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.

ICC Updates and Newly Post News

Raiding News:

ICC last night went better than I expected, especially since 2 of our raid members had to drop as soon as we walked in the door. After bringing a couple of back ups we decided to give Putricide a try and if we couldn't down him, we'd just reset.

Well we downed him, on our first try this week. Granted most of the raid had tried him a few times before but we always decided to skip him since he was such a pain. But anyway, that was a guild first.

So, we're now locked to the raid for this week, may as well give Dreamwalker a try. Guess what? We one shot that fight too...another guild first! Oh yeah, we're on a roll! Let's move on.

The gauntlet went smoothly and we're in the courtyard for Syndragosa. First try 8/10 people get phase 1 and 2 down with no problems. We have her health down below 50% when we decide to wipe it, rez our 1 dead healer and 1 dps. The RL discusses phase 3 and we give it a go again, second time doesn't' go so well, we loose 3 or 4 people in her first yank because they got them selves turned around and didn't away from her fast enough. So, wipe it up and try a 3rd time. This time we make into phase 3 and she is at about 28% health when the entire raid gets encased in a tomb of ice. *sigh*

I think we could have made it past her on the next try but one of our healers (a last minute add because of the 2 lost raid members in the beginning) had to go to work.

We've extended the raid lock out again and I feel confident we'll get Syndragosa down next week. Then it's off to visit the Lich King!!

NEWS:

Looks like patch 4.4.0 is up on the back ground down loader. That means we'll all be seeing pre-Cataclysm changes in the next couple of weeks. From my experience, things usually go up on the down loader 2 - 3 weeks before they are released. Then the pre-expansion events are usually up 5 - 6 weeks before the release of the expansion. That all plays very well into MMO-Champs predictions of a November release.

I expect we'll be hearing something from Blizzard in the way of an announcement soon. Or at least I am keeping my fingers crossed. I could totally be wrong, I have been known to be a time or two in the past, so don't quote me on anything. It all my wishful thinking.

BUCKET LIST:

My bucket list doesn't seem so large anymore but it does have somethings on it that seem impossible.

1. King Slayer - Kalyina
2. Exalted Zandlar Tribe - Kalyina
3. ZG Raptor/Tiger - Kalyina
4. Pre-BC Dungeon Master - Kalyina
5. 20,000 gold stock pile (I'm odd I know)
6. Explorer Title - Kalyina
7. Reins of the Winterspring Frostsaber - Kalyina has been gathering her mounts, would love to add this one to her collection.

That's about it for me today. Hopefully, I'll be back tomorrow to talk about more interesting things.

Happy Hunting,
~Kaly

Could it really be?

I know, I know...I've been gone for AGES!

Well not really gone. As it turned out I have been playing wow. I've been dabbling around in various things here and there and ultimately I've ended up back on the Alliance side of the fence (more or less) for the last few months.

Turns out, I just wasn't happy Horde side and that was probably a huge reason I lost interest in the game. So you may (or may not) be wondering, where I am at now.

My time lately has been divided between my beloved lock, priest and my now RESTO! shammy. Yes, you heard me right that shammy that I so hated, is now resto and I love, love, love her.

The break down:
Kalyina - She's still demo. I can't bring myself to change this. And believe it or not, with our Alliance side guild, she's only 3 bosses away from her King Slayer title.

The entire guild took a raid break for about 6 weeks and we made our first run since then, last week. We decided to extend our raid lock out and tonight we have Dreamwalker, Sendragosa and the Lich King to pick up on. It's one of the only things I wanted before the release of Cata. I wanted my little gnome to have the King Slayer title. So we'll see how that goes.

Kalyanna and Kalyista - Both of them have transferred back to the Alliance side and have been happily gathering emblems here and there for their gear. I have yet to raid past ToC with either of them since I'm mainly focused on ICC with my lock. I would love to get some ICC love for my priest but with the pending release of Cata I doubt that will happen.

Now for the big topic of discussion. I'm assuming everyone has read the MMO-Champs prediction for the release of Cataclysm. For those of you that have not..they are guessing the first week of November!!

