When Cataclysm hit the store shelves, I found myself picking the game up on day one, once again. I was pretty engaged with Nerv (which has now transferred to Blackrock) on Ainx, but remained in Still Life on my Paladin and raided with the small, more casual 10-man crew on Kilrogg. Although Cataclysm was initially pretty fun and Nerv did reasonably well at progressing through content, it didn't have the same feel as prior expansions. On February 8th 2011 I had to make a week-long trip out of the country and when I came back, Still Life 10-man fell apart due to lack of interest. Almost everyone cancelled their subscription and went to play other games. Nerv was still together, but only for another week - just enough time to get me a Nefarian kill. I lost interest in WoW as well and sure enough my subscription followed.
Over the next few months I played some more Rift, delved into Star Wars: The Old Republic for a month, played some non-MMOs like Starcraft 2, Deus Ex and more recently Diablo 3, Guild Wars 2 an Torchlight 2. Most of all, 2010-2012 were two years which I dedicated to getting all my university coursework finished and finally graduating which happened just this summer.
I am now also, once again, LFG and ready to raid.
The End
Friday, October 5, 2012
Ainx, Part 8
Chalae messaged me inquiring whether I would be interested in participating in a hardcore 10-man aiming to progress quickly through Icecrown Citadel. I'm pretty sure she knew that was a rhetorical question. The catch was that we would only be raiding two nights a week, 4 hours a night - Friday and Saturday. I could do that! I quickly dropped everything else I was doing (except raiding with Nerv) and finished gearing my Paladin up the best I could before Icecrown Citadel (ICC) opened on December 8th.
With this raid dungeon's release, Blizzard thought it was a smart idea to artificially block progress by locking the four different wings of the dungeon up and opening them one per week. This, of course, enraged a lot of raiders, but it gave my hardcore 10-man group to pick up extra gear from Heroic Trial of the Crusader to fill out any gaps we might have had since half the raid was alts. We cleared one wing a week until finally killing the Lich King on February 14th. Yes, Valentines day, who cares... We cleared the Heroic modes of ICC (except Lich King) on March 26th. Although competition on Kilrogg was scarce at the time, Temporary Insanity was running their own 10-man which was much more progressed than their 25-man. TI actually ended up getting the Meta achievement for ICC done the same evening as us! Surprisingly, nobody else came even close. Without Conquest to compete, Kilrogg felt deflated.
ICC was a great feeling. The fact we raided merely two nights a week and managed to achieve so much made me feel alive again, not to mention stuck a needle in my heart and pumped adrenaline all throughout the race to the finish. And what a glorious race that was...
Meanwhile, I finished Heroic ICC10 and Regular ICC25 with Nerv on Vek'Nilash slightly after my Still Life group did the same on Kilrogg. In fact, Nerv managed to get deep into Heroic ICC 25 and clear all the way up to Heroic Lich King, but never did kill him as far as I can remember. I don't think I've killed him to this day on Heroic mode.
End, Part 8
With this raid dungeon's release, Blizzard thought it was a smart idea to artificially block progress by locking the four different wings of the dungeon up and opening them one per week. This, of course, enraged a lot of raiders, but it gave my hardcore 10-man group to pick up extra gear from Heroic Trial of the Crusader to fill out any gaps we might have had since half the raid was alts. We cleared one wing a week until finally killing the Lich King on February 14th. Yes, Valentines day, who cares... We cleared the Heroic modes of ICC (except Lich King) on March 26th. Although competition on Kilrogg was scarce at the time, Temporary Insanity was running their own 10-man which was much more progressed than their 25-man. TI actually ended up getting the Meta achievement for ICC done the same evening as us! Surprisingly, nobody else came even close. Without Conquest to compete, Kilrogg felt deflated.
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| This awful, awful achievement... | Still Life and TI on Frostwyrms |
Meanwhile, I finished Heroic ICC10 and Regular ICC25 with Nerv on Vek'Nilash slightly after my Still Life group did the same on Kilrogg. In fact, Nerv managed to get deep into Heroic ICC 25 and clear all the way up to Heroic Lich King, but never did kill him as far as I can remember. I don't think I've killed him to this day on Heroic mode.
