’t kill Curator. I bowed out so they could bring in another dps. They get him down and what drops? T4 pally gloves , with no one there who could use them or need them. Yeah. I have been unable to get into any other raids due to the time slot they seem to shoot for. It is just as I get home if I don’t make any stops. If traffic is heavy, I’ll be late. We don’t get penalized for not showing up on time, but it means they have to look for some one else and maybe that person needs stuff in there. Couple this with the fact that I have been told that the gear in Kara is not a big draw for Ret pallys, yeah again. So in order for me to get gear I have to do Heroics for drops and badges. Well after the long haul to 70, I find myself with out purpose. I can spend time in heroics for a small chance something good will drop, or just farm badges to make a nice epic set out of that. I have yet to decide what to do.
I still get a lot of tells asking me to heal or tank on Gawds. I see a lot of players assuming Ret is a broken and worthless tree. I’m glad they are wrong. Our damage is based on crits and procs, but both are tied and can be enhanced easily. Well easily within the games mechanics, ie farming for drops and badges. Same as most characters. The only thing I see as what they are complaining about is that to be truly effective you need to stick almost soley to the ret tree. Not like healing or prot where you can diddle in and out of 2 or 3 of the trees. Myself I went with 10/0/51 to gain the maximum amount of dps per swing as well as the nice boost to stats from the 10% to str and int. It means I can’t heal heroics or the harder dungeons for more that a few heals. Yet I didn’t roll pally to heal. I made him to get those insane crits I see in all the PVP videos where a pally rolls through 20 guys before the screen goes blank. Can a rogue do that? Sure, but you damn well better have some beastly equipment. Mindkiller doesn’t, and won’t. He just does not have the utility people look for in raids. I am disappointed that a character I really loved leveling to 70 turned out to be only worth using as a farmer. Maybe I’m playing him wrong. I don’t know, and I’m tired of tryin.
I have also taken a break from Gawds. I’m really thinking about moving him to my wife’s guild. If they will have me, not sure as I have not applied yet. I have started and leveled to 26 a brand new Human Warrior named Darstar. I decided finally to make a tank. My luck will be such that when ever he reaches 70, the tanks will all be druids or Prot pallys. It will also give me a slim chance of playing side by side with my wifes preist. If only I can get her to play at all with me instead of raiding. I can burn oast her so fast due to my ability to smash through areas and their quests in no time at all. Coupled with tha fact of my memory retention of all the quests I have done for various reasons. Hell I have done the human, gnome/dwarf, Night elf, and Drani quests on a few characters. Some just for rep at 60 or 70. I know where I need to go for this or that quest. She has limited herself to playing only NE for so long she only knows those quests, whil I prefer the gnomes and dwarves. Still I have ploughed through the Teldrassil and darkshore stuff a few times just for the beefy rep you get. An ill do it again on Darstar sos he can have a cat at 60. We will see if we can meet up for some play time. Might not be for a bit though as packing will have to come first. My time for the next few weeks will be at a premium as I have to move me and the family out of the apartment we are in.
I still get a lot of tells asking me to heal or tank on Gawds. I see a lot of players assuming Ret is a broken and worthless tree. I’m glad they are wrong. Our damage is based on crits and procs, but both are tied and can be enhanced easily. Well easily within the games mechanics, ie farming for drops and badges. Same as most characters. The only thing I see as what they are complaining about is that to be truly effective you need to stick almost soley to the ret tree. Not like healing or prot where you can diddle in and out of 2 or 3 of the trees. Myself I went with 10/0/51 to gain the maximum amount of dps per swing as well as the nice boost to stats from the 10% to str and int. It means I can’t heal heroics or the harder dungeons for more that a few heals. Yet I didn’t roll pally to heal. I made him to get those insane crits I see in all the PVP videos where a pally rolls through 20 guys before the screen goes blank. Can a rogue do that? Sure, but you damn well better have some beastly equipment. Mindkiller doesn’t, and won’t. He just does not have the utility people look for in raids. I am disappointed that a character I really loved leveling to 70 turned out to be only worth using as a farmer. Maybe I’m playing him wrong. I don’t know, and I’m tired of tryin.
I have also taken a break from Gawds. I’m really thinking about moving him to my wife’s guild. If they will have me, not sure as I have not applied yet. I have started and leveled to 26 a brand new Human Warrior named Darstar. I decided finally to make a tank. My luck will be such that when ever he reaches 70, the tanks will all be druids or Prot pallys. It will also give me a slim chance of playing side by side with my wifes preist. If only I can get her to play at all with me instead of raiding. I can burn oast her so fast due to my ability to smash through areas and their quests in no time at all. Coupled with tha fact of my memory retention of all the quests I have done for various reasons. Hell I have done the human, gnome/dwarf, Night elf, and Drani quests on a few characters. Some just for rep at 60 or 70. I know where I need to go for this or that quest. She has limited herself to playing only NE for so long she only knows those quests, whil I prefer the gnomes and dwarves. Still I have ploughed through the Teldrassil and darkshore stuff a few times just for the beefy rep you get. An ill do it again on Darstar sos he can have a cat at 60. We will see if we can meet up for some play time. Might not be for a bit though as packing will have to come first. My time for the next few weeks will be at a premium as I have to move me and the family out of the apartment we are in.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Numer Two 70, But #1 Character
Well Gawds has been 70 for 5 weeks now. The final push was real quick. I just finished out some of the easier quests in BEM befor heading into Netherstorm for the 68-70 quests. I knocked out a few of the quests. I’ll edit this with the specific area I dinged in someday.