Now I'm not one to spread rumors and Blizzard hasn't announced this themselves but if anyone has been following them for long, you'd know they were spot on with the BC release. Not only BC but they have also been right about the patch release dates as well.

What does all this mean? Well, we could all be playing Cataclysm in a little less then 2 months! Even if they are off a little, well that's still pretty damn close!

So it's got me thinking about all the changes. I find these exciting and actually, a little bit sad.

Exciting for the new content and renewed excitement in the game. Excited to see all the new stuff that will come along with the changes they are making.

Sad, well for many reasons really. For the obvious, because of the things that will be going away. ZG for one. I have always loved that raid. As a matter of fact, my DK got exalted with the Zandlar Tribe last night. We've been running ZG on every reset and will continue to, in order to get our fill of a place that will soon be long gone and a chance at giving my tiny gnome a giant raptor mount as well.

Other reasons I'm sad? Well, for out of game reasons. Since my break from WoW I have been doing more of the crafty type things I love to do. I know this will decline for awhile. And then there is all the other things I want to do. Mainly, the Sims 3. I've had the game for awhile and it's sitting on my shelf calling my name.

The world doesn't give me enough to time to do all the things I want/love to do. I know I need to learn to balance it all. I also know that as the excitement of the expansion wears off that will become easier to do. However, it still makes me a little sad.

That bucket list I created awhile back...well we'll talk about that in my next post. I have lots of thought I need to put into that one. Lots of consideration for what's important in the next 6 weeks and what's just not.

Hope everyone is as excited as I am for the upcoming expansion and I hope you all have a wonderful Hump Day!

*sneeks in quietly*

Soooo, looks like I renewed my WoW account last weekend. :-)

Not sure where the urge came from but I was driving home from work on afternoon and something triggered it. The urge to play again. I held off, didn't renew till the weekend rolled around.

I played some. Nothing major really. Cleaned up inventory, created a real Horde side bank toon since I was using my goblin name holder toon as a bank toon. Moved inventory around, figured out the emblem situation for the BoA gear, did the Noblegarden egg hunt, etc, etc, etc.

It was kind of nice. No pressure, just casually playing around in the game. Had a mailbox full of items that had been pulled out of our guild bank after one of our members account had been hacked. But other then that, really nothing guild wise to do.

Obviously we had lost a member or two in our absence. We expected that. Actually, expected the majority of them to be gone. But it was only a couple.

We did a lot of thinking...about this guild business while we were on sabbatical. I think we have both come to the realization that we can't build full time guild leaders anymore.

We finally sat down and asked ourselves..."why were we trying to build up Faded Delusions?" The sad answer...we were looking for another Last Call. The grim reality of it is, it wasn't the guild we were missing, it wasn't being GMs that we missed, it was the people, the friends, the relationships, the good times we had in the past. All of which was related to Last Call.

That's not something we can get back no matter how hard we try. Those people are long gone, no longer playing or on other servers now. We can't recreate a guild that has long been dead.

Don't get me wrong, the people we met and played with in Faded were a blast. They are all wonderful people. But it will never be the same and we have to accept that.

So, long and painful reality, in a nutshell...we're not going to push for the guild build again. We're not going to throw people out of Faded, we're not even going to quit ourselves. But the guild itself, is what it is. We have to accept that.

Most of the original Faded members are back on their home servers now, playing back on their mains and that's ok with us. Honestly, I spent most of my playing time this past weekend...Alliance side. I played on my lock and some on Tiki (if you remember from previous posts, the baby gnome mage I rolled with Matt's S-Priest on the Oceanic Server about a year ago). So my time was limited Horde side. It will probably continue to be that way.

Matt still prefers Horde. He played a lot on his Horde toons. But as for me...the only reason I'm Horde side at all is for the future Goblin. I've all but lost interest in my DK. I hate the news that was posted a couple days ago about the changes to DK tanking in Cataclysm. Not being able to tank as frost...has turned me totally off to her.

