Heartfelt Memories

**Warning - This one may get a little mushy...I am a girl after all, remember!**

I look back, as Cataclysm draws near, and realize that Wrath has held a lot of happy memories for me. Granted there have been ups and downs...but overall, it's been a very enjoyable ride.

I remember the night I stood in line at midnight to pick up my copy of Wrath. It was my first midnight release and though I kind of felt out of place, the excitement was contagious. The people in their costumes, the excited chatter going on around me...it all played it's part in building up the anticipation. After standing in the cold for 30 minutes, I finally got my hands on my copy and was racing home to install it. Being on the East coast, I was one of the first people on the boat heading to Northrend and one of the first guildies to step foot in the new frozen tundra. It was the beginning of a wonderful journey.

New adventures called for new toons. BC brought about the burnout for me. Constant raiding healing took it's toll and I found it the prefect time to switch mains. Thus was born Kalyina. Matt would tell you it was a very BAD time for me to decide I was ready to switch toons. We had 3 days to level a toon from 12 - 58. It meant many long nights for both of us. Countless run throughs of every dungeon I was able to enter until we were both exhausted. It wasn't until a week AFTER the release of Wrath, that we were actually able to officially experience the frozen tundra of Northrend.

It was the beginning of a new stage in the game but sadly was also the beginning of the end of Last Call. This was the bittersweet part of Wrath for me. Last Call brought Matt and I together. It was a haven of friends and fun. But it was also the stress and pains of being responsible for 100+ people. That stress was the wind that brought about the change. It was what ultimately brought about my break down and the end of my days as the GM to LC.

Wrath was a good time gap filler for Matt and I. It was 8 months after the release of Wrath that we made the move. Or should I say that Matt made the move. We were pretty certain that once we were together full time in real life that our time in WoW would slowly decrease. Oddly enough...this didn't happen. Yes we cut back on our play time since we no longer had to use it as a means to spend time together. However, we still found ourselves deeply involved in the game.

We spent time jumping from one place to another. We never seemed satisfied. This was ultimately the lead up that began my love affair with a Death Knight and the Horde. It was short lived but well played and one of my fondest memories of Wrath.

I had never spent much time Horde side. I hadn't cared much for the races or their zones. But what I was interested in was the story they had to tell. I wasn't disappointed. It was much like finding a new game. New quest chains, new stories and new characters to meet. Sadly, we weren't content to just let things be.

After jumping around from here to there we decided to try our hand at running another guild. Faded Delusions was built from this decision. Now looking back I understand that what I was looking for, what we were looking for, couldn't' be found in simply building a guild. It was the people of LC that we missed, not the guild itself. No matter how hard we tried, we couldn't make Faded Delusion be what LC once was.

It took us awhile to realize our mistakes. During this phases I decided it was time for a break. A 3 month break to be exact.

Now I find myself back in the game and amazed with the changes that are occurring around me. We've seen the end of the expansion. I've watched the Lich King fall. And on the wake of that victory I'm watching as our world changes yet again.

I still hold it over Matt's head that I beat him to Northrend. This time around, we'll make the journey together. We'll both be standing in the same line and installing at the same time. We'll be there together when the loading screen plays and our toons start our on a totally new and exciting adventure.

The End of an Era

It sounds kind of odd to say "we beat the game" since I know it's an MMO and can't really be "beaten". But that's what it feels like.

Matt and I both walked away from ICC last night as Kingslayers. After a lot of ups and downs, we were finally able to watch Arthas fall. The total fight took 12 minutes and 18 seconds. But a lot of practice went into that battle.

Even with the OP boost and class changes, it still wasn't what I would consider a "faceroll". It seemed like we couldn't get the defiles placed right, the valks kept coming almost right on top the defiles, people were DC'ing and locking up. We had arguments and there were fingers pointed when we wiped. We suffered through the stupid bugs left behind with patch 4.0.1; people falling to their death from their flying ghost mounts when trying to accept a rez, zoning into an empty instance, disconnecting for no apparent reason, getting stuck because teleports would randomly stop working. It took more than a couple of wipes to get it right. But we were able to do it and with a 100% guild raid.

I can't begin to express the pride and accomplishment I felt when I watched him fall and heard the vent channel go silent as they all watched the video. Most of the guild had held off on watching it, avoided it in Dalaran, in the hope that they would see it for the first time when we were able to actually kill him.

As I walked away from ICC last night, it hit me that this truly was a bitter sweet ending. It means the end of an expansion for me and the (semi) retirement of a toon.

