Practicing Acts of Random Kindness and Senseless Beauty

The other day I logged into my Orc Shaman and noticed a mail icon was up. I wondered if that mysterious person who'd whispered "I see you" was back, but no, it was someone else:

Well, whaddya know...

Whatever I might have been expecting, it certainly wasn't this.

The person had sent along some silver, a couple of health potions, and some Smoked Sagefish (provides a buff for casters such as Mages, Warlocks, and Shamans). 

I was really touched by this act of random kindness, and I in turn sent a few items along with some silver to someone I randomly saw in The Barrens.

It felt good to be reminded that there are caring people out in the world, especially in a game and genre kind of infamous for bad behavior by players.

Learning to Crawl

Okay, maybe that title references my attempts to learn how to play as a Warrior on the Anniversary WoW Classic servers, but it could also be a return to playing a Shaman.

"There's a place out there on the savannah where you
can see forever, and it stirred something primal in us," I whispered.

A lot of my problems with playing TBC Classic didn't have to do with playing a Shaman per se; I found the class very much the Horde analogue of a Paladin, and the Vanilla version of a Shaman's solo attack rotation is very similar to that of a Paladin's. To be blunt, it was the circumstances behind my playing a Shaman --and everything that developed out of that-- that I disliked. Unfortunately, that means that the poor Shaman became associated in my mind with everything that went askew in TBC Classic.

Playing a Shaman in the Anniversary servers meant I was going to pick at a scab that should have healed by now, and I knew it wasn't going to be a pleasant experience. Still, I felt that I couldn't really avoid this forever, and confronting this problem now rather than waiting until I experienced the triple whammy of leveling a Draenei Shaman in the TBC portion of the Anniversary servers was likely the best option. I could control a lot of things this way: the speed of leveling, reacquainting myself with the Old World Horde quests*, and even disappearing into the ether, truly playing solo on the "other" faction from most of my current stable of toons.

I'm not going to lie: the first few levels were hard. 

I wasn't expecting the welter of emotion when I went forward into the Valley of Trials. After all, there's only a single auto-attack and a single magical attack available at the beginning, so it's not like I was doing anything complicated such as totem twisting. But I still had to get up and walk away for a bit after those first couple of quests, because apparently association is a real bitch. 

A few days later and I was back again, pushing forward a little at a time. Some quests here, some quests there. The freshness of the Orc/Troll starting area and both Durotar and The Barrens helped a lot. Sure, there's a lot of running back and forth in The Barrens --that's pretty much the Old World in a nutshell-- but I don't mind that much. And doing just a little bit at a time does help to separate the Shaman from the 2021 Leveling Shaman experience.

The real question is what's going to happen when in November 2025 the TBC pre-patch drops. I don't intend to get swept up in a mad dash to level a Shaman, but given the sheer lunacy of some people to sprint to L60 on the Anniversary servers**, I can foresee some problems for myself.

But that's all about sprinting: I'm back in the crawling stage, and I have plenty of time to learn to walk first.

*My other Horde toons in Classic and Retail were Blood Elves, and their starting area will get a player to L20-L22 in Classic by the end (or whatever the level is in Retail nowadays), so you could skip the Barrens or Silverpine Forest entirely. Being a Blood Elf has it's advantages.

**Not my Questing Buddy, who admittedly is almost at L60, but those who were already getting their pre-raid BiS gear in early December. 

Lipstick on a Pig

I still remember my first time with a Looking for Group automated tool.

Maybe because my anxiety at meeting other people was so high that it was burned into my head, but I remember it well. It was an Ajol'Nerub run, a 15-20 minute affair, and I'd recently switched from Holy to Retribution on my Paladin, Quintalan.

Ajol'Nerub is a pretty straightforward instance, and by far the biggest issue with the instance is figuring out where to go because the graphics kind of make it hard to figure out. 

"You just follow the webs and...." I was told once when I couldn't make heads or tails of the graphics on screen. 

Surely I must be nuts because there was no obvious path. "...and what? It can be hard as hell to distinguish differences in the webs."

"Well, just follow everybody else."