The upside, I have successfully been able to balance WoW with other things for this past week. I don't find the constant draw to play all the time there, not the way it use to be. I can play when I want and turn it off when I don't. I like this.

So for the time being...I'm back! And...happy about it. So looks like I'll be back to blogging some too.

Hopefully, I'll that post up soon about my feelings on the DK and Warlock changing coming during the Cataclysm!

Happy hunting!

Hello!!!

It appears, that possibly my burn out isn't just around WoW but around MMO's in particular.

I haven't played WoW for so long I can't remember exactly when I logged in last. I haven't played Allods either. So what have I been doing?

Well, long, long, long time ago, I had an addiction to city building/tycoon types games. Zoo Tycoon, Zeus, Pharaoh, Emperor, Caesar...all of them. I played them non-stop. Any and every tycoon game I could find, I bought it. Some where good...some where just plain bad.

But the general concept was the same. Build over and over again, to make the city functional and pretty. Disaster struck, do it all again. Then I found WoW.

Well I found that I had gotten board with WoW. Three years of playing the same game and nothing more. So I tried Allods. It's a nice game, pretty graphics, fun content...but it's still an MMO. So I stop playing it too. Reload Caesar IV on my computer and start playing it again.

Then one day, I come across a game on line that looks pretty interesting.

Settlers: Rise of an Empire.

Turns out, it's REALLY good. Not your standard Tycoon/City Builder game. There is a lot more to it then that. But the graphics are unbelievable for a city building type game.

You basically are sent on various missions, helping settlers, capturing land, building armies, etc, etc, etc. It has a storyline, that is somewhat compiling. But it's very addicting.

Build up the basics for you city, promote your knight to gain rank to allow you to build more, develop your armies and then it's time to capture objectives.

It's not heavy on the battle side nor heavy on the city building side. It's a comfortable mix of the two. Yes it's a little glitchy at times. Somethings are hard to figure out and it would be great if it had better tutorials. All of this is easily overcome and after a mission map or two, you've gotten the hang of it.

Best of all, it's easy to pick up and easy to put down. So I'm able to do other things as well. Spend time with my family, play some Dokapon Kingdom with Matt and Zack, hang out with friends and just relax. There is no schedule to keep, no raids to remember, etc. Just some relaxing fun times.

Who knows, looks like I'm getting back into scrapbooking again too!

I know the big question now is..."are you ever planning on coming back to WoW?". As of now, my answer is still a resounding YES! I have preperations to make for Cataclysm, toons to prepare. But it will be awhile. I'm enjoying my break. I'm enjoying other games.

Everyone has to break for life every now and then!

Happy Friday!!

Second Chance

So, decided this weekend to give Allods a second chance. Not that the game was bad the first time I played it but it was so crowded you couldn't really get a feel for the true game. It was so bad you couldn't get a feel of what the combat was really like because there were no mobs to kill. Just waltz in, pick up your quest items off the ground and walk back out again. The mobs were already dead from the mass of people that came in before you.

This weekend was a little better. Nothing like I would want it be. We were still standing around at times waiting for named mobs to spawn so we could kill them. We didn't have to kill many trash mobs to get to the quest items. But we did actually make it out of the starting zone.

I decided to reroll a healer class. Since it seems I'm never content with a straight DPS class. I opted for the humanish type race since they get a racial ability similar to a WoW priests bubble. It's not as easy to use but it's still helpful. It has a 3 minute cool down and will block ALL damage for 12 seconds. Looks and works more like an OS button.

So far the healer class isn't impressing me. My heals are very very puny. But I keep telling myself to be patient. I'm sure Kalyanna didn't have great heal ability at level 7 either. But the really cool thing? I can wear leather at level 10 and then plate at level 30! Oh yeah!

Interestingly enough, you get thrown out into the real world pretty quickly in this game. Shortly after we dinged level 6, we had finished up all the starting quests and were literally, thrown in pretty little bubbles, out of the zone.

