A New Hope

Thank you to those that responded to my last blog post. I posted in three different places one here, one at my old guild and one at my new guild. Yes, that's right. I said new guild. After much soul searching and consulting of the sacred chickens I decided it was time for me to leave and join a the new more raider friendly guild . I made a somewhat final post to the forum only to see my whole thread locked, including the blog post I had made earlier. I should have seen that coming since guild forums are a place to put the best face on your guild not to have someone say goodbye during times of guild drama. I have decided to leave Emmalynn my rarely played warlock in . I'm also starting to think I will create a new healing toon and put it in WICKED.


Looking forward to the new guild, I am very pleased to have so many people I already know in the guild. This along with some more raider friendly rules will help me adjust. Since my favorite thing in Warcraft is to see new content and to do that with friends around me; the move to is a good one. I am still trying to understand the loot system. I have never used dkp before and I hope it works out well. I have always had very good raid attendance and I never really cared much about loot. What loot I got was because I was there and no one else wanted it. Sure there maybe a few items that I really need but the simple fact is I have not seen Kel'Thuzad 25 be killed in a month and so why should I get his tanking weapon?


A question came to mind today as I listened to the Twister Nether Blogcast at work. Why do I like being a warrior or a tanking warrior? I was reminded of when I was a little kid and watched Thomas the Tank Engine (who am I kidding, I still watch it whenever I see it on.) There is a line in many of the episodes that said "Thomas felt like a really useful engine" I think that best sums up why I like it better then dps. I like the feeling of having a important role. I am not saying dps isn't important but as a tank I really feel like I am doing something. Whenever I am stuck in a off-tank or just dps position I do not feel that and I get quite bored quite quickly and feel I need something more to do.

I have decided to try and step out of my comfort zone and lead more raids. I rarely lead raids but the few I have in recent days have been fun. I think the added responsibility will help to break down some of the boredom I have felt during the raids.

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.

Hero Class Part 2

Hero Class Part 2

As I was looking around to see which classes have existed in game I came around a few that have sparked my imagination. Some of them are well known while others almost never see the light of day.
This latest blog will profile one of the rarer classes seen in Warcraft and one that I think would may a fun hero class.

Lightslayers - A shadow in the night, the lightslayer moves with the sound of a whisper to extinguish light wherever she finds it — specifically, she extinguishes the followers of the Holy Light. The lightslayer embraces the teachings of the Forgotten Shadow and develops her personal power by slaying enemies who stand in the
Though mainly a role playing character for female undead rogues or shadow priest; they have a interesting though style to be a class all their own. Lightslayers were once holy priest when they were alive but have become members of the Forsaken and have started to kill what they once were.
As a class they work likely be a Forsaken only class, with the abilities similar to a shadow priest and rogue.

Hero Classes? Part One

With the 3.1 patch out and a little chatter about what the next patch or even the next expansion may bring; one of the features on my mind has been a new hero class and what that might be. So with little base in want is really going on in the game or in the developers mind or in the lore itself here is Pompey’s list of possible Hero classes.

The first two options were used in creating the death knight but I believe there is still plenty of room for either of these two classes to be put into the game.

Runemaster. These guys seem to have a good base in the lore and would function well in the game. They have a base in both melee dps and casting dps. I would bet that if put into the game work have a strong healing ability as well.

Necromancer. This class has been seen throughout Warcraft and would fit the lore of a number of the races if they were to be put into the game. They mainly would be cloth wearing caster types and have many similar abilities to death knights. A Necromancer could still be fit into the game pretty well despite the similarities to death knights in much the same way that priest and paladins work with each other.

Wrath of the Lich King Six Month review

Wrath of the Lich King has been out for about six months now and I feel it a good time to take a little look back on what we have seen and try to get an idea of what we have to look forward to.

In the first month Wrath came out it was all about the levelling and some would call it the race to 80. This was one of the high points of the expansion. The questing experience in Wrath of the Lich King is one of the best parts of the game. Many players said it’s the best questing they had ever seen. The lore seemed richer and more detailed than ever. You got to meet the Lich King very early on and then at the mid way point you had the wonderful Wrathgate video. All of this pushed many people to continue questing for the Loremaster of Northrend achievement well passed the time they hit 80.

By the mid-December mark I and many others had hit 80 and were now looking to get geared for Heroics and raid instances. This proved to be much easier than most people expected. The amount of high level blues, crafted epics and the ease of heroic instances made getting gear very easy. This was where the complaining from many people began. The ease of heroic instance with their lack of trash made many people wonder if end game was too easy. The idea of shinning purple loot and the word epic changed. From this point on purple loot became candy and what was the best tasting candy for you and your class became the debate.

By January players had cleared all of the heroic instances and were pretty much rocked out in all epics whether it was crafted, rep grind pick-ups, or raid drops did not really matter. We were now looking at the raid instances. One question came to many lore whores minds why am I going there; I don’t have a quest to go there. Naxxramas, Obsidian Sanctum and Vault of Archavon none of them had quests. (Why am I killing this dragon?) Once inside any of the raid instance either on 10man or 25man we all found that the fights were too easy. Within two weeks of first stepping inside any of these raid instance players had them fully on farm and it became purely a matter of finding people who still wanted to raid. The only exception to this rule seemed to be Malygos as it took a little longer to get use to using the dragons. Many people did not like the dragons since it took their normal playing class away and gave them a floaty hard to follow rogue.
For the next 3 months a question circled around everywhere in Warcraft. What are we going to do now? Many raiding guild tried to fill that time with raiding achievements only to finish those off within two weeks of starting. For those in mid level guilds the idea of raiding achievement became more difficult as many players decided it was time for a break. Heroic instance achievements and rep grinding for mounts became the next option. Others found there new endgame love to be Wintergrasp and pugging together 25 people to push Archavon the Stone Watcher over on a weekly basis. Achievement whoring, and alts became the thing to do instead of clearing instances we were bored with.