End, Part 8
Ainx, Part 7
With Mun having now stepped down as leader (sometime through Naxxramas), I was charged with leading Still Life. So... I led. Outside of Glory of the Raider, we ventured into Ulduar and within two weeks cleared the entire instance, setting ourselves in third place on the server right behind Conquest and another Horde guild (not TI). It's worth noting that Wrath of the Lich King saw our raid time diminished from 5x4hr to 4x4hr, while the two guilds ahead of us continued with relentless progression. I really don't feel bad about coming in third given the amount of effort we put in at the time. Although I don't remember when exactly (oh wait, I do) we killed Yogg'saron, I do remember that his defeat was also essentially the beginning of the end of Still Life as a World of Warcraft raiding guild.
The reason was simple. Blizzard instituted a new mode for 25-man dungeons called "Heroic" which was essentially a rehash of the same boss encounter, just more difficult. Bosses had new gimmicks which needed to be conquered in order to be able to say you conquered the "Heroic" version of the boss. This did not sit well with a bunch of people, including me. Shortly after our third or 4th Yogg'saron kill and several hours spent on working on a few Ulduar achievements (screw you, Lumberjacked), Still Life stopped raiding. Many of the members went on to join other guilds, some stopped raiding and played casually and others quit WoW entirely. I belonged in the latter group.
Through the second half of 2009 I opted to play Rift instead and leveled a Rogue to level 50. I also hit up FFXI one last time before putting it down forever. Although Blizzard released another raid - Trial of the Crusader - in August '09, it did not initially pull me in. Towards '09 I learned that Conquest stopped raiding and TI was a shadow of its former glory. What was Kilrogg without CQ and TI?
I came back to World of Warcraft to play in a guild called Nerv run by an ex-Still Life member. This guild was on the server Vek'nilash. I came back in November of '09 and aside from raiding with Nerv I decided to level a Paladin on Kilrogg as well. Just so happened that as I hit level 80 an old friend of mine, Chalae, sent me a very exciting in-game mail. No, not nudes.
End, Part 7
The reason was simple. Blizzard instituted a new mode for 25-man dungeons called "Heroic" which was essentially a rehash of the same boss encounter, just more difficult. Bosses had new gimmicks which needed to be conquered in order to be able to say you conquered the "Heroic" version of the boss. This did not sit well with a bunch of people, including me. Shortly after our third or 4th Yogg'saron kill and several hours spent on working on a few Ulduar achievements (screw you, Lumberjacked), Still Life stopped raiding. Many of the members went on to join other guilds, some stopped raiding and played casually and others quit WoW entirely. I belonged in the latter group.
Through the second half of 2009 I opted to play Rift instead and leveled a Rogue to level 50. I also hit up FFXI one last time before putting it down forever. Although Blizzard released another raid - Trial of the Crusader - in August '09, it did not initially pull me in. Towards '09 I learned that Conquest stopped raiding and TI was a shadow of its former glory. What was Kilrogg without CQ and TI?
I came back to World of Warcraft to play in a guild called Nerv run by an ex-Still Life member. This guild was on the server Vek'nilash. I came back in November of '09 and aside from raiding with Nerv I decided to level a Paladin on Kilrogg as well. Just so happened that as I hit level 80 an old friend of mine, Chalae, sent me a very exciting in-game mail. No, not nudes.
End, Part 7
Ainx, Part 6
Still Life killed Illidan sometime in November of 2007. After farming the instance for 5 months straight a lot of the members became disillusioned with the game. Through this huge pause in content some famous guilds quit playing altogether (Death and Taxes, Deus Vox). Still Life managed to persevere until Sunwell, but despite our best efforts to continue playing, we simply could not. In the prior months our roster dwindled and we replaced a lot of core members with newcomers. We raided on the PTR but only twice and did not get much practice in on Kalecgos before Sunwell went live. The week that Sunwell went live, two of our priests and a healing shaman dropped off the face of the planet. At this point Mun, rightfully so, simply called it. Still Life's amazing run had come to a halt in the Burning Crusade.
Ainx and Itada were put away - stored in a safe place for future endeavors. We promised to come back stronger than ever for Wrath of the Lich King. In the meantime, a lot of us tried out Age of Conan, hopped back into Final Fantasy XI (as I found out a few people had actually played it before WoW as well!) and played other non-MMOs. Overall nothing notable happened here.