I rolled my eyes back then, but going in solo? You don't want to project "noob-ness"; you want to be seen as cool, calm, and collected. In short, anything but a noob.

For a brief foray into Heroic Wrath of the Lich King LFG queues, it was pretty much a non-event, but mentally it was like my first time venturing into Orgrimmar, only without the random person coming up to me and asking for a guild signature.

Ever since, I've had the same stomach flip-flops whenever I grouped up for any PUG, whether it be using the automated tool or not. 

You can dress them up as much as you
want, but they're still Pugs.
(From The Spruce Pets.)

Being in WoW Classic --and avoiding the automated queues of more "modern" MMOs-- has helped to an extent, because bad behavior in PUGs will earn you black marks among people. While I know that among a couple of thousand players on a server an individual is hard to remember, it's far easier to remember the asshat than the person who did a good job. 

Having the perspective of over a dozen years playing MMOs, I'm all the more impressed by my old friend Vidyala and her pugging experiment, as chronicled in her (now retired) blog, Pugging Pally. It did make fodder for plenty of posts, but I doubt I would have had the mental fortitude to do what she did and PUG her way to L80.* From that viewpoint, I understand why people prefer to run instances within the confines of a guild. They're people you know (minimally, at least), and they're people you can trust.

***

That being said, I had a conversation with some people in Classic about Wrath Classic which is on the horizon. It was kind of funny in that people were talking about how hard killing Arthas was, and the breakups of guilds over ICC raids, but there was nary a mention about the automated LFG tool. I found that conversation somewhat odd, given the poor reputation the LFG tool has, but I kept quiet about it. 

But the LFG tool is out there, lurking, and while I'd prefer that the tool never make an appearance in Wrath Classic I do believe that it will show up eventually.

In a bizarre way, I'm watching the rollout of Classic --and it's associated reactions-- as a repeat of what happened in the original WoW rollouts, only the timeline has shrunk a bit.** I remember the blogger debates over the LFG tool rollout, and how it was largely greeted as a positive development, and I hear the arguments now about how hard it is to get a PUG run together and think that people will --by and large-- have a positive reception of the Classic version of the LFG tool. Which seems silly to me, given the long term effects of the tool on the in-game community, but I guess I've played WoW long enough to see history repeat itself.

But still, I do believe that the problems created by the Meta in TBC Classic will also carry over to Wrath Classic, turning Wrath Classic into a weird reflection of both Classic and Retail at once. For me, having been on the short end of the stick in TBC Classic, I am leaning toward taking a hard pass on progression raiding in Wrath Classic. I'm not planning on sprinting to L80, maxing out reputations, and other bullshit that the Meta foisted on people just so they could min-max their way through progression raids. I did not have anything resembling fun in the first half of the TBC Classic Phase 1 experience, and I'm not intending to repeat that at all. 

I guess that's not a big surprise, but I'm putting it out here now before I forget and/or get talked into progression raiding after all. And I'm not making this decision while I'm in a bubble, either: of the Leveling Shamans, both the Leftovers and those that managed to sprint quickly enough to L60 so as to not get left behind when the Dark Portal opened, there's only 3 of us left. The others are gone, having burned out on the game and either left it behind entirely or stopped progression raiding and are on other toons doing anything other than Shaman work. And to be fair, once you get to progression raiding, parsing well as a TBC Classic Enhancement Shaman is hard, so the pressure doesn't really let up once you get to progression raiding. As much as I like Briganaa personally, the Enhancement rotation, coupled with totem twisting and shock twisting and swing timers, really really sucks. It's twice as difficult as the Rogue and Mage rotations in Classic, as the sheer number of irons in the fire you have to maintain are nuts.

There will be another post on my foibles getting the Shaman rotation down --or rather NOT down, as it were-- but I will say that rotations for raiding are a totally different animal than anywhere else. Just setting up your rotation in a lot of non-boss scenarios takes enough time that the fight is over once you're "ready", a problem I found in a lot of nerfed raid trash as well. While other players' DPS may go down over time, an Enhancement Shaman's DPS may actually go up because that initial burst that a Mage or Rogue might have doesn't exist for an Enhancement Shaman. There's reasons, of course, but that'll come later. I promise. 

