Saturday, February 25, 2006

WORLD OF WARCRAFT POST #3

Once again I'm compelled to write about World of Warcraft. This will be a bit of a long post, since a lot has happened since I last talked about the game.

First, my long-standing relationship with the Iron Knights guild is long over. The only reason I was staying in the Iron Knights in the first place was because so many friends were also there. Throughout the time I had been in the guild, they seemed to be going nowhere. I wanted to get better gear for my main, Omni, a level 60 priest.

The only place to get better gear than what I had would be Molten Core and other high end instances. Molten Core usually requires a group of 40 people, all level 60, to clear the instance together. Iron Knights had a little over 70 characters, but only 13 of them were level 60. And enough of the characters in the guild were alts such that we knew we didn't have enough physical people anyway. And throughout the entire time I was an Iron Knight, that number didn't move much. So I left.

First, I recontacted a friend, Barddukke, and told him I was guildless. He offered me an invitation to Champions of Lordaeron. I was a member of CoL for about two weeks before a better opportunity came up.

My friend Adrien, a level 60 druid named Cyclope, had also been an Iron Knight. But after discussing issues of political importance in the guild chat channel, Obscura, the guild master, decided he didn't want our chat channel to become a political forum. He subsequently kicked Cyclope from the guild. Cyclope had been searching for a guild as well. After being part of a guild named Ambition for a few days, he stumbled upon MiSTiCA.

At the time he told me, they were short on priests. I got in by telling them exactly what they wanted to hear: yes, I would raid on weekdays, at 6:30 PM, at least 3 times a week. I had my complete Vestments of the Devout set. I really wanted to get into raiding. A short time later, I was running Molten Core weekly, with MiSTiCA.

Shortly after I joined, their focus shifted away from Molten Core, to the much harder Blackwing Lair. At first, I didn't want to go to BWL. I had barely gotten used to MC. We still cleared Molten Core once a week. Eventually as MC runs got smoother and smoother (I can't remember, but I think our best time for killing all the bosses of MC in one run was under 4 hours) I started to get more interested in BWL. They let me come to BWL for the first few bosses, Razorgore the Untamed and then Vaelastrasz the Corrupt, but I didn't go back until much later when they managed to kill the first six (of eight) in one night. The other two scheduled raiding nights would be reserved for attempting to kill the last two before the instance reset (originally, it would reset exactly 7 days after entering, but now Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, and the new Temple of Ahn'Qiraj all reset every Tuedsay during Blizzard's maintenance period, regardless of when people began the instance).

As time went on, I found it harder and harder to continue raiding with MiSTiCA. The guild kept recruiting, and among the recruits were people who had better gear than I. They were on the fast track for Blackwing Lair, since that instance was more intensive than Molten Core. I would have to get better gear to keep up. A Catch-22 formed in my mind: I'm supposed to raid at least 3 times a week. But in order to raid three times a week, I have to do more than just Molten Core, since that only takes a single day. The only other thing is Blackwing Lair. But I can't do Blackwing Lair since my gear isn't good enough. To get better gear, I would need to raid more. But I can't raid more than the one time for Molten Core because of my gear, etc...

When transfers between our server, Skullcrusher, and a brand-new server, Mug'Thol, were opened up, MiSTiCA decided to make the jump. So did many other guilds from not just Skullcrusher, but also Archimonde, Burning Legion, Burning Blade, Mannoroth, and a few others. The majority of the people who transferred to Mug'Thol were hardcore raiding guilds, like MiSTiCA was quickly becoming. Which means, people who had much more time to get much better gear than my paltry Devout set.

As I write this, MiSTiCA has reached Nefarian, the final boss of Blackwing Lair. Eight other Alliance guilds have already beaten him. MiSTiCA is competing with Praetorian Guard and The Ravens to become the ninth Alliance guild on the server to completely clear BWL. Because that is their new focus, they needed to cut down to only the people who they could guarantee would be available for every BWL raid. I was not part of this group. Changers, a priest who had joined at about the same time I had, had become assistant class leader. It was he who told me that I would have to go. I told him to simply cut me off, because I didn't want to make an incredibly dramatic exit.

A pang of emptiness filled me for the rest of the night. Have you ever been at a party when suddenly someone asks you to leave? They don't tell you why, but you have to leave. You spend a while looking back in the window at all the people you're leaving behind, wishing you could be with them again, befor you finally turn your back and leave. That is exactly how I felt at that moment.

It was then I realized how intensely I had been focusing on my priest. I had completely forgotten about all of my other characters. I had a lot of rest XP to work off, and now that I was no longer obligated to raid, I figured I would use this time to get a few more 60s.

Out of my three months in MiSTiCA, I earned three pieces of the Vestments of Prophecy set, the next step higher up than Devout. I also earned an epic necklace, the Soul Corrupter's Necklace, an epic belt, the Mana Igniting Cord, and a new weapon, an Aurastone Hammer. I also won the Eye of Divinity, which would allow me to eventually take on a quest for a priest-only epic staff called Benediction.

And I did make a lot of friends. Being responsible for keeping someone else alive, even virtually, was a very bonding experience.

After leaving MiSTiCA, I joined Death and DK, a guild started by my friend Kimo, who had a 60 paladin named Avelynn and also a 60 warrior named after himself. Adrien/Cyclope was also in this guild; indeed, we three were the only three. But now Adrien has said he's giving up WoW. And Kimo has become more interested in playing his 60 orc warlock on another account, on another server. So now it's just me. And I'm thinking of joining a different guild.

While I ponder that, let me tell you how all my alts are doing, now that I've had time to play them a little bit more. Just couple of quick notes on each:

Keahrde, my 60 hunter, has a new gun, a Flawless Arcanite Rifle. I've been running him through Blackrock Spire, Scholomance, and Stratholme a lot recently, in an attempt to collect the Beaststalker set for him.

Asmira, my 54 paladin, still runs Maraudon, on hopes of getting a Fist of Stone from the boss Landslide. The Fist is a one-handed mace that would work perfectly with her current spec.

Rashida, my 43 druid, has been working on her tailoring a lot. She can now make Runecloth Bags and the newer Soul Bags, which hold a warlock's soul shards. I will probably be able to make a lot of money off selling these bags. Still doesn't have a mount, because I can't scrounge enough money up to pay for it.

Jorbin, my 33 mage, is almost to the level where he can run Scarlet Monastery. Just tonight, I made a challenge for myself to get him from level 32 to level 33 over the course of only 3 hours, and made the goal by about 4 minutes.

Sasuk, my 26 warlock, needs to run Blackfathom Deeps and Shadowfang Keep. If you have a charcter on Mug'thol, send me a tell in game and we'll get a group going.

I've been eager to play my 22 warrior, Exadab, and my 15 rogue, Qledwa, but I told myself not to play the lower levels until the higher-levels had no rest XP left. So I'm going to keep this little bit of discipline for now: I can only play a character if its level is less than 80% of the level of the character before it.

There's one more item I want to talk about, the impending changes in patch 1.10, but since my main is a priest, I think I'll have a lot to say about the topic. Probably enough for its own blog entry. so I'll stop here, and wish MiSTiCA the best of luck in the future. Some day when I long to raid again, I'll reapply, but until then, I'm very close to my third 60 and getting closer. So I'll be focusing on that for now.