The List:
1. King Slayer - Kalyina - DONE
2. Exalted Zandlar Tribe - Kalyina
3. ZG Mounts - TIGER DONE
4. 20,000 gold stock pile - DONE
5. Explorer Title - Kalyina - DONE
6. Reins of the Winterspring Forstsaber - Kalyina - DONE

The last thing left for her to do is finish her Zandlar Tribe rep. She's almost there actually. Just a couple thousand points away from exalted. Then that's really it. Will I get that raptor to drop. I see that goal slipping further and further away as each day passes.

But ultimately, I did what I sat out to do. I didn't want to watch another expansion pass by without seeing the end of the content.

I started playing a little ways into the BC era. Most people were already hitting up the end game raids when I got my first toon to 70. I barely knew what a raid was, let alone dreamed of getting into one. Actually, I was pretty scared of raiding. I remember telling the people I met in the game that I didn't want to raid. It sounded too hard. But towards the end of BC when we were running Kara and ZA, I was sad to see Wrath coming because there was so much content I never got to see.

So it is with mixed emotions that Kalyina boasts her Kingslayer title. At least I know when she and Zili are sitting around, relaxing by a fire in the bars of Dalaran with all the other left behind or forgotten toons, she'll have big stories to tell about her amazing adventures.

I am so OP!

Or at least that is what everyone thinks now that the patch has hit. I guess it's Blizzards way of making people feel like they are awesome at least till Cata hits.

*sigh*

When did a leisure game, that you supposedly play for fun, become such a big competition? Really. It's all about gear scores and dps meters. It's about who you outgear and who you out dps. It's about being better than everyone else.

Even in my own house, of two players. It becomes dangerous if one of us out ranks the other on the WoW Hero's site. Then it becomes a long discussion about how that happened or "is it showing my latest upgrades!". After that discussion, it's a constant grind to get back on top. That apparently somehow makes you a better player than the other person.

What people forget is that it's like comparing apples to oranges. You are your own player. Are you having fun? Do you dedicate as much time as the player you are comparing yourself to? Are you the same class and spec? Most of the time, the answers to these questions is "no".

So you're raiding 10 man content and you're coming up as 4th or 5th on the dps meter. Does it really matter? Does the boss end up dead on the floor at the end of the raid? Is your group complaining at you that they can't kill the boss because of your dps? Probably not? Then I ask again, does it really matter if you're more OP than me?

Well, the next question to ask is are you having more fun being at the top of the dps chart? Does that make you feel better about yourself? Do you have a point to prove because your dps is 400 points higher than the people below you? Yes, you may spend more time working on your gear, reading Tankspot and studying everything you can find to gain those few extra points of DPS. But are you really having more fun that the person who you are comparing yourself to? Most likely not.

Why do I say that? Well because that person you're outranking probably isn't nearly as worried about it as you are. Unless you're making a point to push it in their face and trying to make them feel bad about themselves, they probably see nothing wrong with their DPS or their gear score. They are just there to have fun.

Every player in this game has their own unique play style. There is over 12 million of them now I hear. That's 12 million play styles. Granted a lot of people are similar but everyone should be playing in order to have fun. If comparing and stressing is part of that, count me out.

I'm one of those players that's there to have fun. I play a demonology warlock. That's pretty rare in a raiding environment. I like to raid. But I want to do it my way. As long as that doesn't hold back the progression of my Guild, I'm ok with being me.

Other than being in pain from an accident last night. I enjoyed toying with the new changes. So what if I changed the spirit on my gear to Haste instead of Mastery. That's my choice and I'm ok with it.

I think if more of the players in wow took a step back and agreed to let people be themselves, they would realize they were happier players as well.

So little time...so much WoW

It's been a few days since my last post and a few days since Blizzard announced the release date of Cataclysm.

In that amount of time, I've managed to complete my Winter sabre rep grind, pick up 2 Brewfest mounts and almost complete my Diplomat title.

I've also been thinking a lot about my little hunter. I've been reading some of the changes to hunters in Cata and think I may want to put the needed time in to level her to 80 before the release. She's currently at 72 so that's not a huge grind but it still takes time away from the other things I've wanted to do on my bucket list.