But yes, there are times when I miss Card for her relatively high output and uncomplicated rotation. At least when I got into PUGs with her, there wasn't any extra anxiety over trying to maximize my DPS; that pig didn't require more makeup than some lipstick.

 

*We were on different servers --and on different factions back then-- or I'd have helped her out from time to time. Well, I'd like to think so, but I also believe I would have been too shy to ask her if she needed an assist because... Well, that's how I am: not exactly a pillar of confidence. (And before anybody gets in their head "Just how on earth did Red ever meet his future wife if he's so damn shy?" the answer is that she made the move first.)

**Or at least it feels that way.

A Moment of Relief and Joy

The last of the Leveling Shamans (or the Leftovers, as one of the group call ourselves) has arrived in Outland.

It's been a long time coming, and she's got a long way still until L70, but the hardest part is over.

Several of us banded together to help her in a Blackrock Depths run, and that coupled with a judicious use of summoning her toon at L57 to get a couple of Hellfire Ramparts runs in pushed her over the top. 

I'm incredibly happy for her and for what The Leftovers have accomplished. We've got this.

At the Crossroads of Practicality and Desire

I am now at a very weird intersection in my leveling process: I want it to slow down. And I'm not even sure that I can slow it down, either.

Well, let me clarify things a bit: the reason why I want to slow the leveling down is because I'd prefer to get flying right as I ding 70, and my preferred leveling process appears to be working against me for that.

***

When I arrived in Outland, Brig had 40 gold in her pocket. 

That's right: 40. Not 400.

I don't have a toon that has all my gold, either. Until Brig came along, Card has the most gold of all my toons at roughly 50-100 gold depending on which day of the week it was. Naxx put a gigantic crimp on my ability to earn gold, as I spent a lot of time farming mats so I could attend the Naxx raids. And for those who would say to just farm herbs to sell on the Auction House, I was doing that until the cost of the potions and/or raw materials on the AH outstripped my ability to sell the herbs I was farming. And once the price of Firefin spiked, well.... I grabbed my fishing pole and hit the shores of Wetlands.* It was only in the final few weeks of Naxx that my gold situation began to trend upward as we wiped (and I died) less and less in Naxx itself.

One more point: I did get world (or BoE) drops that I would try to sell on the AH, but I rarely was able to pull that off. I mean, I even got the Disgusting Oozling as a drop in Western Plaguelands, and even putting it up at less than half of the price of the other sellers I couldn't get any takers. Go figure. It's only now, with the new expac out there, that I'm getting some takers on the greens and Enchanting mats I've been putting up.

Still, the leveling of 1 to 60 was an exercise in speed, not wealth generation, even though the only things I bought were food and water.

***

Until a Shaman gets Water Shield around L62, they are a huge water hog. 

And I do mean huge.

I'd be slowly gaining ground on gold while leveling, and two things would happen: I'd ding and have to go get trained, and the price of water kept going up. I'd have a couple of stacks of water on me when I'd go out into the field, and every time I came back in to sell junk and get more water, the overall fluctuation would be such that I'd net a lot less than I thought. And once I hit the range for the L45 water.... I'd net zero.

The obvious answer was to get a friendly Mage to give me some water, but I was in such a hurry (and on at weird enough hours) that the alternate method of finding a random player, create a group, switch to Card, add Card, and have Card make and distribute water. I did that once, and afterward I thought "This is stupid. All this work for a couple of stacks of water." It may have been free, but as every other goblin in game will tell you, "Time is money, friend." And I didn't have that much time to sit around and do that on a regular basis.**

So, I did what any other slightly insane leveling Shaman would do: switch to L35 water and change my rotation to minimize spellcasting.

It may have been rough at times, but in the end it did help me become a better Shaman because of one thing: Enhancement Shamans are supposed to be masters of White Damage (aka the 'regular' non-magic damage). So I learned to be patient and let my White Damage attacks do their job and only cast when I'd get maximum impact from something. It stretched out my mana use, and it also helped me manage totems (when I used them) better.

