What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been

I sat down tonight wanting to summarize this last expansion, with only a week to Cataclysm hits I thought it would be a good time for some closure. I'd seen a lot and I've accomplished a lot since November 13th 2008 but I wasn't sure what really mattered. What I thought to be an accomplishment may be laughable to someone else, but here we go anyway.

I decided to make a push for realm first BE/Paladin sometime on the night before release, I hadn't played the beta, I just wanted to see how quickly I could level. The downside to this was the fact that I'd pre-ordered my copy and opted to have it mailed to my house, so I didn't even get past the gates until 10:00am EST. I did the best I could and came up short by about 4 hours. A little disappointed but it was expected. This led to the death of my main at the time...and the birth of a new journey.


Around this time, I'd grown fed-up with the player base on Tichondrious. The over-all vibe I got from having trade on was just too negative and sought out another server to call home. As Tich's slogan goes "Tich was not for me". I'd looked over tons of servers, then it hit me...I'd rolled an alt on a (/gasp) RP server during BC to give me a break from the everyday hustle and bustle of Tich, somewhere to kind of...escape. I quickly logged over to him and began leveling. I managed to hit 80 on him only 10days after release and after a couple days spent leveling elsewhere.

I'd spent a few weeks getting used to playing a rogue, more specifically combat in raids. I ran with several PuGs and gave a couple small guilds a shot. Met several good players along the way, but ultimately my goal as to be in the top tier of raiding again. So, with my hopes set high I applied for the top horde guild on my server. After several days of consideration I was accepted and continued to raid Naxx with this guild. Although we were the top horde guild by a decent margin and the 2nd on the server, we were a decent bit between the top alliance guild.

It wasn't until Ulduar where we really got to shine, some of our players making top world parses, a lot of our kills being server firsts as well as high overall in progression. I'd made my way up into a core raider position and become a staple in the guild. I was always in the top 3 DPS, I was raiding in the core 25 and core 10 man groups, 5 days a week, 3 hours a day and was loving it. Pulled off stupidly early hard mode kills, including me evasion tanking the last few seconds of the server first General Vezax hardmode (10m) kill. We ended up getting our Champion of Ulduar as well as our 10m drakes fairly early.

Near the end of Ulduar, our main tank and I butted heads over a comment that was made in my direction. At this point I was fed up with several of the people I was spending 15+ hours a week with. With ToC finally being announced and the frustration I was feeling within the guild, I decided that I'd never missed a raid day, that I'd take a couple weeks to relax, to help clear my head.

Well...Real life happened and to make a long story short. A couple weeks turned into 9 months or so. I'd been betrayed by someone I thought to of been a friend...none of the messages I sent out to my guild had ever reached them, the person I was trusting had in turn betrayed me. After being declined a position back in this guild, and realizing how late in WotLK it actually was...having missed ToC in it's entirety as well as ICC up to the 20% buff. I went on a search for something smaller, more casual and found it. It wasn't long before the craving to be at the forefront of progression was back though.

I'd found a good friend in an officer from the server's top guild and due to drama and over-all child-like behavior in the "casual" guild I'd found, I'd made it known that I'd be willing to transfer alliance side (GASP) and apply for a position to raid. Within a couple hours I was being interviewed by the guild leader of said guild, being given the 'ok' to apply. I made my move alliance-side and bringing all of my 80s with me. I spent a couple months raiding with the guild's alt25man run to get my gear up to par and was finally accepted into the core group right before we started heroic Lich King attempts. Which eventually led to...

I'd managed to meet a lot of amazing players and truly awesome people who all managed to come together on a weekly basis to push content while being drama-free and an over-all awesome guild to call home. After floating around WoW for several years, I think I've finally found a place to call home...and man...what a long...strange trip its been.