Novogrand was our final destination. It's the major faction city for the League. It reminds me a lot of Stormwind as far as the layout goes. But that's where the similarity stops.

It's broken into districts, one for each race and a trade district. There is one central "Castle" where the king is located. (Note* As a healer, this is also where I picked up my class quest to learn to bubble)

If you ask Eto I'm sure he'd tell you I was just like a kid at Christmas. The sheer size of the city alone was enough to have me running and squealing with chants of "oh, I want to go in there", "LOOK AT THIS" and "Soooo pretty"! I'm sure it was similar to seeing Stormwind or Darnasus for the first time.

First look at professions....they are pretty basic. Alchemist, Blacksmith, Tailor, Leatherworker, Miner, Herbalism and Disassembler. Disassemblers take high quality items (green or better) and break it down into parts that can then be used by Leatherworkers and Tailors.

I haven't picked my professions yet, but it appears you can only pick one. There is a series of quest lines that send you around to visit all the profession trainers and at the end of each you visit the "Grandmaster" of the gathering profession and the creation profession. The last thing they both say to you is something like "Should you choose your path on a gathering/creation profession, come back and see me, I will have many tasks for you to complete." I'll test this tonight and update for sure.

Up to this point, here are my standings on the game:

LIKE:
Zones/Graphics/Locations - The game is beautiful and the more I explore the move I'm captivated.
Music - The music is pretty constant in the game, so if you don't like that, turn it off. But the music is very calming in nature.
Combat System - It's standard MMO as I know it, so easy to follow

DISLIKE:
Controls - Only because they are a little "sticky" at this point. I'm sure after I get use to them and realize what buttons are causing my camera angle and movement controls to jump around, they will be second nature to me.
Raid/Group Frames - It's hard, as a healer to tell who's got aggro and who's health is dropping based on the party frames in group. I hope that eventually I'll be able to easily distinguish who needs healing...or better yet, maybe someone will create a "Healbot" type mod!
Character Creation - Seriously, I would love for a game to give me the ability to really customize how my toon looks so that not everyone I pass looks just like me!
Over population! - More servers soon? I hope!

As always, when I learn more, I'll update more! Happy Monday everyone!

Traitor!

*looks around guiltily* Shhhh, don't tell...I was just "trying" it out. You know, testing the waters, seeing what else was out there. It's nothing major, I would never pick another over my first love...

So, yeah lets talk a little about "Allods" .

My first impression of the MMO, wasn't anything outstanding. I'm not really "looking" for another game to play. I wasn't out actively seeking it but it happen to fall into my lap.

So we downloaded and installed it and after a few hiccups, I was able to create a character. Seems that any time they do maintenance or patches, which is pretty often since it's still in the open beta phase, they have issues with the files getting corrupted in the launcher.

Now, this was pretty easily fixed. The forums on the official website listed a step by step guide on how to force the game to download a new launcher without uninstalling it.

It's a very short process to create your account and then you're off to the character creation screen. There are 2 "factions" you can choose from. The League and the Empire. The League being the "light" side, similar to the Alliance in WoW and the Empire appearing to be more of the "dark" side, equivalent to the Horde.

Both factions have the ability to create a human type character. The League also has Elves and an adorable little class called "Giberlings". Now the Elves are whimsical creatures with wings. They look very similar to the Blood Elf race in WoW with the exception that the males doesn't look nearly as girly.

The Giberlings, on the other hand, are just plain adorable. Kudos to gPotato for developing a pretty unique looking race. When you choose to play a Giberling, you aren't exactly playing one toon as they come in groups of three. You get to control the "lead" toon while two other Giberlings follow you around and assist. They are independent of your main toon. You can customize how they look but you can not control their movements.

Sadly, the Empire wasn't blessed with a unique race of their own. They have a human type race as well as Orcs and the Arisen. Orcs look nearly identical to the model we are all use to seeing in WoW. The Arisen look like a cross between blood elves and undead. If you can imagine this. They have a very pale, slinder almost ghostly appearance to them.