And getting Water Shield has been a godsend. I rarely drink when out in the field, and when I group with people for quests or instances I typically get some water given to me as a courtesy.

You know, just like how it used to be.

***

Back to the original point of this post, getting to Outland has been a gold boon for me, but like I alluded to last week the gold demands are higher. My need for water has lessened, but repairs have gone up. 

And the training costs....

Blowing 30+ gold per level on training hurts. A lot. And the way the Shaman's toolkit is designed, I can't not skip some training in favor of others.

All of this has added up to the reality that I'm sitting at L69, partway through the level, and I'm about 500 gold short of the total cost of flying (skill + mount). 

So I'm doing other things rather than questing: working on my Skinning skill, which will (eventually) net me some gold on the AH, helping other players level, and running instances that are on the lower end of the scale (the first two SSC and HC instances, respectively) to help out lower level toons get leveled.

Still, I think it likely that I'll have to ding L70 to gain access to the excess gold gained by having no more XP to accumulate. It'll be a blow to my pride, but I can wait on getting to the Tempest Keep instances. 

***

One final note....

I have decided to honor my commitment to the Raid Lead team through Phase 1, but I will re-evaluate things after Phase 2 is announced. While I'd like to think things will improve, I believe it highly likely I'll want to go back to where I was and leave the guild. To do that will require me to give up my Raid Lead position, and I'm fine with that. I will have given things a fair shot, and if it's not working out for me it's not working out. 

And I do have options, so it's not like I'm giving up on WoW Classic.

*Other people liked Stranglethorn Vale, but I preferred Wetlands due to the lack of competition.

**Before you ask, no, I didn't ask any of the other Mages in guild. They were all busy running instances and leveling since the Dark Portal had opened. Some of them had friends from their old days join them in guild, and they've been running with them as much as they can. So why bother them?

Same As It Ever Was

The previous post derailed Brig's leveling adventures a bit*, so I figured I'd catch up on how things are going. (Or not going. Whatever.)

On Saturday morning, I got up early to help my wife get out the door to her job, then I settled in front of my computer after some breakfast.

Hmmm....

Perhaps I should back up a bit.

***

I believe that I mentioned back here about how we really didn't have the parts to build a new PC, and there were "ongoing negotiations" as to how I was going to proceed with using the PC for leveling and general use. All that was true, especially due to the ongoing issues with the graphics card shortage. I would have preferred to build my own PC, but the parts simply weren't available.

However, I did consider the pre-built options that I had, and based on my previous experiences with pre-builts (mainly HP and Dell) I dismissed the idea. When you get down to it, their options aren't that great, particularly with the bloatware they both put on, and there's also the issue with proprietary parts (mostly Dell here). I wanted an option that was more in line with the "boutique" builders, such as Origin PC, but without the inflated costs.

Microcenter, however, does have their own "house" brand of pre-built PCs, called PowerSpec, and after I perused their options I began to feel pretty good about them. They use LianLi cases, off the shelf parts (ASRock motherboards, Corsair water cooling, etc.), and the cost was better than that of the boutique builders. 

And they actually had current gen graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia. 

So the afternoon of Memorial Day my son and I took a trip to Microcenter to check a couple of the systems out.

I was... surprisingly impressed. 

I remember when the Microcenter house brand (eMachines) was pretty bad and contained non-customizable bare bones systems. But these systems were the real deal, and actually looked halfway decent. I mean, they came with RGB, which I didn't need, but they were really nice in their layout and cable management. I talked to the salesperson there for a bit, kicked the tires, and decided that this was going to be my best option for quite a while.

So my son and I brought back home a new PC and a nice, new monitor.

Now, I may have bought the thing, but I needed to clear space to use it, so I spent the next few days working on the piles of crap that I had on the table I use as my work space, and finally set the entire thing up by the weekend.** So yes, Red has a new machine for the first time since 2012. And here's hoping this machine lasts as long.

***

All that didn't matter last Saturday, as I finally got the chance to do what I wanted: walk across the Dark Portal on my terms. 