During the 3 months between clearing all the raids and patch 3.1 another little event was going on; this was the arena tournament. Arenas quickly became the focus of many people in the game. Not for the game play of PvP but for the examples of how classes were imbalanced and why many did not really like PvP. Despite all the boredom many simply abandoned PvP both in arenas and battlegrounds Blizzard pointed to the rewards on offer as to why they was a lower turnout this time, but I feel that the mechanics of arena PvP were the real issue with player turnout.
Finally with much crying and complaining patch 3.1 came out. Ulduar has totally filled the gap. The video clip gives lore lovers a reason to step instead the instance (though there is no quest). The Argent Tournament has given casual players and achievement lovers a place to go and earn new rewards. The new patch should be able to fill most players time for the next month and then who knows. Likely we will return to crying about how we have nothing to do until the next patch.
The Wrath of the Lich King expansion can be divided into two halves it seems. The half where we have a ton of stuff to do and are totally excited to try everything and the other half where players are totally bored as they feel like they have seen it all. My advice is to take it slow this time there is no need to clear all the content on the day it comes out.

Add-ons and 3.1

In recent weeks two things have made news for Warcraft; the recent policy change towards add-ons and the roll out of patch 3.1.

From what I have read and listened to, many feel the main issue with policy change towards add-ons is a direct money issue. People seem to think Blizzard main issue is that add-on makers were making money off their product and that Blizzard should have greater control over this. With Patch 3.1 coming out this week and all the excitement about Ulduar and all the new content; a large number of players have seen what I feel is the more important reason why Blizzard changed their add-on policy. Add-ons cause technical issues for Blizzard and players. With each patch change add-ons stop working and create new errors; meaning that all add-ons need to be update to work with a new patch. Now this is not really a problem for many add-on users and the same goes for the creators of those add-ons (though creators have less reason to update add-ons now), but for Blizzard this is very important. Imagine the numbers of messages game masters got this week because players were getting error messages simply because their add-ons had not been updated. Remember when Wrath first came out and Quest Helper would not let you log on if you were in Dalaran. We can be very sure that game masters had to reply to a ton for messages telling player to turn off Quest Helper or this is a bug caused by the add-on you use. Blizzard should not have to be tech support for the add-on makers but this week more than ever they are. This is why I think Blizzard took steps to change their add-on policy, so they would be getting fewer add-ons in game to cause errors that they would have to spend time addressing.
As part of the add-on policy change there have been a number of additions in both 3.1 and even 3.0; taking features from add-ons and putting them directly into the game. Omen, Quest Helper, and Atlas are some explains of Warcraft taking what add-ons did and putting them into the game. With 3.1 the threat meters have been improved to the point a player can go without Omen. There has been improvement made to tracking quest information, though this is still not at the level of Quest Helper and likely never will be. Much was made of the Outfitter style feature that was going to be in 3.1 and I will be interested to see how that works once they get it out in the next patch.
Since they have shown themselves willing to take from add-ons in such a way we can now ask what add-on would you like to see be put directly into the game? For me it would have to be an improved UI add-on, recount or inventory tracker.

Pompey intro

Hello everyone.

With the realms down for maintenance it gives me a chance to put something on this blog. I am not such what this blog will be become but for now it will just be a brief bit of news about myself and my characters in Warcraft. I doubt it will become much more then that but you never know.

I have been playing Warcraft for about three years now and have one main character; a warrior named Pompey. He is a Tauren warrior named after the Roman general and not the city of Pompeii. I have another alt that I am levelling at the moment a warlock named Emmalynn. I have always had a habit of giving my female toons real life style names. For most of my time playing I have been using Pompey and have levelled him to a point where he is pretty rocked out in end game gear (Such that end game is at this point). Also in nearly the entire time I have played Warcraft I have been in one guild called WICKED. WICKED is one of the few gay lesbian bisexual and transsexual friendly guilds not on the Proudmoore server. I am not gay myself but have come to really enjoy WICKED as a community based guild and not just an end game raiding guild. The creators of WICKED like to kill alliance too much to role the guild on a normal server and so we have found a home at Eredar US. I myself could take or leave the PvP aspect of the game; being a protection specced warrior for most of my time playing pretty much meant PvP was just me getting my ass kicked.

With the recent lose of my job my playing time had gone way up. The bank account on the other hand is looking sadder each day, thank you economic down turn. With my increased playing time I have been able to get into more end game content and tried to get a better understand of my class and how to play it the best I can. At this point Pompey has seen most of the game but for the hard modes sections and 25 man Malygos. I would really like to get those done, but WICKED has always had trouble getting enough people to show up for raids. This brings me to the question that keeps coming up for me for the last year. Should I stick around in my community guild or do I want to make a push for deep end game and look for a raiding guild? What I have always liked about WICKED are the causal and friendly people in it and the maturity they have. My main concern with looking for a new guild will always be the level of maturity and the friendly atmosphere they have. The frustration for being a main tank with really good raid attendance only to have to cancel the raid for lack of people gets to me at times.