I entered 70 well ahead of the game. I had been trolling the AH for an upgrade to my Helreaver. It was getting much harder to kill things quickly, that usually means its time for a weapon upgrade. I was purusing the AH for a suitable replacement and was decided on the Oathkeeper for the 68+ questing and to take me into Heroics and Kara. Hell a 70 pally guildy had his until last week when he got Gorehowl off of Prince. He’s been 70 since a month after BC….or less. Well I was at 65 when I decided on the upgrade shopping. So into the AH I go and I see a lot of good things…cept they are for 66-68 and not gonna help me. I finally decide to go with a pole arm that had some very nice stats. I asked my guildies for some advice and the concesus was to go with OathKeeper. A guildy even offered to give me one at a tremendous discount. (Yeah for something like that I have no problem paying a guildy.) As I was deciding wether to take him up on the offer I see a spam in /2 for the Hammer of Destiny. Guy wanted 1.2k. So I asked the guild if it was worth that much. Most agreed it was worth more like 800. So I messaged him with the 800g and he said he would take that price if I traded other things for it. (It seems to me now that this guy was an ex-Diablo 2 Player. A lot of transactions in that game revolved around trading items as gold was so easy to come by and items were not soul bound. Lots of times it was gold + item trades. This was the first time I had seen it as an option in WOW. Item for Item, sure. Money for Item sure. Just not both.) Where ever this guy came from it didn’t change the fact that I only had 924g on that character ( yeah others had more) But I was not gonna pay more then 800. I could walk away and not be upset. He would be out 800 he didn’t have. So I tell him I only have the gold and no tradable items as I have been saving for an epic. (True but the real money is elsewhere). He says he will keep me in mind. He spasm his ad 2 more times, I suspect now that some guildes messaged him and offered him an amount lower then the 800, yeah they would do that, cuz in less then 5 minutes he msgs me back. He says he’s having a good day so he was gonna pass on the joy. (If he had giving it to me for 500 that would have been some serious joy). We meet and I hand over the cash, he hands over the Hammer. I then had an epic that is widely said to be the best pre-raid epic weapon. Tell you what, I think they are right. See my priority here? I have a 3 sentence paragraph stating how I got from 65-70, in 3 days mind you, while the weapon gets a huge chunk o space. I am not a lewt whore really, but I am jazzed that I got the hammer. I slapped Savagery on that bad boy as soon as I found a chanter with it learned.
It languished in the bank till I neared 70 then was immediately equipped once I dinged. 114g later I trained all the skills for 69 and 70. I was ready for dungeons…um no. I still needed rep in a few places for the heroic keys.
I spent a great deal of time in Nagrand farming the Obsidian Beads for Consortium rep till I had over 100 of them. I then headed to Netherstorm to crank out the consortium quests that would put me close to honored. It took a bit but after tuning in the beads and quests I managed to earn my key. I also had to work on my Shatar rep but the only way for that was to run TK instances. So I placed that on hold while started my Kara attunement. It took me over the course of a week to get it all done. By the time I was keyed I was honored with KOT(1 Durn FC + BM FC) and pretty well into friendly with Shatar. I still need a few more runs to get me to honored. But one problem, no one wanted to run them. I had the shitiest time putting together a run to any of the TK dungeons.
I was screwing around in Shat when I decided to turn in some signets and tomes to the Scryer people. It turns out that turning in those signets, tomes, fel armaments, and marks of Keal/Sarg, also gives Sha’tar rep. Well shit I didn’t know that. I spent some time farming some up and looked for deals on the AH and /2. Got some major steals from people looking to make some quick cash. After all my wheelin and dealing I got enough signets and tome to make a huge dent in my Scryer and Sha’tar rep. In fact I got my Sha’tar rep to 5999/6000 with all the turnins. That’s where it stopped. Shit. Still needed a rep run. I then decided to put that on hold for a short time so I could run through the quest chain for the arcatraz key which would take a character into Bot and Mech. After I ran through the quests (Btw I soloed the elite demon who held the shard in Netrherstorm, took 3 times though) I put out a call again for a run into Bot and maybe Mech. This was last Saturday and luckily there were guildies about and looking to run some Shar’tar rep up. We blasted through Bot before everyone had to run over to kill Kara. It was cool I dinged honored with the first kill in Bot. I had to wait till Sunday to run Mech. Sunday comes and I get a tell from a group already in Mech. They were at the last boss and needed DPS.
