Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot...

So... the past couple of days were spent queuing up for random heroics. For the most part, I could care less what someone's gear score is in a heroic, but there really should be a limit. The other day, a guildie and I got stuck in a random heroic with a tank with a 2400 gear score. They politely stated in party chat that they literally just hit 80.

I give most people a chance. IMO, skill > gear for the most part... Well... I really should rethink that a little. There was no way in hell I should have stayed in that group. I was pulling healing aggro off this pally... well EVERYONE was pulling aggro off of him. I give him credit though.. he tried... but everyone in the group out geared him by at least 3k gear score...

I understand that after you ding 80, you wanna jump into heroics... but really... shouldn't ya just run some Normal Halls of Stone and Halls of Lightning to pick up some gear first? Or maybe queue up as a DPS and roll on tank gear... I guess that just requires too much logic.

I seem to forget that logic doesn't factor much in this game anymore.. if its logical then that would just be too easy. Lets just eff it up for some other people because I want to do it my way and my way only.

/facepalm

What am I doing in Icecrown?

Well, this has been an interesting morning.

I login to get my early daily runs in around 5 AM, and I find Quint plummeting to his demise in the middle of Icecrown.

That's strange; I parked him in Undercity yesterday after (finally) completing Uldaman.

Hey, why's his gear score so low?

And where's my off spec stuff?

And where's my gold?

Crapola.

Yes, sometime overnight I was hacked.  Years of paying my bills online, and I've never had a problem.  On WoW for less than a year?  Hacked.  What that says about the popularity of WoW and gold miners is left as an exercise for the student.

I put in a call to Blizz to get my stuff recovered, but in the meantime I've been poking around to find the weak point in my laptop, not the desktop that I play on.  Why the laptop?  Two reasons:  I do all of my WoW related surfing on it (not the desktop), and I've a hunch that the default work settings for such things as Cookies are terrible.

(Update:  Yes, they were.  [expletive deleted] employer settings.  Since corrected.)

Oh, well.  Hopefully they didn't hit the guild bank using my account; that would suck.

Traitor? That's me!

Yep, that's right.

I started a Human Paladin the other day.

I feel so dirty.

Okay, I'm trying several classes, and he's one of them, but right now he's the one with the heirloom weapon.  Of course, since it's a 2H axe, he can't use it yet.  Figures.

Maybe it's because I'm so used to the "us against the world" and "nobody loves us so we all have to band together" aspect of the Horde, but I'm having real problems relating to a Human Alliance character.  I can't bring myself to appreciate the "oh, look at the poor humans, how they've lost so much" and "ooo, those MEANIE Horde people running around, they're all just vermin" that the Human NPCs radiate.

Excuse me? 

And you don't think that the Forsaken had it bad, losing their lives to the Scourge?  Or the Blood Elves, getting facerolled by Arthas and then accused of being traitors when they were left to their own devices?  Or the Tauren, who were getting beat up on by the centaurs?

Sheesh.

Now, it's possible -likely, even- that the other Alliance races aren't that bad.  Whenever I see a Draeneii around, Lorne Greene's voiceover from the 70's Battlestar Galactica pops into my head:  "Fleeing from the Cylon tyranny, a rag tag fugitive fleet...."  And don't get me started on the Gnomes.  Way way WAY too much Polyanna in them.

What am I going to do?  Oh, I'll keep putzing around with Alliance characters for the moment, as the lure of seeing the questing from an Alliance angle would be very interesting.  Quint is less than 450 quests away from the Seeker, so the challenge of duplicating that feat from the Alliance side is tempting.

Hell hath frozen over

Last week was a very dramatic week...

There were a few things that all coincided. 

1. My raiding guild fell apart due to a number of the players wanting to split off and do their own thing.
2. My friend faction changed and transferred off the server to join up with RL friends of his.

It kinda left me with a hefty choice on my plate. 

I was offered a spot in the newly formed splinter guild, and they showed some promise towards progressing on a 10 man raid team.  However, I had a few reservations about joining them.  A few members of the splinter group I really enjoyed playing with, but there's a few I really didn't care for.  And I didn't really want to limit myself to seeing 10 man content with those few I didn't really care for.  Not to mention some inconsistencies with the splinter group.  They voiced some complaints about a few members.  And during my two days of trying to decide what to do, I notice the member they complained about is once again in their ranks.  This happened for two different people.  It just didn't make sense to me.  They basically reformed the same guild they were, just with new leadership and a new name and with out the previous leadership (who weren't bad players, just not strong leaders).

With that said, though, I still hold high regard for the friends I did make in the group.  One of which, is a contributing member to this blog, and I hope she will remain so.

One of my other choices was to help rebuild the current guild.  At this point in the expansion where the doldrums are hitting, I didn't feel that option would have much success.  And honestly, the other tank left in the guild I could NOT stand to be around.  So, I wished them the best, and chose my last option and best chance for overall success...  And I missed playing with my friend, who during our entire time in the past guild were not able to raid together because the group felt it was best to split us up.