In late 2008 Wrath of the Lich King beta was just about to wrap up. I was playing my shaman, Pneu, on the beta servers at the time. One evening Kody (of Conquest) messaged me asking if I were interested in healing a Naxxramas 10 run (Naxx was repurposed from a 40-man to a 10 and 25man in Wotlk). Naturally I agreed, hungry for content to destroy. We cleared a bunch of bosses which gave me a pretty good base of strategy for SL's planned resurgence (though the new Naxx felt so easy that strategy was hardly necessary). Towards the end of 2008, Wrath of the Lich King dropped on the store shelves and like a fat kid in a candy store I jumped on it and leveled to 80 as fast as I could.
Through the next couple months we went through Naxxramas in an effort to gear up. At this point, Mun was still playing, and I was playing my warrior now. We recruited a large amount of people to fill the gaps left by between-expansion attrition. Some key additions to our roster were ex-members of Vengeance/Abandon - Horo, Chalae, Tabooman - as well as some other excellent players such as Ayume, Shalanna, Peemp, Rousse, Kaija, Drakkoniz and Tarlinras. With this extremely solid crew, after a less-than-hilarious Immortal mishap on the spider boss Maexxna, we managed to complete the Glory of the Raider meta achievement and gain the Immortal title in the process. Only about 120 people got the Black Drake on Kilrogg (Conquest, TI, Still Life, Clout Mace?, Last Call and another flash-in-the-pan Horde guild), a reward for completing the GotR meta achievement.
With Naxxramas out of the way, our next target was Ulduar, though not without destroying Sartharion 10+3 first...
We also slew Malygos really fast. I think that was an achievement too - required for the meta? I don't remember now.
We also slew Malygos really fast. I think that was an achievement too - required for the meta? I don't remember now.
End, Part 6
Ainx, Part 5
In April of 2007 I joined a guild called Still Life. They were a new crew of up-and-comers, mostly composed of members of a casual raiding guild called Adrenaline who split off and several transfers from other servers. The guild was led by Mun and there were no officers, class leaders or any of that nonsense that most guilds model themselves after. Mun took care of everything, but he also relied on people to come prepared and knowledgeable about encounters. There was no DKP, EPGP or any other means of measuring player attendance, but there was no reason to have it. Each and every player in Still Life was there to kill bosses. While the roster was only around 30 people, you could expect all 30 to be online and in front of the entrance to the raid zone before the raid started, each with their own flasks, food and potions.
When I joined SL, they were still working on Gruul and had just gotten keyed for Magtheridon. I was already keyed to these thanks to running many dungeon instances with a crew in Abandon, my previous guild. I do recall dominating Maulgar and Gruul DPS meters again, resulting in my acquiring a permanent raider spot pretty fast. Still Life's raiding schedule was 5 nights a week (tue, wed, thu, sun, mon), 4 hours a night. At 20 hours a week we were able to not only learn and beat encounters quickly, but also catch up to and ultimately beat Conquest who at the time was the leading king of progression on the Kilrogg server.
Throughout the Burning Crusade up until Sunwell there were three guilds on Kilrogg which battled for dominance of the top crop. Itzlegend's Conquest, the de-facto leader in PVE content was one. The other was Temporary Insanity, which was a Horde guild led by Gilora. The newcomer was Still Life. We devoured content quickly enough to catch up to CQ and TI, eventually overtake TI and go toe to toe with CQ for the claim to server-first kills in Hyjal and Black Temple. Though the exact dates escape me, at one point both Mun and Itzlegend had to make a choice. Conquest had cleared 4/5 Hyjal through Azgalor and took down the Illidari Council in Black Temple putting them at 8/9. Still Life also cleared 4/5 in Hyjal, but we were stuck on Mother Shahraz in BT due to lack of a complete set of shadow resist gear required to beat her. Both Itz and Mun had to make a call on which content to tackle. Fortunately, that same week, Blizzard nerfed the amount of shadow damage dealt out by Mother Shahraz which gave us a free hand at continuing through Black Temple.