There was almost nobody on from the guild, which was perfect. That meant nobody noticed when Briganaa took care of clearing out bags, repaired her gear, and flew out to Nethergarde Keep.

I ran from the Keep down to the slope leading to the Dark Portal. Brig was passed a few times by some toons hurrying into and out of the Portal, but I paid no attention to them. At the slope, I RP walked down to collect the "Go to Outland" quest, and walked up and through.***

Totally worth the wait.

 

Briganaa was back home.

I set about working on getting to Honor Hold, collecting those first few quests, and seeing just how hard it would be for me to take down these initial mobs.

And saying hello to the true owner of
Stromgarde. Apparently he hadn't heard the news.

It didn't take me long to discover that I had to be very careful around these initial mobs.

I died a few times to those Wargs + Fel Orcs, but that first piece of gear. Oh, that first piece of gear....

You have NO idea. Okay, maybe a little.

The piece that I selected:

Not much to write home about
in Outland, right?

Replaced this piece:

From the Lord Shalzaru
questline in Feralas.

I practically wept from seeing gear that would actually improve my set.

And that's how my first hour in Outland went.

***

After a little bit of time, one of the other Leveling Shamans still behind in the Old World logged in. He was at L56, and needed two more to go to Hellfire Peninsual.

I kept my promise and grouped up with him for the next hour or two, finishing up quests with him and making sure he was on much better footing. When I logged from TBC Classic to run some errands he'd gone up 1.5 levels, bringing him within easy striking distance of L58.****

That evening, when I had a chance to get back on, I discovered my leveling buddy was in a Hellfire Ramparts run, and as they finished up she asked me if I wanted in. A couple of other guildies were in here, she told me, so it was (practically) a guild run anyway.

"Sure," I replied, and got a summons to a place I'd not been in since.... 2012? 2013?

And, as it turns out, I remembered more about Ramps than I guessed I would.

***

The weekend pretty much passed that way, with me becoming acquainted with Hellfire Peninsula, replacing my crappy mid-30s/40s greens with baseline L58 Outland greens, and running Hellfire Ramparts about 4-5 times total. I wasn't running it for the rep, as by the time I got into my second Hellfire Ramparts run I was already Friendly with Honor Hold, but I got the chance to relearn how the BC instances were going to be going forward: shorter, more intense, and requiring more tactical thinking than "I hit it with my axe".

There was one disconcerting moment, however, which occurred early Sunday morning.

I'd logged in to enjoy a little bit of time questing and I got a call out in Guild Chat. "Hey Card, you want to switch over to Cardwyn to run [one of the Steamvault or Auchindoun instances]?"

"Uh," I replied, "I could but I'd be turned into pulp."

"Oh, Card isn't your main anymore?"

"No, she's not set foot in Outland."

"Oh."

That, to me, highlighted something that has been happening with quite a few guild interactions ever since Pre-patch dropped: people somehow never read the official raid lists and realized that I wasn't going to be on Card, but Briganaa the Shaman. Even members of Guild Leadership, who should have known, were surprised by that revelation. 

Of course, that only served to heighten my resolve to keep Card retired even longer than I originally intended. But to be fair, TBC Classic is feeling more and more like it is Brig's time to shine. Taking Card to Outland just doesn't feel right, and I've grown increasingly reluctant to login as her.

***

I have pulled Card out of the garage, however, but just not in TBC Classic.

Yes, in the Classic Era server I copied her to.

I haven't done any dungeons or raids or anything, just wandered around a bit, enjoying the way how things were before Pre-patch dropped. Sure, the server is dead, as everybody and their Grandmother is in Outland, but after people finish gorging themselves on the Outland content they'll likely wander back to the Classic Era a bit more often. I didn't think I'd like the Classic Era servers that much, but the lack of crowds along with the lack of pressure to push hard with raids means I get the time to just relax and go fishing or something for a while and enjoy the spoils of Azeroth as it was.

*And I felt that those comments about the state of TBC Classic a couple of weeks in were important enough to not wait.

**Yes, I was busy leveling Brig the entire time. And working, too, so all this may have contributed to my feelings of being overwhelmed at the leveling task before me.