Once you've chosen which faction and your race, it's time to pick your class. The interesting part here is that that the title of your class changes based on the faction and race you selected. For example, if you are a League Human mage type you are called a Magician but if you are a Empire Arisen mage type you would be called a Sorcerer. But all in all, the classes are the same that we are all accustom to. Warrior, Paladin, Scout, Healer, Warden, Mage, Summoner, Psionicist.

I don't know a lot about each class yet, since I haven't played them all but I'll give you the best understanding I have. Of course warrior, paladin and mage speak for themselves.
Scout = Hunter without a pet
Healer = Priest type
Summoner = Warlock
Psionicist = The best way I can describe this class is Shadow Priest that mind controls? Stay tuned for more info.
Warden = No clue! But based on class you could be called a Druid, Shaman or Animist if that helps any. I'll let you know more as I find it out.

I stayed simple for my first toon, she's an Archmage or League/Elf/Mage. Yeah, yeah...girl remember! I like pretty things.

She's pushing level 6 after a couple of hours of playing. And here's my good, bad and ugly on the actual game play:

Good:
1. Very familiar controls
2. Entertaining and amusing quests
3. Lots of "help" in general chat
4. The game is beautiful!!
5. Easy quests
6. Very little lag or server issues, especially for a game in beta phase.

Bad and UGLY:
1. WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE! - Open Beta for this game started a little over a week ago. I started playing 3 days after the open beta started. The were so many people that everyone was waiting in lines to kill the quest mobs. There was no wondering where to go next, just follow the masses. Sadly, ALL the races start in the same zone for the same faction. This means that every player that rolled a League toon, was in the same starting area as me.
2. Only TWO servers!!
3. Very little customization available on the UI and controls
4. Grindy - The first 5 levels felt very grindy but I hear this gets better when you are out of the starting area.
5. Lots of arguing in general chat - People are constantly arguing between two main groups...the "ZOMG, WOW ripoff!" group and the "Sheesh, give it a chance people, it's NOT WOW" group.

Now we all know, there is only one WOW. So if you're looking for an identical replica of Azeroth, don't bother. You're better off staying where you are. But if you are interesting in a game that has some of the same things to offer and some totally new things. Give this one a shot. It's not going to replace WoW by any means but I think it will appeal to a lot of the same types of players.

Remember, it's a "Free to Play" MMORPG that will eventually have the functioning "buy with real money" store. And if you can get past the Beta stage then you may just like it. And if you do give it a shot, my toon name never changes so Kalyanna's waiting to say HI!

Happy MMOing!

The time has come...

I've logged in twice over the course of the last week.

Once to mill some weeds for Eto and turn them into Darkmoon cards. The second time, to do a JC daily and check on the guild. Both times, I was logged on for less then 30 minutes.

So what does this tell me? It's time for me to take a break.

In the 3 years that I've been playing, I've never hit this point where I don't want to play or when I do log in, I can't find anything to do. I've finally gotten to that point.

I think this is bothering me a little. Simply because I did love this game for so long and now I can't find anything that interests me.

I'm not saying this is goodbye for me. No way! I've been looking forward to the Cataclysm. So I know I'll be back again. Its just that I think the time has come for me to take a little break. I may or may not let the account lapse. I haven't decided on that yet. I'll still blog occasionally when the urge hits me or there is new updates to blog about.

Even as I write this, I'm torn. Part of me wants to hit the delete key. Seems that saying it out loud somehow makes things so permanent.

But it's not permanent. I'm not giving up, just taking a break and knowing me, it won't last that long anyway!

So, I'll see you all on the flip side...assuming we all survive the Cataclysm!

Happy Monday!

The State of Things

It's really been over a week since my last post?

Guess that's a reflection on my current gaming situation...at least as far as WoW is concerned.

So, I'm starting to experience the oh, so familiar pains of "burn out" that seems so common these days in the blogging community. Finding myself logging in less and less. Honestly, there has been more days that I don't log in at all. The days that I do log in, it's to check on the guild or transmute or mill or disenchant things for someone.