Hypotheticals aside, Itzlegend took Conquest through Black Temple and decided to work on Illidan while leaving Archimonde in Hyjal alone. Mun, then, opted to go for Archimonde. The end result was Still Life's first server-first kill - Archimonde. Conquest got the first Illidan kill, but not until Still Life, for a brief moment, dominated the Wowjutsu rankings (old school wowprogress) for Kilrogg. Unfortunately, Illidan proved to be Still Life's weak point due to a faulty tank unable to kite Flames of Azzinoth on the encounter. We were effectively set back an entire week and ended up killing Illidan two weeks after Conquest with two druid tanks in full fire resist gear (Fredi and Yumari iirc). As if the earlier setback wasn't enough, Fredi had a real-life issue come up which prevented him from continuing playing. This left us with the faulty tank of the past to try and kill Illidan with. But wait... there was an alternative!
At this point, my alternate character named Ainx had already been raiding. Given Still Life's superb progression, its members gained prestige on the server and that included me. Having had the benefit of Conquest experience and a long history on the server, I was able to put together pickup raids which went into Gruul's Lair, Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Cavern. Since I couldn't do those with Itada, I opted to level Ainx as my alt which I then took to those raids. Ainx got geared up pretty quickly and eventually proceeded to...
When I joined SL, they were still working on Gruul and had just gotten keyed for Magtheridon. I was already keyed to these thanks to running many dungeon instances with a crew in Abandon, my previous guild. I do recall dominating Maulgar and Gruul DPS meters again, resulting in my acquiring a permanent raider spot pretty fast. Still Life's raiding schedule was 5 nights a week (tue, wed, thu, sun, mon), 4 hours a night. At 20 hours a week we were able to not only learn and beat encounters quickly, but also catch up to and ultimately beat Conquest who at the time was the leading king of progression on the Kilrogg server.
Throughout the Burning Crusade up until Sunwell there were three guilds on Kilrogg which battled for dominance of the top crop. Itzlegend's Conquest, the de-facto leader in PVE content was one. The other was Temporary Insanity, which was a Horde guild led by Gilora. The newcomer was Still Life. We devoured content quickly enough to catch up to CQ and TI, eventually overtake TI and go toe to toe with CQ for the claim to server-first kills in Hyjal and Black Temple. Though the exact dates escape me, at one point both Mun and Itzlegend had to make a choice. Conquest had cleared 4/5 Hyjal through Azgalor and took down the Illidari Council in Black Temple putting them at 8/9. Still Life also cleared 4/5 in Hyjal, but we were stuck on Mother Shahraz in BT due to lack of a complete set of shadow resist gear required to beat her. Both Itz and Mun had to make a call on which content to tackle. Fortunately, that same week, Blizzard nerfed the amount of shadow damage dealt out by Mother Shahraz which gave us a free hand at continuing through Black Temple.
 |
 |
| Kael'Thas dead. Huge landmark kill. | On our way to Illidan. |
Hypotheticals aside, Itzlegend took Conquest through Black Temple and decided to work on Illidan while leaving Archimonde in Hyjal alone. Mun, then, opted to go for Archimonde. The end result was Still Life's first server-first kill - Archimonde. Conquest got the first Illidan kill, but not until Still Life, for a brief moment, dominated the Wowjutsu rankings (old school wowprogress) for Kilrogg. Unfortunately, Illidan proved to be Still Life's weak point due to a faulty tank unable to kite Flames of Azzinoth on the encounter. We were effectively set back an entire week and ended up killing Illidan two weeks after Conquest with two druid tanks in full fire resist gear (Fredi and Yumari iirc). As if the earlier setback wasn't enough, Fredi had a real-life issue come up which prevented him from continuing playing. This left us with the faulty tank of the past to try and kill Illidan with. But wait... there was an alternative!
At this point, my alternate character named Ainx had already been raiding. Given Still Life's superb progression, its members gained prestige on the server and that included me. Having had the benefit of Conquest experience and a long history on the server, I was able to put together pickup raids which went into Gruul's Lair, Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Cavern. Since I couldn't do those with Itada, I opted to level Ainx as my alt which I then took to those raids. Ainx got geared up pretty quickly and eventually proceeded to...
This is approximately the time where Itada the Priest got phased out and Ainx the Warrior took the wheel.
End, Part 5
End, Part 5
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