So lets take a look at where I stand now:
1. King Slayer - Kalyina Trying for it again tonight!
2. Exalted Zandlar Tribe - Kalyina
3. ZG Raptor/Tiger - Kalyina Tiger complete
4. Pre-BC Dungeon Master - Kalyina
5. 20,000 gold stock pile (I'm odd I know) Close enough
6. Explorer Title - Kalyina
7. Winter saber Grind - Kalyina Complete
8. Diplomat Title - Kalyina
9. Hunter to 80

I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever get this stuff done, if I keep adding to it. *sigh*

On other news, I may have mentioned that Matt and I have put two of our alts into a separate guild from our mains. Kalyista (my shaman) and Minikyn (Matt's warrior tank) are now members of a Solo Act on Shadow Council.

I've never really been one to take my responsibilities in a guild lightly. To me, being a member of any type of group means I have responsibilities and obligations to those people. It's nothing different in WoW.

Solo Act is a small-ish guild trying to work their way through ICC before the end of Wrath rolls around. We went into this guild before we knew the actual release date for the expansion.

Our first weekend in we were pulled into their ICC group. I think I've posted the results of my adventure into Shaman healing in ICC. Now my thoughts for this post aren't actually on the raid itself but more on my thoughts of the type of people this guild houses.

Last night we ran the weekly raid with them. Nothing major, it was a simple Noth run in Naxx. Pretty easy right. Well, yeah it was. But the attitude of the players during this run just kind of blew my mind.

The main tank for the guild (will call her KJ) is a DK. She's not a "bad" tank by any means but her ego is a little over the top for my tastes. So even though we had two tanks in the party KJ asked Mini to go dps. Ok, no big deal. About two pulls into the wing I realize I'm also solo healing the raid. Again, no big deal. But why? If we have the classes in the raid and the instance is well below all of us in gear level, why are we worried about needing that much dps? Is there a point we are trying to prove here?

KJ had the same type of attitude with ICC last weekend as well. She is God and no one else can touch her. I kept my opinons to myself and didn't mention that she was pretty dang squishy for a DK tank at that level of progression. Just rubbed me the wrong way...you know?

Then there is the Shadow Priest who zones in to Naxx with the question "wow, am I the highest gear score here?" Ok, lets stroke our own egos for awhile. Then he commences to posting the damn dps meter after every piece of trash. Dude, seriously? Like we really care what the dps meter says on a raid that we are way over geared for. I won't go into the fact that he was the highest gear score but still fell 5th on the dps meter.

It just really amazes me that people consider themselves awesome based on their guild score. Gear score does not judge talent. This is simply proven with the Shadow Priests that thought he was the almighty but failed to notice that even though his gear score was higher he couldn't back it up with the talent needed to produce the numbers of some of the other dps.

Needless to say, I'm not sure how long we'll last in this guild. Maybe it's just that being a member of a good guild has spoiled us and sheltered us from these types of idiots.

Now don't get me wrong, the GM for Solo Act is a pretty nice (though young if I had to guess) guy. And there are a couple of nice enough people in that guild. But after being an active part of Whispers and now and officer in our main guild. I've come to realize how important it is to enjoy and respect the people you play with.

Let the Count Down Begin!

December 7th...we are 63 Days, 8 Hours and 10 minutes away from the release of Cataclysm!

Now I know Blizzard reserves the right to change this day...but they did make the announcement so it officially starts the count down.

Still doubting...you can verify here:
http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/company/press/pressreleases.html?101004
and here:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/

I, for one, am so excited I can't stand it! I've been waiting since Blizzcon last year for this date! Come on December!

Oh, but maybe not...still have a few things to wrap up before the date hits.

We're currently 11/12 into ICC. I hope this doesn't kill our push to finish off Lich King with my lock's guild.

My shaman (yes you heard me right) was able to successfully heal ICC up to Blood Council. I'll be curious to see if her guild keeps chipping away at ICC too.

I know, I hated that shaman. I even remember telling you guys that. But that was before I gave resto a try. I slowly feel in love with that Holy Cow. Has anyone else ever noticed when Tauren do their jesus beam and they get a proc, your toon throws her hands up in the air like she's praising the God? Well, once I figured this out, it became a habit for me to yell "Holy Cow" every time it happened. Now that she's back to being Alliance, I miss that "Holy Cow".

It always seems that expansion time is like starting over for players. We get a chance to relearn the game, to switch toons, try out new things, new guilds, etc.

It took me awhile to decide what I was doing in Cata. But after thinking about it long and hard, I've decided I'm going back where I belong. I'm going back to my first love...healing. Kalyanna is going to be my main again. As much as I love my lock...I've just really missed healing in this expansion.

Anyway, what are you plans for the Cataclysm? Changing mains, rerolling? I'd be curious to see what people are planning to do.