***I recorded it just because.

****Throughout this entire time I was experiencing network issues, so I'd be there with him for about 15-20 minutes and then I'd be knocked offline for about a few minutes. At least I provided unintentional comic relief.

To Have or Have Not

I kept my promise to take the day off from WoW this past Friday.

For the most part.

Oh, I didn't login to the game or anything, and I didn't read any WoW related Discord servers. However, there were discussions among the leveling Shamans that went on, and I grew concerned enough that I decided to reach out to my team's Raid Lead, who was also a member of Guild Leadership. I informed her of the current state of morale among the leveling Shamans, and after a short conversation that I won't repeat, she took the matter to the rest of Guild Leadership.

The net effect was that I began receiving Discord messages at 4 - 4:30 AM EST about how the leveling Shamans were finally starting to get some love. (That was great and all, but I kind of wanted to sleep.)

Over the weekend there have been some small changes here and there, and an announcement post highlighting the issues both the leveling Shamans and the Healers are having in getting to 70 and attuned.

Long term? I'm not certain how it'll play out, but I feel that at least we're moving in the right direction.

***

Yes, I was being intentionally vague with a lot of that first part, because outside of some general stuff it's pretty much internal and private discussion.

But I ought to mention that this problem, whether it the leveling Shamans, Healers, or people rushing to L70 while others aren't, well.....

Let's just say this is not a problem limited to my guild.

Shintar has highlighted her early forays into Outland, and how FOMO is real for even those already in Outland, but she's also highlighted how the new expac is changing her own guild.

I've discovered similar things, where people I've never seen before suddenly showing up in the Guild, and others not showing up at all. And we're not talking 2-3 people, but like 10 or more in each category.

But for me, in discussion among friends on the server who are part of other guilds, the biggest takeaway is that the current min-max Meta strategy for "Winning BC" (my term) is creating a big divide of Haves and Have Nots.

On the one side, you have the Haves, those who took the week off from work* and followed the Meta to the letter and now found themselves at Max level, attuned, and ready to jump into Karazhan. A lot of these have already started leveling their alts through Outland, focusing on the same Meta strategy, but without as much free time as before.

On the other, you have the Have Nots, those who didn't do all the stuff that the Haves did, for various reasons, and have found themselves lagging behind the rest. This includes people like the leveling Shamans**, Healers, people who had vacations or whatnot planned before Blizz announced the June 1st TBC release, graduations, family reunions, etc. This also includes people who are following the Meta, but simply don't have the time to devote to it that the Haves did.

Among a wide range of guilds on Myzrael, these two divides are creating internal tension. The Haves want to raid Karazhan and 25-person content NOW, while the Have Nots are looking at the Haves and saying "Hey, Kara isn't going anywhere, and it's not like Wrath of the Lich King Classic is dropping in December, so what's the rush? Why not help us get to L70 and attuned if you're so eager to raid?"***

I've heard from more than one friend that there's been posts in their guild's Discord about how "we're all in this together", and "we raid as a team". That sounds great, but I suspect more than one guild will be rent asunder by the internal tension as the Haves split for guilds that will let them raid as soon as possible.****

***

But for me, my answer always is more of a long term one: what's the point of the rush?

You binge on Kara now, and you'll be sick of it in a couple of months. And guess what? The people or alts who will need to get into Kara won't find anybody in guild wanting to run it. 

The same thing will happen --and likely is already happening-- with 5-person content. You binge on it so much, you get sick of it, and you never volunteer to help out a guildie who needs it. And I'm here to tell you that except for the raids, the only additional multiplayer content that drops in TBC Classic is Magister's Terrace. And that's it. So if you want to experience "more" TBC Classic, you're going to have to raid, and the Have Nots will not forget how they were treated by the Haves when they finally get to the 25-person stage.

***

From what I've heard from people who were there, when the original TBC was released, all of this wasn't quite as much of an issue. People weren't rushing to endgame with a ready made Meta, as they were still trying to figure the damn thing out. Guild issues were still there --as people will be people-- and scaling down from 40 person raids to 25 person raids is frequently an exercise in eating shards of glass. And the concept of leveling a Shaman to be ready when the Dark Portal opened was non-existent, as you couldn't roll a Shaman (Ally side) or Paladin (Horde side) until TBC released.

