Monday, May 18, 2009

Guild Drama and me

A Brief History of Pompey

Hello Everyone.

This is your favourite warrior/warlock; Pompey(Emmalynn). I just thought I would introduce myself to the guild as I have a little time to do so.

I have been playing Warcraft for about 3 years now. The first year was all off and on. In that time I have been pretty much in one guild (when I was not testing out a level 50 warlock on alliance side that is.) I started playing a couple of months before Burning Crusade came out and a friend of mine suggested I join her in a guild called OZ. At the time I had little idea what a guild was or why I should join one, being a 'straight' boy. I didn't really see why I would want to be in a GLBT friendly guild. The friend that suggested that I come and play with her in WICKED left the game pretty quickly after I started playing (She’s a bit of a drama lama.)The people I met and played with convinced me to stick around. The idea of being in a GLBT guild meant to me that I would be around mature people and that made me happy. The first year on play was full of stops and starts for me but there was enough fun for me to keep coming back. Even when WICKED was created I followed them from one server to here at Eredar; each time creating a new toon instead of doing a server transfer. Not that it would have been worth my money to pay to transfer a level 24 and 30 warrior and warlock.
It took me a good long time to level Pompey from 1 to 80. I would stop for school or get distracted by playing a warlock on the alliance. I managed to get to 80 about the same time that the first big slip happened in WICKED. Even though I had yet to raid; I felt pretty close to those that left the guild. They were very fun to chat with in vent and I have made a point to keep in touch with a few of those that I know still play. The split came around the time that the Sunwell Plateau came out not that either WICKED or WICKED IRL would ever see inside it. With WICKED so emptied of many raiders I was allowed to step in very quickly. Helped by Vanisforic, Puffin (Sparkles), Talizak (Jurist), Cleo, Kratar (everyones favorite straight boy), and even Titanbearpaw. We would start farming Kara for every bit of gear you could get out of that place (though only saw the tanking helm that I was looking for drop just last week). Soon it became clear that I was going to be WICKED's main tank for most of the content we could get to. We rebuilt to a point where running 25mans was not out of the question. I had a ton of fun tanking bosses like Gruuls and Magtheridon. Many felt Magtheridon to be a difficult fight but it was one WICKED did very well with one shotting him almost every time. Gruuls on the other hand was a little more difficult as we lack a degree of concentration for what we thought was an easier battle.

Meanwhile WICKED IRL would change its name to The Insurrection and I would port my little warlock over with them (Emmalynn has been around for a while.) They made some quick progress having come together with a 25man ready raid team. Slowly The Insurrection started to fall apart the main leader of the guild and reason for the split got burnt out and has now disappeared from the server.

WICKED started to close in on The Insurrection in terms of gear and progression and we were ready to go into TK and SSC. SSC however would prove to be our undoing. After a couple of very successful weeks of raiding in which we down a new boss every time, our leader and many of the other raiders started to flake out. I was contently being told "oh sorry I am late" or "what, that was tonight?" Xelisor (then a wonderful warrior) started to point to me asking me to lead the 25 man raids, but not having lead a Kara and being very shy in vent I was not in any position to do so. So we went back to Kara even though I was quite over gear at this point and we would also move into ZA. I really liked ZA but the cool down of raiding even effected running those too. We did clear ZA many times and were almost ready to go for the timed event when the great nerf happened and the reward mount was removed.

The Insurrection was not fairing much better with their guild pretty much falling apart it was around this time that Maghis and Starscream (Starsaint) joined WICKED leaving The Insurrection. My warlock still stuck around level 55 would leave too. The Insurrection would later merge guilds with The Dropouts and since then have started to progress. Sadly, every time I found myself in an instance with a member of The Dropouts that I did not know; they have turned out to be dicks.

After a few months the great nerf came and the door for raiding seemed to reopen. A number of the people Fata had been running through Kara forever and ever now had gear. I decided now would be a good time to try and lead some 25man raids. We knew the expansion was coming and I really wanted to see the current content at level. I managed to lead WICKED along with a partner pug team (Breaking the no pug rule) into SSC and we managed to down Hydross (My favourite boss fight) and Lurker in one shots. Lurker was WICKED's first bit of raid progression in months and we pulled him by mistake. Despite still being very uncomfortable leading a large raid I took WICKED to Lady Vashji and after much pushing we managed to kill her before the expansion came out.

The expansion came and a number of new people joined the guild I was very happy to have them. Until I found out that this meant I would have to share. After so much time being the guilds main tank sharing anything was pretty difficult especially so when the 1st 25man in Naxxramas. I found myself sitting on the sideline and the first few 25 mans that I was allowed to come to I would end up in a position for thinking that I would get to be a tank only to find I would be dpsing in my prot spec. (Known to most warrior and going to grab a drink while others fight the boss). I did not understand why a druid would make a better tank then I since I had better gear. After getting tagged in the back of the head by Anub’arak three or 4 times I figured out why. (I still suck and kiting stuff though. I mean really if I wanted to kite stuff I would have rolled a hunter or mage). I hated be stuck outside of guild firsts raids having been the main tank for the guild for such a long time. I felt like I had a little something to prove and improved my tanking and dpsing. I also felt like this was no longer the guild I knew and loved, maybe it was time to move on. Soon though some players stopped showing up for raids feeling a little bored and again just being flakey. The slow down hit me very hard. I felt like I had proved myself as tank and was once again the guild's main tank, but now raiding was slowing down. I started looking very hard at some of the other guilds on the server that I would like to join. I started playing my warlock again and finally got her to an endgame point, whether it was inside the guild or outside.

Ulduar has come now and I was pretty excited to raid with WICKED in some form of progression. Real life though had other plans as I managed to find a job again taking much of my raiding time away.

With the drama of the last few days and the overall feeling of more lows then highs in my favourite part of the game; I am left to wonder do I have the energy for another rebuild of WICKED raiding, or do I have the energy to join a new guild and help them build something? Having stuck with WICKED through thick and thin I do not really see myself moving Pompey out of the guild now, but Emmalynn is much more flexible.

Yesterday I went from not even sure I would play Warcraft at all anymore to leading a raid for the first time in a long time and having a ton of fun. Again much like all my decision about my future game play it will depend on how I feel after the next event and I will likely just stick with what I have been doing just more so.

Today I noticed a number of my guild members that I like and respect have moved to the new guild. This gives me all the more reason to follow them.

No comments:

Post a Comment