I entered 70 well ahead of the game. I had been trolling the AH for an upgrade to my Helreaver. It was getting much harder to kill things quickly, that usually means its time for a weapon upgrade. I was purusing the AH for a suitable replacement and was decided on the Oathkeeper for the 68+ questing and to take me into Heroics and Kara. Hell a 70 pally guildy had his until last week when he got Gorehowl off of Prince. He’s been 70 since a month after BC….or less. Well I was at 65 when I decided on the upgrade shopping. So into the AH I go and I see a lot of good things…cept they are for 66-68 and not gonna help me. I finally decide to go with a pole arm that had some very nice stats. I asked my guildies for some advice and the concesus was to go with OathKeeper. A guildy even offered to give me one at a tremendous discount. (Yeah for something like that I have no problem paying a guildy.) As I was deciding wether to take him up on the offer I see a spam in /2 for the Hammer of Destiny. Guy wanted 1.2k. So I asked the guild if it was worth that much. Most agreed it was worth more like 800. So I messaged him with the 800g and he said he would take that price if I traded other things for it. (It seems to me now that this guy was an ex-Diablo 2 Player. A lot of transactions in that game revolved around trading items as gold was so easy to come by and items were not soul bound. Lots of times it was gold + item trades. This was the first time I had seen it as an option in WOW. Item for Item, sure. Money for Item sure. Just not both.) Where ever this guy came from it didn’t change the fact that I only had 924g on that character ( yeah others had more) But I was not gonna pay more then 800. I could walk away and not be upset. He would be out 800 he didn’t have. So I tell him I only have the gold and no tradable items as I have been saving for an epic. (True but the real money is elsewhere). He says he will keep me in mind. He spasm his ad 2 more times, I suspect now that some guildes messaged him and offered him an amount lower then the 800, yeah they would do that, cuz in less then 5 minutes he msgs me back. He says he’s having a good day so he was gonna pass on the joy. (If he had giving it to me for 500 that would have been some serious joy). We meet and I hand over the cash, he hands over the Hammer. I then had an epic that is widely said to be the best pre-raid epic weapon. Tell you what, I think they are right. See my priority here? I have a 3 sentence paragraph stating how I got from 65-70, in 3 days mind you, while the weapon gets a huge chunk o space. I am not a lewt whore really, but I am jazzed that I got the hammer. I slapped Savagery on that bad boy as soon as I found a chanter with it learned.
It languished in the bank till I neared 70 then was immediately equipped once I dinged. 114g later I trained all the skills for 69 and 70. I was ready for dungeons…um no. I still needed rep in a few places for the heroic keys.
I spent a great deal of time in Nagrand farming the Obsidian Beads for Consortium rep till I had over 100 of them. I then headed to Netherstorm to crank out the consortium quests that would put me close to honored. It took a bit but after tuning in the beads and quests I managed to earn my key. I also had to work on my Shatar rep but the only way for that was to run TK instances. So I placed that on hold while started my Kara attunement. It took me over the course of a week to get it all done. By the time I was keyed I was honored with KOT(1 Durn FC + BM FC) and pretty well into friendly with Shatar. I still need a few more runs to get me to honored. But one problem, no one wanted to run them. I had the shitiest time putting together a run to any of the TK dungeons.
I was screwing around in Shat when I decided to turn in some signets and tomes to the Scryer people. It turns out that turning in those signets, tomes, fel armaments, and marks of Keal/Sarg, also gives Sha’tar rep. Well shit I didn’t know that. I spent some time farming some up and looked for deals on the AH and /2. Got some major steals from people looking to make some quick cash. After all my wheelin and dealing I got enough signets and tome to make a huge dent in my Scryer and Sha’tar rep. In fact I got my Sha’tar rep to 5999/6000 with all the turnins. That’s where it stopped. Shit. Still needed a rep run. I then decided to put that on hold for a short time so I could run through the quest chain for the arcatraz key which would take a character into Bot and Mech. After I ran through the quests (Btw I soloed the elite demon who held the shard in Netrherstorm, took 3 times though) I put out a call again for a run into Bot and maybe Mech. This was last Saturday and luckily there were guildies about and looking to run some Shar’tar rep up. We blasted through Bot before everyone had to run over to kill Kara. It was cool I dinged honored with the first kill in Bot. I had to wait till Sunday to run Mech. Sunday comes and I get a tell from a group already in Mech. They were at the last boss and needed DPS.
“Are you ret?”
“Fuck yeah I’m a Skull Cracker,” me replies.
“Wanna kill the last boss in mech?”
“Hell fucking yeah!”
We wipe on him the first time but destroy him the second. I got the second frag and made my key at Shat.
I am fucking Keyed for everywhere and all levels. I have run UB and SV heroic. I’ve run Bot and Mech on heroic. I’ve even been in on a disastrous SL heroic. I am loving the heroics on Gawds. Mindkiller has never seen the inside of a heroic. Mindkiller has now become a support character as I grow deeper into the Paladin. I will raid with Gawds like I never did wit Mindkiller. Oh well they both are money makers, and with my one-man guild banker I have no problem storing and selling all the stuff these two can acquire. I think I will have my epic mount money in about a week if I just put a bit of effort into it. It took me 4 months or so on Mindkiller to do that. It will prolly be a total of 2-3 weeks on Gawds.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)