But now, years later, I think that the Meta is just the latest attempt to apply Retail WoW "sensibilities" to TBC Classic, which is something it really wasn't designed for. 

And I have to wonder how much longer before we see the dreaded "I'm Bored" in Trade or LFG chat.

*Or were insane like me and devoted almost every non-working moment to WoW.

**Another side effect of the power leveling I did on Brig is that Brig is poor. I mean, "I could barely afford basic riding at L58" poor. Card was already poor due to the dynamics of keeping supplied with all of the Naxx consumables on twice a week basis, so my crack about Briganaa selling weed was only half joking.

***Depending on your guild, there may be profanity involved.

****I do know of one that kind of blew up when about half the guild just up and split to create their own version of their Retail guild on Myz. Not exactly the same, because it highlights tensions in place prior to TBC launching, but I'm sure I'll hear of more soon enough.

A Bit of Catharsis

Sunday's post generated more introspection --and more explicit commentary-- than usual for a post here. I guess given it's content, that's to be expected. When I hit 'Publish' and posted it, I felt that I needed to get the full extent of my feelings out there, and even then I missed a few points.* But putting my feeling into words helped somewhat, because that process forced me to articulate exactly why I felt the way I did.

Last night, several of the members of the Left Behind Club joined with one of our ex-members, who'd made it to Outland and volunteered to tank for us, and we headed for Sunken Temple. 

I won't provide many details about that instance run, but it felt good to be with people who were experiencing the same feelings I was about a wide swath of issues. And it felt good to laugh for a while and enjoy the camaraderie and the (strong) opinions on things from leveling to plunging into the Outlands grind to getting geared up for the upcoming raids. There were a few things I had to self censor, because of that raid lead stuff, but I knew where everybody was coming from and how the long slog had affected them. 

The quote one of the others made that I can share, and one we were all in agreement about, was that "Nobody else in guild will ever understand what we went through to get to Outland."

And that's the truth.

***.

While I enjoyed the run a lot, I wouldn't have called it 'fun' in the traditional sense. It was more cathartic than fun, I suppose, to release those pent up feelings about the hand we'd been dealt among people who truly understood. 

We're also not leaving anybody behind. One member of the Left Behind Club is going on vacation now, and when she gets back we're going to help her all we can to cross the finish line and get her to Outland. I don't even need to take Brig for that: I mean, I've got undergeard (Linna) and overgeared (Card) toons ready to assist for that final push.

Here's to hoping the end comes out better than the first two parts.

*Such as that the min-maxing at the major WoW Classic websites that just about everybody and their grandmother are following to how to 'do Outlands correctly.'

On The Outside

It comes as no surprise that I've been busy these past seven days.

I finished all of the work surrounding graduations and moving on Sunday, and instead of logging onto Classic I promptly zonked out for about 13 hours. Waking up on early Monday, I said "oh crap" and resolved to start work immediately on leveling Briganaa.

So if you're looking for a report on how things were when the Dark Portal opened, you're in the wrong place. I've not set foot in Outland on any toon, but instead had a steady diet of leveling a Shaman. When the Dark Portal opened, I was in Hillsbrad, grinding gnolls and naga.

However, I was not unaware of things, because Guild Chat was all about the Dark Portal and what lay beyond. And about five minutes after the portal opened, I saw people in the /who in guild in Hellfire Ramparts. And then Blood Furnace.

And other instances.

I also saw the numerous requests for groups, and tons of "grats!" on leveling.

And I was still in an empty world, slogging away.

Yeah, it probably doesn't help that I was on
a 90s kick. And if you think Cake was
appropriate, you can guess what's coming later.

 

***

I will not lie. The FOMO --the Fear of Missing Out-- is very real.

And for those of us left behind, leveling Shamans, it remains real. 

It is hard to watch, so I decided to ignore the Guild Chat tab as much as I could from Monday onward. 

