One New Raid, One New Guild: Or, There’s Life Left in WoW For Me Yet!

Lord of infernals and mistresses. Someone needs to tell this guy to brush his shoulders off.

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you probably know that I’ve been feeling a little topped out on WoW lately. I was stuck in the heroic rut without much hope of getting out. This week has been a roller coaster ride as I’ve struggled to pull myself out. Thankfully, it looks like that might just happen!

The week started with Alea Iacta Est. I’d been in the guild for a little while, about a month, and was starting to feel comfortable. Runs for all manner of events were constantly being advertised in the guild LFG channel and, as a tank, I felt like I had a lot of choice. Yet, I could never quite shake how impersonal it all was. I guess that’s natural with a guild that’s more than 3000 members deep, but, still, that odd sense of detachment was troubling. Whatever, I thought, it doesn’t really matter. If it let me see the LK content I wanted to see, then it would be worth it.

Fast forward to two days ago,  and my best friend (the same one I usually mention here) text messages me to let me know he’d left the guild and joined another formed by his friend. They had the basic setup of a raid team already, he told me, so it was pretty much set. And, here’s the big thing, they wanted to run daytime raids, working up through the content, so that they could see it all, too. The choice was obvious. Since I hadn’t made any solid connections in AIE, I left. The other guild, Serenitys Raiders (their spelling, not mine. I know, I know…) represented the chance for a tight knit static group with a similar mindset. I even went so far as to set up their website for them, since I’ve done it before.

The guild was quiet but filled with level 80s. The GL assured me that almost all of them wanted to raid. That was great, except for their also beign DKs. On the other hand, my best friend was a lead officer and I had the gear, so I didn’t think I’d have much trouble finding a raid slot.

Then, something unexpected happened. I got into a random ToC 10-man in the early hours of this morning. Things didn’t go perfectly and we wound up wiping several times. In the end, we prevailed, however, and, most surprisingly, no one quit or got irate on vent. Actually, everyone approached it with a positive attitude. It wasn’t about what we did wrong or who failed how, it was about what we’d do differently the next time. We called out debuffs and directions over voice chat, pumped out raid warnings for the players without the program or DBM, and really just worked together to make it happen. And, as a pug who’d never tried anything together before, we did it. It took us a good couple hours, but we did it and I think we all felt proud when we were done. As the MT for a decent portion of it, it was a first for me.

Afterwords, we stayed in vent for probably another 20 minutes just talking. As it turned out, two of the players were members of the Chaotic Damnation, a husband and wife started guild, who had the same goals as Serenitys Raiders. Including, get this, daytime raiding. This is shocking to me. I’ve literally spent the last year trying to find a good daytime raiding guild whose personality matched my own. Then, over three days, I’d found two!

The raid leader surprised me further by complimenting on my tanking and offering me a spot in the guild. I was torn. I didn’t want to up and leave my friend’s new guild. After all, I’d just joined it. Plus, I had a vested interest in getting it going since they’d made me an officer on trust alone. But, the experience I’d had in ToC was so much what I’d been looking for, it was tough. This run went exactly as I’d always imagined a run with friends going. No one was yelling. No one was a jerk. It was friendly, fun, and positive, just like a game should be.

So, I talked to my friend about what had happened. I told him that I was happy to stay and help get his guild off the ground. He gave me his blessing, assuring me everyone would understand, and let me leave. I quickly messaged the raid leader and was greeted with an guild invite. Most surprisingly, the welcomes that rolled by included three other people from the raid who’d done the same thing I just did. It was just that kind of run, casual yet dedicated, serious yet lighthearted.

I’m happy at the new opportunities before me. I might not be able to get into ICC before Cataclysm drops but, then again, maybe I will. You never know. One thing is for sure, though, the game holds more promise for me now than it held this time last week… by a long shot. And I’m dedicated towards seeing more of it before time runs out.

It’s funny how quickly things can change.