What's causing this burn out? That's totally opinionated I'm sure. It's different for everyone but for me I believe it's the lull before the storm. It's a combination of things. It's the anticipated down time between now and the release of Cataclysm. It's the guild, it's the grind, it's the boredom...

I had such a wonderful "Bucket List" of things that I thought would help tide me over or at least help me get prepared for Cataclysm. hmmmm

So what's going on?!?!

I know how the Lich King dies, I know how the story ends...what's left to do? Push to see him die myself? Why? I've already seen it on Youtube. I've successfully tanked all of ToC over this past weekend. Found it more stressful then fun, that was another warning sign for me that I'm getting close to "burn out".

I've got a well geared tank and a well geared healer. I've got a shaman that I can't make myself gear because..well, apparently shaman just aren't my thing. Can't find any fun in her. Couldn't find it in BC, can't find it now.

I've got a lovely little gnome warlock that is slowly, ever so slowly, working on her gear and maybe a Loremaster title. If she gets it, that's great, if not I don't think I'll be too disappointed.

The guild...well this all comes down to a question asked by a reader.

"Do you think the LFG tool is killing guilds, or do your think the lack of useful guilds created the LFG tool?"

Morph posted this in the comment section of my last post a couple weeks ago and got me thinking. The result? Well, the more I think about it the more if I wonder if this isn't part of the reason for my potential "burn out"?

So which one is it, you may ask. The new LFG system or the guild?

Well, I think the answer to this question on my part is simple. I think the LFG system is the start of the end of the smaller guilds. I don't think it will totally kills guilds in general but I do strongly believe we will start to see and have already, the smaller guilds disappear.

Why? Well because you don't need a guild anymore. Think about it. It use to be that you "needed" a good guild, or any guild really, to be able to easily run instances and heroics. You needed that guild if you wanted to see the end game content.

The guild that played together stayed together. It was that simple. You kept your members by making sure they got to see what they signed up for. They were more willing to work with the guilds raiding schedule because that's the only way they could see the content. If they couldn't work with your schedule they found a guild who's schedule worked with theirs.

Back in BC and the early days of Wrath, hell even in vanilla wow, guilds used their calendars, scheduled events, talked in guild chat, made plans with members when they wanted to raid or grind out some emblems. Guild chat, at least for Last Call, was always full of chitter chatter from the members looking to put together heroic groups or world events or unscheduled raids. It was never a silent game for sure.

This "chitter chatter" that started as looking for people to form the group led to other interesting conversations. It led to people getting to know each other. People forming more then just a group...they formed friendships.

That group might have to pug a spot or two, yes. But if they needed to pug that spot, it was often the opportunity to recruit someone. That person they pugged often wasn't in a guild..thus looking for a home and on more then one occasion, we ended up gaining a member.

Yes, you had those rare people that joined for the community or for the guild chat or other benifits but mainly, guilds were needed for raiding and end game content.

Fast forward to the current day. Getting into a heroic is as easy as clicking a button and waiting a few minutes. It's even easier then that if you're a tank or a healer. Just click the button and your in. Deal with a little bit of stupidity, walk away with your loot and call it a day.

There is no reason to "chat" unless you're the social type of person that wants people to talk to while you quest or instance. Even if you are that person, you have general chat or your pug group to chitter chatter with if you like.

What about the end game content? Well, obviously you don't need a guild for that anymore either thanks to Blizzards super simple gear up policy. Push the random LFG button a few times and *poof* you're fully geared to get into Toc and ICC.

"Oh, but I need a guild for that, right?"

Nope...not anymore. Tune into the "LookingForGroup" channel on any well established server and what do you see ever 30 - 45 seconds?

"LFM, ICC 10, pst your role and gear score"

Thus the cycle is never ending. Push the button, get the loot, pick up the pug and see the end...

So tell me again, why do we need the guild when I can grind it all out in PUGs????

Exactly...and now I know why I'm looking forward to the release of Cataclysm. Give me something to do beside push the button, damn it, this isn't LOST!