To the Alliance I went.  I've been horde since day one.  Five years of it...  I was so anti- alliance.

Now?  Meh... It's all just about the same.  I dislike gnomes as much as I do blood elfs. 

The group I joined up with seems very nice so far.  They're all over 21, a good majority of the guild is in the military (or was), and there's quite a few husband /wife and father / son groups that play.  The guild has a STRICT no drama policy.  In fact, if you cause drama, you get removed from the guild.  AND, they have a structured loot system.  No more crying from others about losing a random roll on gear.  AND, they raid on the weekends, leaving quite a bit more time open during the week to relax and actually get some sleep - which also means, the wifey can join in raids now, seeing as she doesn't have to worry about staying up too late during the weekdays.

Yep... Souldat is now a human death knight...

I can't tell you how odd (but refreshing because it's all new) to watch the various attack animations and sounds of an alliance group.  A druid shapeshifts and an elf pops out... Uh....

The wife and I didn't want to leave our favorite paladin high and dry though, so he's got some mail waiting on him...

Even though I've joined the ranks of the good guys at level 80, I'd like to see some more of the quests, and plan on leveing an alt, now that I'll have time to do so during the week.

(I did one quest in the howling fjord where I had to test out a concoction a drunk gnome whipped up on a vyrkul prisoner... upon ingesting the vial, the vyrkul turned into a slime, to which the dozen guards or so standing at the ready were thoroughly grossed out by.  Asking what kind of a freak I was for doing that, and some getting sick - it was the first time I had actually laughed out loud because of a quest in a LONG time.)

Earth day

Here's my list of things to do today:

1. Take a moment today to fly about Northrend and apprecaite the landscape.
2. Recycle something - I will apprecaite my recycled (heirloom) gear today
3. Reduce / Reuse - Enjoy something that's been recycled - like armor graphics or the onyxia encounter
4. Use my spring flower to plant some flowers
5. Hug a tree druid

Note to Self

You can do Halls of Stone with four people.

Okay, we had five, but one was a bot.  The Healer picked him out after the first couple of trash pulls.  "Why is a Warrior with 5200 GS only doing 1000 DPS?" he asked in party chat.  Then, when I went to go tell Bran to get a move on, I suddenly realized I had a shadow.

"He's on follow for you," the Healer whispered me.

Unfortunately, we couldn't kick him at the time because we had the "protect Bran" event going on.

"No heals for the bot!" the call went out.

Amazingly enough, the bot died second.  We lost the Lock first, and then the bot.

For the last two minutes of the event, it was just the tank, myself, and the healer trying to keep threat off of Bran and keep ourselves upright.  Kudos to the Tree who did the job.

We kicked the bot -it was set to Need everything too- and then we finished up with the last boss.

Stupid bots.

The rise and fall...

Hello! I'm Satyana. I'm a new contributor to the blog. I hope that what I have to say is interesting or thought provoking...

I guess I'll just get straight into it. =P

Now, I've had a lot of experience dealing with different types of guilds - you'd know if you took the time to read the novel I wrote about myself >.< I've seen guilds fail and I've seen guilds succeed. The common denominator in guilds I've seen fail was disorganization and lack of strong leadership.

This isn't to say that is always the reason for a guild to fall apart... its just what I've seen. Tonight (or last night - however you want to look at it) I saw a guild fold. I felt absolutely terrible about it. After what seemed like weeks and weeks of not getting any progression done due to one reason or another, several people, myself included, felt that it was time for a change. Over the weeks, I had voiced my concerns... Made a post on the guild website, but I'm not so sure they were taken very seriously. They were talked about briefly but then they just seemed to fade away.

My intentions were not to watch a guild fall apart. I just felt that it was time for me to be with a group of people who seemed interested in what my concerns were and felt the same way I did. After speaking with the GM, I said my goodbye in guild chat and left the guild. On my way out, I was bombarded with whispers asking me what was wrong, what happened, etc. I told them why I left and then all of a sudden, people in the guild were leaving and asking for an invite to the newly formed guild. I was floored and felt awful. I did not think that by me and a few others choosing to leave would cause such an upheaval.

I truly care about the GM and the members of the guild. They took me in after I stopped raiding for a few months and I was given the opportunity to experience some of ICC.

BUT... to be honest, I felt this coming for awhile. The indecisiveness of whether or not someone should stay gkicked, the folding to a whiny raider about loot, the tolerance of people just not showing up to raid although they had gotten themselves locked to it and knowing it was going to be continued the next night, the constant uncertainty of who would be in which raid group and starting 45min later than what is scheduled... these issues not being properly addressed when brought up are what I believe lead to the falling of this guild.

Again, I feel awful about what happened. I really wanted them to succeed - even if I wasn't there to see a boss die for the first time with them. I feel like I let down a large number of people and for that I'm really sorry. I hope they do not have any ill feelings toward me. Each and every one of the members were a joy to be around and socialize with.

Whether they follow to the new guild, stay behind, or move onto different guilds, I wish nothing but the best for them.