Every "Ding!", every gear drop post, every "Look at all the levels!", every "Isn't it great we're all leveling together!", all it served was to remind me that I was not there, where I wanted to be.

I even dropped Mage Chat, because it became too much.

All of it is unintentional, but it is also completely tone deaf.

And I am not the only one left behind who thinks that way.

I've chatted with a few of the others left behind, and they all have agreed that it is hard to watch, that the FOMO is real for them. And the occasional "gratz" thrown our way does absolutely nothing to ease the raw deal that we're under. 

 If you guessed Beck, you were correct.

***

The guild does have Shamans in Outland, by the way. 

Those who had a free couple of weeks were able to grind (or instance boost) their way to being Outland ready, and they're out with the rest, having fun.

But those of us who had real life, such as graduations, vacations, and whatnot, didn't have that luxury. 

***

That past week has taught me a few things about empathy.

First, that I'm glad that I was not greedy.

If I were a bit greedier about wanting to play Card, someone else would be in my place. And I sure as hell would not want that at all. It's bad enough to be here, but if I knew I sentenced someone else to doing this.... I would have a hard time dealing with the guilt.

Second, that you learn who your friends are.

I've had a few people reach out to me, checking in to see if I'm doing okay, and I'm grateful for that.* Those interactions mean a helluva lot more to me than every occasional "gratz" I got after a level. And I won't lie, in those 'Dark Night of the Soul' moments, they kept me going. 

I can't possibly begin to count how many times I've thought about quitting this past week; quitting the grind, quitting the lead position, quitting the guild, and either faction changing or quitting the game entirely. But at each critical juncture, there has been one person who reached out at exactly the right time to check in on me with more than just a "hey, gratz" but a "Hey, are you doing okay? You've been quiet and I wanted to check on you."

For those people, you kept me sane and kept me going. And for that I'm eternally grateful. And words can't express that enough.

Third, that if you feel like you've been left to your fate, reach out to the rest in the same situation and form your own bonds. Shared experience forges friendships and camaraderies like no other, and I've reached out to the rest of the leveling Shamans to keep everybody's spirits up, to keep people going. And the others have responded in kind. All of this has made me resolve that I am not going to leave anybody behind when I get to 60.

***

I suppose I ought to get this out now: I am NOT going to Outland at L58.

Back in 2009 I did that and bought the t-shirt. It did not end well; as even as a (then Holy) Paladin I was far too squishy for those first quests. And Hellfire Ramparts? Don't make me laugh. The only thing that saved me from double digit deaths was that the tank --the person who got me into WoW in the first place-- was already roughly 67-68 at the time (I think) and could easily handle all sorts of aggro. I'll be heading to Outland in meh --at best-- green gear with the occasional blue thrown in, and I'll need al the BC Clown Gear drops I can get.

And it goes without saying that if people start asking me to join Ramparts runs at L57, saying they'll port me over, no thanks. I'm doing this the right way, and that means L60 onward.

Furthermore, I'm not going to go the "spam instances until Honored and then go questing" route. I am going to do things my way in Outland, and that means questing until I need to go to an instance. Then I'll do the instance. I'll have gotten to L60 doing things my way, and I'm not going to change that.

Which reminds me, I ought to train riding. With the Ghost Wolf form, I haven't needed to train riding at all. Sure, it's only a 40% mount, but it's just enough to keep me from spending the gold on riding. And believe me, I need all the gold I can get. 

***

Brig sits at L48 as of this writing, and I've been shooting for 3 levels per day. (I've done 2 so far, so I'm going to login and get that last level soon.) So by the time the week is out, I ought to be at L60.

Catch ya on the flip side.

*I have insisted, however, that I not get any instance boosts. I need to learn to play my class, and that does absolutely nothing for me. Yesterday I was in a true at-level Razorfen Downs group, and a Zul'Farrak group that consisted of all at-level except for the tank, who was a friend of mine who isn't taking this toon to Outland until I reach it. So we were close enough in level that it wasn't a boost so much as an actual instance run with a really good tank; we were able to get a chance to use our abilities and work our way through them as much as we could.